Researchers are warning that the Earth‘s core may be cooling “more rapidly than expected,” which could speed up the timeline for when the planet becomes uninhabitable for humans.
In a paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, a group of researchers reported that the Earth’s mantle is “much more efficiently cooled, which would ultimately weaken many tectonic activities driven by the mantle convection more rapidly than expected from conventionally believed thermal conduction behavior.”
The researchers noted that the rate at which the Earth has been losing heat “directly links to the fundamental question on how long the Earth will remain dynamically active.”
Earth has been cooling throughout its 4.5 billion year history, according to the researchers, but the rate at which temperatures have been dropping is still being scrutinized, NBC News noted.
The researchers examined bridgmanite, a conductive mineral that can be located between the core and the mantle of Earth, according to NBC News.
