Structure of the Earth discontinuity (a second order discontinuity). The uppermost mantle together with the crust constitutes the lithosphere. The crust-mantle boundary occurs as two physically different events. First, there is a discontinuity in the seismic velocity, which is most commonly known as the Mohorovičić discontinuity or Moho. The cause of the Moho is thought to be a change in rock composition from rocks containing plagioclase feldspar (above) to rocks that contain no feldspars (below). Second, in oceanic crust, there is a chemical discontinuity between ultramafic cumulates and tectonized harzburgites, which has been observed from deep parts of the oceanic crust that have been
Iron most abundant element on Earth, but only the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, after oxygen, silicon, and aluminium. Most of the iron in the crust is found combined with oxygen as iron oxide minerals such as hematite (FeO), magnetite (FeO), and siderite (FeCO). Many igneous rocks also contain the sulfide minerals pyrrhotite and pentlandite. Ferropericlase (Mg,Fe)O, a solid solution of periclase (MgO) and wüstite (FeO), makes up about 20% of the volume of the lower mantle of the Earth, which makes it the second most abundant mineral phase in that region after silicate perovskite (Mg,Fe)SiO; it also