ASTR 1210 Lecture 15: 15: Planet Earth
27 Aug 2016
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Document Summary
The deepest mine in the world is the tautona western deep level gold mine in the witwatersrand region near johannesburg, south africa. It is 3. 9 km (about 2. 4 miles) deep. The temperature of the rock face at that depth is about 140o f (air conditioning cools the air to 82of). On the kola peninsula, near the norwegian border, the russians have dug the deepest well on earth. The well is 12,262 meters deep (7. 5 miles) and was drilled from 1970 . However, the distance to the center of the earth is 6378 km, so the hole is only 0. 19% of the way to the center. P waves penetrate both solid and liquid rock. P waves are bent (refracted) by changes in structure. S waves do not penetrate the liquid core. The earth is differentiated, that is, gravity has separated the materials in the earth by density. The central core is composed of iron and nickel.
