Earth's crust is Earth's thick outer shell of rock, referring to less than 1% of the Earth's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The lithosphere is broken into tectonic plates whose motion allows heat to escape from the interior of the Earth into space.
The crust lies on top of the mantle, a configuration that is stable because the upper mantle is made of peridotite and is therefore significantly denser than the crust. The boundary between the crust and mantle is conventionally placed at the Mohorovičić discontinuity, a boundary defined by a contrast in seismic velocity.
The temperature of the crust increases with depth, reaching values typically in the range from about to at the boundary with the underlying mantle. The temperature increases by as much as for every kilometer locally in the upper part of the crust.
Abundance of elements in Earth's crust and Goldschmidt classification
File:Elemental abundances.svg|Abundance (atom fraction) of the chemical elements in Earth's upper continental crust as a function of the atomic number.The rarest elements in the crust (shown in {{background color|#ffde54|yellow}}) are not the heaviest, but are rather the siderophile (iron-loving) elements in the [[Goldschmidt classification]] of elements. These have been depleted by being relocated deeper into Earth's core. Their abundance in [[meteoroid]] materials is higher. Additionally, tellurium and selenium have been depleted from the crust due to formation of volatile hydrides.
The crust of Earth is of two distinct types:
Oceanic: to thick and composed primarily of denser, more mafic rocks, such as basalt, diabase, and gabbro.
Continental: to thick and mostly composed of less dense, more felsic rocks, such as granite. In a few places, such as the Tibetan Plateau, the Altiplano, and the eastern Baltic Shield, the continental crust is thicker ( to ).
The average thickness of the crust is about to .
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Gondwana (pronɡɒndˈwɑːnə) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. It was formed by the accretion of several cratons (a large stable block of the earth's crust), beginning with the East African Orogeny, the collision of India and Madagascar with East Africa, and was completed with the overlapping Brasiliano and Kuunga orogenies, the collision of South America with Africa, and the addition of Australia and Antarctica, respectively.
In petrology and geochemistry, an incompatible element is one that is unsuitable in size and/or charge to the cation sites of the minerals of which it is included. It is defined by the partition coefficient between rock-forming minerals and melt being much smaller than 1. During the fractional crystallization of magma and magma generation by the partial melting of the Earth's mantle and crust, elements that have difficulty in entering cation sites of the minerals are concentrated in the melt phase of magma (liquid phase).
Potassium oxide (K_2O) is an ionic compound of potassium and oxygen. It is a base. This pale yellow solid is the simplest oxide of potassium. It is a highly reactive compound that is rarely encountered. Some industrial materials, such as fertilizers and cements, are assayed assuming the percent composition that would be equivalent to K2O. Potassium oxide is produced from the reaction of oxygen and potassium; this reaction affords potassium peroxide, K2O2.
In the past 20 years, the growing interest in deep geo-reservoirs for purposes such as carbon storage, waste water disposal, or geothermal energy exploitation have led to large-volume fluid injections into the upper continental crust. These fluid injection ...
EPFL2021
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The permeability of crustal rocks and rock-masses dictates the efficiency of hydrothermal circulation and therefore the productivity of geothermal resources. In this study, we find by monitoring P-wave velocity that thermal microcracking in Lanhélin granit ...
2023
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When an earthquake nucleates in the earth crust, the potential energy accumulated during the inter-seismic period is released into breakdown work, heat energy and radiated energy. Often the breakdown work is considered a seismological equivalent of the fra ...