Researchers have found that the Earth’s core can change its rotation and could have a “long-term impact”.

BEIJING – A new study shows that the Earth’s inner core has temporarily stopped spinning – and may now actually change direction.

Chinese researchers Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song told FOX that they looked for available repetitive earthquakes and seismic activity from around the world and for all time periods and used them to observe the rotation of the inner core.

“Earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 5.0 can generate seismic waves penetrating the inner core, as when performing a CT scan of the structure of the inner core along the path of the beam,” they explained, adding: “For each pair of repetitive earthquakes, we compared their results. “CT scan” (i.e. their seismogram) and infer the rotation of the inner core from the difference of the two seismograms (waveform and time of arrival).”

As published Jan. 23 in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers found that the rotation pattern of the Earth’s inner core, which has been changing over the past few decades, paused around 2009 and reversed slightly since then, and likely follows seventy years ago. . oscillation period.

“We were quite surprised to see a pattern (especially the pause around 2009) of all changes in repetitive seismic waves disappearing at the same time (i.e., no difference between their seismograms since ~2009). quite complex, such a clear observation was amazing,” continued Yang and Song, scientists from Peking University.

The researchers said these observations provide evidence for interactions between Earth’s layers, from the deepest interior to the surface – potentially due to gravitational interactions and angular momentum from the core and mantle to the surface.

The researchers wrote that the core’s multidecadal rotation pattern “coincides with several important geophysical observations,” including changes in the magnetic field and the length of the day, meaning the planet’s inner workings could be affecting the length of our days.

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However, the impact on our daily lives is “probably small” but could have a “long-term impact of decades or longer,” Yang and Sun continued, adding that the reversal (or multidecadal wobble) affects the magnetic field and the Earth. rotation and thus can influence surface processes such as temperature and sea level fluctuations.

Going forward, the researchers plan to build quantitative models of the physical mechanisms of the decades-long oscillation system and then track how the rotation changes in the future.

“We expect that in the coming years and decades it will rotate west relative to the surface of the earth,” they concluded. “Moving forward is very interesting. Seismic waves are still the best way, and the continuous operation of high quality seismic networks is critical to monitoring the “heart of the earth” in this regard.”

This story was reported from Los Angeles.