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Geology As Disaster!

Paramount Pictures followed this trend with its latest science fiction feature, The Core.

In the movie, the Earths core stops spinning. As a result, the worlds magnetic field begins to fail. A band of terranauts uses a subterranean craft to travel toward the center of the Earth. To put things right, they hope to set off a nuclear explosion that will restart the core.

If that plot sounds a little strange to you, it sounded strangely familiar to J. Marvin Herndon, an independent geophysicist in San Diego. Herndon has developed and promoted the theory that a natural uranium reactor exists at the Earths core. He believes this natural georeactor provides heat to drive geological processes, and also powers our planets magnetic field.

Whats more, he thinks the reactor is failing.

After I heard about this movie I decided Id give the director a call and introduce myself, Herndon said, because he was getting into my territory.

Through his investigation of the Earths core, Herndon was able to determine how and when all human life could end. But first, a little more about the movie. A disaster epic, The Core survived its own brushes with disaster. Herndon noted that Paramount delayed the films original release date for almost five months before finally premiering it in late March.

Hollywood rumor said the movie needed to beef up its special effects scenes. Some scientists speculate that a disruption of the Earths magnetic field would cause birds to lose their way, because they (the birds) use the field to navigate. Its possible that birds getting lost and flying into buildings did not represent enough of a catastrophe for a major sci-fi thriller. Also, the dialogue (with apologies to the spotted owl fans) would have sounded something like:

Flap, flap, flap ... Whap!

Dang! There goes another one!

As a finished product, The Core contains multiple and significant disasters, in addition to confused birds.

Yes, it has all the standard disaster-film gadgetry, including wonderful pressure suits. Not only do these suits withstand temperatures up to 5,000 degrees and pressures of 15,000 psi, they also appear to be made of easy-to-clean, lightweight nylon. A coming-attractions trailer shown in theaters in early 2003 included scenes of a NASA space shuttle nearly crashing, when the magnetic-field variation causes navigation errors.

Soon after, the U.S. space shuttle Columbia broke apart and burned while entering the atmosphere. Paramount had to withdraw the trailer to edit out the disturbing shuttle footage, according to movie industry reports. And critics didnt hesitate to pounce on scientific lapses in the film. The general scientific reaction could be summed up in one word:

Huh?

Not everyone hammered on The Core, however. I thought it was a good movie, Herndon observed. They put a lot of science in the science fiction.

Total Annihilation 2

Herndon said he received a doctorate in nuclear chemistry from Texas A&M University, then conducted post-doctoral research at the University of California-San Diego. He described himself as fortunate to study under two renowned scientists -- Harold Urey, who had received the Nobel Prize for chemistry, and Hans Seuss, who advanced carbon-14 dating. His theories about the composition of the earths core took shape when he studied enstatite chondrites, a somewhat rare, low-oxidation type of meteorite.

Other scientists had analyzed more common meteorites to postulate the make-up of the earth. They really didnt understand the enstatite chondrites because they have strange minerals and there arent very many of them, Herndon said. The fact is, they are more like the interior of the Solar System. He refined his theories, published a paper suggesting a nickel silicide core for the earth, and waited for the scientific reaction. It was like a cloak of silence fell, he said. I found that all of my grant proposals werent getting funded.

Frustrated by the lack of response to his ideas, Herndon still pursued his alternate view of the core. One of his sons read that Jupiter radiates about twice as much heat as it receives, and mentioned it to Herndon. He thought the offered explanations made little sense. Instead, Herndon envisioned a planetary formation process in which the elements with greatest mass would sink to the center. Jupiter could have a natural reactor at its core, he realized. And the same concept applied to Earth. Herndon began to imagine a U238 breeder reactor at the center of the world. Soft Core? Hard Core? As supporting evidence for his theory, Herndon sought out measurements of the helium isotope ratio in ocean basalts. Helium-3 is a fission by-product, Herndon noted, and rock from depth shows a higher helium-3 to helium-4 ratio than the atmosphere. For comparison, he turned to Oak Ridge National Laboratorys computer simulation of nuclear reactors. Herndon wanted to find out what 3He/4He levels would result from a natural georeactor operating for 4.5 billion years. In the basalts, all the range of values are the same values that are produced by a nuclear reactor, he said. Herndon published his findings in March in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in the paper Nuclear Georeactor Origin of Oceanic Basalt 3He/4He, Evidence and Implications. Ocean basalts near spread zones show a helium isotope ratio about eight-times that of air, but younger lava typically shows a ratio more than 20 times higher, according to Herndon. Because a nuclear georeactor would have increased 3He output as it nears the end of its life-cycle, Herndon theorized that Earths core reactor may be failing. As a consequence, the planets magnetosphere powered by that reactor could soon disappear, he said. In this, Herndon sees a decided resonance with the movie The Core. The incredible parallel is, in the paper I just published, it says there exists tremendous evidence that there is a natural reactor at the center of the earth, he said. Second, it says that reactor is dying. Herndon continues to feel that the broad scientific community ignores his work and views. But his theories won popular notice last year in Nuclear Planet, the cover story of Discover magazines August 2002 issue. You can also read more on his Web site, NuclearPlanet.com. The Final Survivor The Earths magnetic field deflects most of the solar wind, a stream of ionized gases emitted by the sun. Disappearance of the magnetosphere might have severe negative effects, exposing the planet to incredibly destructive forces, wiping out human life and eventually scouring away Earths atmosphere. (On the positive side, reality TV would be a thing of the past.) Suppose the magnetosphere did begin to weaken. What could save humankind?

