Structure of the Earth obducted onto the continental crust and preserved as ophiolite sequences. Many rocks now making up Earth's crust formed less than 100 million (1) years ago; however, the oldest known mineral grains are about 4.4 billion (4.4) years old, indicating that Earth has had a solid crust for at least 4.4 billion years. Earth's mantle extends to a depth of 2,890 km, making it the thickest layer of Earth. The mantle is divided into upper and lower mantle. The upper and lower mantle are separated by the transition zone. The lowest part of the mantle next to the core-mantle boundary is
Structure of the Earth increase in seismic velocity and are similar to light reflecting from a mirror. The Earth's crust ranges from in depth and is the outermost layer. The thin parts are the oceanic crust, which underlie the ocean basins (5–10 km) and are composed of dense (mafic) iron magnesium silicate igneous rocks, like basalt. The thicker crust is continental crust, which is less dense and composed of (felsic) sodium potassium aluminium silicate rocks, like granite. The rocks of the crust fall into two major categories – sial and sima (Suess,1831–1914). It is estimated that sima starts about 11 km below the Conrad