The Moho: Image of Earth's internal structure by USGS - Mohorovicic Discontinuity (red line) added by

Geology.com.

What is the Mohorovičić Discontinuity?

The Mohorovicic Discontinuity, or "Moho," is the boundary between the crust and the mantle.
The red line in the diagram shows its location.

In geology the word "discontinuity" is used for a surface at which seismic waves change
velocity. One of these surfaces exists at an average depth of 8 kilometers beneath the ocean basin
and at an average depth of about 32 kilometers beneath the continents. At this discontinuity,
seismic waves accelerate. This surface is known as the Mohorovicic Discontinuity or often
simply referred to as the "Moho."

How Was the Moho Discovered?

The Mohorovicic Discontinuity was discovered in 1909 by Andrija Mohorovicic, a Croatian
seismologist. Mohorovicic realized that the velocity of a seismic wave is related to the density of
the material that it is moving through. He interpreted the acceleration of seismic waves observed
within Earth's outer shell as a compositional change within the Earth. The acceleration must be
caused by a higher density material being present at depth.

The lower density material immediately beneath the surface is now commonly referred to as
"Earth's crust." The higher density material below the crust became known as "Earth's mantle."
Through careful density calculations, Mohorovicic determined that the basaltic oceanic crust and
the granitic continental crust are underlain by a material which has a density similar to an
olivine-rich rock such as peridotite.

How Deep is the Moho?

The Mohorovicic Discontinuity marks the lower limit of Earth's crust. As stated above, it
occurs at an average depth of about 8 kilometers beneath the ocean basins and 32
kilometers beneath continental surfaces. Mohorovicic was able to use his discovery to study
thickness variations of the crust. He discovered that the oceanic crust has a relatively
uniform thickness, while continental crust is thickest under mountain ranges and thinner
under plains.

The map below illustrates the thickness of Earth's crust. Note how the thickest areas (red
and dark brown) are beneath some of Earth's important mountain ranges such as the
Andes (west side of South America), Rockies (Western North America), Himalayas (north of
India in South-central Asia), and Urals (north-south trending between Europe and Asia).

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the fifth largest:

Planet Profile
orbit: 149,600,000 km (1.00 AU) from Sun
diameter: 12,756.3 km
mass: 5.972e24 kg

History of Earth
Earth is the only planet whose English name does not derive from Greek/Roman
mythology. The name derives from Old English and Germanic. There are, of course,
hundreds of other names for the planet in other languages. In Roman Mythology, the
goddess of the Earth was Tellus - the fertile soil (Greek: Gaia, terra mater - Mother
Earth).

It was not until the time of Copernicus (the sixteenth century) that it was understood that
the Earth is just another planet.

Earth, of course, can be studied without the aid of spacecraft.

Nevertheless it was not until the twentieth century that we had maps of the entire planet.
Pictures of the planet taken from space are of considerable importance; for example,
they are an enormous help in weather prediction and especially in tracking and
predicting hurricanes. And they are extraordinarily beautiful.

The Earth is divided into several layers which have distinct chemical and seismic
properties (depths in km):
0- 40 Crust
40- 400 Upper mantle
400- 650 Transition region
650-2700 Lower mantle
2700-2890 D'' layer
2890-5150 Outer core
5150-6378 Inner core

The crust varies considerably in thickness, it is thinner under the oceans, thicker under
the continents. The inner core and crust are solid; the outer core and mantle layers are
plastic or semi-fluid. The various layers are separated by discontinuities which are
evident in seismic data; the best known of these is the Mohorovicic discontinuity
between the crust and upper mantle.

Most of the mass of the Earth is in the mantle, most of the rest in the core; the part we
inhabit is a tiny fraction of the whole (values below x10^24 kilograms):

atmosphere = 0.0000051
oceans = 0.0014
crust = 0.026
mantle = 4.043
outer core = 1.835
inner core = 0.09675

The core is probably composed mostly of iron (or nickel/iron) though it is possible that
some lighter elements may be present, too. Temperatures at the center of the core may
be as high as 7500 K, hotter than the surface of the Sun. The lower mantle is probably
mostly silicon, magnesium and oxygen with some iron, calcium and aluminum. The
upper mantle is mostly olivene and pyroxene (iron/magnesium silicates), calcium and
aluminum. We know most of this only from seismic techniques; samples from the upper
mantle arrive at the surface as lava from volcanoes but the majority of the Earth is
inaccessible. The crust is primarily quartz (silicon dioxide) and other silicates like
feldspar. Taken as a whole, the Earth's chemical composition (by mass) is:

34.6% Iron
29.5% Oxygen
15.2% Silicon
 12.7% Magnesium
2.4% Nickel
1.9% Sulfur
0.05% Titanium

The Earth is the densest major body in the solar system.

The other terrestrial planets probably have similar structures and compositions with
some differences: theMoon has at most a small core; Mercury has an extra large core
(relative to its diameter); the mantles ofMars and the Moon are much thicker; the Moon
and Mercury may not have chemically distinct crusts; Earth may be the only one with
distinct inner and outer cores. Note, however, that our knowledge of planetary interiors
is mostly theoretical even for the Earth.

