Earth’s core contains lots of sulphur
Earth’s core contains lots of sulphur
Jun 18, 2015
by Eleanor Imster in » Earth, Science Wire
New research confirms that Earth’s core contains vast amounts of sulphur, estimated to be up to 8.5 x 10^18 tons. That’s about 10 times the amount of sulphur in the rest of the Earth, and for comparison, around 10% of the total mass of the moon.
The new study was reported in the journal, Geochemical Perspectives Letters on June 16, 2015.
The Earth’s core begins 2,900 km (1,800 miles) beneath our feet, so it is impossible to investigate directly. However, an international group of researchers have been able to develop indirect geochemical methods to show core composition.
For a long time it has been known that the Earth’s core is too light to be made only of iron and nickel, and it had been assumed that the core contained other lighter elements, such as sulphur, silicon, oxygen and carbon. However, given the depth of the core, this has been impossible to confirm directly.
But, say researchers, a cataclysmic event in the distant past – when the Earth collided with a large, planet-size body, tearing off the part which became our moon – left a fingerprint, which has been used to confirm the core content.
The researchers believe that the impact of the collision melted the Earth’s mantle, allowing a sulphur-rich liquid to form in Earth’s mantle, the vast middle layer between the core and the crust. Some was probably lost into space, but some remained and sunk into the core.
More
http://earthsky.org/earth/earths-core-contains-vast-amounts-of-sulphur?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=78a6f1476e-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-78a6f1476e-393525109
