Earths Internal Structure

• The Earths four interior structures

• Theses structures are the :
• Inner core
• Outer core
• Mantle
• Crust
The Inner Core and The Outer Core
• The outer core is also made up of iron
• The inner core is one big solid ball of metal and nickel and this layer is 2300 km
made up from iron and nickel thick
• This metal ball is as hot as the suns surface
at a temperature of 6000 degrees Celsius
• The temperature here is less
compared inner core at 4400 degrees
• On earth surface normal iron and nickel Celsius
would melt below 1600 degrees Celsius
but the inner core is solid this is because of • But the outer core is liquid metal, this
the pressure from the other layers of rock is because the outer core is not as
pushing in and locking the molecules deep into the earth and so there is less
together pressure pushing in on the molecules
• The inner core is also compressed making to lock them in together which allows
it twice as heavy and twice as dense as any the metal to melt and therefore the
iron or nickel found on the surface outer core is made of liquid metal
The Mantel
• The mantel is the thickest of the layers at 2900 km thick,
covering 84% of earths volume and this layer is hot ranging
from temperatures between 1000-3700 degrees Celsius
• The green mantle is made up of silicon based rock called
peridotite, and these green crystals are olivine which are
up from magnesium, iron, silicon and oxygen
• Close to the core the pressure locks the molecules in
making the mantel rigid, we call this harder stronger zone
the mesosphere
• Close to the surface the lower pressure allows the hot
mantel to flow, we call this ductile zone the asthenosphere
• The becomes cool and breakable very close to the surface,
we call that zone the lithosphere
Tectonic plates
• Tectonic plates are pieces of the
earths lithosphere broken in
giant parts thousands of
kilometers across but over
hundreds of millions years the
earth’s continents break apart
and reform as a repeated cycle
History behind them
• In the 20th century a German geoscientist called Alfred Wegener,
noticed the that the coastlands of continents seemed to fit together
like pieces of a puzzle and fossils of the same land dwelling animals
had been found on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Therefore they
continents drifted apart, but how?
• Then in the 1950 an American geologist by the name Marie Thrap
used sonar data to map the ocean and revealed a detailed landscape
of mountains and valleys. At the center of the Atlantic she discovered
the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the see floor was being pulled apart and
magma was rising to fill the gap which explain how continents had
become separated by an ocean
Mantle convection
• Mantel convection starts deep within the earth where radioactivity is generated creating heat this heat
is warming up the earths mantel then, hotter mantel material rises towards the surface and then
spreads out into opposite directions as this material loses heat it cools becomes denser and sinks back
into the earths core
• This mantel convection is the engine behind plate tectonics but once get going two more important
driving forces kick in
• As magma rises to the surface to from new crust, this pushes the oceanic plates apart and this force is
called ridge push
• Now, as the oceanic plates move away from the divergent plate boundary it becomes cooler,
eventually, it becomes so dense that it begins sinks back into the earths mantel and this process is
called subduction
• But as it sinks it drags the plate behind it along and we call this force slab pull
• This force along with the ridge force are accelerators and once the engine is turned on they become
powerful forces that driving the movement of plates
• In the middle of oceans is where new oceanic crust is created and this zones are called constructive or
divergent boundaries
• This subduction zones are called convergent or destructive plate boundries where oceanic plates are
Types of tectonic plates
• There are two types of tectonic plates, these are:
• The oceanic plates {which make up the earths oceans floors}
• The continental plates {which make the worlds continents}
• The crust of continental plates are made up from a rock called granite and the oceanic
crust is made up of material called basalt
• There are some important differences between oceanic and continental crust:
• Continental crust is less dense than oceanic crust
• However, the continental crust is much thicker than oceanic crust. Oceanic crust is
between 5-10 km thick while continental crust can be up to 70 km thick
• Lastly continental crust is also much older than oceanic crust. The oldest oceanic crust in
the world is around 200 million years old but the oldest continental crust in the world is
4.4 billion years olds which is almost as old as the earth it self at 4.5 billion years old