On the Secular Cooling of the Earth

By Lord Kelvin (William Thomson)

Excerpt. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XXIII, pp. 167-169, 1864. Read April 28, 1862.
From reprint in Mathematical and Physical Papers, Vol. III, pp. 295, 1890.


1. For eighteen years it has pressed on my mind, that essential principles of Thermo-dynamics have been overlooked by those geologists who uncompromisingly oppose all paroxysmal hypostheses, and maintain not only that we have examples now before us, on the earth, of all the different actions by which its crust has been modified in geological history, but that these actions have never, or have not on the whole, been more violent in past time than they are at present.

2. It is quite certain the solar system cannot have gone on even as at present, for a few hundred thousand or a few million years, without the irrevocable loss (by dissipation, not by annihilation) of a very considerable proportion of the entire energy initially in store for sun heat, and for Plutonic action. It is quite certain that the whole store of energy in the solar system has been greater in all past time, than at present; but it is conceivable that the rate at which it has been drawn upon and dissipated, whether by solar radiation, or by volcanic action in the earth or other dark bodies of the system, may have been nearly equable, or may even have been less rapid, in certain periods of the past. But it is far more probable that the secular rate of dissipation has been in some direct proportion to the total amount of energy in store, at any time after the commencement of the present order of things, and has been therefore very slowly diminishing from age to age.

3. I have endeavoured to prove this for the sun’s heat, in an article recently published in Macmillan’s Magazine [1] , where I have shown that most probably the sun was sensibly hotter a million years ago than he is now. Hence, geological speculations assuming somewhat greater extremes of heat, more violent storms and floods, more luxuriant vegetation, and hardier and coarser-grained plants and animals, in remote antiquity, are more probable than those of the extreme quietist, or “uniformitarian,” school. A “middle path,” not generally safest in scientific speculation, seems to be so in this case. It is probable that hypotheses of grand catastrophes destroying all life from the earth, and raining its whole surface at once, are greatly in error; it is impossible that hypotheses assuming an equability of sun and storm for 1,000,000 years, can be wholly true.

4. Fourier’s mathematical theory of the conduction of heat is a beautiful working out of a particular case belonging to the general doctrine of the “Dissipation of Energy.” [2] A characteristic of the practical solutions it presents is, that in each case a distribution of temperature, becoming gradually equalised through an unlimited future, is expressed as a function of the time, which is infinitely divergent for all times longer past than a definite determinable epoch. The distribution of heat at such an epoch is essentially initial—that is to say, it cannot result from any previous condition of matter by natural processes. It is, then, well called an “arbitrary initial distribution of heat,” in Fourier’s great mathematical poem, because that which is rigorously expressed by the mathematical formula could only be realised by action of a power able to modify the laws of dead matter. In an article published about nineteen years ago in the Cambridge Mathematical Journal, [3] I gave the mathematical criterion for an essentially initial distribution; and in an inaugural essay, De Mota Caloris per Terræ Corpus, read before the Faculty of the University of Glasgow in 1846, I suggested, as an application of these principles, that a perfectly complete geothermic survey would give us data for determining an initial epoch in the problem of terrestrial conduction. At the meeting of the British Association in Glasgow in 1855, I urged that special geothermic surveys should be made for the purpose of estimating absolute dates in geology, and I pointed out some cases, especially that of the salt-spring borings at Creuznach, in Rhenish Prussia, in which eruptions of basaltic rock seem to leave traces of their igneous origin in residual heat. [4] I hope this suggestion may yet be taken up, and may prove to some extent useful; but the disturbing influences affecting underground temperature, as Professor Phillips has well shown in a recent inaugural address to the Geological Society, are too great to allow us to expect any very precise or satisfactory results.

5. The chief object of the present communication is to estimate from the known general increase of temperature in the earth downwards, the date of the first establishment of that consistentior status, which, according to Leibnitz’s theory, is the initial date of all geological history.