Unlike the other terrestrial planets, Earth's crust is divided into several separate solid
plates which float around independently on top of the hot mantle below. The theory that
describes this is known as plate tectonics. It is characterized by two major processes:
spreading and subduction. Spreading occurs when two plates move away from each
other and new crust is created by upwelling magma from below. Subduction occurs
when two plates collide and the edge of one dives beneath the other and ends up being
destroyed in the mantle. There is also transverse motion at some plate boundaries (i.e.
the San Andreas Fault in California) and collisions between continental plates (i.e.
India/Eurasia). There are (at present) eight major plates:

 North American Plate - North America, western North Atlantic and Greenland

 South American Plate - South America and western South Atlantic

 Antarctic Plate - Antarctica and the "Southern Ocean"
 Eurasian Plate - eastern North Atlantic, Europe and Asia except for India
 African Plate - Africa, eastern South Atlantic and western Indian Ocean
 Indian-Australian Plate - India, Australia, New Zealand and most of Indian Ocean
 Nazca Plate - eastern Pacific Ocean adjacent to South America
 Pacific Plate - most of the Pacific Ocean (and the southern coast of California!)

There are also twenty or more small plates such as the Arabian, Cocos, and Philippine Plates.
Earthquakes are much more common at the plate boundaries. Plotting their locations makes it
easy to see the plate boundaries.
The Earth's surface is very young. In the relatively short (by astronomical standards)
period of 500,000,000 years or so erosion and tectonic processes destroy and recreate
most of the Earth's surface and thereby eliminate almost all traces of earlier geologic
surface history (such as impact craters). Thus the very early history of the Earth has
mostly been erased. The Earth is 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old, but the oldest known rocks
are about 4 billion years old and rocks older than 3 billion years are rare. The oldest
fossils of living organisms are less than 3.9 billion years old. There is no record of the
critical period when life was first getting started.

71 Percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water. Earth is the

only planet on which water can exist in liquid form on the surface (though there may be
liquid ethane or methane on Titan's surface and liquid water beneath the surface
of Europa). Liquid water is, of course, essential for life as we know it. The heat capacity
of the oceans is also very important in keeping the Earth's temperature relatively stable.
Liquid water is also responsible for most of the erosion and weathering of the Earth's
continents, a process unique in the solar system today (though it may have occurred on
Mars in the past).

The Earth's atmosphere is 77% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, with traces of

argon, carbon dioxide and water. There was probably a very much larger amount of
carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere when the Earth was first formed, but it has
since been almost all incorporated into carbonate rocks and to a lesser extent dissolved
into the oceans and consumed by living plants. Plate tectonics and biological processes
now maintain a continual flow of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to these various
"sinks" and back again. The tiny amount of carbon dioxide resident in the atmosphere at
any time is extremely important to the maintenance of the Earth's surface temperature
via the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect raises the average surface
temperature about 35 degrees C above what it would otherwise be (from a frigid -21 C
to a comfortable +14 C); without it the oceans would freeze and life as we know it would
be impossible. (Water vapor is also an important greenhouse gas.)
 The presence of free oxygen is quite remarkable from a chemical point
of view. Oxygen is a very reactive gas and under "normal" circumstances would quickly
combine with other elements. The oxygen in Earth's atmosphere is produced and
maintained by biological processes. Without life there would be no free oxygen.

The interaction of the Earth and the Moon slows the Earth's rotation by about 2
milliseconds per century. Current research indicates that about 900 million years ago
there were 481 18-hour days in a year.

Earth has a modest magnetic field produced by electric currents in the outer core. The
interaction of the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field and the Earth's upper
atmosphere causes the auroras (see the Interplanetary Medium). Irregularities in these
factors cause the magnetic poles to move and even reverse relative to the surface; the
geomagnetic north pole is currently located in northern Canada. (The "geomagnetic
north pole" is the position on the Earth's surface directly above the south pole of the
Earth's field.)

The Earth's magnetic field and its interaction with the solar wind also produce the Van
Allen radiation belts, a pair of doughnut shaped rings of ionized gas (or plasma) trapped
in orbit around the Earth. The outer belt stretches from 19,000 km in altitude to 41,000
km; the inner belt lies between 13,000 km and 7,600 km in altitude.

Earth's Satellite
Earth has only one natural satellite, the Moon. But

 thousands of small artificial satellites have also been placed in orbit around the Earth.
 Asteroids 3753 Cruithne and 2002 AA29 have complicated orbital relationships with the Earth;
they're not really moons, the term "companion" is being used. It is somewhat similar to the
situation with Saturn's moons Janus and Epimetheus.
 Lilith doesn't exist but it's an interesting story.

Distance Radius Mass

Satellite (000 km) (km) (kg)

--------- -------- ------ -------

Moon 384 1738 7.35e22

 Earth, our home planet, is the only planet in its solar system known to
harbor life. All of the things we need to survive are provided under a thin
layer of atmosphere that separates us from the uninhabitable void of space.

Earth is made up of complex, interactive systems that are often

unpredictable. Air, water, land, and life—including humans—combine forces
to create a constantly changing world.

EARTH: FAST FACTS

 Earth is the third planet from the sun and the fifth largest in the solar
system.
 Earth is 92,955,820 miles (149,597,891 kilometers) away from the sun.
 At 7,917.5 miles (12,742 km), Earth's diameter is just a few hundred
kilometers larger than that of Venus.
 The four seasons are a result of Earth's axis of rotation being tilted more
than 23 degrees.
 The length of a year on Earth is 365 days, 6 hours, and 16 minutes.
 The length of a day on Earth is 23 hours and 56 minutes.
 Oceans at least 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep cover nearly 70 percent of
Earth's surface.
 The minimum weather temperature on Earth is -126 degrees Fahrenheit
(-87.8 degrees Celsius) and the maximum weather temperature on Earth
is 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 degrees Celsius).
 Fresh water exists in the liquid phase only within a narrow temperature
span (32 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit/0 to 100 degrees Celsius). This
temperature span is especially narrow when contrasted with the full range
of temperatures found within the solar system (from -400 to 900 degrees
Farenheit/-300 to 500 degrees Celcius).
 The presence and distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere is
responsible for much of Earth's weather.