Download The Earth`s Interior

The Earth's Interior
By Sharon Fabian
If you take an Easter egg, and dye it a
swirly blue, green, and white, what would
you have?
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It might look like the earth, as we see it in
photographs from space. Now, if you slice
this little model of the earth in half, you can
see the layers that it is made of.
2
The earth has an outside layer called the
crust (the eggshell), an in-between layer
called the mantle (the egg white), and an
inner core (the yolk).
3
Just like the hard shell of an egg, the
earth's crust is hard and solid. It is mainly
rock. All of the earth that we can see, and
walk on, and drive our cars on, is crust.
And if you are at the beach and can't see
any crust, because you are looking out at
the ocean, it is still there under the water.
The whole earth is coated with a thin (about 3 kilometers under the oceans, and about 19
kilometers under the land) layer of rocky crust.
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The earth's middle layer, the mantle, is made up of molten, or melted, rock. The lava for
volcanic eruptions comes from this layer. The dividing line between the mantle and the
crust has a long and hard-to-say name; it is called the "Mohorovicic Discontinuity," but
scientists call it the Moho for short. On the upper part of the mantle there are sections
called tectonic plates. The seven continents sit on the top of these tectonic plates.
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In 1906, the center of the earth, the core, was discovered by a scientist named R. D.
Oldham. To make this discovery, he studied earthquakes, and also the ideas of a scientist
from earlier times, Isaac Newton. The core consists mainly of iron, along with smaller
amounts of other elements. The iron at the earth's core is partly solid, and partly liquid.
Some scientists have a theory that the core is spinning on its own, much faster than the rest
of the earth.
6
To learn about the earth's layers, scientists study earthquake waves, rock formations, and
magnetism, but you can get a good picture of what they look like by studying a hardboiled egg.
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Name _____________________________
Science Pd ___________________
The Earth's Interior
1. Name the three layers of the earth.
Crust, mantle, core
Continents, mantle, iron
Crust, lava, core
Shell, white, yolk
3. The earth can be compared to an egg
because
They are made of the same materials
They were discovered by the same
scientist
They have the same three layers
They are the same colors
2. The "Moho" is the
Mantle
Dividing line between the crust and
the mantle
Crust
Tectonic plate
4. The core was discovered by
R. D. Oldham
Mohorovicic
Isaac Newton
5. The crust is _____ under the ocean than it 6. The idea that the earth's core is spinning
is under the land.
Thicker
The same
Thinner
7. Why do you think scientists study
earthquakes and rock formations to learn
about the earth's layers?
at its own speed is
A fact
Not true
A theory
8. Why do you think the iron at the earth's
core is partly liquid?