What is the main element constituting the earth's crust?

For those people who attentively listened to the teachers in the school, will be interested to know that the main element constituting the earth's crust is oxygen.

The crust, its features

The Two main types of crust is continental and oceanic. From the names it is clear, on what principle are they divided. They vary in composition, structure and other characteristics.

The Layers of crust in oceanic regions is as follows:

• Sediment that covers the ocean bottom (layer thickness - from a few meters to two kilometers);
• Basalt formed by crystallization of magma which comes out of the magma chambers (thickness from 4 to 10 kilometers);
• Gabbro-serpentinite, which separates the crust from the mantle (5-6 kilometers).

Interestingly, earlier oceanic crust was divided only on the first two layers, but doing geological research, scientists have identified a third layer.

The Layers of the earth's crust in continental regions:

• Sediment (thickness - up to 15 kilometers);
• Granite (15 to 50 km);
• Basalt (15-20 miles).

Continental crust has a much larger capacity (i.e., thickness) than the ocean because it rises above sea level and in mountain regions generally greatly exceeds the capacity of oceanic crust.

Chemical composition of the crust

As mentioned above, the main element constituting the earth's crust is oxygen. Of course, he is not present in pure form, and acts as the compounds with other chemical elements within the composition, and its share is more than 49 percent.

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The Composition of the earth's crust called aluminosilicate, the aluminum compounds (the 13th element in the periodic table of chemical elements) and silicon (silicium - in the periodic table the element with atomic number 14) with oxygen. In the oceanic crust percentages of SiO₂ of 61.9, when the continental - 49,4, and the content of aluminum compounds Al₂O₃ Is almost the same - 15.6% and 16%, respectively. Other elements such as calcium, magnesium, ferrum, titanium, sodium, potassium, manganese, which also oxidizes the main element constituting the earth's crust, is a fraction from 0.1 to 5.7 percent.

What knowledge in the study of the earth's crust gives school science geography

The crust in the educational process is considered in the context of what is Earth, that is talking about the Central inner ball - the core, the mantle and the crust of the earth consists of lithospheric plates moving with low speed (up to 10 centimeters per year) at the mantle. Once the canadian geophysicist was given an interesting comparison. He said that the Earth similar to an egg, cooked “bag”, that is not hard-boiled.

The Structure of the earth's crust (grade 7, by the way, more detail and thoroughly examines the subject than the sixth) is studied on the basis of textbooks, which do not always have time for new discoveries and changes in structure of Ground objects. But concepts are introduced quite affordable and correct.

Gifts from the Earth

Do Not think that once the movement of layers of the earth's crust is insignificant - only 10 inches a year, there are no dangers for human life no. On the contrary, activities, hidden under the earth's crust, a very active and powerful. We are talking about the earthquakes and explosions of volcanoes.

Some sources indicated that across the planet there are about five thousand earthquakes of different power. The highest activity observed around the Pacific plate.

What to do with this disaster?

To Prevent an earthquake is impossible. Forces that provoke this disaster, beyond the control of man, for their source is far deeper than has infiltrated humanity. We are only "picking" the top layer (still within the 13 kilometers), at a time when the deepest recorded location of the epicenter of the earthquake was 750 kilometers.

But everything was done to anticipate possible disaster, his strength and place. For this purpose, the seismographs.

The Constant research enable to draw a picture of seismic activity and take it into account during construction. Engineers, in turn, are working on new designs that can withstand such activity. There is continuous work on informing the population about how to behave in case of earthquake.

A Terrible phenomenon, which may occur as a result of such disaster is the tsunami. In 2011, huge waves of ocean water devastated the lands of North-Eastern Japan, killing about 16 thousand people and over a million buildings were destroyed fully or partially. Including three reactors at a nuclear power plant "Fukushima-1". More than three hundred thousand persons remained without a roof over your head. The same eventinfluenced the speed of rotation of the Earth, but hardly noticeable to humans, as the day became shorter by only 1.8 microseconds. So, speaking on the topic, what is the main element constituting the earth's crust, we moved on to the problems that can occur because of processes hidden by it.