By Steven OhDecember 14th, 2009Class 006

“Patrick, I spent my whole life exploring the earth’s center.” His every breath was heavy and painful. “And so as a geologist, my will is to be buried in the Outer Core. This last incredible mission…belongs to you………” His eyes slowly shut down, as his breath has paused for rest of his life. Paul Meltivern, the top geologist of United States has left the world with an exclusive message to Patrick Handerson. Patrick had tears rolling down his cheeks, examining his best teacher leaving the world. He stood up facing fiercely to the journalist. “I will complete this mission of my teacher!!! And no one is gonna stop me from this…” He spoke up announcing with a Scottish accent. He made the entire journalist leave the room peacefully staying together with Mr. Meltivern. The next day, Patrick set off to his science lab that was empty since his teacher had died. He was getting ready his equipments for the impossible journey. His journal about the earth, food, cloths, temperature protections, and the drills machine that was supposed to be ready by now. Finally the last most important thing, Mr. Meltivern’s body which would now have all the protections for its bones. He exited his science lab and went to the place they were going to meet. As Patrick suspected, the body of Mr. Meltivern was waiting with full armor, and next to it was the drill machine which was actually really strong and big. “Welcome sir,” the inventor of the drill machine greeted. “Good morning sir,” Patrick responded. “Now sir, first I’ll give you the instructions for the drill machine, and be concentrating cos the instructions are really complicated. As the two man’s discussion continued, Patrick has mostly learned the instructions. The discussion had finished and Patrick was tossed to the side that had Mr. Meltivern’s body.

“Well sir, we’ve done every protection we could depending on the dangerous suspects inside the earth.” A man with a formal suite explained. “Very well, take the body and place it where it is supposed to be in the machine with my luggage.” Patrick exclaimed. The men got ready for the long journey, and Patrick was calculating how long it would be to pass the crust. Right now, he was 31.2km apart from the mantel. Which wasn’t that far apart. Of course the Oceanic Crust which is about 5~10km thick, would be the best place to start but the science wasn’t good enough to make a machine that would go through the ocean. So apparently, the thinnest and closest part to Edinburgh is 31.2km Apart from the mantel. Pretty close because Continental Crusts are actually 30-70 km thick. Back behind the man wearing a formal suite ran forward telling the machine is ready. Patrick walked toward the machine and hopped in the machine. “Mr. be careful, and watch out for huge stones.” The inventor of the machine yelled as Patrick nodded his head and drove the machine as how he learned. He so far dug 15km which meant he was still in the part of the lithosphere. The Crust is separated into two parts which are Lithosphere, and Asthenosphere. Lithosphere is the upper part of the crust which is approximately 75km thick and has an average of 100km. deep. It has a temperature of 1200c. Lithos mean solid in Greek and as it means, it is made out of rock that are called basalt and Granite. Basalt is dark rocks with normal texture that is found in the oceanic crust. Granite is rocks that have light colors with coarse texture. The Asthenosphere is 275km thick and it includes a bit of the outer mantel which is very soft. Asthenos mean weak in Greek and so it is soft. Its soft but still, it’s solid. Has a temperature of 1400c. Patrick was sweating as a lazy bear that had to run 15km per day. He was sweating, but didn’t feel the hotness because he had the atomic temperature protector.

He was driving uncomfortably thinking about if the body of Mr. Meltivern would be all right. Patrick felt alone and scared. This mission was the world first event that a person was going to be buried in the Outer Core and his student drilling toward the center of the earth. As a big event, Patrick felt nervous. His drill machine was going 50km. per hour which was actually fast as a machine drilling the earth’s interior. The drill machine’s maximum speed was 65km. per hour but the inventor had explained do not try to do that because we are not sure how long the machine will go in the maximum speed.Patrick had come 2 hours which meant he had drilled 100km. more but the problem starting from here was he was getting exhausted. He’s in the part of the Asthenosphere and the Outer mantel. The Outer Mantel is about 300km. thick and has a temperature of 3000c. which would easily melt a human being. Outer mantel is practically liquidy soft. It’s way more thinner than the Inner mantel. The Outer Mantel is the inside part of the mantel and it has an average of a temperature 3500c.. Totally, the Mantel is 2,867km. thick that are made of a mixture of oxygen, silicon, and magnesium. Patrick was feeling the pressure increasing as he moves every meter. It was as the waters, as you go deeper in the swimming pool, the pressure increases which is a force produced by a particular amount of gas or liquid in a space. If the pressure increases, it will be hard to breath and it would be hard to come out of the water because the pressure is high. Patrick was a geologist too, and as a geologist, no one in the world would fell his feelings.

