Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: Olog-hai
Presuming there was a molten period.
Considering lava, it seems like you might say that the majority of the material inside the earth is molten today.

14 posted on 11/10/2018 10:53:46 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies ]


To: conservatism_IS_compassion

No, due to the pressure within the mantle and even between the crust and the mantle. The asthenosphere, for example, is generally solid due to that pressure; it’s actually when the pressure goes down that molten magma can form, as I understand it.

Also, the planet’s outer core is liquid iron and nickel, but the inner core is solid; but the temperatures down there are as hot as the sun’s surface.


19 posted on 11/10/2018 11:06:52 AM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies ]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion

One thing that magma depends on to form is dissolved gases, particularly sulfur compounds, carbon dioxide and even water. Another is decompression in the asthenosphere, a layer of the upper mantle that is solid yet plastic.

Phenomena like this usually happen at fault lines; those are not conduits for a giant molten mass underneath the ground to pass through, but areas where compression and decompression happen for these phenomena to occur, otherwise we could have volcanoes everywhere.


43 posted on 11/10/2018 5:21:02 PM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson