Global Warming: Earth can EXPLODE !!!

Planetary explosions are of course possible from a number of theoretical dynamics however for minor surface temperature changes to come into any significant play is farcical and moot.
Even if there were a uranium/plutonium core by the time surface temperature played a role at 1000-2000 degrees man would have been long gone.

None the less it appears that Venus heated to the point of a rapid liquid rock convection that virtually turned it inside out.

 

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Don H, your argument is inductively weak, you don’t specifically
claim that there is any particular problem with Chalko’s theory.

Whereas you could say Chalko's argument is inductively strong
because he uses a partial differential equation that I find in a book called "Fundamentals of Mathematical Physics" for describing heat conduction.

You just propose a different one that the earth surface
greenhouse gas concentrations couldn’t affect the core temperature significantly.

You base your theory on no particular evidence. It just seems like a guess, perhaps based on your observations of “cakes” cooling outside the oven on days of different temperature. Don’t you want to understand in detail because the consequences of being wrong are high, particularly considering that no-one has criticised the theory carefully.

All of the above might be wrong, but you haven't shown anyone that you know any thing about thermodynamics yet.
Please show me that I'm wrong, or respond to the fact that you are.


Can someone think of a physical situation where intuition was misleading?

 

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At the moment I think that the most important thing is to find out:
-quantitative relations between core surface gradient and core temperature,
-quantitative relation between greenhouse gas emissions and core surface gradients,
-quantitative relation between core temperatures and rate of differentiation of materials of different densities, and
-qualitative relation between volcanism and earth surface warming/atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
-correspondance of thiaoouba prophecy with evidence from real life
-ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions without doing any of the above.
-checking out the possibility that increased greenhouse gas emissions cool the atmosphere more than they warm it.
What do you guys think?

 

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This must be THE stupidest idea I've ever heard. The Earth is much cooler now, overall, than it has ever been in its 4.5 billion year history. Remember that over a period in its life our entire planet was a molten ball of magma with no solid crust. Do you think the core was hotter or cooler than today, and do you think the core was dissipating heat more efficiently back then (when even the surface was molten hot)?

 

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your ideas Overdoze.

I searched the net about the idea that the earth has been hotter, so there would have been a time where the core would have been so hot, that differentiation of nuclear stuff would have happened so fast that it was blown up. It could be helpful if you referred me to the evidence of this that you’ve found. I only found another site http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/TDBLDsynopsis.htm, claiming that the core of the earth was received at the K/T boundary. I also found verification that most geologists believe the earth was once a molten ball at http://www.outdoorguidemagazine.com/morgue/backissues/spri99.htm.

It seems possible to me that if the earth was just molten, that the core temperatures were not so hot that there was therefore not sufficient differentiation to cause a massive explosion because of more efficient cooling.

Reasons I don't think it is ridiculous as Overdoze seems to, are the following:

I don't know much about thermodynamics, as I explained in my response to Don H.

There may have been sufficient differentiation to cause quite explosive volcanic activity and this would be no guarantee that our planet could not undergo a stage of violent volcanism soon.

i) Also I wonder if such a state existed, how did the earth surface cool down, with the breeder nuclear reactor continuously producing energy? Perhaps because of such effective cooling, that there was a lack of differentiation and consequent fission reaction. If the ideas about the Earth’s nuclear reactor are right, wouldn’t this be the only explanation? Wouldn’t it constitute proof that a molten planet can cool extremely efficiently so that it would not explode? Would it also not preclude the possibility that a non-molten planet, with high greenhouse gas concentrations can explode?

ii) Also Chalko suggests that the earth core is decaying to some extent, whereas Herndon says it is a breeder reactor. So if it is decaying, and the fissionable material is more heavy, then possibly the core is getting more pure, because the lighter elements that are produced by the decay of heavy ones leave.

iii) Combined with the idea that the core was received, presumably originally containing a mixture of light and heavy elements, this might be more likely. Of course it is also highly likely that there is a reason why the fusion of planetoids is not feasible, but it would not disprove I and ii.

