Download The Rock Cycle

•The Earth system involves
many cycles.
•For example
•The Hydrologic Cycle is the
cycle that circulates the
earths water supply.
• The Rock Cycle illustrates
the origin of the three basic
rock types
The Formation of the Solar System
• A) dust and gasses
(nebula) started to
gravitationally
collapse.
• B) the nebula thinned
into a rotating disk
that heated up.
• C) as it cooled the
nebular cloud caused
rocky and metallic
material to reduce
into solid particles.
• D) repeated collisions
caused the dust sized
particles to combine
into asteroid sized
bodies.
• E) in a few million
years the bodies
turned into planets.
• The
earths
interior
is
divided
into
three
different
layers.
Mantle
Core
Inner
Core
Layer
Thickness (kilometers)
Chemical composition
Notes
Continental Crust
35-40 km
Consists of many rock
types, but mostly granite
Ranges the rocky
mountains and Himalayas
Oceanic Crust
7 km
Composed of dark
igneous rock basalt
Made with continental
crust also
Upper Mantle
660 km
Stiff lithosphere, and
weaker asthenosphere,
and the bottom is the
transition zone
Extends from crust to
mantle boundary
Lower Mantle
660 km
Lays between rocky
mantle and not liquid iron
outer core
The bottom few hundred
layers are called the D
layers
Outer Core
2270 km
Liquid layer metallic iron
Earths magnetic field
Inner Core
1216 km
Solid iron
Has a sphere radius
Lithosphere
250 km
Weak asthenosphere
Lithosphere can move
independently
Asthenosphere
350 km
Soft weak layer
The lithosphere is
attached to asthenosphere
• The oldest
crustal material
that has been
identified was
found in
Northwestern
territories of
Canada, about
4 billion years
ago.
• Continents and Ocean
basins are the two
principal divisions of
Earth’s surface.
• Lands and mountains
are the two categories
of features found on the
continents. Near sea
lands are usually flat
and green, and
mountains are high and
rocky most of the time.
• Geologists predict
all of their theories
about Earth’s
interior because
there is no way to
drill a hole that
would be deep
enough to reach
Earth’s core.
Three regions of ocean floor
Deep-Ocean Basins
Continental Margins
Oceanic Ridges
Describing three portions of
the continental margins.
• Continental shelf-flooded extension of
the continents
• Continental slope 60% of Earth’s
Surface is made from the Oceans.
• Continental Rise-consists of a thick
accumulation of sediment that moved
down slope from the continental shelf
to the deep ocean floor
Characteristics of different
features found in deep-ocean
basins
• The linear chains of volcanoes, deep
canyons, plateaus, and large expense
of monotonously flat plains are widely
visible