Palaeomagnetic field intensity variations suggest Mesoproterozoicn inner-core nucleation

摘要

The Earth's inner core grows by the freezing of liquid iron at its surface. The point in history at which this process initiated marks a step-change in the thermal evolution of the planet. Recent computational and experimental studies(1-5) have presented radically differing estimates of the thermal conductivity of the Earth's core, resulting in estimates of the timing of inner-core nucleation ranging from less than half a billion to nearly two billion years ago. Recent inner-core nucleation (hig