1 / 6

The Inner Earth

The Inner Earth. http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/4_1_4_0.html. The Earth’s Layers.

zenia
Download Presentation

The Inner Earth

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Inner Earth http://www.mnh.si.edu/earth/text/4_1_4_0.html

  2. The Earth’s Layers • The inner Earth is layered. Beneath its familiar surface and thin crust lie a rocky mantle and iron core.The inner Earth is hot. Its core is hotter than the surface of the Sun. The escape of this inner heat to cold outer space causes the tectonic plates to move. The inner Earth flows and churns. In the mantle, flowing rocks help move the plates above them. In the outer core, a churning dynamo of liquid iron generates Earth's magnetic field.

  3. During Earth’s first 100 million years, ever-larger particles in the infant Solar System collided and stuck together — generating tremendous heat. • Earth expanded, then melted completely, and layers began to form. • Dense molten iron sank and created the core. • Lighter silicate liquid rose and cooled, forming the mantle. • Later, partial melting of the mantle produced the crust — a process that continues today.

  4. The Crust- Earth’s Thin Skin • Relative to its size, Earth's crust is about as thin as an apple's skin. This outermost layer is composed primarily of two types of rock. • GraniteThe continental crust is mostly granite. • BasaltThe oceanic crust is mostly basalt.

  5. The Mantle- Deep and Dense • About 84 percent of Earth's volume is mantle rock. • The uppermost 100km of the mantle is rigid. This upper mantle with the crust makes up the lithosphere (the plates). • The next layer, the asthenosphere, is solid, hot, and soft. It flows much like a glacier does. • The lower mantle is extremely dense. It, too, flows.

  6. The Core – Iron Center • About 15 percent of Earth's volume is a molten iron-nickel core. • The outer core is molten and is the size of Mars. It is so hot it could be as fluid as water. Its motions create Earth's dynamic magnetic field. • The inner core is under such immense pressure that it is solid metal.

More Related