Is the Earth's Core a Nuclear Reactor?

[Andre]

The Nuclear Heart of the Earth

Think of the early Earth as having been like a spherical steel hearth. A hot ball of liquid elements freshly formed out of the primordial disc surrounding our sun. The densest metals sinking down by force of gravity while lighter materials "floated" outwards. Uranium is very dense. At about 19 grams per cubic centimeter, it is 1.6 times more dense than lead at the Earth's surface. But deep within our planet density depends only on atomic number and atomic mass. Uranium, having the greatest atomic number and atomic mass, would be the most dense substance in our planet and will ultimately end up at the center of the Earth. The implications of this relatively new georeactor hypothesis are far reaching indeed. Not only does it threaten to change the way we view our own Earth and planetary formation in general but the very origin of the stars might need to be rewritten

or the scientific version: Nuclear georector origine of oceanic basalt 3He/4He, evidence and implications

There are a few far fetched hypotheses and perhaps some flaws, I would say, but other than that, some good explanations for existing evidence. What would happen when the nuclear heart would stop or did it stop already perhaps even millions of years ago? Any thoughts?

 

[Loren Booda]

It seems more plausible than most such speculative theories, so much so that perhaps it is not original to the researcher.

Will its physics fit? No immediate errors come to mind, although his physics may be oversimplified.

I sent the link to my boss who's into Gaia (living planet) theory.

 

[STAii]

Well

But deep within our planet density depends only on atomic number and atomic mass

I don't think this is physically true, is it ?
Could be that density only depends on the atomic number ?
Shouldn't it also depend on how the atoms repeal from each other (and therefore depends on the distance between each two atoms) ?

 

[FZ+]

And what would happen when such a high concentration of uranium is located in one place? Is such a system even nuclearly stable?

Do we have a way of testing this hypothesis?

 

[Njorl]

Gravitational effects become smaller as we approach the Earth's core. As we get close to the center, diffusion would dominate significantly over gravity. There will be no concentration of dense elements near the zero G center.

Njorl

 

[Andre]

I tend to agree, Njorl, about the diffusion dominating. But there is more. What would have happened when the Earth started cooling perhaps billions of years ago and the solid inner core started solidifying? Would some molecules have solidified easier and started clustering into the first beginnings of the solid inner core ? Could that have been the fissable heavy elements? Could that have been the start of the natural georeactor?

 

[Njorl]

Originally posted by Andre
I tend to agree, Njorl, about the diffusion dominating. But there is more. What would have happened when the Earth started cooling perhaps billions of years ago and the solid inner core started solidifying? Would some molecules have solidified easier and started clustering into the first beginnings of the solid inner core ? Could that have been the fissable heavy elements? Could that have been the start of the natural georeactor?

If anything, non-radioactive atoms would have preferentially solidified. The radioactive elements, while denser, would change their atomic structures, causing their molecular bonds to break. So, for some proto-solid, while the non-radioactive elements form solids less easily, they are more durable, and so can accumulate over time.

I am not familiar with extreme temperature and pressure mechanics. If solidification occurred on a catastrophic time scale- ie, a huge mass solidified in a very short time, things would be different than I portray them. If the volume-surface ratio was always large, the radioactive elements would be protected from diffusing into the liquid core when they decayed to an atomic structure that was not compatible with nearby solids. This rapid solidification is not unknown in nature, but I don't have any reason to expect it to have happened in the core.

Njorl

 

[The Grimmus]

Very very interesting idea, I think it would get everyone thinking again if soemthing we seemed so sure about turned out diffrently