Asthenosphere: The Asthenosphere is the second physical layer of the Earth, it lies underneath the Lithosphere. The Asthenosphere is made up of matter that that is in the molton or semi-molton state.The average temperature is between 1400 degrees celsius and 3000 degrees celsius. It is 60-155 miles thick. The Asthenosphere is composed mostly of iron and magnesium silicates. It is plastic-like, which allows the Lithosphere to slide across it. The Asthenosphere is a layer of the Mantle composed of slowly-moving solid rock.
2. Ice Caps on the North and South Poles: The Polar Ice Caps are gigantic sheets of ice. They don’t melt seasonally, so they are frozen year-round. The Polar Ice Caps are found in the north and south poles. They can be anywhere
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Convection Currents on the Mantle: The plates on the Mantle appear to “float”. Geologists believe this occurs because of convection currents. These currents are caused by the hot material at the mantle’s bottom rising, cooling, and sinking again. The material would then heat up and the cycle would begin again. It is believed that the Earth’s Crust flows with the currents.
5. Mantle: The Mantle is the middle layer of the Earth. The average temperature is about 1000 degrees celsius. The Earth’s Mantle is made up of iron, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, oxygen, and silicate compounds. The Mantle is about 1800 miles thick. It is much denser than the Crust. The Earth’s Mantle is mostly composed of silicate rocks, rich in iron and magnesium.
6. Outer Core: The Outer Core is the layer outside of the inner-most part of the Earth, the Inner Core. The average temperature of the Outer Core is 3700 degrees celsius. It is about 1400 miles thick. The Earth’s Outer Core is made up of iron, sulphur, oxygen, and molton. It is a liquid
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Lithosphere: The Lithosphere is the top physical layer of Earth. It is composed of 95% igneous rock, 4% shale, 0.75% sandstone, and 0.25% limestone. The Lithosphere is also made up of things such as Quartz and Alkali Feldspar. It is about 50 kilometers thick. The Lithosphere “slides” over the Asthenosphere. The Lithosphere has a temperature of about 300-500 degrees celsius. It is made up of the Crust and the upper portion of the Mantle.
8. Inner Core: The Inner Core is the inner-most layer of the Earth. It is about 800 miles thick. The Inner Core is made up mostly of iron. The temperature of the Earth’s Inner Core is said to be 6000 degrees celsius, the same temperature as the surface of the sun. It is a solid layer due to the amount of pressure it receives from the layers atop it.
9. Oceanic Crust: The Earth’s Oceanic Crust is one of the two parts of the Crust and lies underneath the ocean floor and is made up mostly of Basalt Rock, a type of igneous rock. This rock is more than 50% composed of silicon oxygen 2. It is about 4 miles thick. The Oceanic Crust has a temperature of about 530 degrees
3. Identify the layers of the Earth shown in the diagram to the right. (S6E5a)
Tarbuck E., Lutgens F., Tasa D., 2014, An Introduction to Physical Geology, 5th Ed, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Seismic studies show that the mid-oceanic ridges experience an elevated number of earthquakes. All these observations indicate intense geological activity at the mid-oceanic ridges. Periodically, the Earth's magnetic field reverses. New rock formed from magma records the orientation of Earth's magnetic field at the time the magma cools. Study of the sea floor with magnetometers revealed "stripes" of alternating magnetisation parallel to the mid-oceanic ridges.
in circumference. The outer few miles of lithosphere is made up of rock called crust.
The traditional theory about the Earth’s core suggest that the core of the Earth is a solid nickel and iron sphere surrounded by a fluid metallic magma. The rotation of the Earth is believed to create massive columns of magma to swirl in the core. These columns are believed to produce the Earth’s magnetic field. This theory is based on the assumption that the Earth’s core is cooling and will eventually cool completely and cease to produce energy and a magnetic field. However, this theory does not answer many ongoing mysteries about the Earth, such as why the Earth’s magnetic field periodically shuts down, and questions about the energy production of the Earth. It was apparent that a new theory was needed to explain the mystery of the Earth’s core.
2. Which of the following was not a source of heat for the early Earth?
The classic novel Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck has resonated with readers for generations. Steinbeck’s poignant use of literary elements highlight the negative aspects of the human condition. His use of foreshadowing, imagery, and symbolism assist in outlining these issues.
The ice caps are the most extreme climates on earth. They are located at the north and south poles. These poles are
Polar ice is sea ice created from the freezing of sea water, ice sheets and glaciers. These in turn are formed from the build up and compaction of fallen snow. Both the ice sheets and glaciers cover vast areas of the Polar Regions. This polar ice is hugely important to our globe and takes up a large part of it. Global sea-ice coverage averages about 25 million kilometers square; this is the area of the entire North America continent. The ice sheets, which cover the land, with the glaciers cover about 15 million kilometers square; this is almost 10% of the Earth’s land area, with the majority on Antarctica (Earthobservatory.nasa.gov, 2013).
Core/Interior: The Earth has three layers to it's interior, the inner core, outer core, and mantle. Of these the outer core is thought to be liquid. Like most of the terrestrial planets at birth, the Earth has been molten and undergone some differentiation allowing the heavy material which is consisting mostly of an iron, nickel, and cobalt core making it's density five and a half times the density of water.
The lithosphere is an open system, which contains all of the cold, hard, solid rock of the planet's crust (surface), the hot semi-solid rock that lies underneath the crust, the hot liquid rock near the center of the planet, and the solid iron core (center) of the planet (Answers.com). On Earth, the lithosphere comprises the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The lithosphere is about sixty miles thick (Lenkeit).
The Earth is a home for mankind, a planet sustaining life, and it is also a giant magnet! Magnets in general, no matter what type of magnet it is, have two end faces called poles. Poles are where the magnetic force is most effective. These two poles are known as the north pole and the south pole. Magnets also create a magnetic field from the particles within the magnet. The Earth resembles this same structure. The earth has a geographic north pole and a geographic south pole. Since opposites attract in magnets the south pole of the core of the earth points towards the geographic north pole of the earth and the north pole points towards the geographic south pole of the earth. The core of the earth serves the same purpose as the particles in m...
The field of geology has many different branches. Some of these areas have hardly anything in common. The one thing that they all include, though, is that each one concentrates on some part of the Earth, its makeup, or that of other planets. Mineralogy, the study of minerals above the Earth and in its crust, is different from Petrology, the st...
The concurrent convective circulations in the mantle leads to some segments of the mantle moving on top of the outer core which is very hot and molten in nature. This kind of movement in different segments occurs as tectonic plates. These tectonic plates are basically seven on the earth surface as major ones, although, several small ones exist also. The plates motions are characterized by varying velocities, this variance results to sub sequential collision of two plates (leading to formation of a mountain in a convergent boundary), drift of two plates (leading to formation of rifts in a divergent boundary), or parallel movement in a transform boundary(Webcache 3).
Earth system refers to the earths interacting physical, biological, and chemical processes. The system consists of land, oceans, atmosphere and poles. The earth system has four spheres, including the geosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere. The geosphere refers to the solid parts of the earth system, including earth’s rocky crust, mantle, and the metallic core. Within the geosphere is the lithosphere, which only refers to the uppermost layers of solid earth. The uppermost layers of solid earth are the oceanic and continental crust rocks. Just below the crust is the mantle, which is composed mostly of magnesium and iron silicate minerals. The mantle accounts for about 2/3 of the