<b> Future investigations </b>
If you showed me that it was actually very probable that the earth was molten. And you showed me with a thermodynamic model, simply based on evidence about how the expected material is expected to have certain heat producing and conducting properties, not only based on an assumption that a core surrounded by lava has to be so hot that it would have exploded if any core could explode.

And you show me a thermodynamic model that suggests that global warming would have no significant effect on global volcanic activity, And if you show me that my suggestion that the core is more pure than it was in the past, is crazy (thereby showing that the core was received by the earth in a collision is crazy). And we get advice from experts about these matters, checking that they are not dogmatic and closed minded, and think about it a lot.

<b> Conclusion </b>
Then I might think that maybe I should dismiss my suggestions that we should investigate relation between the earth interior and global warming and find out that the scientific community are right to ignore some investigative possibilities.
And then I would have to think of something else to do.

<b> <i>But I could be totally wrong for some reason. But for what reason? What do you think?</i> </b>

 

Oh goodness me.

First, radioactive materials do indeed decay. This means that upon completion of its formation around 4 billion years ago, Earth contained a lot more radioactive elements than it does today. Moreover, the heat due to formation (planetoid collisions) would have meant the planet was a molten ball of rock. Since no significant net energy has been input since then (ignoring the solar heat flux, which is insignificant), Earth has been cooling ever since so of course it is cooler today than ever in its history.

Second, as Edufer and I discovered in a neighboring thread, there have been periods in relatively recent Earth history (e.g. Cretaceous) when CO2 concentrations were something like 10 times what they are today, and global climate was something like 10-20 degrees Kelvin warmer. We're still here, aren't we?

Third, the hotter and more liquid the Earth's interior is, the faster it convects. That means that if ever there was a concentration of radioactivity in the core such that it would result in massive chain reactions, the core would heat up and melt, with the hot material convecting upward and thus diluting the concentration of radioactivity and stopping the chain reaction. It's the equivalent of a fission bomb whose implosion charges have not been properly aligned and if you detonate it you get but a whimper of what a properly confined explosion would give. Fact is, there's nothing in Earth's core to confine a thermonuclear explosion; due to the liquidity of the core conditions could never form to create a spike of heat strong enough to actually blow apart the planet. If it weren't so, our planet would have been blown to bits many times over its 4 billion year lifespan.

And finally, Venus is indeed quite relevant to your topic. It is almost identical in mass to Earth, it has 90 times the atmosphere with 900 degree Fahrenheit surface temperatures. It has a much thicker crust (since it has no plate tectonics), which means its core is even more thermally insulated than Earth's. At the same time, it is much closer to the Sun, which means it must contain a greater proportion of heavy (including radioactive) elements than the Earth.

 

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your ideas Overdoze

<i>
First, radioactive materials do indeed decay. This means that upon completion of its formation around 4 billion years ago, Earth contained a lot more radioactive elements than it does today. Moreover, the heat due to formation (planetoid collisions) would have meant the planet was a molten ball of rock. Since no significant net energy has been input since then (ignoring the solar heat flux, which is insignificant), Earth has been cooling ever since so of course it is cooler today than ever in its history. </I>



Actually, if the earth received the core of the earth at the K/T boundary, then the nuclear fission that began then would be a heat input.

Alternatively if nuclear fission is a much larger source of the earth heat than the radioactive decay, then it might not be significantly cooler than it was in the past.



