Social Studies 104 (Geography 2)

Course Facilitator: Aizel Castro

The Structure of the Earth

The Earth is made up of 3 main layers:
The Earth’s Layers the Earth is composed of four different layers.
1. The crust
is the layer that you live on, and it is the most widely studied and understood.
2. The mantle
is much hotter and has the ability to flow.
3. The outer core and inner core
are even hotter with pressures so great you would be squeezed into a ball smaller than a
marble if you were able to go to the center of the Earth
The Layers of the Earth
CRUST
The uppermost portion of the Lithosphere - Mainly composed of different Rocks and
Minerals - It is relatively Rigid and Brittle and resist deformation instead of flowing.
Types of Crust
Continental Crust
thick, less dense than oceanic crust and mostly old - about 25 miles (32 kilometers) thick
under the continents -Is mostly composed of GRANITE.
Oceanic Crust
thin, dense - sinks under continental crust and young - is only about 3-5 miles (8
kilometers) thick under the oceans - is mostly composed of BASALT
The Crustal Plates -the crust of the Earth is broken into many pieces called Plates.
MANTLE
The Mantle is the largest layer of the Earth at about 3000 km thick. -Composed of hot,
iron – rich Silicate rocks -It behaves like “plastic”, it responds in semi-fluid manner -The
middle mantle is composed of very hot dense rock that flows like asphalt under a heavy
weight.
The Upper portion of the Mantle, which extends from crust to mantle boundary down to a
depth of about 350 km, has two zones, the lower part of the upper mantle is called the
ASTHENOSPHERE.
The Asthenosphere
The semi-rigid part of the middle mantle that flows like hot asphalt under a heavy weight.
The lithosphere “floats” on the asthenosphere
How does the Mantle (Asthenosphere) affects the Crust?
The middle mantle "flows" because of convection currents. Convection currents are
caused by the very hot material at the deepest part of the mantle rising, then cooling and
sinking again --repeating this cycle over and over.
Plate Movement
“Plates” move around because of the underlying hot mantle convection cells These are
kept semi liquid by naturally occurring radioactivity.
THE OUTER CORE THE CORE OF THE EARTH
is like a ball of very hot metals.
The Outer core
is so hot that the metals in it are all in the liquid state. The outer core is composed of the
melted metals of nickel and iron.
The Inner Core
The inner core of the Earth has temperatures and pressures so great that the metals are
squeezed together and are not able to move about like a liquid, but are forced to vibrate in
place like a solid.

Prepared by: Stefanie Villegas