6. In all parts of the world in which the earth’s crust has been examined, at sufficiently great depths to escape influence of the irregular and of the annual variations of the superficial temperature, a gradually increasing temperature has been found in going deeper. The rate of augmentation (estimated at only 1/110th of a degree, Fahr., in some localities, and as much as 1/15th of a degree in others, per foot of descent) has not been observed in a sufficient number of places to establish any fair average estimate for the upper crust of the whole earth. But 1/50th is commonly accepted as a rough mean; or, in other words, it is assumed as a result of observation, that there is, on the whole, about 1° Fahr. of elevation of temperature per 50 British feet of descent.

7. The fact that the temperature increases with the depth implies a continual loss of heat from the interior, by conduction outwards through or into the upper crust. Hence, since the upper crust does not become hotter from year to year, there must be a secular loss of heat from the whole earth. It is possible that no cooling may result from this loss of heat, but only an exhaustion of potential energy, which in this case could scarcely be other than chemical affinity between substances forming part of the earth’s mass. But it is certain that either the earth is becoming on the whole cooler from age to age, or the heat conducted out is generated in the interior by temporary dynamical (that is, in this case, chemical) action. [5] To suppose, as Lyell, adopting the chemical hypothesis, has done, [6] that the substances, combining together, may be again separated electrolytically by thermo-electric currents, due to the heat generated by their combination, and thus the chemical action and its heat continued in an endless cycle, violates the principles of natural philosophy in exactly the same manner, and to the same degree, as to believe that a clock constructed with a self-winding movement may fulfil the expectations of its ingenious inventor by going for ever.

8. It must indeed be admitted that many geological writers of the Uniformitarian school, who in other respects have taken a profoundly philosophical view of their subject, have argued in a most fallacious manner against hypotheses of violent action in past ages. If they had contented themselves with showing that many existing appearances, although suggestive of extreme violence and sudden change, may have been brought about by long-continued action, or by paroxysms not more intense than some of which we have experience within the periods of human history, their position might have been unassailable; and certainly could not have been assailed except by a detailed discussion of their facts. It would be a very wonderful, but not an absolutely incredible result, that volcanic action has never been more violent on the whole than during the last two or three centuries; but it is as certain that there is now less volcanic energy in the whole earth than there was a thousand years ago, as it is that there is less gunpowder in the “Monitor” after she has been seen to discharge shot and shell, whether at a nearly equable rate or not, for five hours without receiving fresh supplies, than there was at the beginning of the action. Yet this truth has been ignored or denied by many of the leading geologists of the present day, [7] because they believe that the facts within their province do not demonstrate greater violence in ancient changes of the earth’s surface, or do demonstrate a nearly equable action in all periods.

9. The chemical hypothesis to account for underground heat might be regarded as not improbable, if it was-only in isolated localities that the temperature was found to increase with the depth; and, indeed, it can scarcely be doubted that chemical action exercises an appreciable influence (possibly negative, however) on the action of volcanoes; but that there is slow uniform “combustion,” eremacausis, or chemical combination of any kind going on, at some great unknown depth under the surface everywhere, and creeping inwards gradually as the chemical affinities in layer after layer are successively saturated, seems extremely improbable, although it cannot be pronounced to be absolutely impossible, or contrary to all analogies in nature. The less hypothetical view, however, that the earth is merely a warm chemically inert body cooling, is clearly to be preferred in the present state of science.

