MTU researcher makes major discovery

Michigan Tech reports that a discovery by a university researcher could send shockwaves across the world of earth science.

Aleksey Smirnov, assistant professor of geophysics, with colleagues from the University of Rochester and Yale University, has discovered that the Earth’s inner core could actually be at least 1.2 billion years older than previously thought.

Smirnov’s paper is published in the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors.

Smirnov uses paleomagnetic data to do his research, measuring the magnetic fields in the oldest rocks on earth. By doing so with samplings from around the globe, he was able to estimate the age of the inner core.

Smirnov will be headed to India to continue gathering data for his research thanks to a National Science Foundation grant of more than $200,000.