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Crust (Type)

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Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

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Definition

Solidified upper layer of a planetary body that is chemically distinct from the mantle, formed by various degrees of differentiation. On Earth, the crust comprises all material above the Mohorovičić discontinuity (Whittow 2000). The definition of the terrestrial lithosphere (mobile lithospheric plates) includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, both of which are layers of strength relative to the underlying weaker asthenospheric mantle for deformation at geologic rates (Dennis and Atwater 1974, p. 1031; Bürgman and Dresen 2008). On other planetary bodies, the crust is poorly defined because of the lack of seismic data.

Subtypes

  1. (1)

    Primary/primordial crust results from planetary differentiation. It forms during and following planetary accretion (Chambers 2004) on short (100 Myr) timescales (Taylor 1989; Taylor and McLennan 2009, p. 22 and references therein). When the surface had stabilized subsequent to primary accretion, it became cool and thus strong and rigid enough...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Ames Research Center/NPP, Moffett Field, CA, 94035, USA

    Henrik Hargitai

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  1. Henrik Hargitai
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Correspondence to Henrik Hargitai .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Ames Research Center/NPP, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Henrik Hargitai

  2. Konkoly Thege Miklos Astronomical Institute, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Ákos Kereszturi

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Hargitai, H. (2015). Crust (Type). In: Hargitai, H., Kereszturi, Á. (eds) Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3134-3_90

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