Inner Core Boundary

Aug 17, 2018

The nature of Earth’s inner core boundary (ICB) provides key information about the inner core solidification process and the driving forces for thermo-compositional convection in the outer core and the Earth’s geodynamo. The traditional views have been that the inner core growing process is geologically slow and geographically uniform, due to the vigorous small-scale convection in the outer core. Recent studies, however, revealed that the ICB is locally enlarged by 0.98–1.75 km beneath Africa between 1993 and 2003, and exhibits significant topography. Therefore, temporal change of inner core surface in the global scale and the longer time scale would give us a better understanding of the evolution of the Earth’s core.

ICB temporal change
Figure 1: Temporal change of inner core surface beneath Africa, Atlantic Ocean, and Indian Ocean.
Inner Core Boundary
Yao Jiayuan
Yao Jiayuan
Associate Professor

Publications

Karen H.Lythgoe, Maria I.Inggrid, Yao Jiayuan (2020). On waveform correlation measurement uncertainty with implications for temporal changes in inner core seismic waves. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors.

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Yao Jiayuan, Dongdong Tian, Li Sun, Lianxing Wen (2020). Comment on "Origin of temporal changes of inner-core seismic waves" by Yang and Song (2020). Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

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Yao Jiayuan, Dongdong Tian, Li Sun, Lianxing Wen (2019). Temporal change of seismic Earth's inner core phases: inner core differential rotation or temporal change of inner core surface?. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

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Lianxing Wen, Dongdong Tian, Yao Jiayuan (2018). Seismic structure and dynamic process of the Earth's inner core and its boundary. Chinese Journal of Geophysics (in Chinese).

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Yao Jiayuan, Li Sun, Lianxing Wen (2015). Two decades of temporal change of Earth's inner core boundary. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

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