If you answered, The actors Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank, with a subsurface laser vessel, youve probably seen the movie. And thats how human life could end. But when? Herndon said the earths core reactor probably has consumed about 75 percent of its original fuel. Narrowing down the window, he now believes the georeactor and the earths magnetic field could fail at some time in the next 100 to 1 billion years. It could be 100 years. It could be a million. The point is, we just dont know, he said. Most scientists believe the earth has a solid core made up mostly of iron, surrounded by a liquid core of iron, nickel and lighter elements. Geophysical studies tend to support the solid-liquid view, without providing much information on the cores content. Estimates of the earths mass are educated guesses. Meteorites provide some clues about the deep inner planet, but more work remains to be done, as the saying goes. Right now, no one knows for certain exactly what exists at the core. It could be a combination of several other minerals. It could be Hilary Swank, although thats less likely. Yet no less likely than Bruce Willis leading a bad-hat crew of oil well drillers and geologists into space to blow up an asteroid, in Hollywoods version of Armageddon.

Originality, the Sequel

With The Core already released, we might worry that other studios wont develop lesser, copycat productions. Foolish us. Hollywood watchers predict other Deep Dirt movies to follow, including one called Inner Earth and several scripted versions of Jules Vernes Journey to the Center of the Earth. Herndon said he was invited to visit the production company that made The Core. I had a really good rapport with all the people I met there, he said. He didnt serve as a consultant on the film. By the time he showed up, the movie was already in the can, he explained. He did get an invitation to the movies premier, however, which turned out to be the traditional, gala, Hollywood event. All the big stars were there -- and some little ones, according to press reports. This was an unbelievable experience, he said. I wasnt expecting it, but the limousine let me off at the end of the red carpet. He got to take the stars walk into the theater, stopping every few feet to pose for flashing cameras. Herndon said he especially enjoyed meeting and talking with the films director, Jon Amiel. He has an attitude that I wish more scientists had, Herndon said. He thinks new ideas should be brought to the forefront, to be discussed and debated.

Movie's science doesn't hold water

Bad science. Bad movie. The other evening I ventured out to catch the latest global disaster flick, "The Day After Tomorrow." Indeed, I should have waited until the ``day after tomorrow'' and just skipped it, because I found the movie to be a disaster on many levels. It follows a long line of special-effects mega-movies like ``Twister,'' ``Storm Chasers: Revenge of the Twister,'' ``The Core,'' and recently on television, ``10.5,'' that distort scientific reality beyond all rationality. OK, it's only a movie, but it sure would have been nice if they had gotten some of the meteorology halfway right. Processes like global warming and ice ages happen literally with glacial slowness, not in a two-week period. I tried to keep track of factual errors but lost track long before I finished my small popcorn.

The underlying premise of the movie is that global warming causes the ice caps to melt rapidly, disrupting the circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. Somehow this triggers three monster storms, bringing a nearly instant ice age to the Northern Hemisphere. This scenario is the same one put forth in the sensationalist book by late-night talk show host and conspiracy theorist Art Bell in ``The Coming Global Superstorm.'' It is similarly flawed in that it grabs little bits of unrelated scientific facts, throws them all into a blender and comes out with an outlandish tale. The movie opens with a scene of scientists on the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica as a large fissure splits it in a matter of minutes. The actual calving of a large piece of the Larsen Ice Shelf in 2002 took more than a month. But this is really just a minor compression of time. It gets worse.

Somehow, global warming accelerates to a huge climatic shift in the Atlantic within a few days as the oceanic circulation reverses itself. Even if this scientific scenario were valid, we are looking at time scales of hundreds of years, not a week or two. But this pattern changes somehow, allowing a global weather disaster to almost instantaneously break out across the world. There is snow in New Delhi, and softball-size hail decimating Tokyo. The topper is the outbreak of at least a half-dozen simultaneous mega-tornadoes ripping through Los Angeles. (By the way, Los Angeles County does get tornadoes and has had the most of any county in California, with 53 since 1950.) Oh, and somehow this all happens before the scientists notice three super-storms bearing down on them from the Arctic. At least they didn't propose sending Bruce Willis in a nuclear-bomb-laden spaceship to blast them out of the sky. Instead, they have Dennis Quaid as the paleoclimatologist ``hero'' of the film, reprogramming a simulation model of global climate into the equivalent of a day-to-day weather forecast model in all of two days.

You get the picture that, scientifically, the film is a disaster. But it might have been saved as a special- effects thriller with some remotely interesting subplot story lines. Alas, this was not to be either. In summary, think of ``The Day After Tomorrow'' as the evil spawn of ``Twister'' and ``Waterworld.'' On a final note, there has been widespread comment that the film is nothing more than a vehicle for proponents of various global warming theories. However, I think the story lines are so bad that the film will not be taken seriously on any scientific level.