<I>Second, as Edufer and I discovered in a neighboring thread, there have been periods in relatively recent Earth history (e.g. Cretaceous) when CO2 concentrations were something like 10 times what they are today, and global climate was something like 10-20 degrees Kelvin warmer. We're still here, aren't we? </I>

If greenhouse gas concentrations were higher than now, and there was equal water vapour, then an explosion soon would not be expected, but Vincent Courtillot claims that volcanism was a partial cause of the disappearance of the dinosaurs. I think it was the volcanism that created “the Deccan Traps”. Therefore perhaps catastrophic volcanism could be expected if we didn't act fast to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

<I>

Third, the hotter and more liquid the Earth's interior is, the faster it convects. That means that if ever there was a concentration of radioactivity in the core such that it would result in massive chain reactions, the core would heat up and melt, with the hot material convecting upward and thus diluting the concentration of radioactivity and stopping the chain reaction. </I>

I totally agree that everyone thinks that if the earth gets hotter, more of the core becomes more mobile, but possibly the lighter parts of it first because less force is required to accelerate lighter materials to a certain degree. Indeed Herndon suggests that a good explanation for the variability of the geomagnetic field is that the lighter materials melt and leave the core, while the heavy ones only melt and heat up to the extent that the conglomerate. Repeatedly people, particularly Chalko and Herndon, have referred to the idea that the fissionable materials differentiates, when the core gets hotter, not to the idea that the fissionable materials are dispersed by convection.

So I guess the key would be to compare your model of the core with Herndon’s to see which one makes more sense? I wouldn’t want to prefer your model just because it means we should forget about the issue. <b> What do you think?</b>





<I>It's the equivalent of a fission bomb whose implosion charges have not been properly aligned and if you detonate it you get but a whimper of what a properly confined explosion would give. Fact is, there's nothing in Earth's core to confine a thermonuclear explosion; due to the liquidity of the core conditions could never form to create a spike of heat strong enough to actually blow apart the planet. If it weren't so, our planet would have been blown to bits many times over its 4 billion year lifespan.</I>

I don’t know what properly aligned implosion charges are. If it is just an analogy that you use to help explain the last paragraph I discussed about differentiation as opposed to dilution, I guess it may not matter, but please correct me if I am wrong.

<i>
And finally, Venus is indeed quite relevant to your topic. It is almost identical in mass to Earth, it has 90 times the atmosphere with 900 degree Fahrenheit surface temperatures. </i>

Chalko says at www.thefreedomforum.com,

“For a core to overheat, the amount of heat produced by the core should exceed the amount of heat transmitted to the planetary surface and emitted into space.

The higher the planetary surface temperature, however, the more heat radiated into space to cool the planetary interior (and the core). Hence, hotter planets may not necessarily have hotter cores.

The problem here is that our "crust" is a thermal insulator. On one hand it is good, because we do not have to walk on lava, but on the other we have to be very careful not to overheat the interior by putting more insulation (greenhouse gas pollution) for too long”.

<i>
It has a much thicker crust (since it has no plate tectonics), which means its core is even more thermally insulated than Earth's. At the same time, it is much closer to the Sun, which means it must contain a greater proportion of heavy (including radioactive) elements than the Earth.</i>

So to summarise Chalko’s point of view and your point of view, it seems there could be two effects in opposition, one is the greater thermal insulation that a crust provides compared to molten crust, the other is the greater radiation from a hotter surface. The issue remains as to whether it is convenient to make any conclusive comments about which is greater.

Secondly I wonder why the planet has no magnetic field and has a deep crust. Is it that it has no molten rock? Why is that the case, if it is so hot? Perhaps, due to the pressure of the atmosphere, there is not much scope for the continuation of fission reactions and therefore the interior of Venus is not so hot? Consider that fission reactions continue if the core is partially molten so that differentiation is possible.

Consider that heavier elements might not be closer to the sun, since higher forces would be required to decellerate heavier objects?


<b>Conclusion</b>
So in summary, perhaps I am saying that maybe you are not considering that there are possibilities sufficiently as likely as those that you present, which are consistent with Chalko's theory.
So maybe we should find out more about them, to establish that it is Chalko's theory is so likely to be true that we should respond to it, or that it is so likely to be false that we should ignore it.

 

Hi mgs. I admit this discussion is becoming less trivial than I expected. I almost didn't want to get involved because of how stupid I thought it would be. And I apologize for my previous outbursts of incredulity. I appreciate your patience, and hope we continue in a similarly civil vein.

