Earth's Interior
Earthrise, Apollo 8, 1968
Earth from Apollo 17, 1972
71% water, 29% continents
The Earth - Surface and Interior
Basic Data
Diameter 12,756 km (equator)
Mass 6 x 1024 kg
Density 5.5 g/cm3
5500 kg/m3
Escape velocity 11.2 km/s
Temp -130 °F to 140 °F
183K to 333K
Albedo 0.31
= fraction of incoming sunlight that a planet
reflects
Densities of typical surface rocks:
≈ 3000 kg/m3
Average density of Earth as a whole (its
mass/volume):
≈ 5500 kg/m3
⇒ Interior must be much denser than the
crust!
How can we probe the interior?
Seismology
• Study of earthquakes and seismic waves
that move through and around the Earth
• Primary and Secondary waves move
through the Earth. Love and Rayleigh
waves move around surface.
• P waves – “primary”, pressure or longitudinal.
Fastest waves. Can pass through liquid.
• S waves – “secondary”, shear or transverse.
Cannot travel far in liquid
7
• Love waves - surface waves moving ground
side-to-side
• Rayleigh waves - surface waves rolling the
ground (up-down, back-forward)
8
Refraction of seismic waves
Also get
reflected
stiffer rock wave
component
stiffer rock at a sharp
boundary, angle
of incidence =
angle of reflection
9
P and S waves measured around the surface reveal interior structure
⇒ The Earth must have a
liquid core! Also fairly
sharp density increase
when you hit the core.
Later, faint P waves found
in part of shadow zone –
solid inner core inferred
10
Layered structure of interior:
1. central very dense core of almost pure
iron
2. surrounded by mantle of dense, iron-rich
minerals (also magnesium, silicon)
3. surrounded by crust of relatively light
silicon-rich minerals. (You are here.)
Earth is differentiated.
Young Earth must have been molten, so denser
materials like iron sank to center, while less-dense
minerals rose toward surface.
Differentiation seen in rocky bodies throughout the Solar System!
Note: mantle is solid, but upper levels are “plastic”,
acts like a very thick, or viscous fluid. Can flow slowly.
Yellow curve is temperature,
red curve is melting point of
Earth’s material at these
levels, and depends on
pressure. Pressure increases
with increasing depth.
Plate tectonics
Plates 10-50 km thick, extend Plate motion ~ a few cm/year. Directly
into upper mantle measurable
15
Plate tectonics
Plate motion ~ a few cm/year
Other indications of tectonic motions
• Shapes of plates seem to fit with each other
• Fossils indicate earlier joining of continents
• Volcanic, seismic and geothermal activity
17
Plate tectonics
• Solid plates float on plastic upper mantle
• Driven by convection currents. Interior is
still hot!
Lithosphere is rigid layer of crust
Asthenosphere is flowing, soft and top of mantle
upper layer of the mantle
Why is Earth so hot?
Origin of internal heat driving
plate tectonics
Inner Earth is hot, and heat flows from hotter to
cooler regions.
1. Original heat of colliding planetesimals which
formed Earth - Earth hasn't cooled off
completely.
2. Radioactive decay of elements in Earth, such as
uranium, thorium and potassium.
Continental drift
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/anim1.html
21
Where plates separate, get
rift.
Most rifts zones are in Mid-Atlantic Ridge is an
oceans. (Though not all – oceanic rift
Rio Grande rift!)
New rock forms as lava
seeps up from Earth’s
interior.
Where continental
plates collide head-on,
mountains are built.
Here, the Indian plate
and Eurasian plate are
colliding to form the
Himalayas.
Where one plate slides
underneath another,
(called a subduction
zone) volcanoes are
common - here, on
boundary of
Pacific and Eurasian
plates.
Where one plate goes
under, material is
“recycled” back into
the mantle.
Also, plates can slide past each other. Example:
North American and Pacific plates are carrying
Los Angeles and San Francisco toward each other.
Will be “twin cities” in about 25 million years!
Rate of plate movement: a few cm per year
Source of strong near-surface earthquakes (eg.
1906 San Francisco)
Can find hot spots located
in the middle of the plates:
Plumes of magma from
plate/mantle transition
wells up.
Hot spot fixed => chain of
volcanoes
Example: Hawaii. Picture
from space shuttle
Discovery, 1988
Loihi volcano rises 3000m above the sea floor, though
not above sea level.
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/
The dynamic Earth
• Surface is shaped and reshaped over billions
of years (plate tectonics, wind, erosion)
• Most of the surface is young (10-100 Myr)
• Active today (interior still molten and hot,
from formation and from radioactive decay)
• Young surface => not many craters
Impact craters exist but are wiped out by wind and water erosion
and plate tectonics. This is not a typical landscape on Earth!
Meteor Crater, AZ
31
A consequence of the Earth’s
partially molten metal interior, plus
the Earth’s rotation:
The Earth has a magnetic field
Why? Electrically charged particles
in motion produce a magnetic field.
Electric currents flow in liquid metal
outer core.
Magnetic field around Earth has dipole shape.
A compass needle points toward north magnetic pole, not true
geographic North Pole – tilted by 11.5°.
Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the charged
particles from the Sun (solar wind) – flow of
mostly protons and electrons.
The Earth’s
Magnetosphere
– A Good Thing
Some charged
particles get
trapped in the
Van Allen belts.
Q: What is true
shape of Van
Allen belts?
If charged particles leak through magnetic
field, they can hit upper atmosphere. Mostly
at poles.
⇒ Produce northern lights (aurora borealis)
or southern lights (aurora australis).
Energetic charged particles excite atoms in
the upper atmosphere, which emit light as
electrons drop back toward ground state
Question: what kind of spectrum?
Aurora borealis from space:
UV image
spacecraft
Space Shuttle photo:
Aurora from ISS
Aurora over clouds
From Alaska:
Aurora and volcano in Iceland
Earth's surface
• 71% water
• Rocks – solids containing one or more minerals.
Example 1: feldspar (potassium, aluminum, silicon,
oxygen).
Example 2: granite contains feldspar and quartz
(mineral containing silicon and oxygen).
Geologic processes create three major categories of
rocks:
Igneous: rock cooled from molten state. Basalt,
mixture of feldspar and iron-rich minerals, is most
common. Ocean floor is mostly basalt.
Sedimentary: compressed layers of sand or soil,
produced by wind, water, or ice, cemented by
other minerals. Examples: sandstone (shown),
limestone. Often created on ocean floors.
These sedimentary rocks
are in the Rockies. How
did they get there???
Metamorphic: produced when igneous or
sedimentary rocks are buried beneath surface,
and subjected to great heat and pressure.
Examples: marble, schist. Tectonic activity
sometimes lifts up material from deep within
the crust. Often found in mountain ranges.
Notes
• Interested in geology? This Dynamic Earth
(Kious & Tilling)
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.html
This is the distribution of waves
you will see, paths curve where
there are changes in density and
composition (refract)
⇒ The Earth must have a liquid
core!
[Inner core is solid, though, due to
enormous pressure.]
