What Would a Journey to the Earth’s Core Be Like?

What is the most exotic destination you have been to? Hawaii? Australia, Hoboken, New Jersey? Well, today I embark on a

journey

that is much more unusual than that: to the

core

of the Earth. And I invite you to join me, are you ready? Oh, come on, it'll be fun. Come on! The center of the Earth is about 4,000 miles below its surface, so it will be a long trip. The layer I'm going through right now is the crust. It's kind of 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 beauties dig tunnels up to 2 feet deep, so I'm not surprised to find it here. And yuck, was that an

earth

worm? Some of the deep burrowing types, also known as nightcrawlers, grow and can live 10 feet below the surface. Moving on, did you hear that beep? Must be one of those gold diggers - a good metal detector still works at this depth. But you're not likely to find gold; maybe a big piece of metal, like a car or something. And this must be the Mole Man's burrow! Seriously, there was a guy in London who dug for 40 years under his house and stopped at 26 feet.

What was he looking for? Remember how I said the crust wasn't that thick? It is approximately 21 miles thick and is made up of basaltic rocks found under the sea and granitic rocks that form the continents. So, there is oceanic crust and continental crust. Wow, was that a crocodile? Nile crocodiles dig the deepest burrows of all animals, so you can find them 39 feet underground. Apparently, not only crocodiles feel the desire to hide from the rest of the world: in different countries there are entire underground cities with shelters and catacombs. The deepest of them is 278 feet under Cappadocia in Türkiye.

Its 18 levels could hold 20,000 people! How

would

everyone get there? Today, they could catch a train in the world's deepest subway station in kyiv, Ukraine, at 348 feet. Although today people have advanced technologies to dig so deep, trees grow naturally this way; In South Africa there are species whose roots reach up to 400 feet below the surface! I'm currently moving through the continental crust, you see, and two important things to know about it is that it's about 2 billion years old (although the oldest rock is 4 billion years old and was found off the coast of the Hudson Bay). , Canada) and covers about 40 percent of the Earth (yes, the rest is oceanic crust).

The granitic rocks it is made of have more silicon, aluminum, and even more oxygen than basalt rocks, because they have access to free air at the surface. The crust is the source of all the metals and minerals humans have ever used, except diamonds, which are much deeper. I guess we'll see about them later... do you have pockets? Heh heh,

what

was that? People on your running team? As crazy as it may seem, in 2004 a half marathon was organized in the Bochnia salt mine in Poland. It was the deepest half marathon in history; After all, it's not often you see people running at a depth of 695 feet.

Nothing can surprise me now that I've seen this, except maybe... bats! What are you guys doing here? 1,000 brown bats spend each winter in a New York zinc mine: how cozy! Brrrr, it's cold: This is the deepest point where you can find permafrost, or permanently frozen layers of soil. Speaking of frost, the Earth's crust acts like an electric blanket covering the mantle. It is rich in radioactive elements uranium, thorium and potassium, which produce heat! Moving on, this here looks like a good hiding place: The deepest cave in the world is Veryovkina Cave, in Georgia (the country, not the state), about 1.4 miles underground.

And that was a train I heard. Wait, how is it possible for a train to run so deep? It was not possible until 2016, when the deepest and longest underground railway, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, opened in Switzerland. Just when you think you couldn't find any other living thing down here, here comes the worm from the TauTona mine in South Africa, the deepest multicellular organism. Speaking of mines, the deepest is the Mponeng Gold mine, 4 kilometers away, also in South Africa. As I move across the continental crust, the oceanic crust is never too far away and its average depth is 4.3 miles.

It covers about 60 percent of our planet's surface and is thinner (about 12 miles), denser and younger (no more than 180 million years old) than the continental crust. It is constantly born at the oceanic ridges and that is

what

makes the continents move. At 7 miles deep, you have your last chance to see the ocean on this trip: we just reached the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the Pacific Ocean. To give you an idea of ​​how unique and special this moment is: fewer people have been here than on 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 the passport: the boundary between the crust and the mantle.

It is the largest section of the Earth, at 1,801 miles wide. It is made of magma rock and is heavy: it makes up 65 percent of the Earth's mass. It stores many archaeological secrets and is made up of four elements: oxygen, silicon, magnesium and iron. Although it is basically solid rock, the mantle moves slowly and constantly. What was that shine? They must be the remains of diamonds that formed here, 150 kilometers deep, a billion years ago. Then, like molten rock, they rose to the surface. The pressure is getting more extreme and it's getting colder down here. This is the deepest point where

earth

quakes originate; those that come from here are rare and become quite weak by the time they have traveled 435 miles to the surface.

Another 30 miles down this trip, and here comes the lower mantle. You can thank it for any movement of tectonic plates. Why is it so hot? Wow, that was a serious change of scenery! At 3,000 kilometers 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 electric 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

be simply impossible! Once every several thousand years, something happens in this layer: the magnetic poles reverse and north and south change places.

However, it's not likely to happen again anytime soon. At 2,750 miles, the inner core welcomes you! It is the warmest and 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! It is about the same as the surface of the Sun. The inner core is almost the size of the Moon and makes up 2 percent of the Earth's mass. If you took all the water in all the oceans and multiplied it by five, it would be about 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 planet's surface.

Because no one has delved that deep (except me at this point, duh!), scientists still have a lot of research to do in this area. Some of them believe that small iron crystals are born in the outer parts of the core and merge into giant city-sized crystals closer to the center. That is why the inner core is also called the crystal nucleus. Not long ago, British scientists discovered that the inner core is relatively young: probably between 500 and 1 billion years old, and that's nothing in Earth science terms. It must have arisen from an iron crystal and continues to grow slowly every year.

So in a billion years, it could alter the planet's magnetic field, who knows? It's hard to say exactly where the center of the Earth is, but it looks like I can plant my flag here at 3,958 miles. Now that was a great trip! Now, for those of you who are thinking about packing your bags to go see the Earth's core, I have some not-so-good news: technically it is not yet possible, because there is no way to survive the pressure and extreme heat that they wait down there. However, if someone built a tunnel that provided all the necessary protection, it would only take 18 minutes of free fall to get there.

Sign me up! Would you like to travel to the Earth's core if it were possible in the near future? Let me know in the comments! If you learned something new today, like this video and share it with a friend. But hey! – Don't fill your pockets with diamonds yet! We have more than 2000 interesting videos for you to watch. All you have to do is choose the left or right video, click on it and enjoy! Stay on the good side of life!