The core is just that: the core. If there was no core prior to the K/T boundary, then what do you propose was there? Moreover, where do you get this idea that the Earth "received" a core at the K/T boundary?? Way too much surface older than that still survives intact today for there to have occurred something as catastrophic as this. I expect such an event would have wreaked havoc with the crust and the mantle. Where is the geological evidence of such a tremendous upheaval? Where did the previous core go? Such a gigantic impact would have thrown up a great deal of debris into orbit. We would have more than one moon, and the moon we have right now would be peppered with major craters and clearly identifiable (isotopically) Earth material dating back to the K/T boundary. None of that is the case. I believe there is evidence that the Earth had a magnetic field prior to the K/T boundary; magnetic field reversals are documented in ancient lava flows and I haven't heard of this form of fossilization having a cutoff at the K/T boundary.

?? Nuclear fission and radioactive decay are the same thing.

?? why?

It is widely accepted now that the K/T boundary is defined by a massive impact of a mile-wide or larger asteroid. Such an impact would send powerful shockwaves through the entire planet which would manifest as massive earthquakes. They would be especially dramatic on the opposite side of the globe from the impact site, where concentric shockwaves would converge toward a point and constructively interfere. If the impact was indeed around the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico as is currently thought, then it wouldn't be surprising to find such convergence of shockwaves somewhere around India. It would naturally trigger massive volcanism.

While a global spike in volcanism would certainly not be conducive to dinosaur survival, the main effects leading to their extinction would stem from the impact itself. It would send massive tsunamis through the oceans, circling the planet multiple times and destroying all low-lying and coastal areas. The massive oceanic shockwave would wreak havoc with large aquatic organisms, whose large bodies and internal cavities would resonate with the repeated low-frequency shock fronts. The impact would throw a large amount of debris into parabolic suborbital trajectories; when this debris falls back down to Earth it will be in the form of molten rock, doing direct explosive damage and setting off massive fires all over the world. The impact itself, the secondary impacts, the fires and the volcanoes will throw up a great deal of dust and particulates into the atmosphere, resulting in a catastrophic multi-year global cooling. At the same time, the noxious gases from the volcanoes and the explosions vaporising rock would generate world-wide acid rains. At the same time, rampant oceanic volcanism would alter the chemistry of the oceans, making them potentially toxic to many lifeforms. On top of it all, there would have been massive disruptions in the food chain, devastating large creatures which needed to feed constantly in order to survive.

That would be true, except the lighter parts are precisely the parts that don't contain high percentage of fissile material. The parts that do contain it are heavier, and they heat up to the exclusion of the lighter parts. Rock, generally speaking, is a pretty good thermal insulator, so I expect convection to take place before heat transfer could equalize temperatures.

That wouldn't explain such things as magnetic field reversals. At any rate, I don't believe anyone has a convincing account right now of how the geomagnetic field evolves. This doesn't mean there's no progress. For example:

http://www.psc.edu/science/Glatzmaier/glatzmaier.html

Use common sense to figure out which is more likely. For example, imagine two immiscible liquids in a beaker, one heavy and one light. If you leave them alone, they'll eventually settle into two distinct layers, with the heavier liquid on the bottom. Now put a heat source under the beaker (which will warm up the heavier fluid first, simulating fission). You'll observe convection, with the fluids increasingly mixing up in a chaotic flow of currents. The more you heat it, the more chaos there will be. This is as opposed to increased differentiation, or order.

I suppose the best judge ought to be observation. As we observe our planet intact after 4 billion years, I'd say there's something wrong with Herndon's model.

Briefly, the simplest nuclear bombs consist of a shell of Uranium or Plutonium, cut into chunks (for example, like slices of an orange), which are separated from each other. This configuration spaces out the fissile material, thus preventing it from being at a critical mass where a runaway fission reaction would occur. Around these dowels of fissile material are placed a number of high-explosive charges that are directional and pointed inward toward the center of the split shell. When precisely balanced as to strength and detonated in a precise sequence, these implosion charges jam the pieces together and symmetrically collapse them into a ball of fissile material which then has a sufficient critical mass and density to touch off a runaway chain reaction. A nuclear explosion follows.

