THE Earth’s solid iron core may recycle itself every 100 million years, melting on one side and resolidifying on the other. That could explain why the core transmits seismic waves at different speeds in the western and eastern hemispheres.
In May, a team led by Marc Monnereau at the University of Toulouse in France suggested that the inner core is being continually added to in the west while being melted in the east, forming a conveyor belt of creation and destruction (Science, ).
Now, Thierry Alboussière at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, and colleagues have calculated the…
