Why does the Earth move Let’s take a look inside The Earth has three layers The outer layer is the crust That’s easy to see Under the crust is the mantle The mantle has solid rocks and minerals It also has magma which is rock that is partly melted At the center of the Earth is the core The core of the Earth is made of metal that is extremely hot The Earth’s core is as hot as the Sun crust mantle Fast Fact Scientists think Earth’s core is 6,000 degrees Celsius That’s almost 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit 6 outer core inner core
You see the Earth’s crust every day It is on land and under water The crust on the land is called the continental crust The crust under the ocean is called the oceanic crust The crust is made up of three types of igneous rocks The word igneous means they were made with intense heat Some igneous rocks such as granite became solid rock while they were underground Andesite and basalt became solid rock above ground granite basalt andesite continental oceanic crust granite andesite and basalt mantle peridotite The Earth’s crust is made of granite andesite and basalt 7
Moving Parts The first way to look at the inside of the Earth is to talk about the three layers These three layers tell us what the Earth is made of They are called compositional layers When you talk about earthquakes you need different labels You need labels that tell you how things move How things move is called mechanics Compositional Layers Mechanical Layers continental crust oceanic crust aesthenosphere lithosphere mantle mesosphere outer core core inner core Fast Fact The Earth has five mechanical layers Three are solid and two are not They alternate like this solid not solid not solid 8
The center of the Earth the inner core is solid But the next layer is not The outer core is a molten layer It is hot liquid rock The middle layer the mesosphere is another solid layer The next layer is not The asthenosphere is a weak layer that changes shape The outer layer the lithosphere is solid This is the layer you can see These basalt rocks are a small part of the lithosphere 9
