Comment: 14:50 - 15:32 (00:42)
Source: Annenberg/CPB Resources - Earth Revealed - 6. Plate Dynamics
Keywords: "Jason Saleeby", rock, flow, convection, mantle, heat, "radioactive decay", "plate tectonics", element, uranium, thorium, potassium
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Our transcription: It is the ability of rock to flow that in part allows the convection process to take place inside the Earth, but that still does not explain why convection occurs in the first place.
The reason that the Earth's mantle is convecting is that first there is still primary heat left from the formation of the Earth, and then there is heat being generated in the Earth by the radioactive decay of a number of elements, primarily uranium, thorium and potassium.
This heat within the interior of the Earth wants to escape and flow out, and the most effective way for it to flow out is by convecting just as a pot of boiling water on a stove would convect.
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Geology School Keywords
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