A Mechanism of Variations of the Earth Rotation at Different Timescales

Abstract

To explain the observed effects in the Earth’s polar motion, a mechanism of the relative motion of the lower mantle and upper mantle with a boundary at 670 km of depth is proposed. According to the new approach, the Earth’s layers (including separate plates) are considered as nonspherical, heterogeneous celestial bodies, interacting with each other, with the Moon and the Sun and executing a wide spectrum of relative motions in different timescales. The small displacements of the centers of masses of the lower and upper mantles and their relative rotations have here a primary importance. These displacements display themselves at various time scales (from a few months to millions of years), and their manifestations are readily detected in the regularities of the distribution of geological structures as well as in many geodynamical processes. Important regularities of the ordered positions of the plate centers, of their triple junctions, hot spots, systems of fractures and cracks, geographic structures, fields of fossils, etc., are observed as consequences of certain displacements and inclined rotations (Barkin, 1999). At geological time intervals, the slow motion of the layers causes mutually correlated variations of the processes of rifting, spreading, subduction, regressions and transgressions of the sea, of the plate motion, formation and breakdown of super continents, etc. The motions and the accompanying tectonic mass redistribution cause variations of the components of the Earth’s inertia tensor and geopotential, which lead to variations of its diurnal rotation and polar motion. Explanation of the main properties of the perturbed Chandler polar motion has been done.