Transcript The Core - WLWV Staff Blogs

The Core
By Kevin Fuquay
And Hunter Smith
Period 5
The Core
• Discovered by Seismologist Inge Lehmann
when certain earthquake waves passed through
and others didn’t.
• Divided into 2 parts: Inner Core and Outer Core.
• The source of the Earth’s magnetic field.
• Rotates faster then the Earth.
• 15% of the volume of Earth.
Inner Core
• 3160-3954 miles deep.
• Radius is 758 miles (70% the size of the
moon.)
• Believed to be made of iron-nickel alloy.
• Temperature is believed to be 9800
degrees Fahrenheit.
• Slowly cooling: about 100 degrees Celsius
every billion years.
Outer Core
• About 1790-3160 miles deep.
• Liquid Core made of iron and nickel.
• Currents in the outer core believed to
cause the magnetic field.
• Not under enough pressure to be solid.
• Temperature believed to be 7200-9032
degrees Fahrenheit.
Magnetic Field
• Caused by the presence of the core.
• Protects Earth from solar winds, creates
protective shield around Earth.
• Without the magnetic field, Earth would be
like Mars (the solar wind would destroy the
atmosphere) .
• An example of a magnetic dipole (closed
circulation of electric current.)
• North and South poles.
Earths Other Layers
• Crust is the outermost layer, thin (about 1% of
Earth’s volume) , made of sedimentary, igneous
and metamorphic rock.
• Plate Tectonics sit on the crust.
• Mantle is largest part of earth (84%).
• Solid, made of rocks like peridotite, dunite and
eclogite .
• Temperature is 932-1652 degrees Fahrenheit.