What is the Earth made of?
No one has dug deep down enough to be sure, but scientists think the Earth is made up of 4 layers of rock and metal. The outer one is a layer of solid rock called the crust. Below it we find the mantle, this is solid at the top, but melts down as we go deeper because of the heat. Next is what we call the outer core and it is made up of hot liquid metal. At the center we find the inner core, which is solid metal. Scientists have worked this out by studying earthquakes. Life on Earth only exists within the top layers of the crust. No one can dig a tunnel to the other side of the Earth because it is very hot inside. The temperature inside the core is over 9000o F (5000o C). document.write(”); Click Here! Under the continents the Earths crust is almost 40km (25 miles) thick. Under the oceans it is only 8km (5 miles) thick. The hard top layers of the crust are split into large pieces, called plates. These plates have been moving very slowly for millions of years, and have moved the contine
The earth is made of many things, but basically it’s a huge ball of rock. The very top layer of the Earth is the crust which is about 3 3/4 miles thick beneath the oceans. The earth’s crust is made up of huge slabs called tectonic plates. Beneath the crust is the earth’s mantle which goes almost halfway down to the center of the earth. Beneath the mantle is the outer core, which contains hot liquid rock. It is made of liquid iron and nickel The center of the earth is called the inner core which is a huge ball of hot but solid rock. It is made of solid iron and nickel. The temperature at the earth’s center is believed to be about 8100 degrees F. or 4500 degrees C.
CAN DESCRIBE DIFFERENT WAYS * ELEMENTS: Mostly: oxygen O, Silicon Si, Iron Fe, Magnesium Mg, Aluminum Al, Calcium Ca, Sodium Na, Potassium K MINERALS: CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS WITH DIFFERENT ATOMIC STRUCTURES SAME CHEMICAL COMPOSITION CAN EXIST IN DIFFERENT STRUCTURES OR “PHASES” DEPENDING ON TEMPERATURE AND PRESSURE ROCKS: ASSEMBLAGES OF MINERALS DIFFERENT ROCKS RESULT FROM DIFFERENT TECTONIC SETTINGS (volcanoes, etc) AND THUS REFLECT HOW EARTH EVOLVES _______________________________________________ * Humans can be viewed as elements (mostly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen); molecules (DNA, protein, etc); or organs (skin, bones, etc.) At organ level these aren’t much different from many other species (bears, etc) – at molecular level they aren’t even much different from worms, etc…
The Earth is a big ball, or sphere, made mostly of rock. Inside the earth the rock is melted, but the outside cover is hard rock. Less than one-third of the earth’s surface is land and more than two-thirds are water. To go into a little more detail, the outside of the Earth is a crust of rock about 10 to 30 miles thick. The high parts of this crust are the continents and the low parts of it hold the waters of the oceans and the great inland seas and lakes. The crust of the Earth has two layers. The upper layer, which makes the continents, is made of granite. Under the layer of granite is a thick layer of very hard rock called basalt. Scientists believe that at the core of the Earth is a huge ball of molten iron, with a diameter of around 4,000 miles.