10. Poisson’s celebrated hypothesis, that the present underground heat is due to a passage, at some former period, of the solar system through hotter stellar regions, cannot provide the circumstances required for a palaeontology continuous through that epoch of external heat. For from a mean of values of the conductivity, in terms of the thermal capacity of unit volume, of the earth’s crust, in three different localities near Edinburgh, which I have deduced from the observations on underground temperature instituted by Principal Forbes there, I find that if the supposed transit through a hotter region of space tool; place between 1250 and 5000 years ago, the temperature of that supposed region must have been from 25° to 50° Fahr. above the present mean temperature of the earth’s surface, to account for the present general rate of underground increase of temperature, taken as 1° Fahr. in 50 feet downwards. Human history negatives this supposition. Again, geologists and astronomers will, I presume, admit that the earth cannot, 20,000 years ago, have been in a region of space 100° Fahr. warmer than its present surface. But if the transition from a hot region to a cool region supposed by Poisson took place more than 20,000 years ago, the excess of temperature must have been more than 100° Fahr., and must therefore have destroyed animal and vegetable life. Hence, the farther back and the hotter we can suppose Poisson’s hot region, the better for the geologists who require the longest periods; but the best for their view is Leibnitz’s theory, which simply supposes the earth to have been at one time an incandescent liquid, without explaining how it got into that state. If we suppose the temperature of melting rock to be about 10,000° Fahr. (an extremely high estimate), the consolidation may have taken place 200,000,000 years ago. Or, if we suppose the temperature of melting rock to be 7000° Fahr. (which is more nearly what it is generally assumed to be), we may suppose the consolidation to have taken place 98,000,000 years ago.

11. These estimates are founded on the Fourier solution demonstrated below. The greatest variation we have to make on them, to take into account the differences in the ratios of conductivities to specific heats of the three Edinburgh rocks, is to reduce them to nearly half, or to increase them by rather more than half. A reduction of the Greenwich underground observations recently communicated to me by Professor Everett of Windsor, Nova Scotia [now, 1889, of Queen’s College, Belfast], gives for the Greenwich rocks a quality intermediate between those of the Edinburgh rocks. But we are very ignorant as to the effects of high temperatures in altering the conductivities and specific heats of rocks, and as to their latent heat of fusions. We must, therefore, allow very wide limits in such an estimate as I have attempted to make; but I think we may with much probability say that the consolidation cannot have taken place less than 20,000,000 years ago, or we should have more underground heat than we actually have, nor more than 400,000,000 years ago, or we should not have so much as the least observed underground increment of temperature. That is to say, I conclude that Leibnitz’s epoch of emergence of the consistentior status was probably between those dates.

12. The mathematical theory on which these estimates are founded is very simple, being in fact merely an application of one of Fourier’s elementary solutions to the problem of finding at any time the rate of variation of temperature from point to point, and the actual temperature at any point, in a solid extending to infinity in all directions, on the supposition that at an initial epoch the temperature has had two different constant values on the two sides of a certain infinite plane. The solution for the two required elements is as follows:—

[Sections 12-23, with equations and chart, can be read in PDF form from the French National Library (starting at page 301).]

......

24. How the temperature of solidification, for any pressure, may be related to the corresponding temperature of fluid convective equilibrium, it is impossible to say, without knowledge, which we do not yet possess, regarding the expansion with heat, and the specific heat of the fluid, and the change of volume, and the latent heat developed in the transition from fluid to solid.

25. For instance, supposing, as is most probably true, both that the liquid contracts in cooling towards its freezing-point, and that it contracts in freezing, we cannot tell, without definite numerical data regarding those elements, whether the elevation of the temperature of solidification, or of the actual temperature of a portion of the fluid given just above its freezing-point, produced by a given application of pressure, is the greater. If the former is greater than the latter, solidification would commence at the bottom, or at the center, if there is no solid nucleus to begin with, and would proceed outwards, and there could be no complete permanent incrustation all round the surface till the whole globe is solid, with, possibly, the exception of irregular, comparatively small spaces of liquid.

26. If, on the contrary, the elevation of temperature, produced by an application of pressure to a given portion of the fluid, is greater than the elevation of the freezing temperature produced by the same amount of pressure, the superficial layer of the fluid would be the first to reach its freezing-point, and the first actually to freeze.

27. But if, according to the second supposition of §22 above, the liquid expanded in cooling near its freezing point, the solid would probably likewise be of less specific gravity than the liquid at its freezing-point. Hence the surface would crust over permanently with a crust of solid, constantly increasing inwards by the freezing of the interior fluid in consequence of heat conducted out through the crust. The condition most commonly assumed by geologists would thus be produced.