If these implosion charges are misaligned or not fired off in the precise sequence, instead of collapsing the fissile material they will blow it apart and no nuclear explosion will occur. This demonstrates the tight balancing act that must be achieved to have a nuclear detonation. In the core, such a balancing act is impossible due to the chaotic currents and convection. There is nothing in the core that could precisely contain and concentrate fissile material into a critical mass sufficient for a nuclear explosion of the magnitude that would blow apart the Earth or even significantly increase volcanism at the surface (which is insulated from the core by thousands of kilometers of liquid and solid rock.)

The problem with this is that it assumes the amount of heat emitted by the planetary surface is constant. If the core were to heat up, this heat would melt its way through the mantle and eventually the crust, heating up the surface and then getting radiated into space.

That is very wrong. Consider two kettles full of boiling water. One is at room temperature. The other is red-hot. In which case does the water in the kettle cool faster?

This ignores the fact that our "crust" exists only because it is cool enough to be solid. If the core heats up too much, the crust will melt, thus eliminating some of the "insulation" while simultaneously removing some of the heat from the core. Naturally, the system balances out so that if the core were ever to just keep on heating up, it would eventually melt the entire crust through, returning the Earth to its original state as a ball of magma. If the core continued to heat up, this ball of magma would expand due to heat-driven expansion, much in the same way that red giant stars form. But any of this is impossible, as the Earth has ever less internal energy ever since it was formed, due to the ongoing nuclear decay.

The surface of Venus is hot not due to some internal heat from the core, but due to the greenhouse effect generated by its atmosphere.

Venus has no magnetic field to speak of primarily because it practically does not rotate. For earth, its rotation drives its internal dynamo. For Venus, one day lasts 243 Earth days. Not much of a dynamo to speak of.

Venus has a much thicker crust because it retains most of its primordial crust. Earth lost a lot of its surface crust in the impact that formed the Moon. The Moon is, in effect, the old crust of the Earth sent into orbit. That's why it has a relatively low density compared to Earth, and proportionately a much smaller core. For example, see here:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-01d.html

The pressure of the atmosphere is insignificant when compared to the pressure from the overlying rock. For example, 3 meters of water are equivalent in pressure to 1 Earth atmosphere. Rock is usually heavier than water...

They are closer to the Sun, for two reasons. First, when heavier particles orbit together with lighter particles, the lighter partiles tend to be kicked out while the heavier particles coalesce toward the center. Second, the emergent Sun sends out streams of radiation and solar wind that sweep out lighter particles before they do heavier ones. Thus you get the situation where the rocky planets are concentrated toward the sun, and the gas giants are on the periphery.

 

Hi,

Moreover, where do you get this idea that the Earth "received" a core at the K/T boundary??........
http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/TDBLDsynopsis.htm, claims that the core of the earth was received at the K/T boundary.
Your evidence against that hypothesis could be tested against the information at this site.
?? Nuclear fission and radioactive decay are the same thing.
Thanks. So since the only reasons I gave for the possibility of earth being hotter and more likely to explode soon were the core having been received, and for nuclear fission being different from radioactive decay. It would seem that the core wouldn’t be likely to explode.
However isn’t there a difference between a nuclear reactor with some kind of critical mass (minimum concentration of fissile material) that generates energy faster than the same mass spread diluted over a larger volume?
Couldn’t a core that is decaying, in the sense that it is losing the lighter fission products by differentiation according to density, achieve larger critical masses than ever before, if temperatures rose increasing the rate of differentiation.
The reason for the increased temperatures being, that the fresher core of the past had less concentrated nuclear material, and the absence of past greenhouse gases that did not cause global volcanism. The reason I make that qualification, is that unless core heating up in the past did not cause global volcanism, then it is more likely that we should do something to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because it is more likely that we could cause global volcanism.

