8 Trivias about Earth's Layer

1. In 1692 Edmond Halley (of comet fame) proposed that the Earth is hollow. Below the outer crust
where we live, he pictured two concentric shells and a core about the size of Mercury, all floating in a
luminous gas.

2. The Earth’s molten iron core creates a Magnetic Field. The Earth is like a great big magnet, with poles
at the top and bottom near to the actual geographic poles.

3. Halley was right about the planet-size core, at least. At Earth's center is an iron-rich orb more than
4,000 miles wide — bigger than Mercury, actually — closer to our feet than L.A. is to New York.

4. Earth’s outer part is molten. Its inner part is a solid hunk of metal that spins independently of the rest
of the planet.

5. Earthquake waves that pass through the inner core travel faster north-south than they do east-west.
One theory: The inner core consists of metallic crystals aligned with Earth’s poles, and the waves move
more rapidly when they go with the grain.

6. The inner core is nearly as hot as the surface of the sun, and the pressure down there is 3 million
times what it is on the surface.

7. The mantle is 82% of earth’s volume.The mantle is 2885 km thick and is composed of basaltic
(ultramafic) rock and minerals such as olivine, peridotite, and pyroxene.

8. The crust is the thinnest layer of the Earth. It has an average thickness of about 18 miles (30km) below
land, and around 6 miles (10km) below the oceans.