Mantle Overview

So, as we all know, the mantle surrounds the core. There are three layers of the mantle, the Lithosphere, Asthenosphere, and Mesosphere (that is in order from least dense, to most dense, and the order in which they appear).

Lithosphere:

• it is all of the crust, and the upper most part of the mantle


• cool, solid, ridgid


• contains the plates


• the least dense part of the mantle

Asthenosphere:

• upper part of the mantle, under the lithosphere


• contains rocks however, the rocks behave like plastic, they are "soft"


• more dense than the lithosphere but less dense than the mesosphere

Mesosphere:

• lower part of the mantle


• partly solid, partly moltent


• most dense layer of the mantle

Some other information about the mantle is that it makes up 84% of the total earth, and it is also an intermediate composition of materials. In other words, it has a mainly solid composition, but there is one part that is soft (asthenosphere).