Crystals II

Planet Earth-2

It is estimated that during the first million years of terrestrial life, a thick primordial atmosphere was created around Earth, consisting of hydrogen, nitrogen, vapors, carbon dioxide and other elements. In short, the dominant gases were also the ones that would later create the greenhouse effect, arresting the radiation of the young sun. At the same time, the crust of the Earth was radiating forth heat that reached 1500 to 2000 degrees Celsius. However, the Earth continued to gradually cool down, while at the same time its crust was increasing its thickness as a function of the cooldown process. The temperature continued to drop until at a certain point it reached an average of about 200 degrees Celsius. The climatic conditions on the surface of the crust of the Earth started to permit the presence of water, despite the still high temperatures and the earth’s thick temperature whose density was estimated to have been twenty times higher than today. It would seem that since 4.3 billion years ago, water had already became a permanent feature of the earth’s surface.

As temperatures dropped, they eventually reached current levels at a certain point, with really shallow oceans taking up the greatest part of the earth’s crust, while the mainland crust was miniscule. This means that the first supercontinents were of much smaller size than they appear today. In terms of size, they probably approached Australia, and were fluctuating depending on the climatic conditions, until a moment came that the supercontinent Pangaea seemed to have stabilized in size with a slight tendency to increase.

After the end of the mass bombardment with extraterrestrial stellar bodies, we have already referred to the incidence of repeated rainfall that cooled down the surface of the earth and at the same time formed the united huge panocean, master of which the strongest of the Titans, Oceanus, was installed. Gradually, the tectonic plates started drifting, the panocean started to break down into smaller oceans. So, Earth at that time acquired its first atmosphere – that still remained hostile to life – and its set of oceans that were preparing themselves to harbor life. The repeated evaporation of water due to the earth’s temperature and the rainfall, further cooled down its surface while keeping its ‘heart’ warm and alive. A lot of work would still be needed until it was enriched with oxygen. About three billion years would still need to pass before the colonization of the land by living beings would be allowed to happen.

As our Earth was rotating, the heavier metals were driven towards the center, where its ‘heart’ would be created, mainly consisting of iron and some nickel, another important element that would help in ensuring the preservation of life. It would be its ‘heart’ that warmed its body, would affect the particular magnetic field while it remained in a molten state, and would determine the form and the capabilities of the living species. It would also comprise an ecological lab, which would filter through each ‘impurity’, inappropriate element or poison that would affect the course of life, giving it a chance to get reborn like the phoenix getting reborn from its ashes. Even those hard to bear negative interventions by the human species can to a great extent be dealt with by this ecological lab. But until when and to what extent?

Above the Earth’s mantle, there are the tectonic or lithospheric plates on which the current continents of the earth sit upon. The titanic supernatural forces had very wisely taken care of all that. Initially, the tectonic plates were all bonded together, thus creating a unified continent, the mainland, surrounded by a unified ocean. As the Earth’s ‘heart’ pulsated and warmed up the mantle that was below the mainland more than it did the part that was below the oceans, it gradually started to partition the crust into the seven greater and the five smaller tectonic plates and some even smaller ones. They all started to move, almost floating on the flexible mantle and being in perpetual movement, thus rendering planet Earth a living machine. These movements might be converging, diverging and laterally sliding. In the first case, one plate approaches the other, and as a result, one of the two submerges for a few centimeters per year and is being destroyed under the other, directing itself towards the filtering section of the mantle-outer core area. In the diverging tectonic plates, one plate moves away from the other, thus allowing for new clean crust to flow out, creating mountains. In the case of the laterally sliding plates, the two plates move laterally, almost without any mutual destruction or creation of new crust. In this way, Earth is rejuvenated, absorbing and dissolving refuge of any form which would be dangerous for life and on the other hand, creating new clean material in the perpetual lab at its core.

After the completion of planet Earth, we can see its most prominent parts. We can understand the wonderful workings that sustain life which also reflect and project the wisdom of the creativity of nature. The Titans were glad and elated for that wondrous lively planet that would become their kingdom. Starting from its surface, we observe the stable crust of the Earth which has an average depth of about 35 km running along a contoured line of course, while in mountainous areas, its greatest depth could reach 70 to 80 km. The Earth’s crust consists of the mainland and the oceanic crust, the latter reaching average depths of about 7 kilometers. Deeper than this is the lithosphere which reaches a depth of about 150 km and is comprised of seven great tectonic plates that float on the mantle, occasionally entering the asthenosphere.

Generally speaking, and starting off from the surface of the Earth, the crust may reach up to seventy or eighty kilometers in certain points, while in other places, it might be less than twenty kilometers. This is the stable part that encompasses the whole planet in a concrete shell, with the mainland crust constituting the land and occupying about 30% and the oceanic crust constituting the sea floor and occupying the rest of the 70% of the crust area. In comparison to a watermelon, the crust of the Earth corresponds to the thick rind (exocarp). The crust preserves life on the surface and is surrounded by the earth’s atmosphere. Under the lithosphere are the tectonic or lithospheric plates that are floating on the asthenosphere. Also, the hydrosphere with a maximum depth of 11 km and average depth of above 4 km, follows the contours of the crust. It is separated into five oceans and splits earth into five continents.

