Plate Tectonics There were two main ways scientists learned about Earth’s interior. One way scientists learned about Earth’s interior was through rock samples. Scientists drilled rocks underneath Earth’s surface, and compared them to the ones on Earth’s surface. Another way scientists learned about Earth’s interior was through seismic waves. With seismic waves, scientists study how they traveled through Earth, and their speed and path. These are the two main ways how scientists learned about Earth’s interior. Crust, Mantle, and Core Inside Earth, there are three main layers. One of the layers inside Earth is the crust. The crust is the outer layer (of the three layers), and is only 5-70 kilometers thick. This layer includes dry land and ocean floors. Another layer is the mantle. The mantle is the second layer, and is made of solid, hot rock. This layer is 3,000 kilometers thick, and has three layers. Finally, the last layer is the core. The …show more content…
One way Alfred Wegener proved his theory of continental drift was through land features. He realized that the coal fields, mountain ranges, and continents matched, and he attempted to put the continents together (like a puzzle). The second way Wegener proved his theory was through fossils. He found three fossils called Glossopteris (a fern like plant), Mesosaurus, and Lystrosaurus. Glossopteris was found in rocks in Africa, South America, Australia, India, and Antarctica, while Mesosaurus and Lystrosaurus were found on continents separated by oceans. Finally, the third way Wegener proved his theory continental drift was through climate zone. Wegener looked at climates from the past, and had found tropical plants living in Spitsbergen (an island in the arctic). He assumed that a island in the arctic, used to have a warm climate. In conclusion, the three ways Wegener proved his theory continental drift was through land features, fossils, and climate
The Mantle makes up 70% of the Earth’s mass and is mostly solid but capable of flow, causing changes in the Earth’s surface.
Our understanding of the Earth’s interior has been a focus for scientific study for multiple decades, recognised in the early 1900’s. Throughout the years, scientists have debated and quarreled over their findings, observations and theories for the most correct model of the composition and internal structure of the Earth.
in circumference. The outer few miles of lithosphere is made up of rock called crust.
One of these is infrared satellite imagery. This is explained in paragraph 2-"Infrared satellite imagery can locate objects on the ground less than two feet wide. Infrared light also can penetrate about a foot below the surface and detect differences in the soil." At first, this might seem like a great idea. But it has plenty of cons. In paragraph 4, it is explained that infrared satellite imagery needs manual help in order to reveal any discoveries, and that takes lots of time. It goes on in paragraph 6, stating that infrared cannot be used in jungles, which is exactly where many ancient civilizations hide, buried beneath the tree canopies. It also doesn't scan very deep, so anything over a foot below the surface will remain undescoverd. Another technique is brought up in paragraph 11, called Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). "The GPR sent pulses of microwave energy underground, where it bounced off buried objects. They used state of the art software to analyze the radar echoes and constructed a 3D map," (Paragraph 11). Once again, this technology has serious negatives. Scientists had to drag this bulky lawnmover-like machine in blazing heat across the jungle floor (paragraph 11). This machine is great for a workout, but not it you want to discover lost civilizations
Charles Lyell Charles Lyell was a British lawyer and one of the smartest geologists known at his time. He was known as the author of the Principles of Geology, which helped popularize the theories and concepts of uniformitarianism. The Principles of Geology was the first book written by Lyell and explained the changes in the earth’s surface. He used the research and information in the book as his proof to determine that the earth was over 6,000 years old. The central argument in his book was “the present is the key to the past”, this meant that to find out what happened in the past you had to look at what was happening now.
For example when he writes about how the axes of each continent affects how well ideas and domesticated crops and animals flow or spread through the continent. This discussion had made lots of sense for me and is yet another idea that supports his theory. "At the one extreme was its rapid spread along east-west axes: from Southwest Asia both west to Europe and Egypt and east to the Indus Valley (at an average rate of about 0.7 miles per year); At the opposite extreme was its slow spread along north-south axes: at less than 0.5 miles per year, from Mexico northward to the U.S. Southwest; at less than 0.3 miles per year, " This example shows how east to west axes allow for a faster diffusion of crops and animals. But the north to south is very slow compared to the other. This helps explain why Eurasia had developed the quickest and the America and Africa lagged behind." For example, Portugal, northern Iran, and Japan, all located at about the same latitude but lying successively 4,000 miles east or west of each other, are more similar to each other in climate than each is to a location lying even a mere 1,000 miles due south." This line tells us why Eurasia was able to develop so fast. That is because it has an east to west axes which means animals and crops can more wildly thought the same land due to there being large amounts of land with the same latitude. While the Americas
7. Refer to Figure 22-6. What name is given to the core of the modern-day North American continent that formed in the Proterozoic?
He just had a theory, but know facts. When coming up with this idea of plate tectonics, he used many different tools. He used fossils, different rock types, and a bunch of climatic evidence. Henry hess came up with the idea of seafloor spreading( the oceanic plates spreading and moving
Now, to really be able to contrast plate tectonic theories, you need to understand that the earth is made up of layers.
The Inner Core is made up mostly of iron. The temperature of the Earth’s Inner Core is said to be 6000 degrees celsius, the same temperature as the surface of the sun. It is a solid layer due to the amount of pressure it receives from the layers atop it. 9. Oceanic Crust: The Earth’s Oceanic Crust is one of the two parts of the Crust and lies underneath the ocean floor and is made up mostly of Basalt Rock, a type of igneous rock.
The outer core supposedly stopped revolving. This was because humans had interfered with the core, or the planet. It is highly unlikely that we, humans, could completely halt the rotation of a gigantic mass of fluid that is millions of kilometers inside the Earth. Empty space was found inside the mantle. From all the research done on the Earth and its interior, it is commonly known that the deeper into the earth, the more pressure.
Core/Interior: The Earth has three layers to it's interior, the inner core, outer core, and mantle. Of these the outer core is thought to be liquid. Like most of the terrestrial planets at birth, the Earth has been molten and undergone some differentiation allowing the heavy material which is consisting mostly of an iron, nickel, and cobalt core making it's density five and a half times the density of water.
The earth subsystem, often called the geosphere, can be considered as all the parts that make up the mass of the earth. The earth has three main layers, the core, the mantle, and the crust. However, the lithosphere is just the upper part of the geosphere, the crust and the top portion of the mantle. These parts contribute to the active plate tectonics. The theory of plate tectonics is that the crust of the earth is divided into separate solid plates that move independently on top of the mantle. The two major processes of plate tectonics are spreading and subduction. This idea was discovered by Alfred Wegner in order to support his idea that the earth originally had one large common continent, Pangaea, before drifting into the several continents we have today.
Earth system refers to the earths interacting physical, biological, and chemical processes. The system consists of land, oceans, atmosphere and poles. The earth system has four spheres, including the geosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere. The geosphere refers to the solid parts of the earth system, including earth’s rocky crust, mantle, and the metallic core. Within the geosphere is the lithosphere, which only refers to the uppermost layers of solid earth. The uppermost layers of solid earth are the oceanic and continental crust rocks. Just below the crust is the mantle, which is composed mostly of magnesium and iron silicate minerals. The mantle accounts for about 2/3 of the
The lithosphere is an open system, which contains all of the cold, hard, solid rock of the planet's crust (surface), the hot semi-solid rock that lies underneath the crust, the hot liquid rock near the center of the planet, and the solid iron core (center) of the planet (Answers.com). On Earth, the lithosphere comprises the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The lithosphere is about sixty miles thick (Lenkeit).