The World Between Crust and Core

Abstract

In many areas of science the "big" questions remain unanswered even though we have much knowledge and a plethora of models. The study of the mantle, which constitutes 70% of Earth's mass, is a good example. Here the important remaining questions include: What is the mantle made of? Where did the material come from as Earth formed? How was it altered during and after delivery? Is the mantle well stirred? How do mantle convection and its surface manifestation, plate tectonics, really work? How have these processes, and the mantle's composition and structure, varied through geologic time? Such questions were the central concerns of Ted Ringwood, a giant among earth scientists to whose memory The Earth's Mantle is dedicated. The book, written largely by his Canberra colleagues at the Australian National University's Research School of Earth Sciences, admirably conveys our current understanding of these questions, the range of possible answers, and the methods by which they are addressed.