He was watching the interior of the earth !!! It was incredible for him. All the secrets of the earth could’ve been solved but Patrick had no time thinking about secrets, his teacher Mr. Meltivern’s body can get damaged by the sources of the mantel or Crust because the men that prepared Mr. Meltivern’s body said “We did every single protections for being buried in the Outer Core but we didn’t have enough time so we did the most important protections for the crust, and Mantel.” Which meant any mysterious thing, can damage the body when Patrick is in the Mantel and the Crust but the Crust had no problem now since he had passed it but the Mantel… He was uncertainty. In his scalar that told how many km. he had left to pass each layer of the earth, it said he had 2,782km left to reach the part of the Outer Core. Patrick wasn’t that surprise because he knew the diameter of the earth is 12,750km long and 2,782km was only a sixth of the diameter so he knew he would reach the outer Core. The only thing Patrick was annoyed was that it would take a long time to reach the Outer Core since the drill machine had only a maximum speed of 65km. per hour. He had come 500km. more using 5hours. Patrick was so tired and exhausted that he made a decision to put the drill machine on automatic driving. Patrick got ready for a pose that was showing he was chilling out. Setting his legs beside the handle of the machine and laying his brown hat on his face covering his face. Before when he always slept, he had to read at least 2 pages but he didn’t have any book with him so he just had to concentrate sleeping. As then he thought, ‘wait a sec. I remember I brought a journal !!!’ he broke out his head from his hat and opened a way that straightly connected to the back of the machine and searched for his scientific journal like a horde of rats finding for food in a area that no one lived. As Patrick suspected, inside the journal in page 9 there was a model and a graph of the earth that told the basics about the earth.

He started to read the specific information about the earth below the graph and the model. The description said…How do scientists know the interior of the earth? First evidence is, by making observations of the seismic waves. Seismic waves causes by earthquakes. Scientist observes how the seismic waves travel through the earth. As if there was an earthquake in Italy. The seismic waves would first start in the place where the earthquake happened and would travel to the other sides of the country. Observing those paths the seismic waves traveled and the speed of the seismic waves, scientist have figured out the earth had different layers. Another evidence is volcanoes. When they explode, they bring out many different elements inside the earth as rocks and so scientist study those materials. Since mostly in volcanoes, magma or lava comes out, they are sure there are liquidy hot elements inside the earth. Inside caves and mines, you can find out many different rocks from inside the earth which is also the same strategies to observe the rocks popped up from the volcanoes. The deepest mine in the world is barely 3.8km. which only scratches the earth’s surface. The last one is by knowing the density of the layers of the earth. Rocks in the earth we see now have pretty high densities, and so the rocks would be actually inside the earth so scientists expect the layers of the earths density is extremely high.

Interesting facts… The deepest hole that was dug was only 12km deep by a Russian. Starting at 100 years ago, scientist suspected that the earth has three main layers. The Crust, Mantel and the Core. Easy ways to remember Oceanic Crust and Continental Crust. In the word oceanic, you can find the root word ocean so the oceans floor. In continental, obviously you can find the word continent so the Continental Crust is the surface we are actually living. Earthquakes are cause by tectonic plate crashing in to each other which would sometimes make mountains. The diameter of the earth is 12,750 km The circumference is 40,035km 70% is ocean and 30% is lands on earth. Highest landscape is Mt Everest. The lowest is the Dead Sea which stretches below sea level. The earth is made by these following elements. Oxygen-46.6%, Aluminium-8.1%, Iron-5%, Sodium-2.8%, Magnesium-2.1%, Calcium-3.6%, Potassium-2.6%, Silicon-26.7%, and other-1.5%.

Explanation for Graph / Model These two graphs show the density and the temperatures of the earth. If you see at the Density graph, as it gets deeper, the density increases so obviously, the Inner Core has the highest density which is 15g/cm3. Density is one of the evidence scientist uses to find the interior of the Earth. You can easily see the increasing Density by the line going higher. The Temperature graph shows all the average of temperature for each layer. As in the Density graph, as it gets deeper, the temperature increases because many molten lava, magma are there that would sometime pop up to the earth’s surface. In both graphs, I have labeled the depth of the layer below the layer’s names. To the side, you can see the increment. The increment for the Density graph is 1cm = 2g/cm3 and for the temperature one, 1.5cm = 1000C. The Model has a diameter of 12cm because the diameter of the earth is 12,750km I made it to 12cm. the crust is actually 0.075cm because I took out 3 digits in the diameter. For the mantel I did it 5.6cm because I made 2,867km to 2.8x2 is 5.6. The Outer Core I made it 2.2 because the actual thickness is 2,266km. The inner Core I did 1.2 and again because it is 1,216km. I labeled the basic information of the earth as the thickness, name and the temperature.

