46 Why It Matters: Earth’s Interior
Geologists cannot see directly into the interior of the Earth. They have to rely on various techniques and methods to infer the appearance and physical characteristics of earth’s interior. The deepest drilling project aimed to learn about the Earth interior (specifically, the so-called Moho boundary) was carried in the former USSR in 1970s in Kola Peninsula.
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p09klm1x/the-cold-war-race-to-the-centre-of-the-earth
In this book section, we will see how the Earth is structured, what the physical characteristics are, and just how this impacts us living on the Earth.
The Earth’s interior is the basis for geology. If you recall from the Plate Tectonics section, earth exists as we see it today because of plate tectonics. We also learned how plate tectonics is important in the formation of rock, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes.
Studying the interior of the Earth helps learn about all of these and the processes that helped create the Earth and currently drive plate tectonics.
Video below explains the origin of earth layers and how they are known to us (it also incorporates the material that we already learned in previous lectures):
Could Earth Interior serve as a water source?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25723-massive-ocean-discovered-towards-earths-core/
The water is hidden inside a blue rock called ringwoodite that lies 700 kilometres underground in the mantle, the layer of hot rock between Earth’s surface and its core.
Diamond Rush in Earth Interior???
https://news.mit.edu/2018/sound-waves-reveal-diamond-cache-deep-earths-interior-0716
Study finds 1–2 percent of Earth’s oldest mantle rocks are made from diamond.
