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Earth’s Subsystem
Earth has a complex system comprising four
subsystem-geosphere, hydrosphere,
atmosphere, and biosphere-that interact to
carry out many different natural processes.
These natural processes (physical, chemical, and
biological) are made possible because of the
composition and nature of Earth’s subsystem.
The Geosphere
• The geosphere is the portion of Earth that
includes the interior structure, rocks and
minerals, landforms, and physical processes
on land that shape Earth surface. All the
continents and the ocean floor are also
considered parts of the geosphere.
• Essentially, this is the solid ground of Earth.
Scientist that study this part of Earth are called
geologist. It should be clear that the term
geosphere covers all of the solid part of Earth,
form its surface up to the deeper depth of the
core, as opposed to lithosphere that covers
only the crust.
 Earth’s internal structure
The interior structure of Earth is composed of
different layers, each with unique features. As a
review, there are three main layers: crust,
mantle, and core. You see only the surface of the
crust because this is the part of the Earth where
we live.
• The different layers vary in density, mineral
composition, temperature, and thickness.
Modern technology has allowed the
identification of materials in the interior of
Earth through seismic waves. As a basic
concept, there are two types of waves
traveling through Earth: the p-waves, which
can travel fast through solids and liquid, and s-
wave, which travel slower than p-waves and
can travel only through solids.
• The seismologists and volcanologists
incessantly study the components of Earth
through these seismic waves. The succeeding
discussions on the layers of the Earth show
new findings obtained from the study of
seismic waves.
Crust
• The crust consist of a 5 to 70 km thick layer of
oceanic crust and continental crust. The
continental crust is thicker than the oceanic crust.
Most of the crust is composed of eight elements
namely, oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium,
sodium, potassium and magnesium. These are the
same elements that we process to produce things
we commonly use today, such as glass (SiO2),
concrete (CaCO3) and steel..
 Mohorovicic discontinuity
• Just above the upper mantle and still part of the
crust is the Mohorovicic discontinuity or simply the
Moho. This layer was discovered by Croatian
seismologist Andrija Mohorovicic (1857-1936) in
1909, while studying the seismic waves in an
Earthquake in Croatia.
• The velocity of the seismic waves behave differently
as they traveled through this layer before the mantle
(which is why it was termed as “discontinuity”). The
Moho is now recognized as the transition boundary
that divides the crust from the mantle.
Mantle
• Below the crust is the mantle. However,
scientists through recent discoveries added a
sublayer of the mantle, known as the
asthenosphere lies on the upper part of the
mantle and is directly below the crust.
• The extreme temperature and pressure in the
asthenosphere cause the rock to become
ductile and thus move like liquid.
• The flow of semimolten rocks in some parts of
the brittle crust cause it to break. Some rigid
parts of the crust, on the other hand, just float
or move about slowly on this liquidlike,
supporting the movement of plates as
described in the plate tectonics theory.
• Mantle is made up of silicate rocks. It is
considered to be the thickest layers of Earth. It
holds almost 84% of the volume of the Earth.
Most of it is solid, but behaves like a viscous
fluid.
• The limited time knowledge that scientist have
on the mantle is derived from the xenoliths.
These are rocks that are embedded or trapped
in rocks that come straight from a volcano.
The rocks trapped in the magma apparently
contain most of the primary rocks that
originated from the interior of the Earth.
• Hence, these are thought to be the rocks in
the mantle. Volcanologists, collect samples
from rocks coming from volcanism or from
spreading mid-oceanic ridge.
Gutenberg discontinuity
• The Gutenberg discontinuity serves as a
transitional boundary between the lower
mantle and the outer core. It was named after
its discovery by Beno Gutenberg (1889-1960).
• This boundary does not remain constant
because of the changes in heat flow. When heat
in the mantle dissipates, the molten core
gradually solidifies and shrinks, moving this
boundary deeper and deeper within Earth’s core
Core
• The core is chiefly made up of iron and nickel. The
iron in the outer is in liquid form, which is why the
outer core is known to be liquid while the inner core
is solid. Iron is particularly important because this is
the primary source of Earth’s magnetic field.
• The magnetic field extends outward to protect Earth
from solar winds by deflecting them. Without
magnetic field, the solar winds could damage Earth’s
atmosphere and all living forms on Earth.
Lehmann discontinuity
• The Lehman discontinuity was discovered in 1929
when a large earthquake occurred in New Zealand.
Danish seismologist Inge Lehman (1888-1993)
studied the shock waves and realized that these
waves had traveled some distance into the core
and then bounced off to some kind of boundary.
With this distinct of the waves, it was accepted
that there indeed lies a layer that separate the
solid inner core form the liquid encounter