As Patrick read the part where it said over 70% of the earth is made of water. He had thought if he would dig until the other side, he would be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean which would be freezing cold. After he read the whole journal he felt sleeping so for last, he checked his scaler. It said 1,982km left to reach the Outer Core so he felt he had enough time to sleep. He went to his sleeping pose again and started to sleep dead silently inside the machine. When he woke up, he had a face of a gorilla. His face was all squished together with pure red cheeks. He fixed his face and checked the scaler. As he stared at the scaler, he was freaked out. The scaler said Patrick was only 250km away from the Outer Core !!! He calculated mentally and exclaimed out loud, “after five hours I’ll need to bury my teacher in the Outer Core!!!” he felt relived but thinking he had slept over 20 hours. He was right now about to finish the course of the Inner Mantel. The Inner Mantel is the inside part of the Mantel and it is 2,567km thick and has the temperature of over 3000c. The Inner Mantel is way thicker than the Outer Mantel and differently, the Inner Mantel is very solid. He never thought five hours would be passed so fast. During the five hours, he had thought of ‘should I explore the Inner Core too?’ but unfortunately he couldn’t because he had no food left except for a piece of hard bread. Also because his atomic temperature protector can only last four days and he thought he had spent almost two and a half days so he had to give up for exploring the Inner Corel. So as he inferred, five hours passed so he was in the very up part of the Outer Core. He got his suit armor to go out of the machine and took out gently his teacher, Mr. Meltivern’s body which was pretty stabled. Even though he had his suit armor for the temperature, he was melting hot. The Outer Core is 2,266km thick, made out of mostly iron, nickel and a bit of sulphur and oxygen.

Since the Outer Core is 4000-5000c. Hot, the armor couldn’t protect all of Patrick’s body. His movement took every muscle of his to work because the Inner Mantel had massive pressure and since the layer was very liquid and gooey which it floats around the Inner Core. Patrick dug the Outer Core just the right size of the body of Mr. Meltivern. For the last time, Patrick prayed for his best teacher in the whole world and gently settled him in the place where he dug. Right away the body floated away. ‘Wait a sec.’ Patrick was confused but as he thought carefully through his minds, he finally got the meaning of Mr. Meltivern. He wanted to be buried in the Outer Core because the outer Core floats around the inner Core and so Mr. Meltivern wanted to be floating around the Inner Core meaning he will be with inside the earth forever. Patrick had gloomy tears rolling down his cheeks and turned back and hopped back into his drill machine. Again, Patrick though of exploring the Inner mantel which was 1,216km thick and that had a temperature of over 6000c. The inner Core is made out of the same materials as the Outer core. He had to go over 2000km to reach the Inner Core which was the true center of the earth but with no hope, Patrick turned over his drill machine and traveled back toward the earth’s surface the way he came back.

It was getting colder and colder as he drove toward the place he started his journey. It was actually faster because he could go full speed because the path was already cleared out when he was coming. He was starving so he ate his last piece of solid bread and drove toward the outside fresh air. It exactly took him 23 hours to go back to his normal surface. As he came out to the beautiful surface, all the journalist came making an enormous horde that surrounded the drill machine. “How was the trip, How did you feel when you buried Mr. Meltivern…!?” all sorts of questions was asked as He stepped out and breathed with all his work he did. The horde of the journalist was so enormous, they broke through the body guards for Patrick. That day, the only way he could go back to his house was to go back on the drill machine and crush through the horde. Next day, Patrick Handerson was immediately transported to the meeting of the geologist. He had explained all the things he did, felt, and saw during the incredible journey. The discussion was lasting forever until it was 6 -0-clock in the afternoon. As he went back to his house, he ate all the food he could and slept as a hungry bear. He spent his life normally but there were always something different. He saw magazines, TV shows, and newspapers everywhere about him. Also biographies which made Patrick be the best geologist in United States continuing his teacher, Paul Metivern’s job.