Challenging the Big Bang Puzzle of Heavy Elements: Earth Factories Creating Elements From Nuclear Transmutation

Cross-Section of the Earth’s Interior

Cross-section of the Earth’s interior: crust, upper- and lower-mantle, and outer- and inner-cores. Credit: Mikio Fukuhara, Alexander Yoshino, and Nobuhisa Fujima

Rather than being created solely during supernova explosions, chemical elements could also be produced deep within the Earth’s lower mantle.

It has long been theorized that hydrogen, helium, and lithium were the only chemical elements in existence during the Big Bang when the universe formed, and that supernova explosions, stars exploding at the end of their lifetime, are responsible for transmuting these elements into heavier ones and distributing them throughout our universe.

Researchers in Japan and Canada are now challenging a piece of the Big Bang puzzle. Do all of the elements heavier than iron really originate from stars exploding, or are some created deep within the Earth’s mantle, thanks to convection dynamics driven by plate tectonics?

In AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing, the group proposes an alternative model for the formation of nitrogen, oxygen, and water based on the history of the Earth’s atmosphere.

They postulate that the 25 elements with atomic numbers smaller than iron (26) were created via an endothermic nuclear transmutation of two nuclei, carbon and oxygen. These nuclei could be confined within the natural aragonite lattice core of the Earth’s lower mantle at high temperatures and pressures during lithosphere subduction, which occurs when two tectonic plates converge.

The group describes the endothermic nuclear transformation process as being “aided by the physical catalysis of excited electrons generated by the stick-slipping movement of mineral compounds of geoneutrinos produced deep within the Earth’s mantle by nuclear fusion of deuterons or radioactive decay of elements.”

“Our study suggests that the Earth itself has been able to create lighter elements by nuclear transmutation,” said Mikio Fukuhara, a co-author from Tohoku University’s New Industry Creation Hatchery Center in Japan.

If accurate, this is a revolutionary discovery because “it was previously theorized that all of these elements were sourced from supernova explosions, whereas we postulate a supplementary theory,” Fukuhara said.

This work will have a considerable impact on the field of geophysics and may, as a result, “indicate possible research directions for the potential to create the elements required for future space development,” said Fukuhara.

Reference: “Earth factories: Creation of the elements from nuclear transmutation in Earth’s lower mantle” by Mikio Fukuhara, Alexander Yoshino and Nobuhisa Fujima, 12 October 2021, AIP Advances.
DOI: 10.1063/5.0061584

8 Comments on "Challenging the Big Bang Puzzle of Heavy Elements: Earth Factories Creating Elements From Nuclear Transmutation"

  1. Babu G. Ranganathan | October 18, 2021 at 9:02 am | Reply

    Babu G. Ranganathan*
    (B.A. Bible/Biology)










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    • Edward Armstrong | October 18, 2021 at 12:30 pm | Reply

      Perhaps your oeuvre might be better off posted on sites intended for science deniers like you?

    • Everything point you attempt to make it nothing but the ramblings of a mindless person, desperate to convince himself his religion must be true despite no iota of evidence, by making futile attempts at discrediting the most intelligent minds, who are simply trying to best explain what they can with what evidence and tools they have available. Religion on the other hand does nothing but tell tall tales with sensational yet nonsensical allure. In other words stfu

  2. “When γ-orthopyroxene is compressed at a high pressure of 32 GPa, the shortest Mg–Fe distance (d1) on the (400) plane can be calculated as 0.272 nm. The shrinkage ratio η1 is 0.9096 (= 0.272/0.299). However, the distance d1 exceeded the distance required for a dynamic nuclear reaction (∼0.094 nm).”

    It is as though this research article was written by a climatologist. Despite numerical values with up to 3 and 4 significant figures being presented throughout the article, there is not a single instance of a formal uncertainty (x.xx +/-0.0x, 1 sigma) being associated with the values provided!

    lets start from the beginning will we
    earth core was magnesium oxide
    can a magnesium oxide core produce as postulated the 25 elements
    if so then bingo
    if not then
    approximately 600,000,000 years ago
    the event of the 14th billenium
    the core of the earth transmuted through a magical abracadra moment to iron as we all know there is no effect without a cause and there is no cause without an effect hence u and me and 26 elements as postulated 3,900,000,000 years later that was an awful long time to be postulating i say when we want 26 its elementary my dear watson said inspector sherlock

  4. These are definitely things that make me go hmmmm!

  5. The laws and order we see came from somewhere. Random acts stay that way. It takes life to make life.

  6. To a novice the article makes sense – where conditions are the same products might be the same. Going deeper, I haven’t heard why if every galaxy contains a black hole that, instead of a supermassive star in the early universe collapsing inwards to form a black hole of enormous lingering gravity, why did not that collapse produce a nuclear powered outward explosion from that point source and from which the elements of the galaxy are formed, leaving behind a void (nature abhors a vacuum)

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