What energy moves the magma inside earth, and what if stops?
Just like tomato soup that exhibits convection currents when heated on a stove, magma inside the earth is heated and rises. In addition to the original heat of the earth when it formed, the constant resupply of heat energy results from the natural radioactive decay of billions of long-lived radioactive elements in the earth’s crust. Many such elements produce a sequence of unstable elements and isotopes that will supply the interior of the earth with heat energy with no place to go, unless magma flows to the earth’s surface. The heat source will not stop for billions and billions of years but if it did the only source of heat for the earth would be the sun, as it expands into a giant red star engulfing the earth. Talk about global warming!
