The lithosphere, Greek for “rocky sphere,” is the outermost shell of the Earth. The term is also used to refer to the outermost rocky shell of other solid planets. It is a relatively thin layer, about 31 to 62 miles (50 to 100 km) thick under the oceans and 93 miles (150 km) thick on the continents. This layer is composed of the upper crust, about 3 miles (5 km) thick in the oceans and 40.3 mles (65 km) thick on the continents, and the upper mantle, which makes up the remainder. Separating the crust and the upper mantle is the Mohorovičić discontinuity, the point at which rocks become plastic rather than solid. Beneath the lithosphere is the asthenosphere, which continues the upper mantle, and is approximately the point at which the mantle becomes liquid.

Investigating Four Spheres of Earth Everything in Earth’s system is placed into one of the four subsystems: land, water, living things, or air. The subsystems are known as “spheres.” Specifically, they are known as the geosphere (land), hydrosphere (water), biosphere (living things) and atmosphere (air). Start studying Chapter seven. Geography Which feature is part of the lithosphere? Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. The lithosphere; geochemistry, geology and geophysics Dehydration of subducted oceanic lithospherereleases fluid into the overlying mantle wedge and initiates a chain of events culminating in the generation of magma that rises to form volcanic arcs. Igneous Rock Associations 7. Arc magmatism I: relationship between subduction and magma genesis. Start studying Geography - Lithosphere. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

This planetary shell consists of lithospheric plates, otherwise known as the tectonic plates, which drift slowly over time periods of millions of years. Their rate of drift is comparable to the rate at which a person's fingernails grow. Over long periods of time, however, they can create mighty structures, such as the Himalayan Mountains in Tibet. Mt. Everest and the other mountains were formed when the tectonic plate under India forced its way upwards into Asia.

Using careful measurement methods and the study of strata, paleontologists have determined that the tectonic plates have drifted all over the surface of the planet since at least 600 million years ago, when diverse fossils appeared. During this time, the continents started off separate, then merged together into the giant continent Pangaea, only to split up after a few hundred million years and create the continents people are familiar with today.

Lithospheric activity can have a profound effect on the surface above it. When Australia finally separated from Antarctica 50 million years ago, it allowed a new oceanic current — the circumpolar current — to flow around Antarctica and reinforce its own cooling. This froze the continent, which was previously covered in forests, killing all but the hardiest of life there. It also decreased the average global temperature by several degrees.

Although humans cannot dig very deeply into the Earth’s crust with current technology, geoscientists can study the properties of the deep lithosphere by examining special rocks, or xenoliths, brought up through deep volcanic pipes.

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Higher Geography Lithosphere

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Water is stored in three states: as liquid water in the oceans, river and lakes; as ice; and as atmospheric moisture in the form of gaseous water vapour. Water is cycled between key stores by a variety of processes at different rates of flux.

Liquid water storage (Hydrosphere): This storage accounts for 96.5% of all water on earth. Processes impacting upon this important store include runoff and precipitation inputting water to the store and evaporation moving water from the ocean into the atmospheric store. These changes have minimal impact upon the storage capacity, however long term climatic change events such as ice ages do have the potential to lower the storage capacity significantly.

Ice storage (Cryosphere): This storage accounts for 1.7% of all water on earth. Processes impacting upon the store include precipitation (as snow) and outputs include ice melt. Major stores include the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, polar sea ice and mountain glaciers. Annual changes to ice coverage have minimal impact upon storage capacity. However, as with the hydrospheric storage, during ice ages cryospheric storage increases and during warmer inter-glacials it reduces.

Bedrock storage (Lithosphere): This storage also accounts for 1.7% of all water on earth. Whilst the level of storage capacity is low, this store captures water for the longest periods of time. Water can flow through the lithosphere into underground aquifers but this transfer may be relatively slow, often taking many years. Some water is stored within bedding planes, joints and pores in rocks and can remain there for hundreds of years.

Atmospheric moisture storage (Atmosphere): This storage accounts for 0.001% of water on earth. Water is removed from water surfaces through evaporation and is then stored temporarily as water vapour and condensation before being released back to earth as precipitation. Additionally, transpiration from plants releases water vapour into the atmosphere.

These four dominant ‘spheres’ are supplemented by two others that have a role: the Biosphere (all living things, including plants and animals) and the Pedosphere (the soil layer that contains both organic carbon as soil bacteria and remains of plants, and non-organic carbon from infiltration by acidic rain).

Andy Day

Andy recently finished being a classroom geographer after 35 years at two schools in East Yorkshire as head of geography, head of the humanities faculty and director of the humanities specialism. He has written extensively about teaching and geography - with articles in the TES, Geography GCSE Wideworld and Teaching Geography.

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Higher Geography Lithosphere Notes

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  Paper 2 Revision Question Cards for AQA GCSE (9-1) Geography

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  Paper 1 Revision Question Cards for AQA GCSE (9-1) Geography

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