Within the mantle there are currents which are circulating. Many of the Earth's internal phenomena, are vulcanism, earthquakes, continental drift and mountain chains can be attributed to continuous movement of the mantle.
The Earth is the third major body from the Sun, mostly a glob of iron and silicone elliptically orbiting the Sun. The maximum distance from the Sun is 152.1 million kilometers or 94.531 million miles, the minimum distance from the Sun 147.1 million kilometers or 91.42 million miles.
The Earth's orbit is slightly modified by the gravitational force of the Moon, Earth's only astronomical satellite. The Moon's affect on Earth's orbital trajectory is to add a wave function. The wave function effectively wobbles the orbit.
Because the Sun is moving toward Vega the Earth's space trajectory is helical with respect to the galaxy.
The Earth is not quite spherical with a equatorial radius of 6,378,388 meters or 3,963.34 miles and a polar radius of 6,356,912 meters or 3,949.99 miles. The discrepancy is caused by the outward force of centrifugal rotation and is about 21,476 meters or 13.44 miles.
The Earth's mass is 5.4 x 10^27 grams and volume of 1.083 x 10^21 cubic meters.
The Earth's surface is 510.10 million square kilometers or 197.04 million square miles. The surface has a land area of 148.847 million square kilometers or 57.470 million square miles and a water area of 361.254 million square kilometers or 139.480 million square miles. The volume of land is 100 thousand million cubic meters or 24.01 million cubic miles and the volume of water is 1300 thousand million cubic meters or 312.09 million cubic miles. In percentage term the Earth's surface is covered by 29.1 percent land and 70.9 percent water and of the available space in terms of percentage volume of water 7.6 percent land and 92.4 percent water. The highest land point on the Earth's surface is 8840 meters or 29,003 ft. and is called Mount Everest. The lowest sea depth is 10,430 meters or 34,219 feet. In relative terms the Earth's surface is mostly water and its overall smoothness is that of an orange.
Below the surface is the crust, mantle, core and inner core. The figures for these three components are only approximate. The values which have been derived are from seismic waves called "P", "S" and "L" waves. "P" waves are pressure waves and are similar to sound waves. "S" waves are shear waves and are similar to waves on top of water. However, "S" waves are not supported by a liquid. "L" waves are long waves. Seismic waves from earthquakes to atomic blasts were used to determine the Earth's center. The reflections and intensity of the waves gave scientist a general picture of the Earth's interior. However, the material in the center of the Earth is only guess. No one really knows what makes up the center of the Earth. The only two thing which can be said for sure is that it is hot.
The Earth's crust is 33 kilometers or 20.5 miles thick. The Earth's crust mass of 9.8 x 10^24 grams makes up approximately 0.2 percent of the Earth's total mass. The crust's thermal gradient is approximate 30 degrees celsius per kilometer or 48 degrees celsius per mile. The gradient seems to be greater at increasing depths. The material make-up of crust is mostly oxygen based molecules normally called rock. Silicone makes up the next major element combined with oxygen in igneous rock, shale, sandstone and sediment as SiO2.
| Element | % Weight | % Atom | % Volume |
| O | 46.6 | 62.5 | 91.97 |
| Si | 27.7 | 21.2 | 0.80 |
| Al | 8.1 | 6.5 | 0.77 |
| Fe | 5.0 | 1.9 | 0.68 |
| Mg | 2.0 | 1.8 | 0.56 |
| Ca | 3.6 | 1.9 | 1.48 |
| Na | 2.8 | 2.6 | 1.60 |
| K | 2.6 | 1.4 | 2.14 |
Below the Earth's crust is the mantle. The mantle extends from the Earth's core to the crust with a small zone between the crust and mantle called Mohorovicic Discontinuity. The distance the mantle extends from the crust toward the center of the Earth's is about 3400 kilometers or 2146 miles. The material make-up of the mantle is basically the same as the crust however, there is less silicone and more oxygen, and other elements. The mantle's thermal gradient is somewhere between 1500 degrees Celsius and 5000 degrees Celsius. The state of the mantle is a flowing semiplastic, in other words, it is not a free flowing liquid but not a solid either.
Within the mantle there are currents which are circulating. Many of the Earth's internal phenomena, are vulcanism, earthquakes, continental drift and mountain chains can be attributed to continuous movement of the mantle.
Typical Earth Current Measurement (Recorded at College, Alaska)
Frequency varies from location to location and time to time.
