A pattern of spinning at the centre of the Earth is the favourite theory to explain the puzzling scientific mystery of why the Earth's core seems to be moving, says Professor John Vidale of the University of Southern California.
Vidale joined Matty McLean on Breakfast to discuss the great fascination of what's at the centre of our Earth and how it might affect surface geography.
Asked to go through the findings slowly, Vidale said "sure, we find it confusing too". He said humans have only made it a percent, or a fraction of a percent, of the way to the Earth's core due to extreme sub-surface heat.
He described its makeup as "an outer core which is liquid and then an inner core which is about half the radius that is solid, so nothing's holding the inner core in place since it's surrounded by an ocean of liquid iron".
"That’s what's down there," he said, "basically iron... it's about a 1000 kilometre radius, so it’s huge. Up on the surface we’d notice it," he said.
About 20 years ago, scientists noticed something was changing in the core, and that nothing was holding the molten centre down. Earthquakes that are almost exact repetitions and separated by 5-10 years sent different waves through the middle.
Vidale said the favourite theory now is that "it spins a little faster than the surface for 30 years, then possibly it backspins a little slower for 30 years".
"They think it’s wriggling back and forth 10 or 20 kilometres over the course of decades," he said.
On whether these changes are cause for alarm, he said the core stopping, spinning faster or more slowly is all part of the cycle - "nothing to worry about".
But Vidale believes it's important to know exactly what's going on in the Earth's centre.
"Maybe there's another civilisation down there... it pays to know what's happening in case something you don't know you should figure out."
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