IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v401y1999i6756d10.1038_44776.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of the Earth's mantle in controlling the frequency of geomagnetic reversals

Author

Listed:
  • Gary A. Glatzmaier

    (University of California
    Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

  • Robert S. Coe

    (University of California)

  • Lionel Hongre

    (University of California)

  • Paul H. Roberts

    (Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California)

Abstract

A series of computer simulations of the Earth's dynamo illustrates how the thermal structure of the lowermost mantle might affect convection and magnetic-field generation in the fluid core. Eight different patterns of heat flux from the core to the mantle are imposed over the core–mantle boundary. Spontaneous magnetic dipole reversals and excursions occur in seven of these cases, although sometimes the field only reverses in the outer part of the core, and then quickly reverses back. The results suggest correlations among the frequency of reversals, the duration over which the reversals occur, the magnetic-field intensity and the secular variation. The case with uniform heat flux at the core–mantle boundary appears most ‘Earth-like’. This result suggests that variations in heat flux at the core–mantle boundary of the Earth are smaller than previously thought, possibly because seismic velocity anomalies in the lowermost mantle might have more of a compositional rather than thermal origin, or because of enhanced heat flux in the mantle's zones of ultra-low seismic velocity.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary A. Glatzmaier & Robert S. Coe & Lionel Hongre & Paul H. Roberts, 1999. "The role of the Earth's mantle in controlling the frequency of geomagnetic reversals," Nature, Nature, vol. 401(6756), pages 885-890, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6756:d:10.1038_44776
    DOI: 10.1038/44776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/44776
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/44776?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tinghong Zhou & John A. Tarduno & Francis Nimmo & Rory D. Cottrell & Richard K. Bono & Mauricio Ibanez-Mejia & Wentao Huang & Matt Hamilton & Kenneth Kodama & Aleksey V. Smirnov & Ben Crummins & Frank, 2022. "Early Cambrian renewal of the geodynamo and the origin of inner core structure," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-7, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6756:d:10.1038_44776. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.