Besides the lack of detectable helium, these and other deep mine results leave opened-up another important question. Uranium and thorium produce less than half of the estimated 45 billion kilowatts of heat that the planet produces internally (over and above solar). Where is the rest of that heat come from?
There is over a thousand times more potassium in the earths crust, but most of the missing radioactivity and heat is coming from the core, where there is mostly iron - but also surprising amount of carbon. Carbon is ubiquitous, so the only surprising thing is how does a low density element like carbon stay down there, given the density gradient, when even more reactive light elements do not stay put?
Probably, the most far-out of explanatory possibility relates back, once-again, to all of that uranium and thorium in the heart of the Earth. Some of it is in carbide form - but the question is- did the carbon get there ab initio, or was some of it produced "in situ" - which is how it appears from the distribution?
Certainly one of the prime elements produced in the uranium and thorium decay is helium, and some of it does come to the surface in natural gas - but only a fraction of what is expected. The rest could be bound up in the compressed mineral lattice of the core, but... when this material is brought to the surface, not enough helium is found there.
It is coincidental that the fusion of three alphas would answer both questions : i.e. the relative "lack of helium" and the relative "excess of carbon" within the earth's deep mantle/core? Your initial reaction is "no way, too much coulomb repulsion between the alphas for fusion, even cold fusion, and besides it isn't cold down there."
Last, year Frederick Sparber and I had the following exchange of thoughts, regarding the possibility of a pseudo-BEC. Everyone on vortex should know the general parameters of a real BEC... i.e. the main one being very low temperature, but in the pseudo-BEC, high pressure and "time" effectively substitute for cold (entropically there is little difference).
Here is the gist of this prior exchange:
>
OTOH, for two deuterons the (repulsive charge)/(n*quark-magnetic force) ratio is
2*Z/14 not counting the antineutrino in each.
> How would this
work for three BEC helium nuclei with 3*Z/42? :-)
Well, Fred, they
look pretty doggone close, don't they?
What you seem to be saying is -
that in terms of the relative repulsive force which is felt in condensed matter
at picometer distance, which when overcome [by high pressure and lots of time]
will lead to BEC-like fusion, the "net" force between three helium nuclei is
actually no greater at all than what would be felt by two deuterons,
no?
One might further opine that if BEC-like "cold fusion"
[pseudo-BEC] does occur in condensed matter, one might well be advised to
use He rather than D2 because He is "always" a boson, while D2 is only bosonic
during the time that its electron is not closely bound, which one can assume has
significant positive value over time ... and consequently in a time based
situation, the He may be even more reactive for this kind of fusion than
deuterium - that is, assuming that one can load He in such a way (ion
implantation) that 3 atoms are usually present in a single vacancy. [or forced
into a vacancy by enormous earth pressure - I did not realize this angle at the
time of that prior exchange].
BTW, there is a good argument that all LENR relates to a pseudo-BEC regime.
Jones
