What are the bases for the two major divisions of Earth's interior--one that distinguishes crust, mantle, and core and the other that distinguishes lithosphere and asthenosphere?
What will be an ideal response?
Physical properties define the lithosphere and asthenosphere. The plates consist of an outer layer of the Earth, the lithosphere, which is cool enough to behave as a more or less rigid shell. Occasionally the hot asthenosphere of the Earth finds a weak place in the lithosphere to rise buoyantly as a plume, or hotspot. Only the lithosphere has the strength and the brittle behavior to fracture in an earthquake.
Chemical properties define the crust, mantle, and core. The general structure of the Earth as revealed by seismic imaging is a layered planet composed of a crust, a mantle (consisting of an upper mantle and a lower mantle), an outer core, and inner core. These distinctions are defined on the basis of contrasts in seismic wave velocities, which are affected by chemical composition.
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