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Earth's crust is its thick outer shell of rock, referring to less than one percent of the planet's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a solidified division of Earth 's layers that includes the crust and the upper part of the mantle. [1] .
Earth’s outermost, rigid, rocky layer is called the crust. It is composed of low-density, easily melted rocks; the continental crust is predominantly granitic rock (see granite), while composition of the oceanic crust corresponds mainly to that of basalt and gabbro.
The crust is a thin but important zone where dry, hot rock from the deep Earth reacts with the water and oxygen of the surface, making new kinds of minerals and rocks. It's also where plate-tectonic activity mixes and scrambles these new rocks and injects them with chemically active fluids.
Dynamic geologic forces created Earth’s crust, and the crust continues to be shaped by the planet’s movement and energy. Today, tectonic activity is responsible for the formation (and destruction) of crustal materials. Earth’s crust is divided into two types: oceanic crust and continental crust.
The crust is the Earth’s outermost layer and it’s where we live. It has an irregular thickness, varying from about 5 km beneath the oceans (oceanic crust) to about 30 km beneath the continents (continental crust).
Illustrated overview of the most widespread chemical elements, minerals, and rock types in the Earth's crust.
The Earth’s crust is the outermost layer and the one we interact with directly. It varies in thickness, with oceanic crust being thinner (about 4-7 miles or 6-11 kilometers) and continental crust being thicker (averaging about 19 miles or 30 kilometers).