Archive for the ‘Crystals’ Category

The Center Of The Earth Is Crystal

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Science may now confirm what the dude screaming on Venice Beach has theorized for years. The center of the Earth is made of crystal.

The outer core is composed mostly of liquid iron. The inner core is solid ball about 750 miles in diameter, or a little less than the maximum width of the state of Texas, which formed as the Earth cooled over geologic time, said David Stephenson, a geologist at CalTech.

“The center of the earth is literally a crystal,” said Stephenson. Over time, it grew and now is no longer a single crystal but an aggregate of them.

In the mid-1990s, geologists began to notice an interesting thing. Seismic waves traveling north-south were reaching their destinations about 3 percent faster than waves moving along east-west paths.

“It’s one of these things that’s been detected for some time but kind of why it occurs has been somewhat of a puzzle,” Sleep said. They didn’t know why, but then again, the middle of the globe is perhaps the most difficult place to gather data on Earth.

At least we’ve now locked in on the new status symbol soon to be draped around the neck’s of rappers and heiresses.

[Wired]