In a lot of my blogs I have talked about things out in space like black holes, neutron stars, the sun, meteors, etc. Today I am going to wander in the other direction and wonder about what is under our feet. If you are a politician it is the rest of us, if you are the rest of us it is good old Mother Earth. But what do we know about what is under our feet? How far has man penetrated our Earth and does anything live down there. Bacteria have been discovered in the cracks of rocks in gold mines 2.4 miles deep. Some scientists believe that the bio-mass that lives deep underground outweighs all the life on the surface.
Our Earth is made up of four major layers; the outer crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core. The inner core is an iron rich orb that is actually larger than the planet Mercury. Its outer part is molten but the inner part is solid and spins independently of the rest of the planet. it has been discovered that earthquake waves travel faster north and south than they do west and east. One reason for this could be that area has metallic crystals that are aligned with the earth's poles and the waves may travel faster "with the grain", so to speak. If it were not for the spinning of the inner core that creates a magnetic field around the earth, the solar wind would strip us of our atmosphere like it did on Mars. So let us hope that the inner most part of our world keeps on spinning and keeps on creating a magnetic field that will keep on protecting us from the harmful affects of our closest star.
It is cloudy and warm here today with chances of rain all weekend, so we will not be seeing the sun, but I hope the sun always shines on you and brightens your day. So, have yourself a great start to the weekend, you hear?
say whut?
ReplyDeleteGeology is one of my weak spots. Should have taken a few college courses in it when I had the chance.
ReplyDeleteI'm wonder'n what ya did with that old John Deere tractor?
ReplyDeleteTrouble, OK I will . . ."what".
ReplyDeleteSixbears, geology is very fascinating.
BB, the old Farmall 200 is sitting at my son's place at take back of my property and the John Deere is next to my porch covered with a tarp.
Inner space should prove to be very interesting if and when we get around to doing more studies on it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's best to leave the inner part of the earth alone, and anything deeper than about 6-10' is "inner". When you think about it, we've nearly trashed the earth's surface, leave our space garbage floating around in orbit, leave trash all over the moon and probably Mars, and then we drill into the earth to extract things, sometimes sending in brine and whatever they use for "fracking". We wonder why Mother Nature is letting loose on us?
ReplyDeleteWell said Gypsy!
DeleteHJ, did you know the core is nearly as hot as the surface of he sun? Yep, I am sure we will discover a lot of surprises.
ReplyDeleteGypsy, man sure has made a mess every where he goes.
Most of our current economic crisis is energy related.
ReplyDeleteWhen in fact we all live atop vast resources of untapped heat which could power our needs for a millennia and more.
There are ways, if only we had the will...
I believe that some thermal wells have Ben drilled.
ReplyDelete