Earth's core: Radioactive heating vs. Tidal heating

[Brian H]

pluto wrote: G’day

I think there is a combinatiion of both. Tidal and radiative are the way to go.

When we have no large moons of planets influencing we end up with a run out of radiating heat and the little tidal effect results in a dead dynamo.

We see this with MARS.

Io is tidal effected due to Jupiters extreme gravity making it the most active volcanic place in the solar system.

Planet Earth has a Solid core with a liquid outer core and the moon plays an active part in tidal effect.

The Stars do not have a dynamo, they have a dynamotor, but thats another story.

The numbers don’t work that way. If the Moon’s motion was contributing that much heat to the Earth, it would itself be warmed and flexed even more, and its orbit would decay rapidly. Neither of those is happening, nor could they given the relative masses, distances, velocities, etc. There’s no free lunch, and no free flexing.

Io is the exception that demonstrates the rule, sort of. The Moon is 1/4 Earth’s diameter, almost 1/64 its volume and mass. Io is fairly similar, but it is about 1/64,000 Jupiter’s volume and mass. That’s a distinction with a difference. Imagine a 200-lb man wearing a 3-lb knapsack, and spinning around. Now imagine the same man with a tiny 1-gram button sewed onto his collar. Those are the comparable ratios.

[digh]

I have been following every-ones debates about radioactive cooling. I don’t claim to be a physicist but I do have questions.
Super volcanoes have spewed forth massive amounts of deep magma in the past . Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive? If that’s to close to the surface there was a catastrophic deep magma upwelling in Siberia hundreds of millions of years ago. Is the magma material in Siberia more radioactive? I’m just asking?

[vansig]

digh wrote: I have been following every-ones debates about radioactive cooling. I don’t claim to be a physicist but I do have questions.
Super volcanoes have spewed forth massive amounts of deep magma in the past . Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive? If that’s to close to the surface there was a catastrophic deep magma upwelling in Siberia hundreds of millions of years ago. Is the magma material in Siberia more radioactive? I’m just asking?

if your neutrino detector can tell what direction the neutrinos are coming from, then you stand some chance of finding the source. perhaps there is a map, somewhere, of neutrino anomaly by location on earth’s surface?

[Brian H]

vansig wrote:

I have been following every-ones debates about radioactive cooling. I don’t claim to be a physicist but I do have questions.
Super volcanoes have spewed forth massive amounts of deep magma in the past . Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive? If that’s to close to the surface there was a catastrophic deep magma upwelling in Siberia hundreds of millions of years ago. Is the magma material in Siberia more radioactive? I’m just asking?

if your neutrino detector can tell what direction the neutrinos are coming from, then you stand some chance of finding the source. perhaps there is a map, somewhere, of neutrino anomaly by location on earth’s surface?
Neutrinos are mainly, AFAIK, useful for fusion detection. In any case, good luck with detection of direction! It’s barely possible to pick up one in a gazillion that blows on through, and that’s after using a planet or two to filter out every other signal, or hundred or so tons of liquid Neon, etc.
Radioactivity detection on the spot by Geiger counters is quite a bit easier (gamma rays, & other ionizing radiation).
Here’s a nice summary of techniques available:
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Radioactive-dating
Also see this interesting PDF of an aerial survey of Northern Ireland:
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/8926/1/Young.et.al.AtlanticIreland_LowResolution.pdf

[vansig]

The decay chains of U-238 and Th-232 produce electron anti-neutrinos. These are the geo-neutrinos so-hotly disputed in this thread.
But the background level of anti-neutrinos is mainly due to beta decays in nuclear reactors. These may be detected via the inverse beta decay reaction, at a threshold of 1.8 MeV.

In fact i think a directional detector for electron anti-neutrinos is possible, because the “delayed coincidence signature” should indicate momentum, but i’m not sure whether this is resolved in current detectors.
— http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KamLAND

Yes, you’ll be detecting a very small number of neutrinos. Most neutrinos passing through the Earth emanate from the Sun, (and trillions pass through the human body each second). and there are also cosmic sources.

[vansig]

digh wrote: Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive?

dont know. but, radon gas release seems to be associated with volcanic eruption:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v288/n5786/abs/288074a0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taal_Volcano
http://www.springerlink.com/content/272381601455451j/
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFM.V11C0751L

and indoor radon levels at yellowstone are available

“Park County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter)”
— http://www.city-data.com/city/Yellowstone-National-Park-Wyoming.html#ixzz0nqzNO5OD

[vansig]

vansig wrote:
“Park County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter)”
— http://www.city-data.com/city/Yellowstone-National-Park-Wyoming.html#ixzz0nqzNO5OD

4 pCi/L equals 148 Bq/m³, and
150 Bq/m³ is the EPA maximum before mitigation is required. So, yes it’s entirely plausible that radiation levels at Yellowstone are higher.

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