*Geosphere

-came from the greek words geo meaning Earth and sphaira meaning globe or ball.
-is the mostly solid,rocky part of the Earth.It extends from the center to the surface of the Earth.
*Regolith
-came from the greek words rhegos which means blanket and lithos which means
rocky.
-is the very loose top portion of the Earths surface. It consists of all materials above
bedrock, such as soils, sediments, and weathered rock. Regolith is more often used in
reference to other members of our solar system, including the Moon, asteroids, and
certain planets and satellites. On our Moon, the regolith is the overall soil horizon, a
collection of particles fragmented by the impacts of large and micrometeorites over time.
In the case of the Moon, there is no true weathering of the lunar regolith like there is on
Earth.
*Lithosphere
-came from the greek words lithos which means rocky and sphaira which means globe or
ball.
-outermost shell of a rocky planet.
-it includes the crust and the upper mantle.
-it is 50-100 km thick.
*Crust
-outermost solid shell of a rocky planet.
-composed of igneous,metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.
-occupies less than 1% of Earth's volume.
Two types of Crust:
1.Oceanic crust
-made up primarily of basalt
-4-5 kilometers deep
2.Continental crust
-made up of granite
-low density: allows it to "float" on the much higher density mantle below
-20-30 miles deep
3 types of rocks found in the crust:
A. Igneous rocks
-formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava.
-it may be intrusive,extrusive or hypabyssal
Classifications of Igneous rocks by place of occurrence or formation:
1.Intrusive Igneous rocks
-formed from magma that cools and solidifies within the crust of a planet.
Ex: Granite
2.Extrusive Igneous rocks
-formed at the crust's surface as a result of the partial melting of rocks within
the mantle and crust.
Ex: Basalt

3.Hypabyssal Igneous Rocks

-formed at a depth in between the plutonic and volcanic rocks. These are formed
due to cooling and resultant solidification of rising magma just beneath the earth
surface.
Ex:Quartz Porphyry
B. Metamorphic rocks
-arise from the transformation of existing rock types, in a process called metamorphism,
which means "change in form".
-The original rock is subjected to heat (temperatures greater than 150 to 200 C) and
pressure (1500 bars),causing profound physical and/or chemical change. The protolith
may be sedimentary rock, igneous rock or another older metamorphic rock.
Ex: Quartzite
C. Sedimentary Rocks
-formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies
of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that
cause mineral and/or organic particles (detritus) to settle and accumulate or minerals
to precipitate from a solution. Particles that form a sedimentary rock by accumulating are
called sediment.
Ex:Claystone
*Upper Mantle
-composed mostly of peridotite, a rock denser than rocks common in the overlying crust.
*Asthenosphere
- the highly viscous, mechanically weak and ductilely-deforming region of the upper mantle of
the Earth. It lies below the lithosphere, at depths between 100 and 200 km. below the surface.
*Mohorovicic Disontinuity
-referred to as the Moho, is the boundary between the Earth's crustand the mantle. Named after
the pioneering Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovii in 1909, the Moho separates both
the oceanic crust and continental crust from underlying mantle.
*Mantle
-is a part of a terrestrial planet or other rocky body large enough to have differentiation by
density.
-highly viscous layer between the crust and the outer core.
-is a rocky shell about 2,900 km (1,800 mi) thick that constitutes about 84% of Earth's volume.
*Gutenburg Discontinuity
-s the boundary, as detected by changes in seismic waves, between the Earth's lower mantle
and the outer core about 1800 miles below the surface.It is also called the core-mantle
boundary.
-discovered by Beno Gutenburg.

*Outer Core
-is a liquid layer about 2,266 km (1,408 mi) thick composed of iron and nickel which lies above
the Earth's solid inner core and below its mantle. Its outer boundary lies 2,890 km (1,800 mi)
beneath the Earth's surface. The transition between the inner core and outer core is located
approximately 5,150 km (3,200 mi) beneath the Earth's surface.
-temperature of the outer core ranges from 4400 C (8000 F) in the outer regions to 6100 C
(11000 F) near the inner core.
-discovered by a German man named Patrick Actubar in 1935.
*Inner Core
-innermost part, is a primarily solid ball with a radius of about 1,220 km (760 mi).
-consist primarily of an ironnickel alloy, and to be about the same temperature as the surface
of the Sun: approximately 5700 K(5430 C).
-consist primarily of a nickel-iron alloy known as Nife: 'Ni' for nickel, and 'Fe' for ferrum or iron.
-discovered by Inge Lehmann in 1936.