High-Pressure Elasticity of Iron and Anisotropy of Earth's Inner Core
- 31 March 1995
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 267 (5206) , 1972-1975
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.267.5206.1972
Abstract
A first principles theoretical approach shows that, at the density of the inner core, both hexagonal [hexagonal close-packed (hcp)] and cubic [face-centered-cubic (fcc)] phases of iron are substantially elastically anisotropic. A forward model of the inner core based on the predicted elastic constants and the assumption that the inner core consists of a nearly perfectly aligned aggregate of hcp crystals shows good agreement with seismic travel time anomalies that have been attributed to inner core anisotropy. A cylindrically averaged aggregate of fcc crystals disagrees with the seismic observations.Keywords
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