Earth’s core could be the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir

Abstract

Evaluating carbon’s candidacy as a light element in the Earth’s core is critical to constrain the budget and planet-scale distribution of this life-essential element. Here we use first principles molecular dynamics simulations to estimate the density and compressional wave velocity of liquid iron-carbon alloys with ~4-9 wt.% carbon at 0-360 gigapascals and 4000-7000 kelvin. We find that for an iron-carbon binary system, ~1-4 wt.% carbon can explain seismological compressional wave velocities. However, this is incompatible with the ~5-7 wt.% carbon that we find is required to explain the core’s density deficit. When we consider a ternary system including iron, carbon and another light element combined with additional constraints from iron meteorites and the density discontinuity at the inner-core boundary, we find that a carbon content of the outer core of 0.3-2.0 wt.%, is able to satisfy both properties. This could make the outer core the largest reservoir of terrestrial carbon. A carbon content in Earth’s outer core between 0.3 and 2.0 % by weight, along with at least two other light elements, is compatible with observational constraints, according to molecular dynamics simulations, and could make the core Earth’s largest carbon reservoir.