1 Earth Sciences: reading the rocks

The Earth Sciences concern every part of our planet – from the centre of the metallic core, 6400 km below our feet, through its solid and liquid regions (see Figure 1 on the next page) to the outer reaches of the atmosphere. We will concentrate on the outermost, rocky part of the solid Earth; in other words, the rocks of the Earth's crust that form the outermost layer of the lithospheric plates.