自然科学类托福阅读之地壳和地幔智课教育旗下智课教育.pdfVIP

智 课 网 托 福 备 考 资 料 自然科学类托福阅读之地壳和地幔-智课教育旗下智课 教育 自然学科是托福阅读文章题材中比较常见的类型，本文和大家分享 的是自然科学类文章汇总系列的内容，供考生参考使用，希望考生能够 认真备考，预祝考生能够考出好成绩。 自然学科是托福阅读文章题材中比较常见的类型，本系列为大家汇 总整理了多篇托福阅读自然科学类文章，大家在托福备考时可以有针对 性的进行复习，本篇为大家带来的是The Earths Crust and the Upper Mantle，并附有相应的练习，希望大家都能顺利拿下托福阅读 高分。 The Earths Crust and the Upper Mantle Keywords:plates, Earths crust, upper mantle, The rocks of the crust, rigid layer, tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, geologists The hard, rigid plates that form the outermost portion of the Earth are about 100 kilometers thick. These plates include both the Earths crust and the upper mantle. The rocks of the crust are composed mostly of minerals with light elements, like aluminum and sodium, while the mantle contains some heavier elements, like iron and magnesium. Together, the crust and upper mantle that form the surface plates are called the lithosphere. This rigid layer floats on the denser material of the lower mantle the way a wooden raft floats on a pond. The plates are supported by a weak, plastic layer of the lower mantle called the asthenosphere. Also like a raft on a pond, the lithospheric plates are carried along by slow currents in this more fluid layer beneath them. With an understanding of plate tectonics, geologists have put together a new history for the Earths surface. About 200 million years ago, the plates at the Earths surface formed a supercontinent called Pangaea. When this supercontinent started to tear apart because of plate movement, Pangaea first broke into two large continental masses with a newly formed sea that grew between the land areas as the depression filled with water. The southern one-which included the modern continents of South America, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica-is called Gondwanaland. The northern one-with North America, Europe, and Asia-is called Laurasia. North America tore away from Europe about 180 million