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arXiv 0801.2897physics.geo-ph
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地球内核边界泥团的存在及其结构

On the existence and structure of a mush at the inner core boundary of the Earth

Renaud Deguen, Thierry Alboussière, Daniel Brito

摘要:

大约20年前就有人提出,靠近内核边界(ICB)的液体是过冷的,并且在内核的生长过程中形成了相当大的糊状层。液-固界面的形态不稳定性通常会导致糊状区的形成,这在冶金学中已经得到了深入的研究,但是内核的冻结发生在非常不寻常的条件下:生长速率非常小,压力梯度起着关键作用,新形成的固体比邻近的液体更热。我们调查的线性稳定性的凝固前在这样的条件下,指出不稳定的热场和溶质场的作用,和压力梯度的稳定作用。非常小的凝固速率的主要后果是溶质在液体中的平流输送的重要性,这往往会从ICB附近去除轻溶质,并抑制过冷,从而对凝固前沿的不稳定性起作用。对于核混合物的合理相图,我们发现ICB可能是形态不稳定的,并且在ICB处可能已经形成糊状区。根据核心混合物的相图,所得糊状区的热力学厚度可以是显著的,从$\sim100$ km到整个内核半径。然而,预计这样厚的糊状区会在其自身重量的作用下坍塌,其长度尺度要小得多($\lesssim 1$ km)。我们估计枝晶间距可能小于几十米,甚至可能只有几米。

英文摘要:

It has been suggested about 20 years ago that the liquid close to the inner core boundary (ICB) is supercooled and that a sizable mushy layer has developed during the growth of the inner core. The morphological instability of the liquid-solid interface which usually results in the formation of a mushy zone has been intensively studied in metallurgy, but the freezing of the inner core occurs in very unusual conditions: the growth rate is very small, and the pressure gradient has a key role, the newly formed solid being hotter than the adjacent liquid. We investigate the linear stability of a solidification front under such conditions, pointing out the destabilizing role of the thermal and solutal fields, and the stabilizing role of the pressure gradient. The main consequence of the very small solidification rate is the importance of advective transport of solute in liquid, which tends to remove light solute from the vicinity of the ICB and to suppress supercooling, thus acting against the destabilization of the solidification front. For plausible phase diagrams of the core mixture, we nevertheless found that the ICB is likely to be morphologically unstable, and that a mushy zone might have developed at the ICB. The thermodynamic thickness of the resulting mushy zone can be significant, from $\sim100$ km to the entire inner core radius, depending on the phase diagram of the core mixture. However, such a thick mushy zone is predicted to collapse under its own weight, on a much smaller length scale ($\lesssim 1$ km). We estimate that the interdendritic spacing is probably smaller than a few tens of meter, and possibly only a few meters.

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