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The lower mantle, historically also known as the mesosphere, represents approximately 56% of Earth's total volume, and is the region from 660 to 2900 km below Earth's surface; between the transition zone and the outer core. [1] The preliminary reference Earth model (PREM) separates the lower mantle into three sections, the uppermost (660–770 ...
Earth's inner core is the innermost geologic layer of the planet Earth. It is primarily a solid ball with a radius of about 1,220 km (760 mi), which is about 19% of Earth's radius [0.7% of volume] or 70% of the Moon 's radius. [32][33] The inner core was discovered in 1936 by Inge Lehmann and is generally composed primarily of iron and some nickel.
The transition zone is the part of Earth's mantle that is located between the lower and the upper mantle, most strictly between the seismic-discontinuity depths of about 410 to 660 kilometres (250 to 410 mi), but more broadly defined as the zone encompassing those discontinuities, i.e., between about 300 and 850 kilometres (190 and 530 mi) depth. [1]
The lower mantle of inner earth may hold as much as 5 times more water than all surface water combined (all oceans, all lakes, all rivers). [19] The amount of water stored in the Earth's interior may equal or exceed that in all of the surface oceans. [20] Some researchers proposed the total mantle water budget may amount to tens of ocean masses ...
Lithosphere. A lithosphere (from Ancient Greek λίθος (líthos) 'rocky' and σφαίρα (sphaíra) 'sphere') is the rigid, [1] outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the lithospheric mantle, the topmost portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales ...
Earth's outer core is a fluid layer about 2,260 km (1,400 mi) thick, composed of mostly iron and nickel that lies above Earth's solid inner core and below its mantle. [1][2][3] The outer core begins approximately 2,889 km (1,795 mi) beneath Earth's surface at the core-mantle boundary and ends 5,150 km (3,200 mi) beneath Earth's surface at the ...
Tectonic plates are pieces of Earth's crust and uppermost mantle, together referred to as the lithosphere. The plates are around 100 km (62 mi) thick and consist of two principal types of material: oceanic crust (also called sima from silicon and magnesium) and continental crust (sial from silicon and aluminium).
The internal structure of Earth. Earth's mantle is a layer of silicate rock between the crust and the outer core. It has a mass of 4.01 × 10 24 kg (8.84 × 10 24 lb) and makes up 67% of the mass of Earth. [1] It has a thickness of 2,900 kilometers (1,800 mi) [1] making up about 46% of Earth's radius and 84% of Earth's volume.