If greenhouse gas concentrations were higher than now, and there was equal water vapour, then an explosion soon would not be expected,

?? why?
I meant that if gg concentrations (including all significant grenhosue gases like water vapour) were higher in the past, then if the core is more likely to have exploded then, than it is likely to explode now when there are less greenhouse gas emissions, if core heating as a cause of catastrophic volcanism is an accurate theory.

It is widely accepted now that the K/T boundary is defined by a massive impact of a mile-wide or larger asteroid. Such an impact would send powerful shockwaves through the entire planet which would manifest as massive earthquakes. They would be especially dramatic on the opposite side of the globe from the impact site, where concentric shockwaves would converge toward a point and constructively interfere. If the impact was indeed around the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico as is currently thought, then it wouldn't be surprising to find such convergence of shockwaves somewhere around India. It would naturally trigger massive volcanism....

So basically you disagree that violent volcanism was independent of an asteroid attack and think that volcanism may not have been the most significant side effect. I think it could be best to test your interesting theory with that of Courtillot, if we couldn’t think of anything more urgent.

I totally agree that everyone thinks that if the earth gets hotter, more of the core becomes more mobile, but possibly the lighter parts of it first because less force is required to accelerate lighter materials to a certain degree.



That would be true, except the lighter parts are precisely the parts that don't contain high percentage of fissile material. The parts that do contain it are heavier, and they heat up to the exclusion of the lighter parts. Rock, generally speaking, is a pretty good thermal insulator, so I expect convection to take place before heat transfer could equalize temperatures.
I am not sure what I originally meant, however I think we now agree that the core could have some more concentrated deposits of fissionable material, and they produce lighter products (or poisons as they were mysteriously called) and the lighter products could decelerate the heat generation, however sufficient temperatures can sometimes exist that cause the lighter products to be separated as lighter fluids rise above the denser ones by diffusion. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider the need to reduce greenhouse emissions on the basis of heating up the core being risky.


that wouldn't explain such things as magnetic field reversals. At any rate, I don't believe anyone has a convincing account right now of how the geomagnetic field evolves.
What you say is true, Roberts and Glatzmaier said that their model did predict a reversal at the end of a 40,000 year simulation, as due to fluid dynamics. I wonder what kind of heat source that assumed to be driving convection in their model? If not a nuclear reactor core, it would seem that a nuclear reactor core is less likely to be a necessary condition for the variability of the geomagnetic field.
However anuclear reactor core is consistent with a geomagnetic field that varies due to chaotic fluid dynamics due to the rotation and motion of the planet, which I think was the main basis for Roberts and Glatzmaier’s model. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider the need to reduce greenhouse emissions on the basis of heating up the core being risky.
Use common sense to figure out which is more likely. For example, imagine two immiscible liquids in a beaker, one heavy and one light. If you leave them alone, they'll eventually settle into two distinct layers, with the heavier liquid on the bottom. Now put a heat source under the beaker (which will warm up the heavier fluid first, simulating fission). You'll observe convection, with the fluids increasingly mixing up in a chaotic flow of currents. The more you heat it, the more chaos there will be. This is as opposed to increased differentiation, or order.
Consider that two liquids of different density in a beaker isn’t a good model for the core of the earth. Consider that the core of the earth is instead “hyper-plastic”, or partly solid, and the heavy and light stuff is originally mixed to some extent. Now if there is heating up, maybe it is enough to shed some light materials, but not enough to mix the heavy fissionable stuff with the light stuff. Why not?
Now I understand what I meant by saying that the lighter materials require less force to be accelerated, it was to suggest that maybe the heavy stuff is too heavy to get mixed up by high temperatures? Isn’t that possible?

Your suggestion that 4 billion years is long enough for all the differentiation of the core to have already happened, so that necessary maximum critical masses have already been formed seems to be an arbitrary guess, like saying, surface temperature change of a few degrees due to increased greenhouse concentrations, would be to the core temperatures, like a flea to a whale.