The mantle follows, which intrudes into the asthenosphere in multiple uneven levels and reaches a depth of 2900 km. The asthenosphere is flexible and it is comprised of silica compounds. On it ‘floats’ the lithosphere, or, to be more precise, the stratum across which the earth’s tectonic plates move. We could say that the asthenosphere is the ‘suspension’ of the lithosphere and the hydrosphere that absorbs all sorts of shocks, but up to a certain extent, of course. The temperature of the mantle ranges from 100 to 4,000 degrees Celsius as we move towards the core of the Earth. Finally, after the mantle lies the core of the Earth at a thickness of about 3,500 Km, i.e., in a depth ranging from 2,900 to 6,380 km whereby the center of the Earth lies. The core consists of 80% iron and the rest of nickel, silica and some traces of heavy chemical elements. It can be separated into the outer core with a thickness of 2,250 km in a molten state and the inner core, with a thickness of 1,250 km that is considered to be solid. That difference causes a small difference in the speed of rotation, since the inner core is estimated to move 2 degrees faster per year than the rest of the planet, thus creating the dynamo phenomenon and affecting the Earth’s magnetic field.

As far as the earth’s atmosphere is concerned, it is a gaseous sphere with a radius of 3,500 km with its center at the core of the earth and a perimeter of 62,000 km covering the whole planet ‘Earth’ from the surface of the sea to the Universe, that can be separated into five successive levels. As we elevate ourselves higher into the atmosphere, slowly, gradually and smoothly, the atmosphere gets thinner and disappears, merging with the outer universe with a conventional border at about 3,500 km above the surface of the Earth. But this is not the case with temperature where we note strange peaks and dips per each atmospheric stratum. In the troposphere, for example, it decreases normally but it increases in the stratosphere, while it decreases again in the mesosphere only to increase radically again in the thermosphere.

Earth’s atmosphere has been conventionally separated into five strata, depending on their properties and main characteristics. First of all, the stratum that begins from the earth’s surface is the troposphere, extending to a height of 20 km from the surface, while at the poles it is less, reaching to a height of 10 km. The troposphere includes three quarters of the atmospheric air, all the atmospheric suspensions and meteorological phenomena, for example, clouds, mist, rain, snow, hail, lightning, and in fact comprises the familiar to the humans part that is usually called ‘earth’s atmosphere’. As the height of the troposphere increases, we observe a decrease of temperature of 6.5 degrees Celsius per kilometer up.

Right after the troposphere, the stratosphere begins, with a radius of 30 km, which starts at a height of 20 km and reaches a height of 50 km. It is here that air travel occurs, strong winds dominate, along with good visibility and low atmospheric density while its temperature starts at -60 degrees Celsius, and as one goes above 35 km, it gradually starts to increase, with its specific value depending on a number of factors, to reach a maximum of 15 degrees Celsius. This increase in temperature is mainly due to the absorption of a great part of the ultraviolet radiation from the sun by the ozone layer. The last part of the stratosphere, i.e., at about 40 to 50 km high and a thickness of about 7 km, there is the ozone layer, the subtle and extremely important defense shield that protects life on earth, since it arrests ultraviolet radiation. The border between the stratosphere and mesosphere is conventionally called stratopause.

The third part is the mesosphere with a radius of about 30 km extending to a height of 50 km from the surface of the earth to a maximum of 80 km. This is the middle part of the earth’s atmosphere. In the mesosphere, the temperature decreases the more one goes up due to the lack of ozone in that particular stratum, while at its highest borders, it reaches -90 degrees Celsius. The highest point of the mesosphere is the mesopause with temperature ranging from -92 to -150 degrees Celsius, which is considered the coldest area of the earth’s atmosphere. From the last borders of the mesosphere the scattering of light41 commences which is mainly responsible for creating the blue color of the sky and the yellow-orange-reds at sunset.

The fourth part of the earth’s atmosphere is the thermosphere, with a radius of about 720 km, since it begins from a height of 80 km above the surface of the earth to reach a height of 800 km. Temperature in this stratum increases exponentially up until approximately 400 to 500 km above the surface of the earth. It actually starts at -92 degrees Celsius and reaches some thousands degrees at a height of about 400 km. This is the reason the stratum was named ‘thermosphere’ in the first place. Of course this increase in temperature has nothing to do with the concept of ‘heat’ but with the kinetic thermal energy. The theoretical separating plane between the thermosphere and the last atmospheric stratum, the exosphere, is called thermopause. Because at the height of 80 km up until 800 km there is a great number of ions and free electrons, that stratum is called ionosphere.

The fifth and last part of the earth’s atmosphere is the exosphere with a radius of about 2,700 km, extending to a height of 800 km from the surface of the earth to reach a final height of 3,500 km, with a gradual weakening of the gravitational force of the Earth until it becomes nil at the point where it theoretically continues to infinity since it normally extends to cosmic space with which it gradually mixes. All these separating borders of the earth’s atmosphere are conventional because, despite the fact that they are based on particular characteristics present in each of these strata, they simply help us in its understanding42.