why is the lithosphere important to us??
920356
Click below for a lot more information.
230308
I think Stonehenge was built as a way to connect with "others" from outer space. Also, the stones are very heavy and I heard that those particular stones are found somewhere far from where they lay today. Moreover, I think the stones a line with certain stars and planets so that might mean something!!
710689
It does not help.  It is the LACK of sufficient conduction in the mantle that forces the core to get rid of its heat by mantle convection instead.  If the mantle conducted better, it wouldn't need to convect, and then there would be no plate tectonic movement at all.
1078990
Go to www.usgs.gov.  It's a great site that gives you all sorts of information about earthquaktes, faultlines, etc. I'm not sure if you can view all of North America, but as there are so many faultlines, it may be best to view it in smaller areas.  Good luck and enjoy exploring!
14315
Tectonics (and therefore earthquakes and volcanoes) is driven by the internal heat of the planet.\n\nEver since the Earth formed it has been cooling, so if anything tectonic activity is on a constant decline. The loss of heat is very slow though, so from the point of view of recorded human history there has been very little change.
114510
Like pauliegone said, the lithosphere does in a way seperate the crust from the mantle.  The tectonis plates (crust) are supported by this semisolid layer.  However, the lithosphere is considered, by some scientists, part of the mantle.  So, it depends on which scientists you believe, although I believe that pauliegone is correct.
472054
The standard meridian is important, especially these days, with cell phones, or navigation devices. \nIt's important to have a central starting off point to determine, your geographic position.\nThe Meridian, is important for time also, with the world wide commercial interests, you need to know the times in other times zones around the world.
586219
you have to show what you see on that area, because you are mapping that region by the geological ways, a thick gravel bed is important when making road to there, every type of road has its own ratio(CBR, California bearing ratio) which gives us the max load that road can overcome so 100mm gravel is very important when making road to the area
423179
i think that it is very important in a modern society like ours who might one day venture into the unknown reaches of space to be fully aware of our space surroundings. the moon does look pretty promising for a colony.
1150478
It's widely believed in the scientific community that the earth has a liquid mantle (that's where magma/lava comes from) and a solid super-hot iron core.  Good luck digging through that.
167190
Some things in science have obvious applications. Some things do not and are just knowledge for knowledge's sake. I think that knowledge of the center of the earth falls in that second category; there is no immediate obvious spin-off from knowing about the center of the earth. However, there are potential and indirect reasons why one might want to know about it:\n\n1. Knowledge about the structure of the earth helps us understand how the earth and possibly other planets came to be. We really do not understand much about planetary formation. This knowledge is not directly applicable, but we might need to know where to look in the rest of the universe for other earth-like planets, and knowledge of how planets form could help. This would be in the distant future, if at all. \n\n2. The dynamo that produces the earth's magnetic field is in the core of the earth, and knowledge about the core helps us understand more about the dynamo. This can lead to a better understanding of the sun and its dynamo, and the relation of the sun's dynamo to controlled fusion, which we have not been able to produce here on earth yet, but which would help us meet our energy needs. So there are possible connections with energy production. \n\n3. The earth's core contains some very hot fluids circulating around, and we do not understand much about the physics of these materials. Various engineering projects that use these, like the cooling systems of breeder reactors might be able to use this information. \n\n4. To learn about the earth's core, we have to develop better observational and modeling tools, which can be useful for other more applied projects. \n\n5. The core is not necessarily disconnected from the mantle, and what happens in the core probably affects what happens in the mantle, including hotspots (that create volcanoes) and plate tectonics (that cause earthquakes and tsunamis). Understanding the dynamics of the earth's interior might give us insight into eventually understanding and even possibly predicting some aspects of these very dangerous natural phenomena. \n\nI could probably come up with many more ideas, but this is a start. So even though one might be tempted to say "the core? what does it have to do with anything?", it is not necessarily true. There are all kinds of potential connections between different fields of science, and one has to look at things with an open mind.
944907
It is important to the world. Leads to knowlege, new ideas, new advances, takes away ignorance, and leads to a better understanding of the world.
1046721
Drilling into the crust can not possibly affect the internal temp of the earth. We can NOT possibly dig deeper than that. easy. Next question.
707879
The tectonic plates are "floating" on a liqid mantle that has convection currents.  These convection move the plates around the globe.  This is the science behing plate tectonics
854011
Earthquakes are the Earth's natural means of releasing stress. When the Earth's plates move against each other, stress is put on the lithosphere. When this stress is great enough, the lithosphere. \n\nAs the plates move they put forces on themselves and each other. When the force is large enough, the crust is forced to break. When the break occurs, the stress is released as energy which moves through the Earth in the form of waves, which we feel and call an earthquake. \n\nThe earth is made of around 7 major plates. These plates are part of the earths crust and are floating of top of an area of the earth known as the mantle. This is the driving mechanism for the plates. Most Earthquakes are caused by Plate Tectonics. The earth's crust consists of a number of sections or plates that float on the molten rock of the mantle. These plates move on convection currents caused by heat rising from the center of the earth. The hot magma rises and spreads out on the surface, creating new crust. The crust spreads out forming a new plate until it meets another plate. One of the plates will be pushed down into the interior of the earth and reabsorbed into the mantle. Plates can also be compressed to push up mountains when they collide or move sideways along what are known as transform faults. the other 2 faults are known as divergent faults which is when 2 paltes slowly move away from each other and converegent faults which is when 2 plates push against each other.\n\nThe plates are the Earth's crust that float on the molten rock in the center of the Earth. Most of the inside of the Earth is so hot that the rock just simply melts away. The molten rock, which is also known as magma, bubbles up very slowly in great currents under the surface of the Earth. The crust that floats on the magma moves with it. The Plates are just pieces of the crust. Just like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The part that makes it hard to understand is that it all moves extremely slowly. Just a few cm a year, roughly at the same rate a your finger nails are growing. \n\nHope this has helped you out a bit
455117
Sea floor spreading is the driving force behind continental drift as it forces the crust apart.  The hot mantle rises to the surface weakening the crust until it splits and moves apart to allow the new material to form.  This rifting creates new oceanic basaltic crust rather than granitic continental crust so the continents stay roughly the same. \n\nHowever, rifting does occur within continents and eventually will split a continent, as is happening in the Red Sea today, the East African Rift being a failed offshoot of that rift system.\n\nAll this happens slowly at a rate of about 11cm a centuary and if you want to see an active spreading ridge take a trip to Iceland where the Mid Atlantic ridge is on surface.  Don't worry it is perfectly safe and you won't end up on the wrong side.
74571
The amount of mass moved by tectonic movement is much greater than the comparatively tiny mass e.g. taken out at Kiruna.\n\nLocally, where a whole mountain is shipped away, the ground may re-adjust to the new weight distribution on the plate. This is a maximum movement of centimetres, and applies to a plate swimming on a liquid.\n\nIf the earth was solid through and through, I think the mass centre might have moved a few millimetres  away from Kiruna, unless someplace in New Zealand or Polynesia was exporting huge amounts of Phosphate or other minerals. With a liquid interior, that effect will disappear.