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Fluid layer composed of mostly iron and nickel between Earth's solid inner core and its mantle

Earth's outer core is a fluid layer about thick, composed of mostly iron and nickel that lies above Earth's solid inner core and below its mantle. The outer core begins approximately beneath Earth's surface at the core mantle boundary and ends beneath Earth's surface at the inner core boundary.

The outer core of Earth is liquid, unlike its inner core, which is solid. Evidence for a fluid outer core includes seismology which shows that seismic shear waves are not transmitted through the outer core. Although having a composition similar to Earth's solid inner core, the outer core remains liquid as there is not enough pressure to keep it in a solid state. Seismic inversions of body waves and normal modes constrain the radius of the outer core to be 3483 km with an uncertainty of 5 km, while that of the inner core is 1220±10 km. Estimates for the temperature of the outer core are about in its outer region and near the inner core. Modeling has shown that the outer core, because of its high temperature, is a low viscosity fluid that convects turbulently. As Earth's core cools, the liquid at the inner core boundary freezes, causing the solid inner core to grow at the expense of the outer core, at an estimated rate of 1 mm per year. This is approximately 80,000 tonnes of iron per second.

Earth's outer core cannot be entirely constituted of iron or iron nickel alloy because their densities are higher than geophysical measurements of the density of Earth's outer core. In fact, Earth's outer core is approximately 5 to 10 percent lower density than iron at Earth's core temperatures and pressures. Hence it has been proposed that light elements with low atomic numbers compose part of Earth's outer core, as the only feasible way to lower its density. the composition of light elements can be meaningfully constrained by high pressure experiments, calculations based on seismic measurements, models of Earth's accretion, and carbonaceous chondrite meteorite comparisons with bulk silicate Earth (BSE). Recent estimates are that Earth's outer core is composed of iron along with 0 to 0.26 percent hydrogen, 0.2 percent carbon, 0.8 to 5.3 percent oxygen, 0 to 4.0 percent silicon, 1.7 percent sulfur, and 5 percent nickel by weight, and the temperature of the core mantle boundary and the inner core boundary ranges from 4,137 to 4,300 K and from 5,400 to 6,300 K respectively.

Tighter constraints on the concentrations of light elements in Earth's outer core would provide a better understanding of Earth's accretion and core formation history.

Earth's magnetic field is driven by thermal convection and also by chemical convection, the exclusion of light elements from the inner core, which float upward within the fluid outer core while denser elements sink. This chemical convection releases gravitational energy that is then available to power the geodynamo that produces Earth's magnetic field. Carnot efficiencies with large uncertainties suggest that compositional and thermal convection contribute about 80 percent and 20 percent respectively to the power of Earth's geodynamo. Traditionally it was thought that prior to the formation of Earth's inner core, Earth's geodynamo was mainly driven by thermal convection. However, recent claims that the thermal conductivity of iron at core temperatures and pressures is much higher than previously thought imply that core cooling was largely by conduction not convection, limiting the ability of thermal convection to drive the geodynamo. This conundrum is known as the new "core paradox." An alternative process that could have sustained Earth's geodynamo requires Earth's core to have initially been hot enough to dissolve oxygen, magnesium, silicon, and other light elements. As the Earth's core began to cool, it would become supersaturated in these light elements that would then precipitate into the lower mantle forming oxides leading to a different variant of chemical convection.