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Re: FW: [cdn-nucl-l] Re: giant natural nuclear reactor at the ce nter of the Earth



All
 
Perhaps my memory of the little geophysics I learnt from friends at university is wrong, but I thought that the source of heat in the earth was nuclear, and due many to the decay of uranium. No fission is needed because the heat conductivity is small. It is certainly not a "giant nuclear reactor".
 
Have a pleasant weekend
_______________________
John R Johnson, PhD
idias@interchange.ubc.ca
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 1:37 PM
Subject: RE: FW: [cdn-nucl-l] Re: giant natural nuclear reactor at the ce nter of the Earth

Jaro,

Yes, I meant that the people from ORNL and AECL are not geophysicists. 

I am glad you picked up on my questions regarding the inconguency with regard to which planets have magnetic fields and which don't.  (If the physics works here, why doesn't it work there?)  Of course, since they really do not know how the magnetic fields were created or continue to exists, all of the comments about the planets are speculations.

I think the idea of a reactor at the center of the Earth is intriguing, but I would like to see more data.  It seems to me that there should be a way to detect such nuclear reactions, such as by direct detection of the neutrino that result from the nuclear reactions.

 "Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@AECL.CA> wrote:

Of course, none of these people are geophysicists. 
- - - - - - -

Hi John,

That seems like an odd thing to say  ....or are you just refering to the ORNL & AECL people ? ......surely you don't expect to find "nuclear geologists" ? ....that's what I meant by "interdisciplinary."

Otherwise, the other people mentioned in the article obviously include geologists -- for example David Deming, associate professor of geology and geophysics, Hatten Yoder, director emeritus of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, etc.

As for the articles on Venus and Mars, its odd that for Mars they say that "The dynamo theory of planetary magnetism indicates that Mars may have had a dipole moment of about one-tenth of Earth's when it was first formed..... The rotation rate Of Mars is approximately that of Earth and is thus sufficient for the operation of this initial dynamo. "

.....but for Venus, they claim that "It is important to note that, contrary to popular belief, dynamo theory does not credit the smallness of the magnetic moment to the slow rotation of Venus (a Venus day of ~ 243 Earth days is almost equal to the length of its year of ~ 224 days, and its sense of rotation is retrograde)."

WHICH IS RIGHT ? Maybe it takes BOTH an energy (heat) source AND a certain minimum rotation rate ? (another interesting case is that of Uranus, whose magnetic field is perpendicular to its axis of rotation -- some say its on its way to reversing polarity....)

. . .



-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com



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