1.El calor interno de la Tierra

BIOGEOSPHERE Bilingual Biology and Geology I.E.S. "J.S.Elcano (Sanlúcar Bda.)

Unit 8: Internal dynamics of the Earth 1 2 3

1. The internal heat of the Earth

The interior of the Earth is hotter than the exterior, because of the heat generated when the Earth was formed and that remains inside it.

The temperature in the inner core is higher that the sun surface, above 6,000°C. Measured from the Earth’s surface the temperature increases by about 30°C/km in depth.

4,600 million years ago.

Earth started to form

by addition of fragments

of rocks that collided.

Slowly the young planet grew.

The heat generated with

constant collisions

kept the Earth molten.

4,000 million years ago.

Collisions decreased and the heavy materials sunk to the center of the planet, forming the core, while, the surface light materials started to solidify forming the crust.

The Earth today.

The Earth has a core divided into:

- Inner core, solid due

to the tremendously

high pressure

in the center at the Earth

- Outer core, molten.

The Earth’s internal heat, called geothermal energy, is responsible for the internal dynamics of the geosphere. This energy is slowly released from the inner layers

to the surface.

The intense heat of the deep mantle, heated by the core, provokes the rocks melt. As they melt they become less dense, and rise towards the surface. At the same time, rocks of the upper mantle, colder and denser sink to the deeper zones, where they heat up and consequently rise up again. This circulation of materials is known as convection currents.