Earth's Crust Thin As Apple's Skin

Really. The Earth's crust in most textbook diagrams is exaggerated, otherwise it would be too small to see; it's as thin as the skin on an apple.

The distance from the surface of Earth to the center is about 6,400 kilometers. The crust of our home planet is as thin as 6 kilometers in oceanic areas and is rarely over 50 kilometers—in a few mountainous areas. On average it's about 25 kilometers thick.



Inside, Earth is a squishy ball of molten rock; tectonic plates and continents float around on top, moving at about the speed your fingernails grow. Where there's a thin spot we have volcanoes. When the plates stick and then suddenly move we have an earthquake. Where they bump into each other the crust wrinkles and we have mountains.

A typical McIntosh apple is about 2.75 inches (70mm) in diameter, and the skin is about .3mm thick. The skin to diameter ratio for an apple, then is .3:70 or .4%. For Earth the crust thickness to diameter ratio is 25:6400, or about .4%.

Earth's crust is about as thick as an apple's skin!

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