DEFINITION: is the rate of increasing temperature with respect to increasing depth in the Earth's interior.
From Merriam-Webster
DESCRIPTION: The Earth's internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretition (about 20%) and heat produced through radioactive decay (80%). At the center of the planet, the temperature may be up to 7,000 K and the pressure could reach 360 Gpa. Because much of the heat is provided by radioactive decay, scientists believe that early in Earth history, before isotopes with short half-lives had been depleted, Earth's heat production would have been much higher. This extra heat production, which was twice that of present-day at approximately 3 billion years ago, would have increased temperature gradients within the Earth, increasing the rates of mantle convection and plate tectonics, and allowing the production of igneous rocks such as komacittes that are not formed today.
From Wikipedia
picture from Wikipedia
by Haijing Liu
