 |
| Source: APOD NASA |
That's a precursor. This morning, Andy Skuse reminded me of something that appeared the other day at WUWT.
Do you know why the oceans haven't all drained down the plug hole to the centre of the earth?
No? Then read on (archived here):
ferd berple says (my bold italics):
November 13, 2013 at 4:12 am
Ben Wouters says: November 13, 2013 at 3:28 am==========
Total nonsense. We’re living on a planet that consists of molten rock, with a core a molten metal.
Agreed. In scale, the crust of the earth is thinner than the skin of an apple. Under the thin skin, the apple is molten rock.
Most folks think that the oceans rest on top of the earth’s crust, like water in a swimming pool. This is incorrect. The oceans extend well below the bottom of the ocean basins. They saturate the earths crust and descent towards the interior until they reach the boiling point of water under high pressure (600-800C). At which point they can descend no further.
Without the molten core of the earth to hold them in place via steam pressure, earth’s oceans would have long ago drained into the interior and the surface of the planet would be dry.
It is at this boundary layer that limestone (fossilized CO2) and steam are reduced in the presence of iron to produce hydrocarbons. Being lighter than water these percolate upwards toward the surface and are occasionally captured by rock formations. Otherwise the hydrocarbons are released to the atmosphere and digested by bacteria to continue that carbon cycle necessary for life.
Click here for a very nice video explaining what is known about earth's inner structure.
And here is a link to some NASA pages on the carbon cycle.
Is there a vast amount of water in inner Earth? Here is the related paper in Science.
