LITHOSPHERE

What is Lithosphere?
The lithosphere is the rigid, outermost shell on Earth. It is composed of the crust and the
portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of thousands of years or
greater. The outermost shell of a rocky planet, the crust, is defined on the basis of its chemistry
and mineralogy.

This includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, which constitute the hard and rigid outer
layer of the Earth. The uppermost part of the lithosphere that chemically reacts to the
atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere through the soil-forming process is called the
pedosphere.
Lithosphere Composition

The earth’s crust is not a homogeneous substance; it has different layers of rocks
including sedimentary rocks on top, granitic and metamorphic rocks in the middle, and basaltic
rocks on the bottom.

The earth’s crust also consists of several large dynamic tectonic plates. These tectonic plates
move slowly but continuously at an average rate of around 10 cm. Considering this, there was
no Atlantic Ocean, and North America and Europe together were one continent 180 million
years ago. The Atlantic Ocean came into being because of the drifting apart from the Eurasian
and North America plates.
Types of Lithospheres
There are two types of lithospheres:

 Oceanic: Which is associated with oceanic crust and exists in the ocean basins.
 Continental: This is associated with continental crust.