Third Rock from the Sun

• Earth is a rocky planet

  • made from rocks and metal ores
• The earth is the densest planet because the core is made of iron surrounded by a mantle of rock

  • weighs 5.87 x 10^26kg and has a density of 5.2g cm^3
• We can only use the very outside part of rocks thats above the mantle

  • the materials making up this region is rocks and minerals
  • these resources are limited even if there’s a lot
• Extraction and use of rocks and minerals have heavy environmental impacts

  • in danger of using up available resources of rocks e.g. coal
• Peak mineral - a point in time where the largest production of a mineral will occur in an area, with production declining in years

  • estimates of peak coal is varied as we don’t know how much there is
• The layers of the earth

  • the inner core of the earth is solid because there’s high pressure