Explain how seismic waves help scientists learn about earth interior?

Answer 1

Seismic waves bounce off things inside of the Earth, helping scientists figure out it's interior. An example is like if you taped a block in a box, put a marble inside of the box, and closed the lid. By tilting the box, the marble would roll and you'd get a pretty good idea where the block is located.

Answer 2

Earth's interior structure and composition consists of a thin mostly solid rocky crust, a slowly flowing rocky mantle, a liquid metallic outer core, and a solid metallic inner core. It is possible to drill and directly sample only the top few miles of the crust. So how do scientists deduce the composition and structure of Earth's deep interior? There are three major clues that scientists can use to probe Earth's interior. These same clues can also help scientists deduce the interior structures of other planets. The clues are: # The planet's bulk density. # Seismic waves from earthquakes. # The planet's magnetic field. Seismic Waves When an earthquake strikes, seismometers across Earth pick up the seismic waves from the earthquake. Because these seismic waves have passed through Earth's interior they make a good probe to the interior structure and provide seismologists with clues to Earth's structure. In addition to the surface waves that damage buildings, there are two types of seismic waves that pass through Earth's interior. They are P or primary waves, and S or secondary waves. It also helps to think of them as push and sideways waves.

Answer 3

Earthquakes explain and support tectonic plate theory and show the movements of the plates over time. Fault lines also expose rock layers and allow geologists to study the rocks and the changes in the environment over time.

There are Primary Waves (P-Wave) and Secondary waves (S-Wave) The Secondary Seismic wave can't travel through liquid so when the sensors detect a wave and sees that some part the S-wave isn't going through a layer of the earth they know that that layer of the earth is Liquid.

Answer 4

1. The main reason why seismic waves can be helpful is the fact that there are 3 different ones which have particular properties.

-P waves-they are known as Push waves. These go through all solids and liquids and are the first to come.

-S waves-they are known as shake waves. These only go through Solids and are the Second to come.

-L waves-they are known as long waves. These only go through the crust and are Last but are the strongest.

By knowing there abilities to travel through substances, we know that there:

-must be liquid in the earth's interior because certain seismometers around the world don't pick up s-wave readings. This can also be used to figure out how far out it is because we can see which waves pick up the readings and which don't

-There must be more than the crust, because in some places, L-waves aren't picked up. We can use this info to figure out how thick the crust.

-P waves are picked up everywhere. Therefore, there are no gas layers underground.

From this, geologists, know that there is a liquid layer, (the outer core) and how thick the crust is.

2. Geologists also use seismic waves to figure out more detailed but closer layers of the earth. For example, it is important to find out if certain structures are underground and are close enough for oil mining.

Geologists do this by sending seismic waves down, (by either using explosions or special trucks), and receiving these waves again with geophones. These can figure out how far away by knowing how long it took and the speed the waves travelled at. These geophones can then be used to make pictures which show the structures underground by picking up readings from waves which have hit all over the structure. From this, geologists can learn more about the interior structures of the area.

Answer 5

Seismic waves reveal the interior of Earth's structure. This is done by determining the depths of the layers of molten and semi molten material within Earth. Different types of earthquake waves behave differently when encountering several material in different states, so, specialists can further determine types of waves and what direction they came from. These records are used to establish Earth's interior.

Answer 6

Earthquakes give off three types of waves p-waves, s-waves, and surface waves. P-waves can go through solids and liquids, s-waves can only go through solids, and surface waves can only go through Earth's crust. Therefore, there will be shadow zones of certain waves, allowing scientists to know where solids and liquids are in Earth's interior.

Answer 7

The seismic waves that the earthquakes make

travel slowly and scientists can track them

Answer 8

They give scientists motion.

Answer 9

seismic waves