Earth Flashcards
What are the layers of Earth?
It is;
1. Crust
2. Mantle
3. Outer Core
4. Inner Core
What is a Lithosphere?
The lithosphere is the outer shell of a terrestrial (refers to things related to land or the planet of earth) planet or natural satellite (astronomical body that orbits a planet).
Where is the Earth’s Lithosphere?
The Earth’s lithosphere is the crust and the upper mantle.
What is the Asthenosphere and where is it located?
The Asthenosphere is the weaker part of the upper mantle.
The Asthenosphere is located under the lithosphere.
What layer of the Earth is liquid?
The outer core, it was confirmed when the seismograph was unable to record the seismic waves because it cannot pass through the outer core.
What is the inner core made up of?
Solid Iron-nickel Alloys
What is the mantle made up of?
Semi-molten rocks called magma
What is the crust made up of?
Solid rocks and minerals
What is the most dense layer of Earth?
The most dense layer of Earth is the Inner core, because it is in the deepest part of the Earth, and the denser the object is, the lower it sinks. Because the more dense and object is, the more mass it has.
Why is the inner core solid?
Because of Pressure Freezing. It is when things go solid not because of decrease in temperature but because of extreme pressure.
What is Pressure Freezing?
When things go solid not because of decrease in temperature but because of extreme pressure.
Why is the Outer Core Liquid?
Because there is not enough pressure to keep it in solid state.
What is radioactivity?
The act of radiating radiation spontaneously
What is radiation?
Energy that comes from a source and travels through space at the speed of light.
Where does radioactivity occur?
The inner core.
What does the radioactivity in the Earth’s core cause?
Convection currents that occur in the mantle
What are Convection Currents?
Natural process of heat transfer involving the movement of energy and heat from one place to another.
The boundaries of the Earth’s layers are;
- Conorod Discontinuity
- Mohorovicic Discontinuity
- Repetti Discontinuity / Transition Zone
- Guttenberg Discontinuity
5.Lehman Discontinuity
Boundary between upper crust and lower Crust?
Conrad Discontinuity
Boundary between lower Crust and upper mantle?
Mohorovicic Discontinuity
Boundary between upper mantle and lower mantle?
Transition zone or Repitti Zone
Boundary between lower mantle and upper outer core?
Guttenberg Discontinuity
Boundary between outer core and inner core?
Lehman Discontinuity
Tectonic Plates
The sections that the lithosphere is divided Into.
Plates
The surface of the earth that is broken into large plates.
Difference between tectonic plates and plate tectonics?
Tectonic plates are different pieces of the earth’s crust that move around as thy float on top of the mantle, while plate tectonics is how this pieces move and interact with each other.
Plate Tectonics
How plates move and interact with each other.
2 types of crust
- Continental Crust
- Oceanic Crust
Continental Crust
Found under land masses
Oceanic Crust
Found under ocean floor
The 2 Layers of Crust
Upper Crust and Lower Crust
Upper Crust
Composed of Granite, only present in Continental Crust.
Lower Crust
Composed of Basalt, present in both crusts
How do we know that the outer core and inner core are composed of iron and nickel Alloy?
- The earth have a magnetic field due to the iron and nickel Alloy.
- The overall density of the earth is higher than the overall density of rocks in the crust, which suggest that the inside must be made up of something denser than rocks.
- Based on the analysis of meteorites.
