Geosphere

What is Geosphere
• In a nutshell, the rigid outer part of the earth,
consisting of the crust and upper mantle.
• is the solid shell of the planet Earth. That
means the crust, plus the part of the
upper mantle that behaves elastically on long
time scales.
 Dissecting Geosphere
• The lithosphere provides a conductive lid atop
the convecting mantle: it reduces heat
transport through the Earth.
• Under the lithosphere is the asthenosphere,
the weaker, hotter, and deeper part of the
upper mantle. This part can flow.
 What is Lithosphere
• The lithosphere is the solid, outer part of the
Earth. The lithosphere includes the brittle
upper portion of the mantle and the crust, the
outermost layers of Earth's structure. It is
bounded by the atmosphere above and the
asthenosphere (another part of the upper
mantle) below.
 Lithosphere is made of?
• The lithosphere is Earth's outermost layer,
composed of rocks in the crust and upper
mantle that behave as brittle solids.
The rigid lithosphere sits on top of the
asthenosphere, a layer of the mantle in
which rocks are hot and deformable.
 Two Types of Lithosphere
• Oceanic lithosphere, which is associated with
oceanic crust and exists in the ocean basins.
Oceanic lithosphere is typically about 50–100
km thick
• Continental lithosphere, which is associated
with continental crust. Continental lithosphere
has a range in thickness from about 40 km to
perhaps 200 km, of which about 40 km is
crust.
 Oceanic Lithosphere
• Oceanic lithosphere thickens as it ages and
moves away from the mid-ocean ridge. This
thickening occurs by conductive cooling,
which converts hot asthenosphere into
lithospheric mantle, and causes the oceanic
lithosphere to become increasingly dense with
age. Oceanic lithosphere is less dense than
asthenosphere for a few tens of millions of
years, but after this becomes increasingly
denser than asthenosphere.
 Continental Lithosphere
• In plate tectonics terms, the continental
lithosphere is part of the rigid outer rind of
the Earth, which is segmented into several
major plates. The cold lithosphere lies atop a
hotter, more mobile asthenosphere.
 Asthenosphere
• the upper layer of the earth's mantle, below
the lithosphere, in which there is relatively
low resistance to plastic flow and convection
is thought to occur.
• Rocks in the asthenosphere are "plastic",
meaning that they can flow in response to
deformation. Even though it can flow, the
asthenosphere is still made of solid (not
liquid) rock
 Why Lithosphere is Important?
• The lithosphere is largely important because it
is the area that the biosphere (the living
things on earth) inhabit and live upon.
• It is also the source of almost all of our
resources, and is rich in elements like iron,
aluminium, calcium, copper and magnesium,
which humans have used for tools and
machinery for millennia.