If there is a fire at the center of the earth what Fuels it?

Question

Could it be the Oil that we use every day?

Answer 1

Um, no

It's hot at the center because of the pressure from the entire earth pressing on that point, nothing is actually burning.

Answer 2

Fire is the rapid combination of combustible materials with oxygen. The center of the Earth, which is known as the Inner Core to geologists and other educated people, is though to be a solid nickel-iron sulfide. Combustion occurs only to gases, not to liquids and certainly not to solids. The "fuel" is the decay of radioactive elements, and the most common ones on the Earth are uranium, thorium and potassium. Any oil in the inner core would be quickly converted to diamonds and (hot) ice, due to the extreme pressures there.

Answer 3

There is no "fire" at the center of the earth, however it is hot. It is probably primarily iron and nickel. No oil could exist in the temperature and pressure of the center of the earth, it would break down into simpler compounds (such as pure carbon) at that point.

Why is it hot? Well, one reason is that it was probably hot when it formed and it's very very well insulated. Unlike what some answerers have said, it's not hot because of the pressure--it could just as well be cold under high pressure as hot.

It's also not hot because there is a natural nuclear reactor down there. There is radioactive decay generating heat, radioactive decay is quite different than what goes on in a reactor. The heat-generating radioactive decay is also primarily in the mantle and crust, not the core. However, heat can be conducted downwards. There is also heat generated from tidal processes, that keeps things warm down there too.

Answer 4

No. Oil is in in the crust, not the core. Besides, there is not enough oxygen in the core to fuel any fires.

The Earth's core appears to be a natural nuclear reactor. The heat comes from the decay of radioactive elements.

Answer 5

No its not oil. I dont know the answer. Im going to guess that the constant turning of the earth and magnetism have something to do with it as the earth is mostly made of iron.

Answer 6

There is no fire at the center ( unless you really believe thats where hell is ). The earths core is made of superheated metal and rock. This heat is caused by the immense pressure. There is no air available to actually cause a fire.

Answer 7

no the core is made of iron, solid iron because of the pressure and gravity fire wouldent support the LIQUID above the core, the MOLTEN ROCK is what is resembled with the heat

Answer 8

the earths center is a core. http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/images/earthcut.jpg

Answer 9

The interior of the Earth, similar to the other terrestrial planets, is chemically divided into layers. The Earth has an outer silicate solid crust, a highly viscous mantle, a liquid outer core that is much less viscous than the mantle, and a solid inner core. Many of the rocks now making up the Earth's crust formed less than 100 million (1×108) years ago; however the oldest known mineral grains are 4.4 billion (4.4×109) years old, indicating that the Earth has had a solid crust for at least that long.

Much of what is known about the interior of the Earth has been inferred. The force exerted by Earth's gravity is one measurement of its mass. After measuring the volume of the planet, its density can be calculated. Astronomers also have performed similar planetary measurements. Calculation of the mass and volume of the surface rocks and bodies of water allow estimation of the mass, volume and density of surface rocks. The mass which is not in the atmosphere, oceans, and surface rocks must be in deeper layers.

The existence of an inner core that is different from the liquid outer core was discovered in 1936 by seismologist Inge Lehman using observations of earthquake-generated seismic waves that partly reflect from its boundary and can be detected by sensitive instruments at Earth's surface called seismographs. The outer core was previously thought to be liquid due to its inability to transmit elastic shear waves because only sound waves are observed to pass through the outer core. The solidity of the inner core has been difficult to establish, because the elastic shear waves that are expected to pass through it are very weak and difficult to detect. Dziewonski and Gilbert established the consistency of this hypothesis using normal modes of vibration of Earth caused by large earthquakes.Recent claims of detections of inner core transmitted shear waves, termed PKJKP, were initially controversial but are now gaining acceptance as the smoking gun.


Composition
Based on the abundance of chemical elements in the solar system, their physical properties, and other chemical constraints regarding the remainder of Earth's volume, the inner core is believed to be composed primarily of a nickel-iron alloy, with very small amounts of some unknown elements. Because it is less dense than pure iron, Francis Birch judged that the outer core contains about 10% of a mixture of lighter elements, although these are expected to be less abundant in the solid inner core.


Conditions
The temperature of the inner core can be estimated using experimental and theoretical constraints on the melting temperature of impure iron at the pressure (about 330 GPa) of the inner core boundary, yielding estimates from 5,000 to 6,000 °C (>9,000 °F). The range of pressure in Earth's inner core is about 330 to 360 GPa (over 3,000,000 atm),and iron can only be solid at such high temperatures because its melting temperature increases dramatically at these large pressures.


History
J. A. Jacobs was the first to suggest that the inner core is freezing and growing out of the liquid outer core due to the gradual cooling of Earth's interior (about 100 degrees per billion years). Prior to its formation, the entire core was molten liquid, and the age of the inner core is thought to lie between 2-4 billion years. Because it is younger than the age of Earth (about 4.5 billion years), the inner core cannot be a primordial feature inherited during the formation of the solar system.


Dynamics
Little is known about the process of growth of Earth's inner core. Because it is slowly cooling, many expected that the inner core would be very homogeneous and clean. It was even suggested that Earth's inner core may be a single crystal of iron, however, this is at odds with the observed degree of messiness inside the inner core.[12] Seismologists have revealed that the inner core is in fact rather messy and has some large scale structures such that seismic waves pass through it more rapidly in some directions than in others. The surface of the inner core exhibits rapid variations in properties at scales at least as small as 1 km. This is puzzling, since lateral temperature variations along the inner core boundary are known to be extremely small (this conclusion is confidently constrained by magnetic field observations). Recent discoveries suggest that the solid inner core itself is composed of layers, separated by a transition zone about 250 to 400 km thick. If the inner core grows by small frozen sediments falling onto its surface, then some liquid can also be trapped in the pore spaces and some of this residual fluid may still persist to some small degree in much of its interior.

Because the inner core is not rigidly connected to Earth's solid mantle, the possibility that it rotates slightly faster or slower than the rest of Earth has long been entertained.[citation needed] In the 1990s, seismologists made various claims about detecting this kind of super-rotation by observing changes in the characteristics of seismic waves passing through the inner core over several decades, using the aforementioned property that it transmits waves faster in some directions. Estimates of this super-rotation are around one degree of extra rotation per year, although others have concluded it is rotating more slowly than the rest of Earth by a similar amount.

Growth of the inner core is thought to play an important role in the generation of Earth's magnetic field by dynamo action in the liquid outer core. This occurs mostly because it cannot dissolve the same amount of light elements as the outer core, and therefore freezing at the inner core boundary produces a residual liquid that contains more light elements than the overlying liquid. This causes it to become buoyant, and helps drive convection of the outer core. The existence of the inner core also changes the dynamic motions of liquid in the outer core as it grows, and may help fix the magnetic field since it is expected to be a great deal more resistant to flow than the outer core liquid (which is expected to be turbulent).

Speculation also continues that the inner core might have exhibited a variety of internal deformation patterns. This may be necessary to explain why seismic waves pass more rapidly in some directions than in others. Because thermal convection alone appears to be improbable, Many buoyant convection motions will have to be driven by variations in composition or abundance of liquid in its interior. S. Yoshida and colleagues proposed a novel mechanism whereby deformation of the inner core can be caused by a higher rate of freezing at the equator than at polar latitudes, and S. Karato proposed that changes in the magnetic field might also deform the inner core slowly over time.

But there is no oil.

Answer 10

no, but it is really hot and heavy.