Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Research Letters, 5(42), p. 1326-1333, 2015

DOI: 10.1002/2014gl062862

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Is inner core seismic anisotropy a marker for plastic flow of cubic iron?

Journal article published in 2015 by A. Lincot, S. Merkel ORCID, P. Cardin
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Published version: archiving restricted
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

This paper investigates whether observations of seismic anisotropy are compatible with a cubic structure of the inner core Fe alloy. We assume that anisotropy is the result of plastic deformation within a large scale flow induced by preferred growth at the inner core equator. Based on elastic moduli from the literature, bcc- or fcc-Fe produce seismic anisotropy well below seismic observations ($\textless{}0.4\%$). A Monte-Carlo approach allows us to generalize this result to any form of elastic anisotropy in a cubic system. Within our model, inner core global anisotropy is not compatible with a cubic structure of Fe alloy. Hence, if the inner core material is indeed cubic, large scale coherent anisotropic structures, incompatible with plastic deformation induced by large scale flow, must be present.