In the core, such a balancing act is impossible due to the chaotic currents and convection. There is nothing in the core that could precisely contain and concentrate fissile material into a critical mass sufficient for a nuclear explosion of the magnitude that would blow apart the Earth or even significantly increase volcanism at the surface (which is insulated from the core by thousands of kilometers of liquid and solid rock.)
Couldn’t the immense pressure under the earth, serve equivalent to implosion charges, considering that the lighter non-fissionable materials might be able to be convected, whereas the heavy materials might not?

Does your suggestion have significantly higher chances of accuracy than mine? Would it be effective to quantitatively compare the magnitudes of the factors like different ability for lighter and heavier materials to be convected under pressure and high temperature and high pressures being equivalent to implosion charges, in some kind of scaled down experiment. Do any exist? Should they be done?

The problem with this is that it assumes the amount of heat emitted by the planetary surface is constant. If the core were to heat up, this heat would melt its way through the mantle and eventually the crust, heating up the surface and then getting radiated into space.

The essence of the argument doesn’t depend on this assumption, it depends on the assumption that it is reasonable to consider the possibility that the extent to which a hotter surface can cool down faster under conditions of higher greenhouse gas concentrations, might be sufficiently small, that the core could heat up.

That is very wrong. Consider two kettles full of boiling water. One is at room temperature. The other is red-hot. In which case does the water in the kettle cool faster?

The boiling water kettle cools down faster, according to heat transfer laws that q=T1-T2. But Chalko’s point seems to be that Venus has high surface temperatures and therefore radiates a lot of heat, so its core might not be hotter than the earth’s. Sure Venus also has lots of greenhouse gases apparently. But maybe the surface heat is so high that there is high enough radiation that the Venus core is less hot than the earth core.

Venus has no magnetic field to speak of primarily because it practically does not rotate. For earth, its rotation drives its internal dynamo. For Venus, one day lasts 243 Earth days. Not much of a dynamo to speak of.

So maybe Venus does have some molten rock after all, or maybe not. But you’ve shown that absence of molten rock isn’t necessary condition for absence of geomagnetic field.

The pressure of the atmosphere is insignificant when compared to the pressure from the overlying rock. For example, 3 meters of water are equivalent in pressure to 1 Earth atmosphere. Rock is usually heavier than water...
What about the increased pressure of a thicker crust?

Conclusion:
Discussion of the fluid/solid composition dynamics of earth core means, bigger critical masses could happen.

Does Venus have mega-volcanism?

Is Venus not likely to get bigger critical masses because of different kind of core fluid/solid composition dynamics?

 

Frankly, I think this thread should be dumped in the psudo-science folder.

The earth is not a nuclear reactor, it is just really hot. That heat was from the initial formation of our planet from a superheated dust cloud and meteorites.

It vents heat slowly, through volcanoes and normal radiation.

 

note a nuclear reactor core?

Hi,
it may be relevant to mention that it may not be a priority to study this theory immediately because it turns out that according to www.nujournal.net/core.pdf, the article has been withdrawn from publication so that the author can revise it.
However at the thread at sciforums about "whether earth's core is a nuclear reactor", here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...light=earth core nuclear reactor&pagenumber=2
the participants agreed that at least small scale critical masses could form within the core of the earth. Please see my latest comment there about the probability of the earth core being a nuclear reactor in any sense.

It may not be helpful for Clockwork to just say "the earth heat is from the initial heat of formation" without saying why there should be no heat from a nuclear reactor in the earth, or why there should not be fissionable materials in the core of the earth that could undergo fission at a high rate, if the earth core heated up enough.
You do imply a reason why it is not undergoing nuclear fission currently because it releases heat so slowly through radiation and volcanic activity, but you don't imply any reasons why there aren't those fissionable materials ready to explode if they differentiate.
However on a fact based note can you provide sufficient evidence that the slow heat release that you descirbe could not be the result of nuclear fission. Do you know what kind of energy intensity nuclear fission would involve, and to what extent it would be diffused at the surface of the earth?