Typical Earth's Currents vs Frequency Curve
Earth Current Variations against Magnetic activity and Sunspots
The Earth has an atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen and small amounts of other elements. The atmosphere is a gas. The atmosphere's pressure is 14.7 lb/sq-in. and diminishes rapidly as one leaves the Earth"s surface. Traces of the atmosphere are at altitudes of 10,000 kilometer or 620 miles. The Earth's atmosphere is made up of several different layers. The Ecosphere is the closes to the surface and is considered the area where unaided breathing occurs, at increasing altitudes the different layers occur, the Troposphere is at 13 kilometers or 8 miles, the Stratosphere is at 30 kilometers or 19 miles, the Mesosphere is at 80 kilometers or 50 miles, the Ionosphere is at 550 kilometers or 340 miles and the Exosphere is at 10,000 kilometers or 620 miles. The layers are almost discrete and vary with distance from the equator. Sharp differences of temperature and material content occur.
Due to the rotation of the Earth (the Coriolis effect) and thermal differences caused by the way the atmosphere absorbs and emits radiation, there are six huge wind cells which form the Earth's wind and weather system. The wind cells can be akin to donuts circling the Earth. Generally, the winds in the equatorial regions move in a westerly direction, thus, close to the surface, winds would be moving southwesterly in the northern hemisphere wind cell, and northwesterly in the southern hemisphere wind cell. Wind cells further toward the poles would flow in the opposite direction or easterly toward the poles and the wind cells at the poles would reverse again. Close to the surface of the Earth the weather is greatly affected by land and sea, however, air circulation above the troposphere are mostly unaffected by land and sea.
Inside the mantle there is the Earth's core. The core is made up of two parts the core and the inner core. The core is believed to be liquid iron. The inner core is believed to be solid and possibly nickel-iron. The core is very hot. Estimations differ widely. The specific gravity of the core is approximately 16. Not much is known about the Earth's core except there is sharp boundaries between the crust, mantle and core.
Earth's Magnetosphere by D. Jones
Outside the Earth's atmosphere is high energy plasma. The energy is called the solar wind and consists of highly charged particles moving at great speeds away from the Sun. The solar wind dramatically affects the Earth magnetic structure and the Earth's magnetic structure dramatically affects the solar wind. About 10 Earth radius from Earth to the Sun, there is a bow shock which is upstream waves, plasma waves, turbulences, and plasma oscillations. The bow shock occurs when the Earth's magnetic field sufficiently affects the high energy particles and forms what is called the magnetosheath which protects Earth from heavy bombardment of the solar wind.
The solar wind in affect compresses the magnetic field force on the side of the Earth which faces the Sun. Conversely, the side of the Earth away from the Sun has it's magnetic lines of force dragged out into space a hundred times further than the lines on the Sun side and is called the magnetotail.
The magnetotail is also curved in space in the direction leading away from the Earth's trajectory. Within the magnetotail there are various magnetic disturbances called plasmasphere, plasma pause, plasma mantle, plasma sheet and neutral current sheet. Each of these magnetotail disturbances have associated with them sharp boundary layers. Another effect is the Earth's magnetic poles are tilted toward the Sun and there is a cone funnel called the polar cusp.
Alteration of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field. W.J. Heikklia
Angle of Solar Wind interaction Kenneth Behannon and Norman Ness
Within the plasma sheet are currents of electrical particles. The currents are flowing perpendicular to the plane of the Sun and Earth. There are two currents, one in the northern sector and one in the southern sector of the plasma sheet. Between the two currents is a neutral sheet where current flows together. The potentials of 1 to 8 thousand volts are commonly present. Areas as the Van Allen radiation belts potentials can be as high as 100 million volts. Because these are high currents and are of astronomical size in a high resistance environment P = I^2 * R, the energy required to support the currents is astronomical. The energy of the proportions such that if applied to stop the Earth, it could bring the Earth to a stand still within one revolution about the Sun.
Radioactive measurements of modern times dates the Earth's age as somewhere between 1.8 and 3 billion years. Lord Kelvin dated the Earth by making calculations on the amount of thermal energy required to cool the Earth's core. Based on the amount of radiant energy captured by the Sun minus the heat radiated into space, the Earth would cool within 30 million years. However, recent experiments show the Earth radiates more energy than previously expected. (ie. Freezing the duky shoot.) Therefore, shortening Kelvin's prediction to something less than 30 million years.
Obviously, Kelvin was wrong in his dating of the Earth because it has been shown to be at least 2 billion years old and more than likely 4 to 5 billion years. However, this is a very important kinetic energy calculation.
The Earth rotates on its axis in 24 hours for a mean solar day and 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.091 seconds for mean sidereal day in mean solar time. The Earth circles the Sun in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds decreasing at .53 seconds per century.
