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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]
A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. [2] Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hotspots, such as Hawaii or Iceland, and large igneous provinces such as the Deccan and Siberian Traps.
Earth's crust and mantle, Mohorovičić discontinuity between bottom of crust and solid uppermost mantle. Earth's mantle extends to a depth of 2,890 km (1,800 mi), making it the planet's thickest layer. [20] [This is 45% of the 6,371 km (3,959 mi) radius, and 83.7% of the volume - 0.6% of the volume is the crust].
The silicate mantle of the Earth's moon is approximately 1300–1400 km thick, and is the source of mare basalts. [4] The lunar mantle might be exposed in the South Pole-Aitken basin or the Crisium basin. [4] The lunar mantle contains a seismic discontinuity at ~500 kilometers (310 miles) depth, most likely related to a change in composition. [4]
Separating the planet’s rocky crust and the molten outer core, the mantle makes up 70 percent of the Earth’s mass and 84 percent of its volume. But despite its outsized influence on the planet ...
Mantle convection is the very slow creep of Earth's solid silicate mantle as convection currents carry heat from the interior to the planet's surface. [2] [3] Mantle convection causes tectonic plates to move around the Earth's surface. [4] The Earth's lithosphere rides atop the asthenosphere, and the two form the components of the upper mantle ...
Several hypotheses have been proposed for the origin and persistence of LLSVPs, depending on whether the provinces represent purely thermal unconformities (i.e. are isochemical in nature, of the same chemical composition as the surrounding mantle) or represent chemical unconformities as well (i.e. are thermochemical in nature, of different chemical composition from the surrounding mantle).
Earth has an outer shell made of discrete, moving tectonic plates floating on a solid convective mantle above a liquid core. The mantle's flow is driven by the descent of cold tectonic plates during subduction and the complementary ascent of mantle plumes of hot material from lower levels. The surface of the Earth reflects stretching ...