You may then want to rebut Chalko's theory at www.nujournal.net/core.pdf, when it is available again.
Or you may want to rebut Herndon's theory from Nuclear Planet, if you want to prove anything.

 

What I was told in school(before this idea came up) was that there is a large amount of radioactive material in the core and mantle. Through decay, these materials produce heat. This heats the inside to the earth enought to produce the liquid mantle and outer core.

 

No way am I reading all 71 posts before this, but I think that 'global warming' is actually something natural. How do you explain the ice ages, and what melted all that ice??? Keep in mind that there's been one in the past million years.

 

As for those natural reactors, they are no longer possible since natural uranium's U-235 concentration has decayed below the critical level. Same thing would pertain to the core unless the core material was "squeezed" enough to fullfill the requirements of the six factor formula. I don't know the physics enough to say if this is possible, you'd need some sort of neutron moderator and moderators are usually light elements. You would not expect to find much in the way of light elements in the core. The Gabon reactors occured in a river bed with lots of water. Water is a good moderator.

There is radioactive decay going on in the core and most of the heavy elements like Uranium and Thorium ended up in the core. It is primarily iron-nickel but there are plenty other high density elements to spice up the mixture.

 

Global warming: no risk of earth explosion

Earth will not explode due to global warming.

Because potential increase of temperature end interior pressure in the magma will lead to increased volcano activity.

Volcanos as security devices will thus avoid explosion of earth.

Maybe slightly more atmospheric pollution but nothing dramatic.

 

avoiding volcano overactivity?

If you remember from reading the article, this situation is mentioned both as a precursor to earth's explosion, or as a possible alternative future situation, from core.pdf file.

[currently it is being revised and is temporarily unavailable, dont know how long it will be--wonder what is being discovered].

In case increased violent and amount of volcanic activity does keep earth intact, i wouldn't think it wouldn't seem to leave humans very intact [again, potential ice-age or similar after-effect as per core article]. Would you?

There are ways to measure crust temperature at significantly deep enough depths that can test the equations of delta T for the core, already. Was it 20-25 meters depth? I think so.

 

I have heard a similar theory

This theory may be a little easier for you sarcos to follow.
1-polar icecaps melt
2-sea level rises
3-water pressure on ocean floor rises
4-the plates of earth's crust are pushed down by the water pressure increase
5-the pressure must be released
6-volcanoes begin to erupt more frequently to release this pressure
7-too many volcanoes erupting send us into what is called"nuclear winter"
8-earth kills us cause we be so ignorant

 

Anything is possible. However, I side with the volcano theory. If the pressure on the earth builds, its obvious release would be in in the form of a volcanic erruption or somthing similar to that.

 

The planet will not go poof and explode but there is no scientific proof that mercuary didnt have water or life or plants on it 1 billion years ago and what im trying to say is

Earth may not explode but it is highly possibal that are atomospher will go poof wich causes earth to end up like Mercuary, Hotter then hell and how the hell do we know if mercuary didnt have a atomospher or plants or life on it? i know its close to the sun but does are law of physics apply to aliens????

What my point is that if earth did explode it would be faster then hell and we wouldnt even notice it and why wouldnt we notice it???? BECAUSE! earth has something called a Core and if it ever cracked we would die in a instant without even fealing it unless gravity gave out before the planet exploded wich means we would die of oxygen

Cant u idiots see!! we are stupid idiot and we are killing ourselfs

 

Mabey Humans came from another planet and eventually moved to earth! mabey it went like this

Pluto
neptune
uranous ( people farted to much and the planet exploded

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but there were suvivors
venus
some other planets
Mars
earth

Well people it looks like are next step is mercuary where we can get sun tanned all day long. Imma bring lots of water to mercuary when earth finally explodes

O and did u nubs know that Earth gets wider each year wich means that are planet will grow to be as big as the sun! so sweet huh! to bad we explode before then

Wtf ever happend to the god theary man god wont let us explode!