The Earth's rotation has some anomalies. The length of a day is increasing about 1 millisecond per century as shown line "A" on the graph below. The length of a day increases as much as 5 milliseconds for a 5 to 10 year period and then decreases. The length of a day chances from day to day and is as much as 30 milliseconds fast in June and the same amount of time slow in October. The maximum change for a day was 0.44 milliseconds. Line "B" below show the erratic nature of the Earth's year to year change in rotation speed.
Errors in measurement. Bars show limits of measurement.
Sunspots and length of day changes. N.P.J. O'Hora
Changes in the length of year and eccentric dipole in modern times. Originated by Yukutake & J. Geomag. published by J.A. Jacobs and K.D. Aldridge.
Earth's Interior alteration with change in rotation. Solid line represents westward motion of dipole and dashed line the eastward angular velocity of mantle. From Ball, Kahle & Vestine. Rand Corp.
Meteors hit the Earth's atmosphere and surface regularly. Most meteors however, burn up in the Earth's atmosphere. Many of those which make it to the Earth's surface go undetected. Except for the one that hit a car the other day. It is estimated that a meteor of less than a ton hits the Earth somewhere every year, a 5 ton meteor hits the Earth every 4 years, a 50 ton meteor hits every 30 years, a 200 ton meteor hits every 500 years, a 50,000 ton meteor hits every 100,000 years and a la-la-paloosa hits Earth every 20 to 100 million years. A million ton meteor hit Africa in recent history. The velocity of the meteors ranges between 30 meters per second or 67 mile per hour to 175 meters per second or 400 miles per hour. From time to time, a meteor hits the Earth which is large enough that the Earth's atmosphere doesn't slow it down. Meteors can hit the Earth in a large group too. Thus, the term meteor shower. Because the Earth's surface is two thirds water, it can be concluded that two thirds the meteors hit the water.
In the U.S. in Arizona a meteor hit and dented the Earth with a mile wide hole of 650 feet deep. It is believed by oil people that a meteor of sufficient size and energy impacted Earth, went through the crust and into the mantle creating Iceland. The energy released by a meteor hit can be very substantial as an example the Barringer Crater in Arizona was about 5 megatons, and Verdefort Ring in South Africa was about 1.5 million megatons. The energy to put the hole in Iceland required about a 100 million megatons.
Due to modern techniques, more astroblemes are being discovered. It seems the Earth has been hit many times with very large meteors. The Verdefort Ring being just one. Canada has a donut shaped lake caused by a huge hit. It is suggested that a meteor created Hudson Bay. Astroblems are the size of which humans didn't recognize as meteor hits until satellites too pictures from space.
Living history shows many changes in the conditions of the Earth. The sea level has raised and lowered thousands of feet. There are sea shell fossils on inland land masses which are thousands of feet above sea level. There are two conditions in which this can occur; one is where the mountain moved up and the other is where the sea level moved. Both of these conditions have a high degree of probably. Coral outcroppings indicate within 3000 years, the sea level was 200 feet lower. Coral outcroppings indicate that the sea level has undergone severe rather quick level changes. Such outcroppings variances and levels require quick changes because a slow change would mean that the coral shelf would be continuous. A fast change would mean a large distance between outcroppings. In various coral shelves there is nothing between the shelves and in others there is sand, rocks, and lava.
Several life forms have been frozen in history too. One such animal was the mammoth. Mammoths have been found flash frozen standing up with undigested food in their stomach. Since mammoths were a huge elephant type creatures, with thick hairy skin enabling them to survive cold climates, their food would not have frozen undigested if the animal were simply subjected to a drop in temperature caused by a storm. To be flash frozen quick enough to freeze food in the animals stomach indicates a quick drastic change in weather. Also, the mammoth had to stay frozen for thousands of years thus, this indicates there was a permanent change in weather at the location. If there were not a location change, the storm would pass, the animal would have thawed out, decomposed, and at the very least the food would have been digested.
Prehistoric history indicates several massive Earth surface condition changes have occurred. Except for a few species like the alligator and shark, prehistoric animals were eradicated very quickly at several periods in the Earth's history. Many fossils of long past creatures have been found which can not be explained by techtonic movement. Only a massive change in water table would account for location of the finds. Man has been on the planet for well over a million years. Yet, man's recorded history is only a few thousand years. Even in man's story telling, there is mention of drastic water level changes as the lost city of Atlantis and Noah's ark.
Earth is an island in space. The Earth is like an egg, thin shelled with a molten plastic interior and a liquid core yoke. On the surface, Earth's environment supports many species as homosapian, but, just below the surface it is very hot. The Earth is flying through a horrendous electrically stressed environment. Above Earth and below Earth, humans could not survive. Until only a few thousand years ago, most the land area of the Earth was uninhabitable to humans. There are still places on Earth which are uninhabitable. It is said Earth is the garden of eden where, in fact, Earth is our only garden.
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