EARTH'S CORE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 113, 15 May 1934, Page 10

EARTH'S CORE

SOLID OR LIQUID ?

IMPORTANT DEDUCTION

EARTHQUAKE EVIDENCE

It has long been recognised that the interior of the earth is composed of material very different from that familiar to us on the surface. The. enormous pressures to which the material beneath is subjected by the layers above is sufficient to impart properties to the interior quite foreign, to our everyday experience. Associated with high pressure, great temperatures are to be- expected; and it has been a matter of speculation for many years as to whether the increase of temperature is sufficient to render the material 'liquid or whether the increase in pressure is capable of preventing fusion. But the matter is gradually passing out of the sphere of mere speculation, into that of direct inference, and last evening Mr. ,L. Bastings, M.Sc, F.lnst.P., discussed some modern aspects of the matter at a special meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society, at which he presented some new evidence derived from his study of the European records of the great New Zealand .earthquake of 1929.

Earthquakes of any magnitude occurring in New Zealand, are recorded on the instruments in all the observatories in Europe. • These records are sent in course of time to the Dominion Observatory, and their study and. synthesis is a never-ending work. They provide material which records of local earthquakes made ;in the Dominion cannot provide, for the waves of the latter do not have to pass through the earth's core or round it before being recorded. The reverse situation seldom arises,for European earthquakes are infrequent compared with the number of shakes in this part of the world. Evea if the Buller and Hawke's Bay earthquakes conferred no benefit on NewZealand, they may be said to have advanced- the cause of science in that they are helping to make clearer the composition of the interior of the earth.