Publication Date:
2007-06-02
Description:
The evolution of the martian core is widely assumed to mirror the characteristics observed for Earth's core. Data from experiments performed on iron-sulfur and iron-nickel-sulfur systems at pressures corresponding to the center of Mars indicate that its core is presently completely liquid and that it will not form an outwardly crystallizing iron-rich inner core, as does Earth. Instead, planetary cooling will lead to core crystallization following either a "snowing-core" model, whereby iron-rich solids nucleate in the outer portions of the core and sink toward the center, or a "sulfide inner-core" model, where an iron-sulfide phase crystallizes to form a solid inner core.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Stewart, Andrew J -- Schmidt, Max W -- van Westrenen, Wim -- Liebske, Christian -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2007 Jun 1;316(5829):1323-5.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institute for Mineralogy and Petrology, Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich, CH 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17540900" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Crystallization
;
*Evolution, Planetary
;
Iron
;
*Mars
;
Pressure
;
Sulfides
;
Sulfur
;
Temperature
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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