After few days being on high alert due to ONYOK, things have got quiet again. No disasters of huge proportion except for a lot of rain in different places of Mindanao. There were flooded area, they were landslides as well, but as far as it is known there was no casualties at all. Really, it is great news.
I can now come back to blogging and continue my journey with you to understand more what Earthquakes are all about.
In Jojo vs Earthquakes (Part 2), when I was developing a little on Plate Tectonic, and the "why we have earthquakes?", I superficially touched about the inside of our planet mentioning that I would go deeper for each layer composing the inner part of our planet. As it had been promised it has to be delivered, so here we are.
"What Is Below Our Feet Precisely?"
In simple terms, four big layers makes up our planet. From top to bottom they are :
• The Crust
• The Mantle
• The Outer Core
• The Inner Core
In this post let's stop on the first layer
THE CRUST LAYER
The Crust is a general term often used for the sake of simplicity, but even that is not totally precise. The more specific term is Lithosphere from which the Crust is simply the visible surface on which we live. I used those two terms inter-changeably in this post.
In many ways this layer is not really difficult to visualize since it is the one we walk on, we drive on, and where all living beings are living. On the Crust we have built our whole Human Civilization, that's where we grow our food, it is also where we find coal, diamonds, gold, iron, etc.
The entire Lithosphere (remember the Crust is a simplistic term) is between 30 and 50km deep (70km in certain places). It seems a lot, but do we realize that compared to the rest of the planet the Crust is extremely thin?
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlnUviWicF8M1Oe4XcWQlVrnaXcbZ-_hW6kEF2nmN1pEhNdWoJXevXN_J3HlfgKDMYNY2NXgqalxbPEotaM9-uuH_HHhPDWAH92CKt76jMeo-skqFljZtZMU1uTuCn6dxnvXooWPsD2lQ/s320/peel-an-apple.jpg)
At first it does not make any difference to know this, but after a while, taking things in context, we can begin to realize that, considering the shear size of our planet in relation the smallness of the Crust, the power and energy inside our planet could destroy us easily. Compare to what is stored under our feet we humans are really nothing, and there is nothing we can do about it because we are the one living just above the burning cauldron.
If the Crust was not broken here and there, the inside pressure of the Earth would wipe us out fast by exploding the surface. Our salvation comes through Plate Tectonic and the ability of the Continental Plates all over the world to move along. That mobility prevent any excessive pressure built-up against the Lithosphere.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgumdRjNu9Mik780U71ENu8O2a6uASNA49kpdBLZYdl9-rKF8TwgYv5vlyDo8dYGU2GbiWD4PUUlTZZUz-UVsRmwTyeGWzyabD1S2BlgAo2jdPbvCahzpf-lMHogE-S5t28hxuQSsyA_IY/s320/Compression+Zone.jpg)
However, beside the Earthquakes, the Crust is also pierced in many places. Those Earth's Piercing are the spot of what we call Volcanoes through which the magma can be spewed out. That same magma is the result of what is happening in the Mantle Layer. And that's what we will look into in the next post concerning the Mantle Layer.
Related Blog Topic
Africa Geography Blog
Related Blog Topic
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