What’s the most exotic destination you’ve been to?
Hawaii?
Australia, Hoboken, New Jersey?
Well, today I’m setting off on a journey that’s way more unusual than that – down
to the Earth’s core.
And I’m inviting you to join me – are you ready?
Ah c’mon, it’ll be fun.
Let’s go!
The center of the Earth lies about 4,000 miles below its surface, so it’s gonna be a long
trip.
The layer I’m smashing through right now is the crust.
It’s something like the skin of an apple (except you can’t bite off a piece) when
you compare it to the other layers that make up the Earth.
Hey, look at that rabbit – these cuties dig tunnels up to 2 feet deep, so I’m not
actually surprised to meet it here.
And gross, was that an earthworm?
Some of the deep-burrowing types, also known as night crawlers, get big and can live 10
feet below the surface.
Moving on – did you hear that beeping sound?
That must be one of those gold diggers – a good metal detector still works at this depth.
But you’re not likely to find any gold; maybe a large piece of metal, like a car or
something.
And this must be the Mole Man burrow!
Seriously, there was a guy in London who was digging for 40 years under his house and stopped
at 26 feet.
What was he looking for?
Remember how I said the crust wasn’t really that thick?
It’s roughly 21 miles thick and is made up of basaltic rocks that are under the sea,
and granitic rocks that make up the continents.
So, there’s oceanic crust and continental crust.
Woah, was that a crocodile?
Nile Crocodiles dig the deepest burrows among all animals, so you can find them at 39 feet
under ground.
Apparently, not only crocodiles feel the desire to hide from the rest of the world – there
are whole underground cities with shelters and catacombs in different countries.
The deepest of them lies at 278 feet under Cappadocia in Turkey.
Its 18 levels could house 20,000 people!
How would they all get there?
Today, they could just catch a train at the world’s deepest metro station in Kiev, Ukraine,
lying at 348 feet.
While people have advanced technologies these days to dig this deep, trees just naturally
grow this way; in South Africa, there are species whose roots reach up to 400 feet below
the surface!
I’m currently moving through continental crust, as you see, and two important things
you should know about it are that it’s about 2 billion years old (even though the oldest
rock is 4 billion, and it was found on the shore of Hudson Bay, Canada) and it covers
about 40 percent of the Earth (yeah, the rest is oceanic crust).
The Granitic rocks that it’s made of have more silicon, aluminum and even more oxygen
in them than basaltic rocks, because they have access to open air on the surface.
The crust is the source of all the metals and minerals humans have ever used, except
for diamonds, which are much deeper.
I think we’ll spot them later…do you have pockets?
Heh heh
What was that?
People in their running gear?
As crazy as it sounds, in 2004, a half-marathon was organized in the Bochnia Salt Mine in
Poland.
It was the deepest half-marathon ever – you don’t often see people running at a depth
of 695 feet after all.
Nothing can surprise me now that I’ve seen this, except for maybe … bats!
What are you guys doing here?
1000 brown bats spend every winter in a New York zinc mine – how cozy!
Brrrr it’s getting cold – this is the deepest point you can find permafrost – or
permanently frozen soil layers, at.
Speaking of frost – the Earth’s crust serves as an electric blanket that covers
the mantle.
It’s rich in the radioactive elements uranium, thorium, and potassium, which produce heat!
Moving on – this here looks like a good hiding spot – the deepest cave in the world
is Veryovkina Cave, in Georgia (the country, not the state) at about 1.4 miles below the
ground.
And that was a train I heard – wait, how could a train possibly run this deep?
It couldn’t until 2016, when the deepest and longest underground railway, Gotthard
Base tunnel, was opened in Switzerland!
Just when you think you couldn’t possibly meet any other living beings down here – here
comes the worm from the TauTona mine in South Africa, the deepest multicellular organism.
Speaking of mines, the deepest among them is the Mponeng Gold mine, at 2.5 miles, also
in South Africa.
While I’m moving through continental crust, the oceanic crust is never too far, and its
average depth is 4.3 miles.
It covers around 60 percent of the surface of our planet, and is thinner (around 12 miles),
denser and younger (it’s no older than 180 million years) than the continental crust.
It’s constantly being born at mid-ocean ridges, and that’s what makes the continents
move.
At 7 miles deep, you have your final chance to see the ocean on this trip – we’ve
just reached Mariana Trench, the deepest point of the Pacific Ocean.
To give you an idea of how unique and special this moment is: less people have been here
than to the Moon.
Traveling through the crust was fun, but it had to end at some point, and here comes the
border where they don’t stamp your passport – the boundary between the crust and the
mantle.
It’s the largest section of the Earth, at 1,801 miles wide.
It’s made of magma rock and is heavy, making up 65 per cent of the Earth’s mass.
It stores many archeological secrets, and is made up of four elements: oxygen, silicon,
magnesium and iron.
Even though it’s basically a solid rock, the mantle is slowly and constantly moving.
What was that bling?
It must be the remnants of diamonds that were formed here, at 93 miles deep, a billion years
ago.
Then, as molten rock, they moved up to the surface.
The pressure is getting more and more extreme, and it’s getting colder and colder down
here.
This is the deepest point where earthquakes are born – the ones that come from here
are rare, and get pretty weak by the time they’ve traveled 435 miles up to the surface.
Another 30 miles down on this journey, and here comes the lower mantle.
You can thank it for any tectonic plate movements.
Why is getting so hot?
Wow, that was some serious change of landscape!
At 1,814 miles deep, the mantle ends and the outer core begins.
It’s a sunless sea of super hot liquid metal that’s about the size of Mars.
This sea has slow moving currents, and magnetic and electrical fields that produce storms
and cyclones.
By the way, the Earth owes its magnetic field to the outer core.
Without it, life on our planet would simply be impossible!
Once every several thousand years, something happens in this layer: the magnetic poles
reverse, and north and south change places.
It’s not likely to happen again soon though.
At 2,750 miles, the inner core welcomes you!
It’s the hottest, innermost part of the planet.
It’s a super dense solid ball made of 80 % iron and 20 % nickel that heats up to 10,800°F!
That’s pretty much the same as the surface of the Sun.
The inner core is nearly the size of the Moon, and makes up 2 per cent of the Earth’s mass.
If you took all the water in all the oceans and multiplied it by five, this would be roughly
the same as the volume of the inner core.
It remains solid thanks to super high pressure, which is a million times greater than the
pressure on the surface of the planet.
Because no one has been this deep (except for me right now – duh!), scientists still
have a lot of research to do in this area.
Some of them believe small crystals of iron are born in the outer parts of the core that
merge into giant crystals the size of a city closer to the center.
That’s why the inner core is also called the crystal core.
Not so long ago, British scientists found out that the inner core is relatively young
– probably somewhere between 500 and 1,000 million years old, and that’s nothing in
terms of Earth science.
It must’ve grown out of an iron crystal and keeps growing slowly every year.
So, in a billion years, it could mess up the magnetic field of the planet, who knows?
It’s hard to tell exactly where the center of the Earth is, but it looks like I can put
my flag down here at 3,958 miles.
Now that was quite a journey!
Now, for those of you who are thinking of packing your bags to go see the Earth’s
core, I have some not-so-good news: it’s technically not possible yet, because there’s
no way to survive the pressure and extreme heat that are waiting down there.
However, if someone built a tunnel that would provide all the necessary protection, it would
only take 18 minutes of free falling to get there.
Sign me up!
Would you want to travel to the Earth’s Core if it becomes possible in the near future?
Let me know down in the comments!
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