I'm working on a comic and I'd appreciate any info you had on the environment inside the Earth's core, ie: pressure, temperature, does sound exist, what does the mantle look like from the inside (like rock or is it more of a semi liquid, is there different color in lava, and anything else you could think of. Also, can lava crystallize into quartz?

Justin

Those are questions that are probably best answered in an intro geoogy book. Ill try to give you quick answers. The pressure and temperature inside the Earths core are incredibly high. The temperature is about 4300 degrees C. Thats not a super well-known number. The pressure is even less well-known but it has been calculated to be around 3.6 million bars, which is 3.6 million times atmospheric pressure at sea level! Sound does exist within the earth because sound can go through solids and liquids. Different parts of the mantle are more like solids whereas other parts are more like slushes. The asthenosphere, for example, which extends from about 100 km down to around 250 -350 km is pretty slushy. lava flows tend to mostly be dark grey or black. When theyre flowing you can only see little bits of incandescence unless there is an open channel. There are numerous photos of lava flows in VolcanoWorld. Some lavas can crystallize quartz crystals.

Sincerely,
Scott Rowland

Other Categories Other Questions
To VolcanoWorld