Incredible Earth

Read and discover more about the world!

 Volcanoes are dangerous, but they are beautiful, too. There are many other incredible places on earth. Earth is round like an orange. Oranges have a skin and earth has a skin, too. We call this skin earth’s crust. Under the crust, there is very hot rock. Earth’s crust has different pieces. These pieces move very slowly. And because of this moving, earthquake is happen. This moving sometimes makes mountains, too. A volcano is a hole in earth’s crust. When a volcano erupts, hot rock flies out from under the ground, and melted rock pours out over the ground. There are many different rocks in earth’s crust. They are millions of years old. In the Painted Desert in Arizona in the USA, you can see the different rocks. On earth, there is more ocean than land. The Pacific Ocean is the biggest ocean. It is bigger than Africa. The water in the ocean is always moving waves hit the land and break the rocks. Sometimes, big pieces of rock fall into the ocean. They leave big cliffs, like the beautiful Uluwatu Cliffs in Bali in Indonesia. The Great Barrier Reef near Australia is the biggest coral reef in the world. It is 2,600 kilometers long. Sea turtles, dolphins, and many other amazing animals live there. Rivers usually begins as streams in mountains. The water comes from rain or snow. All rivers then go to the ocean. Big rivers are very strong. When the ground under a river is soft, the river makes valleys. When the ground under it is hard rock, there are waterfalls or rapids. One incredible waterfall is Iguazu Falls between Argentina and Brazil. Iguazu means “big water” in an old language of South America. The biggest mountain chain in the world is the Himalayas in Asia. It began when two pieces of Earth’s crust met and moved up. They began to move about 50 million years ago, and they are moving now, very slowly. The top of Mount Everest in the Himalayas is the highest place on Earth. Everest is very big and it’s getting bigger. The top of Everest goes up about 5 millimeters every year, because Earth’s crust is moving all the time. Usually, Earth’s crust moves very slowly, and only a few millimeters every year. Sometimes, two pieces of the crust move suddenly in different directions, and then there’s an earthquake. Earthquakes are dangerous because buildings sometimes fall down. When there’s an earthquake, people it buildings go under a heavy table. There are earthquakes under the ocean, too. Usually, they are small and not dangerous. Sometimes an earthquake under the ocean makes a giant wave called a tsunami. Tsunamis can be very dangerous. After a tsunami, there are often floods. There is water everywhere. Houses, cars, and trees are in the water. The water isn’t clean, so many people are sick. In 2004, there was a very big tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Many people died in this year. 

Crust 外皮 

Coral 珊瑚      

507/ 7943 words