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Earth Science L1
Earth Science L1
Earth Science L1
Origin and
Structure of the
Earth
Learning Targets
The earliest musings about the origin of the universe can be found in the Rigveda.
The Hymn of Creation in the Rigveda reveals that ancient Indians believed that the
universe had an origin and pondered about how and where the world, and everything
else, began.
For the ancient Greeks, however, the cosmos has always been in existence. Neither
created nor perishable, the cosmos for many Greek thinkers was timeless and infinite
in extent. From the greek thinkers also came the idea of the universe having a center.
The first era that marked the beginning of the universe was the Planck era. In
this era, the universe was very tiny – smaller than an atom – and assumed to
be made up of condensed energy and 1 second old. During this time, the
fundamental forces in nature that we know today – namely
1. Gravity
2. Nuclear strong force Super force
3. Nuclear weak force and
4. Electromagnetic force
The Grand Unified Theory (GUT) Era
The GUT era began when the “super force” split into two types of forces –
gravity and GUT force. The nuclear strong force started to freeze out from the
GUT force, which was accompanied by a release of huge amount of energy
causing space evolution to grow up into the enormous size of our solar
system. This expansion of the universe is called inflation.
Electroweak Era
After the GUT era, our young universe entered the electroweak era. There
were three forces operating in our universe during this era:
1. Gravity
2. Strong force
3. Electroweak force.
Particle Era
When the fundamental forces were finally separated, ordinary particles
started to form. Throughout the particle era, there were spontaneous
creation and annihilation of particles. Photons, a particle of light or other
electromagnetic radiation, collided with another photon to form matter and
antimatter and vice versa. These particles were electrons, neutrinos, and
quarks.
The end of the particle era marked the beginning of the era of
nucleosynthesis. After the annihilation of antimatter, heavier nuclei started to
form by fusion of proton and neutron left over. However, most nuclei broke
apart because of the high temperature of the universe.
Recent advances in science and technology aided us in explaining the origin of the Earth and
other planets. Information derived from optical telescopes, space probes, computer power,
and better techniques for detecting planets serve as considerable pieces of evidence in testing
earlier theories. Some of these important pieces of information were:
Mass distribution – The mass of the system is not evenly distributed. Most of the mass is
concentrated in the sun.
Chemical compositions – the planets and the sun have similar chemical compositions,
although in varying proportions. Planets in the solar system are subdivided into two groups:
the small, heavy, and nonvolatile planets; and the large, light, and volatile planets.
From these scientific data, various models had been created
to explain the origin of the Earth, such as the random
capture model, the close-approach model, and the star-
formation model. The latter was generally favored today and
accepted as explanation for the origin of the planets. It was
later called the nebula theory.
The Nebula Theory
As stars were being created and bursting into supernovas, the solar system began to
form, although it took millions of years in order to produce elements needed to
form the solar system. About 4.6 billion years ago, a supernova occurred and
shocked a nearby interstellar space and triggered the solar nebula to collapse. As the
solar nebula collapsed, its core temperature increased and released thermal energy.
As the temperature of the core reached 10 million Kelvin, hydrogen atoms began to
fuse together, forming helium atoms. At this point, the center of the solar nebula
became a protosun.
Particles in the protoplanetary disk started to collide and form planetesimals. This
led to the following series of formation of the planets in the solar system. At a
distance, near the orbit of Mercury up to that of Mars, varieties of rocks and
minerals condensed. The small solid particles that condensed from the inner solar
nebula orbited around the protosun in almost circular path.
Each particle moved with the same speed as their neighboring particles, allowing
them to collide and stick to each other very gently.
As the small particles grew slowly into larger solid rocks called planetesimals, started
to produce fragmentation more than accretion. Only the largest planetesimals
avoided such shattering and continued to grow into planets. These planets became
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. These planets are also called terrestrial planets.
In the outer solar nebula beyond the frost line, solid materials, like all types of rocks,
metals, solid water, methane, and ammonia, accelerated the accretion very rapidly.
These caused the planetesimals to grow many times larger than the Earth. The icy
planetesimals have very strong gravitational force that is enough to capture the
more abundant hydrogen and helium gases within the solar nebula. This process is
called nebula capture. This led to the formation of the jovian planets:
One could say that the most important event in the history of the Universe was the formation
of a planet habitable by life. Like its neighbors, Mercury, Venus, and Mars, Earth was formed
during the formation of the solar system.
During the earlier formation of the Earth, heavier elements like iron and nickel settled down at
its center, while lighter materials occupied the surface. This gave rise to the core as the
innermost layer and the crust or lithosphere as the outer rock layer. The middle layer is the
mantle.
The Composition of Earth
The crust
The crust of the Earth is composed o a great variety of igneous, metamorphic, and
sedimentary rocks. The rocks found in the crust consist mostly of lighter elements such as
silicon, potassium, and sodium. The density of these rocks is about three times that of water.
Earth’s mantle is a 2 885-km thick shell of rock surrounding the planet’s outer core, lying
directly beneath the thin crust, roughly between 30 and 2 900 km below the surface. It
occupies about 84 % of Earth’s volume. The term “mantle” is also applied to the rock shell
surrounding the core of the other planets. In the solar system, the Earth’s mantle is the only
one that is continually active.
The mantle differs substantially from the crust in terms of mechanical characteristics and
chemical compositions. The crust is, in fact, primarily a product of mantle melting. Mantle
rocks consist of oliviness, different pyroxenes, and other mafic minerals. Mantle rocks also
possess a higher portion of iron and magnesium and a smaller portion of silicon and
aluminum than the crust. The mantle temperature ranges between 1 000 at the upper
boundary near the crust – which extends from the crust to a depth of about 410 km – to over 4
000 at the lower boundary near the outer core.
The Core
With a thickness of 1 216 km, the inner core of the Earth is mostly composed of solid iron and
nickel; surrounded by the liquid iron outer core with a thickness of 2 270 km. the core is
believed to have a maximum relative density of 13 and has a maximum temperature of 6 400.
The flowing iron and nickel in the outer core resulted to the formation of the magnetic field
that further protects the Earth.
Earth: A Habitable Planet
For 4.6 billion years, Earth’s structure has undergone – and is continuously undergoing – grand
changes. In fact, in its primitive form, Earth did not look like how it looks today: a beautiful
blue marble. Between 4.35 and 3.8 billion years ago, Earth experienced heavy bombardment,
making Earth a dangerous place for any living thing. After the bombardment period, about 3.8
to 3 milioon years ago, land and bodies of water have begun to form. In addition, gaseous
materials formed the atmosphere that was finally able to support life on the surface.