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A mantle is a layer inside a planetary body bounded below by a core and above by a crust. Mantles are made of
The Earth's mantle is a layer of silicate rock between the crust and the outer core. Its mass of 4.01 × 1024 kg is 67% the mass of the Earth. It has a thickness of making up about 84% of Earth's volume. It is predominantly solid, but in
Jupiter's moons Io,
''Theory of the Earth''
Blackwell (1989), is a textbook dealing with the Earth's interior and is now available on the web. Retrieved 2007-12-23. * * Nixon, Peter H. (1987). Mantle xenoliths: J. Wiley & Sons, 844p., (). *
The Biggest Dig: Japan builds a ship to drill to the earth's mantle
– Scientific American (September 2005)
Information on the Mohole Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mantle (Geology) Structure of the Earth Planetary geology
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
or ices, and are generally the largest and most massive layer of the planetary body. Mantles are characteristic of planetary bodies that have undergone differentiation by density. All terrestrial planets (including Earth), a number of asteroids, and some planetary moons have mantles.
Earth's mantle
The Earth's mantle is a layer of silicate rock between the crust and the outer core. Its mass of 4.01 × 1024 kg is 67% the mass of the Earth. It has a thickness of making up about 84% of Earth's volume. It is predominantly solid, but in geological time
The geologic time scale, or geological time scale, (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochronol ...
it behaves as a viscous fluid
In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shear ...
. Partial melting of the mantle at mid-ocean ridges produces oceanic crust, and partial melting of the mantle at subduction zones
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
produces continental crust.
Other planetary mantles
Mercury
Mercury commonly refers to:
* Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun
* Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg
* Mercury (mythology), a Roman god
Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to:
Companies
* Merc ...
has a silicate mantle approximately thick, constituting only 28% of its mass. Venus's silicate mantle is approximately thick, constituting around 70% of its mass. Mars's silicate mantle is approximately thick, constituting ~74–88% of its mass, and may be represented by chassignite meteorites.
Moons with mantles
Jupiter's moons Io, Europa
Europa may refer to:
Places
* Europe
* Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace
* Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro
* Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development
* Europa Cliff ...
, and Ganymede have silicate mantles; Io's ~ silicate mantle is overlain by a volcanic crust, Ganymede's ~ thick silicate mantle is overlain by ~ of ice, and Europa's ~ km silicate mantle is overlain by ~ of ice and possibly liquid water.
The silicate mantle of the Earth's moon is approximately 1300–1400 km thick, and is the source of mare basalts. The lunar mantle might be exposed in the South Pole-Aitken basin or the Crisium basin
Mare Crisium (Latin ''crisium'', the "Sea of Crises") is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. The basin is of the Pre-Imbrian period, 4.55 to 3.85 billion years ago.
Characteristics
Mare Cri ...
. The lunar mantle contains a seismic discontinuity at ~ depth, most likely related to a change in composition.
Titan
Titan most often refers to:
* Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn
* Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology
Titan or Titans may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Fictional entities
Fictional locations
* Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
and Triton
Triton commonly refers to:
* Triton (mythology), a Greek god
* Triton (moon), a satellite of Neptune
Triton may also refer to:
Biology
* Triton cockatoo, a parrot
* Triton (gastropod), a group of sea snails
* ''Triton'', a synonym of ''Triturus' ...
each have a mantle made of ice or other solid volatile substances.
Asteroids with mantles
Some of the largest asteroids have mantles; for example, Vesta has a silicate mantle similar in composition to diogenite meteorites.See also
* Earth's internal heat budget *Lehmann discontinuity
__NOTOC__
The Lehmann discontinuity is an abrupt increase of ''P''-wave and ''S''-wave velocities at the depth of , discovered by seismologist Inge Lehmann. The thickness is 220 km . It appears beneath continents, but not usually beneath ocea ...
* Mantle xenoliths
* Mantle convection
Mantle convection is the very slow creeping motion of Earth's solid silicate mantle as convection currents carrying heat from the interior to the planet's surface.
The Earth's surface lithosphere rides atop the asthenosphere and the two form ...
* Mesosphere (mantle)
The lower mantle, historically also known as the mesosphere, represents approximately 56% of Earth's total volume, and is the region from 660 to 2900 km below Earth#Surface, Earth's surface; between the transition zone (Earth), transition z ...
* Numerical modeling (geology)
In geology, numerical modeling is a widely applied technique to tackle complex geological problems by computational simulation of geological scenarios.
Computer simulation, Numerical modeling uses mathematical models to describe the physical cond ...
* Primitive mantle
In geochemistry, the primitive mantle (also known as the ''bulk silicate Earth'') is the chemical composition of the Earth's mantle during the developmental stage between core-mantle differentiation and the formation of early continental crust. ...
References
Further reading
*Don L. Anderson
Don Lynn Anderson (March 5, 1933 – December 2, 2014) was an American geophysicist who made significant contributions to the understanding of the origin, evolution, structure, and composition of Earth and other planets. An expert in numero ...
''Theory of the Earth''
Blackwell (1989), is a textbook dealing with the Earth's interior and is now available on the web. Retrieved 2007-12-23. * * Nixon, Peter H. (1987). Mantle xenoliths: J. Wiley & Sons, 844p., (). *
Donald L. Turcotte
Donald Lawson Turcotte (born 22 April 1932) is an American geophysicist most noted for his work on the boundary layer theory of mantle convection as part of the theory of plate tectonics. He works at the University of California, Davis.
Education ...
and Gerald Schubert Gerald Schubert (born 1939) is a geophysicist and Professor Emeritus of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at UCLA. His research has broadly dealt with modeling the structure and dynamics of the interiors and atmospheres and Earth and other planet ...
, Geodynamics, Cambridge University Press, Third Edition (2014), (Hardback) (Paperback)
External links
The Biggest Dig: Japan builds a ship to drill to the earth's mantle
– Scientific American (September 2005)
Information on the Mohole Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mantle (Geology) Structure of the Earth Planetary geology