Inge Lehmann's paper: “ P'”(1936)

Martina Kölbl-Ebert

doi:10.18814/epiiugs/2001/v24i4/007

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Classic Papers

Episodes 2001; 24(4): 262-267

Published online December 1, 2001

https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2001/v24i4/007

Inge Lehmann's paper: “ P'”(1936)

Martina Kölbl-Ebert

Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie Funktionseinheit Geologie Luisenstrasse 37 80333 München (Munich) GERMANY E-mail: martina.koelbl@iaag.geo.uni-muenchen.de

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

"We take it that, as before, the Earth consists of a core and a mantle, but that inside the core there is an inner core in which the velocity is larger than in the outer one." — Lehmann (1936).

In 1936, the Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann (1888–1993), who worked for the Danish Geodetic Institute from 1925 to 1952, suggested from the analysis of P-wave data that the Earth must have an inner core — an important breakthrough in the understanding of the nature of the Earth's interior