contained within the mantle Temperature: 1000-3700 degree Celsius Composition: Fe, Mg, Al, Si ,O
Core OBJECTIVES:
Explain why earths interior is
hot
The deepest layer is a solid
iron ball
Mantle
largest layer of the earth
composed of very hot dense rock the outside hardened and formed a crust Radioactive isotopes like Potassium 40, Uranium 238,
composed of two layers:
a.) outer core -temperature: 4000-5000 degree Celsius Composition: mostly iron plus substantial amounts of sulfur and nickel b.) inner core -temperature: 5000-7000 degree Celsius -The iron is not pure- it contains sulfur and nickel, plus smaller amount of other elements -Although this inner core is white hot, the pressure is so high the iron cannot melt.
Inside the earth
The Earth's interior is composed
of four layers, three solid and one liquidnot magma but molten metal, nearly as hot as the surface of the sun.
center of the earth
generates earths magnetic
field
Four Radioactive isotopes
responsible for radiogenic heat:
Uranium-238
Uranium- 235
Thorium- 232
Potassium- 40
Uranium- element that produces
nuclear energy. Undergoes radioactive decay to produce heat in the Earth.
Heat production -
Occurs in the earths lower
mantle The effect is like a heat blanket wrapped around the planet which adds heat and further aids in trapping heat inside the planet
3 main sources of the heat:
1.) Planetary Accretion Primordial Heat- heat from when planet formed, which has not yet been lost Earths heat is leftover from when gravity first condensed a planet from the cloud of hot
gasses and particles in preEarth space
2.) Frictional Heating -caused by denser core material sinking to the center of the planet 3.) Radioactive Decay -process by which Earth makes heat -many of the rocks in the Earths crust and interior undergo this process -this process produces subatomic particles that zip away, and later collide with surrounding material inside the earth. Their energy of motion is converted to heat
sinking and repeating the
cycle again. Latent Heat
Arises from the core
Just as freeing water turns to
ice that liquid metal is turning solid and adding volume in the process.
Heat released by this
expansion is seeping into the mantle. Processes in the Mantle
Convection current- caused
by the very hot material at the deepest part of the mantle rising, then cooling,
Subduction- action in plate
tectonics of the edge of one crustal plate descending below the edge of the other.