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7 votes

What is the average temperature of the whole planet Earth, not just the surface?

TL;DR: Approximately $2700\,\text K$ ($2400\text{°C}$, $4400\text{°F}$) Assuming that the weights are indeed the heat capacity per unit volume $C$ and that $C \approx \rho C_P$, where $\rho$ is the ...
Wood's user avatar
  • 241
6 votes
Accepted

Do these rock layers correspond to different years?

To me it looks like a mylonite, a type of metamorphic rock formed by intense ductile deformation. This deformation breaks the original minerals, which then recrystallize as small grains along the ...
Jean-Marie Prival's user avatar
5 votes

From how deep in the mantle has any rock ever been brought to the surface? Have scientists found anything they believe originated in the outer core?

Diamond is stable at high temperatures only under very high pressures. Mineral inclusions in a diamond, and the rocks in which a diamond are embedded, can offer further clues as to the depth from ...
nigel222's user avatar
  • 161
5 votes

Do Earth's layers move at different speeds?

The inner core rotates slightly faster than the rest of the planet. This passage from National Geographic explains: The liquid outer core separates the inner core from the rest of the Earth, and ...
BillDOe's user avatar
  • 2,197
4 votes
Accepted

Do Earth's layers move at different speeds?

Im am currently doing my masters in geophysics (last semester) and before that I did a bachelor in geoscience. I assume by layers you mean the crust, the mantle and the core. These all have ...
user00007's user avatar
4 votes

From how deep in the mantle has any rock ever been brought to the surface? Have scientists found anything they believe originated in the outer core?

As far as I know the best estimate is "upper mantle" from mantle xenoliths but that's not terribly specific. I am not sure if knowing more than that is possible right now.
Ian's user avatar
  • 41
3 votes

Why is phosphorus concentrated in living organisms rather than the lithosphere, aesthenosphere, crust, mantle, core?

Biological processes artificially concentrate phosphorus into living organisms. The simple explanation is that, for example, an adult human, eats approximately 2kg of food every day and excretes ...
Ash's user avatar
  • 5,155
3 votes
Accepted

What produces these amazing 3D structures in Tibet?

The terrain examples show some striking similarities to what is referred to in the United States as "Badlands" - a type of terrain formed by layered sedimentary strata of rock that is soft enough to ...
dplmmr's user avatar
  • 1,144
3 votes

How is geological time divided into units?

The divisions in the geologic time scale have evolved over time. Its origins can be traced back to Nicolaus Steno in 1669 described two basic geologic principles. The first stated that sedimentary ...
Earth Science Expatriate's user avatar
2 votes

Oldest to Newest Bedrock in the USA "road trip"

If you were hoping for a smooth succession from Archean all the way down to Quaternary, you're going to be disappointed. Geology is messier than rocks being serenely laid down continuously through ...
Spencer's user avatar
  • 3,629
2 votes

Is There a Correlation Between Earthquake Magnitude and the Deformation Observed in the Rock?

Generalizing such relationships is, as suggested above, hard to impossible - but for well studied and understood systems such correlations have been observed. For instance there is a clear, and almost ...
Andy M's user avatar
  • 2,120
1 vote
Accepted

Why is phosphorus concentrated in living organisms rather than the lithosphere, aesthenosphere, crust, mantle, core?

Some things to consider: The average weight of adult humans is 62 kg & the number of people on Earth is about 8,124,715,000 kg. From your graphs, 1.1% of humans is phosphorus. That's about 5,541,...
Fred's user avatar
  • 25.1k
1 vote

Is There a Correlation Between Earthquake Magnitude and the Deformation Observed in the Rock?

You are probably thinking of pseudotachylite veins, which are interpreted as "fossil earthquakes" (among other things). To my knowledge, the first who tried to quantify some seismic ...
Jean-Marie Prival's user avatar
1 vote

Is There a Correlation Between Earthquake Magnitude and the Deformation Observed in the Rock?

There is no mathematical equation relating geological deformation with earthquake magnitude. Different faults move differently. Some move horizontally (strike-slip faults). Other move vertically (...
Fred's user avatar
  • 25.1k
1 vote

Why were the Interglacial periods in the early Pleistocene spaced about one million years apart, but recent ones only 100,000 years apart?

It was a transition from a 41000 year cycle to a 100000 year cycle that happened about a million years ago (the Mid-Pleistocene Transition), not from a 1000000 year cycle to a 100000 year cycle. There ...
David Hammen's user avatar
  • 24.7k
1 vote

How to prove that there is no life undergound?

The Kola Superdeep Borehole is 12.2 Kilometers. At the bottom of the Kola Superdeep Borehole it gets pretty hot, and there is no soil or much organic matter since it would probably have turned into ...
Tardy's user avatar
  • 574
1 vote

Is There a Correlation Between Earthquake Magnitude and the Deformation Observed in the Rock?

Surface Displacement vs. Earthquake Magntidue This answer presumes that you are looking for a relationship between earthquake displacement and earthquake magnitude. I think what you are looking for ...
Kélian Dascher Cousineau's user avatar

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