Thursday December 2, 2004
Top Story is about a scientific earthquake that is about to upset the modern science of the Earth. What exactly is at the center of the Earth?
Today's Top Story article features a set of experiments being done in Europe to investigate if the center of the Earth is actually a nuclear reactor. This experiment is based on the theories of a "maverick" San Diego scientist, Dr. J. Marvin Herndon.
Dr. Herndon believes that the center of the earth is just that, a natural Uranium nuclear reactor, based on his idea that the heavier metals will be pulled down toward the center of the Earth. There the heavy metals, including Uranium will collect and behave similar to a commercial nuclear reactor, generating heat by nuclear fission.
Actually, I have long believed that theory about the nuclear reactor at the center of the earth, since about 1970. And rather than needing large and expensive experiments, it is easily proved just with what we already know. And you can do it for yourself.
But, I should warn you that the center, about 4,000 miles deep, is not a Uranium reactor with atomic fission. The center is so hot and compressed that it is a hydrogen fusion reactor similar to the process occurring on the Sun. There is a Uranium reactor process, but that process occurs away from the center, near the Earth's mantle, only about 1,000 miles deep.
Since I am a "generalist" with degrees in Physics and both Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, I looked at the problem also from an engineering point of view. From that viewpoint the problem is actually quite simple. The analysis goes something like this:
The surface of the earth has an average temperature of the soil of about 50 degrees. Dig down about 1 mile and the temperature of the walls of deep mines rises to about 100 degrees.
About 2 miles down the earth temperature is about 150 degrees, too hot to touch. Drilling with metallic drill bits cannot be done below about 7 to 10 miles since the drill bits begin to melt or break. The temperature there is about 500 degrees or about the color of a red hot stove element.
And about 25 miles down the temperature of the rock is around 1200 degrees or a brilliant yellow orange. We often see this as the red hot to brilliant yellow magma spewing from volcanoes.
Here is where the simple science that you can do yourself comes in. If the temperature of the Earth rises about 50 degrees every mile you dig down, and it's 4,000 miles to the center of the Earth, what is the temperature at the center? For those of you who struggled with that difficult algebra in school, you multiply 50 times 4,000. And that gives you a tremendously big number. In other words, it's very hot down there.
For those who did study some physics in school, you may have calculated the center temperature of a round or spherical object, if you know the temperature of the surface and the heat flowing from the surface. Well, it turns out, that science has long known those two facts.
So, draw a simple temperature with depth curve, and a simple calculation of the heat flow along that curve and the temperature of the center of the Earth, 4, 000 miles below, must be somewhere between 25,000 to 50,000 degrees F. But -- that is the temperature of the Sun!!
At that temperature all atoms will ionize and even separate into electron, proton and neutron components. And at that pressure in the Earth's core, those elemental components will "fuse" into new atoms in a process called hydrogen fusion - also just like as occurs on the sun.
Thus, Dr. Herndon is basically correct, but he has the wrong type of nuclear
reaction. It's atomic fusion not fission. And the neutrinos and anti-neutrinos, measured by the European experiments, are mostly coming from the mantle not the core. This also has nothing to do with the Earth's magnetic field.
At the center of the Earth the temperature of the core is so hot that large atoms such as Uranium cannot exist. The larger atoms were all broken apart long ago into simple protons, neutrons and electrons which can make hydrogen, and which can fuse into atomically stable Helium.
This hydrogen fusion process is giving off the heat of thousands of nuclear hydrogen bombs going off continuously at the center of the Earth. Thus accounting for the tremendous heat, temperature and heat flow coming from the Earth, as we measured with our thermometers as we dug down into the Earth. Of course, this is a very different picture of what is at the center of the Earth, compared to what most geo-physicists call the "standard model."
I should add, that this is only the short version of my research. I have sent a copy of my theoretical material and calculations to Dr. Herndon, and am awaiting his answer. As I said, an earthquake in Earth Science is about to occur. And the simple calculation you just did, proves it.
Marshall Smith
Editor, Brother Jonathan Gazette
newseditor@brojon.com
http://www.brojon.com
