EARTH NEWS
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Earth's Origins!
To start us off today lets go to some basic Earth need to knows, like how old the Earth really is. And I can promise you folks it sure ain't young. The Earth is 4.54 billion years old. And here's another cool fact, the Earth is made of rocks and minerals! The Earth was created by large pieces of rock crashing into each other and forming the the Earth’s shape. The heat created by the collision then was trapped inside forming the Earth’s core as the outside layer cooled, forming the crust!
Earth's Structure!
In other exciting news did you know the Earth has four layers! They are the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. The crust is made up of loose rocks and soil. The mantle is made of aluminum, iron, magnesium, silicon and oxygen. The outer core is made mostly iron and nickel! The inner core is made of pure iron! Can you believe it! The Earth's crust is rocky with lots of ocean. It is broken up in to tectonic plates! Because the plates are always moving natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are caused! The mantle, which is the next layer down is more plastic like and able to flow. The mantle is the thickest of all the layers. Down at the bottom of the mantle it is warmer and so all the free, flowing material heats up and rises, just like a lava lamp! When the material gets to the top of the mantle it cools it floats back down to the bottom of the mantle and repeats the cycle. These movements are called convection currents. Convection currents are what causes the tectonic plates to move! The outer core is a liquid layer surrounding the inner core. Like the mantle, the outer core is also flowing. The motion of the flowing material in the outer core impacts the magnetic field on Earth. The outer core also helps block radiation. and last bot surely not least, the inner core! Although the inner core is the hottest of all the Earth's layers(hotter than the surface of the sun) it is a solid. Gravity is pushing everything down and creating pressure on the inner core, this pressure causes the inner core to be solid. Wow, that was a mouthful!
Pangea Ultima!
Millions of years ago all the continents were connected. This was call Pangea Ultima, and might I just say it really was ultimate. In the future I believe that the continents will continue to move and break apart!
Plate Tectonics!
Other exciting news, plate tectonics is the theory explaining why the Earth's crust is broken into plates that move over the mantle! There are three types of plate boundaries. They are Divergent, Transform, and Convergent! Convergent plates boundaries are where the plates are pushed up forming a mountain or the are push down on each other to create a trench or volcano. So something like Mount Saint Helen! Divergent Boundaries are where two plates are pulling apart! At a divergent boundary you will most likely find a mid-ocean ridge or a rift valley. An example would be the mid-Atlantic ridge. A transform boundary is where two plate are sliding past each other. This creates a fault line such as the San Andreas fault. At transform boundary when the tow plates are sliding past each other and lock, when they are released it creates a stream of vibrations known as an earthquake.