How are rocks made?

Rocks are found almost everywhere.  Very small rocks are called sand.  Rocks bigger than sand have other names, like pebbles, or stone.  Big rocks are called boulders.  In fact, almost all the earth – the mountains and the ground itself – is made of rock.

Rocks are made of minerals.  A few are made of just one mineral, but most rocks are made of many minerals, of magma, that lies under the earth’s crust.  As the magma pushes to the surface of the earth.  It cools and hardens into such rocks as granite, basalt and lava.

Some rocks are formed from bits and pieces of older rocks that pile up in layers and harden into rocks we know as sandstone and limestone.  Still other rocks began as one kind of rock and later were changed into other kinds of rocks.  Some limestone, for example, was changed by hear and pressure deep down in the earth into marble.

What does the inside of the earth look like?

Beneath the earth’s rocky crust are the hard mantel, hot liquid outer core, and the solid metal inner core.

Have you ever tried to dig a deep hole—maybe all the way to the other side of the world?  Of course, you could dig only a few feet.  But suppose you could dig a hole straight to the center of the earth.  What would you find on the way?

Earth

First comes the crust, or rocky “skin,” that covers the earth.  This may be about 30 miles thick in some places.  As we go down into this crust, we find that it  begins to get hotter and hotter.  At two miles below the surface of the earth, the temperature is hot enough to boil water.   Next comes a layer of hard, black rock, about 1,800 miles thick.  Inside this layer is the earth’s core.  The core seems to be a kind of super-hot liquid metal.

Scientists think that in the center of this core there lies a ball-shaped inner core of solid metal, which forms the very center of the earth itself.  We have been able to find out about the inside of the earth by studying earthquakes.  Probably we will never get to look at the earth’s core, but someday we will know more about it.-Dick Rogers

What are the Northern Lights?

The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are the magnificent display of colored lights that occurs near the earth’s north Magnetic pole.

If you live far enough north, you may have seen the magnificent display of glowing, flickering colored lights high in the clear night sky.

The northern lights are one of nature’s most dazzling shows.  They begin as tiny flickering lights.  They grow and grow until they seem to light up the whole sky.

Sometimes they look like a great, fiery curtain with flames of red, orange, green and blue.

At other times they may flash here and there like giant search-lights, or the brilliant rays may spread upward in the shape of a gigantic fan.

Aurora Borealis

The northern lights are caused by the sun.  On the sun there are often great storms.  We call them sunsports.

Streams of tiny electric particles shoot out toward the earth.

When these electric particles reach the rare gases high above the earth’s surface, they cause them to glow brightly, very much like a neon sign glows.

People who live near the South Pole see glowing lights, too!  These are the aurora australis, or southern lights. – Dick Rogers