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The Solid Earth
The solid part of Earth is a part of the lithosphere. It
consists of two layers.
The top layer is the crust, consisting of rock that forms
Earth’s surface. The continental crust is over land and the
oceanic crust is beneath the oceans. Below
the crust is the rigid, upper part of the mantle called
thelithosphere. The rocks of the lithosphere, like all rocks,
are made of minerals. The most common group of
minerals is the silicates. These minerals contain oxygen
and silicon—the two most common elements in Earth’s
lithosphere—joined together. Of the 92 naturally occurring
elements, only five of them—oxygen, silicon, aluminum,
iron, and calcium— make up more than 90 percent of the
rocks in Earth’s lithosphere.