Earth is our immense common house, which you always want to see cozy, but today it is in serious danger, and we, the people, are to blame for its troubles. Man has always believed that the planet on which he lives is reliable, limitless and immensely generous, but he could not even imagine that he could cause pollution of the lithosphere through his activities.
Today, we are increasingly asking ourselves the question of how to ensure the safety of the Earth and ourselves. This is especially evident in recent decades, when the actual damage done becomes more and more obvious.
It seemed earlier that the Earth would exist unchanged for more than one millennium, but lately humanity has faced such a serious problem as pollution of the lithosphere. A depressing impression is made by the formerly fertile lands, which today are depleted and unsuitable for agriculture.
Pollution of the lithosphere has led to the fact that part of the soil will never be used in agriculture, since it has completely lost productivity. Today, such lands occupy almost 1% of the land surface.
Our time is deservedly called "garbage civilization." If earlier descendants for many centuries left castles or, in the worst case, destroyed fortresses, then from us heirs will receive mountains of household waste that have accumulated everywhere in the suburbs. This is caused by the thoughtless activity of man, his desire to make a profit at any cost.
The factors causing pollution of the lithosphere are, first of all, industrial and agricultural waste, uncontrolled construction, and huge mining operations. Mankind irrevocably destroys what is for him a source of subsistence. Large corporations, without ceremony, pour radioactive substances, metal oxides and toxic chemicals into the ground. The fact that pollution of the lithosphere can cause an environmental catastrophe from which no one can be saved is of little interest to them. Consequences everywhere are already erupting in different corners of the Earth.
What is the structure of the lithosphere, what do we know about it? If we consider the chemical composition of the rocks that are in the earth's crust, we can reliably judge only the depth of 15-16 km. What goes deeper, scientists have not yet fully studied, and they can only guess about many phenomena. The difficulty lies in the fact that the lithosphere is accessible to direct research only in land areas.
The concepts of “earth’s crust” and “lithosphere” are sometimes confused, but they are not identical, but simply quite close in meaning. The lithosphere is the uppermost, hardest shell of the Earth. It consists of especially strong breeds. Scientists still argue about its thickness, some call it a range of 30-40 km, while others tend to believe that it is 60-70 km.
The structure of the lithosphere is as follows: the earth's crust, the upper part of the mantle, as well as moving regions or folded belts and stable platforms. If we consider its structure under the ocean and under the continents, then it is significantly different. Under the latter, it consists of layers: granite, sedimentary and basalt, up to 80 km thick, and in the ocean of rare elements: dunites and harzburgites, its thickness in these areas is about 5-10 km, and there is no granite layer at all.
Ecological functions of the lithosphere: geodynamic, geochemical and geophysical. They are caused, first of all, by the evolution of the development of our Earth. The first includes natural and anthropogenic processes, provides comfort and, of course, the safety of human life on Earth. The second and third are geochemical and geophysical fields that directly affect the state of the community of living organisms and, naturally, the human environment.
The earth is like a human body, any improper intervention will have undesirable consequences, and relying on a person only for the self-regulatory environmental functions of the lithosphere is irresponsible and short-sighted.