28. But Bischof’s experiments, upon the validity of which, so far as I am aware, no doubt has ever been thrown, show that melted granite, slate, and trachyte, all contracted by something about 20 per cent. in freezing. We ought, indeed, to have more experiments on this most important point, both to verify Bischof’s results on rocks, and to learn how the case is with iron and other unoxydised metals. In the meantime we must assume it as probable that the melted substance of the earth did really contract by a very considerable amount in becoming solid.

29. Hence, if according to any relations whatever among the complicated physical circumstances concerned, freezing did really commence at the surface, either all round or in any part, before the whole globe had become solid, the sollidified superficial layer must have broken up and sunk to the bottom, or to the centre, before it could have attained a sufficient thickness to rest stably on the lighter liquid below. It is quite clear, indeed, that if at any time the earth were in the condition of a thin solid shell of, let us suppose 50 feet or 100 feet thick of granite, enclosing a continuous melted mass of 20 per cent. less specific gravity in its upper parts, where the pressure is small, this condition cannot have lasted many minutes. The rigidity of a solid shell of superficial extent, so vast in comparison with its thickness, must be as nothing, and the slightest disturbance must cause some part to bend down, crack, and allow the liquid to run out over the whole solid. The crust itself must in consequence become shattered into fragments, which must all sink to the bottom, or to meet in the centre and form a nucleus there if there is none to begin with.

30. It is, however, scarcely possible, that any such continuous crust can ever have formed all over the melted surface at one time, and afterwards have fallen in. The mode of solidification conjectured in §25, seems on the whole the most consistent with what we know of the physical properties of the matter concerned. So far as regards the result, it agrees, I believe, with the view adopted as the most probable by Mr. Hopkins. [x1] But whether from the condition being rather that described in §26, which seems also possible, for the whole or for some parts of the heterogeneous substance of the earth, or from the viscidity as of mortar, which necessarily supervenes in a melted fluid, composed of ingredients becoming, as the whole cools, separated by crystallising at different temperatures before the solidification is perfect, and which we actually see in lava from modern volcanoes; it is probable that when the whole globe, or some very thick superficial layer of it, still liquid or viscid, has cooled down to near its temperature of perfect solidification, incrustation at the surface must commence.

31. It is probable that crust may thus form over wide extents of surface, and may be temporarily buoyed up by the vesicular character It may have retained from the ebullition of the liquid in some places, or, at all events, it may be held up by the viscidity of the liquid; until it has acquired some considerable thickness sufficient to allow gravity to manifest its claim, and sink the heavier solid below the lighter liquid. This process must go on until the sunk portions of crust build up from the bottom a sufficiently close ribbed solid skeleton or frame, to allow fresh incrustations to remain bridging across the now small areas of lava pools or lakes.

32. In the honey-combed solid and liquid mass thus formed, there must be a continual tendency for the liquid, in consequence of its less specific gravity, to work its way up; whether by masses of solid falling from the roof of vesicles or tunnels, and causing earthquake shocks, or by the roof breaking quite through when very thin, so as to cause two such hollows to unite, or the liquid of any of them to flow out freely over the outer surface of the earth; or by gradual subsidence of the solid, owing to the thermodynamic melting, which portions of it, under intense stress, must experience, according to views recently published by my brother, Professor James Thomson. [x2] The results which must follow from this tendency seem sufficiently great and various to account for all that we see at present, and all that we learn from geological investigation, of earthquakes, of upheavals and subsidences of solid, and of eruptions of melted rock.

33. These conclusions, drawn solely from a consideration of the necessary order of cooling and consolidation, according to Bischof’s result as to the relative specific gravities of solid and of melted rock, are in perfect accordance with what I have recently demonstrated [x3] regarding the present condition of the earth’s interior,—that it is not, as commonly supposed, all liquid within a thin solid crust of from 30 to 100 miles thick, but that it is on the whole more rigid certainly than a continuous solid globe of glass of the same diameter, and probably than one of steel.


Footnotes