Mantle (geology) might possibly be exposed in the South Pole-Aitken basin and/or the Crisium basin. The lunar mantle contains a seismic discontinuity at ~500 km depth, most likely related to a change in composition. Titan and Triton each have a mantle made of ice or other solid volatile substances. Some of the largest asteroids have mantles; for example, Vesta has a silicate mantle similar in composition to diogenite meteorites. Mantle (geology) The mantle is a layer inside a planetary body bounded below by a core and above by a crust. Mantles are made of rock or ices, and are generally the largest
Crust (geology) crustal rocks formed before 2.5 billion years ago are located in cratons. Such old continental crust and the underlying mantle asthenosphere are less dense than elsewhere in Earth and so are not readily destroyed by subduction. Formation of new continental crust is linked to periods of intense orogeny; these periods coincide with the formation of the supercontinents such as Rodinia, Pangaea and Gondwana. The crust forms in part by aggregation of island arcs including granite and metamorphic fold belts, and it is preserved in part by depletion of the underlying mantle to form buoyant lithospheric mantle. A theoretical protoplanet named