Answer the following questions briefly:
Which layer of the earth’s interior produces the earth’s magnetic field and how?
Answers
Answer:
The liquid outer core is the source of the earth's magnetic field, as a result of its metallic nature, which means it contains electrons not attached to particular nuclei. Heat is transferred upward to the mantle from the inner core via convective cells, in which the liquid in the outer core flows in looping patterns.
Answer:
The liquid outer core is the source of the earth’s magnetic field, as a result of its metallic nature, which means it contains electrons not attached to particular nuclei. Heat is transferred upward to the mantle from the inner core via convective cells, in which the liquid in the outer core flows in looping patterns. The combination of the loose electrons and looping convective flow with the rotation of the earth results in a geodynamo that produces a magnetic field. Because the magnetic field is generated by a dynamically convecting and rotating sphere of liquid, it is unstable. Every now and then, after several hundred thousand to several million years, the earth’s magnetic field becomes unstable to the point that it temporarily shuts down. When it restarts, its north and south magnetic poles must inevitably be reversed, according to the physics of magnetic fields produced spontaneously from geodyamos. (For comparison, the magnetic field of the Sun, which is also produces by convecting electrical charges in a rotating sphere, becomes magnetically unstable and reverses its magnetic field on a more regular basis, every 11 years.)