How to Use lithosphere in a Sentence

lithosphere

noun
  • These parts of the lithosphere are not stationary and move slowly.
    — Sam Morgen, USA Today, 19 Jan. 2026
  • These parts of the lithosphere are not stationary and move slowly.
    — Brandi D. Addison, USA Today, 4 June 2026
  • These parts of the lithosphere are not stationary and move slowly.
    — Brandi D. Addison, USA Today, 15 June 2026
  • These parts of the lithosphere are not stationary and move slowly.
    — Brandi D. Addison, USA Today, 13 June 2026
  • These parts of the lithosphere are not stationary and move slowly.
    — Brandi D. Addison, USA Today, 25 June 2026
  • But what causes the lithosphere to crack is hotly debated in the field.
    — Shannon Hall, Scientific American, 20 July 2017
  • The lithosphere, in other words, is the layer of the planet that makes up the tectonic plates.
    — Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 21 Aug. 2017
  • Such a thick lithosphere, Khan says, could be why Mars lacks plate tectonics today.
    — Jonathan O'Callaghan, Scientific American, 22 July 2021
  • The lithosphere is unable to move much, but the water is pulled by the gravity and a bulge is created.
    — Patrick May, The Mercury News, 3 June 2019
  • There are still more puzzles—such as why Ireland’s lithosphere is thicker than Britain’s.
    — Elise Cutts, Discover Magazine, 29 June 2023
  • The Siberian lithosphere was loaded with chlorine, bromine, and iodine.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 28 Aug. 2018
  • The issue is that even if a plate is dense enough to sink into the mantle, the lithosphere—the strong and rigid outer shell of the planet—has to crack first.
    — Shannon Hall, Scientific American, 20 July 2017
  • The crust and top of the mantle make up another area called the lithosphere, which acts like a skin surrounding the Earth's surface.
    — Brandi D. Addison, USA Today, 15 June 2026
  • The Earth's lithosphere (formed by the crust and the upper part of the mantle) is broken up into a number of tectonic plates.
    — Lucia Perez Diaz, CNN, 5 Apr. 2018
  • The lithosphere is the solid, outer part of the planet, including the brittle upper portion of the mantle and the crust.
    — Andrew Gase, Discover Magazine, 30 Nov. 2024
  • That’s all thanks to the lithosphere, a solid layer of crust and part of the upper mantle that’s broken into more than a dozen slabs, or plates, of varying sizes.
    — Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 12 June 2019
  • There are four tectonic plates, massive slabs of rock made of up Earth's lithosphere, that interact in Turkey.
    — Julia Jacobo, ABC News, 19 Feb. 2023
  • Cold, dense oceanic lithosphere sinks below an adjacent, lighter plate, plunging into the hot asthenosphere.
    — National Geographic, 27 June 2019
  • The intense heat and stretching caused by the hotspot thinned the lithosphere, Earth's rigid outer layer, and created a low-lying area in the region.
    — Tommy Tuberville, Newsweek, 8 Jan. 2025
  • The models suggest that Earth may have passed through a squishy-lid phase that gradually primed its lithosphere for full plate tectonics as the planet cooled.
    — Samantha Mathewson, Space.com, 30 Nov. 2025
  • The lithosphere is above another layer of mantle called the asthenopshere, where the rock is at just the right pressure and temperature to flow over time and help move the plates.
    — Erik Klemetti, WIRED, 13 July 2010
  • How the continents formed Earth’s uppermost layer, the lithosphere, is made up of the rigid crust and the top part of the mantle, which is in a denser, but more fluid state.
    — Taylor Nicioli, CNN Money, 18 Apr. 2025
  • But the puzzle pieces of the lithosphere are always in motion, slamming against one another, grinding past or getting shoved under another slab.
    — Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 12 June 2019
  • The processes led to the lithosphere, which consists of the Earth's crust and upper mantle, thinning and extending seaward.
    — Devika Rao, theweek, 30 Oct. 2024
  • Continental rifting requires the existence of extensional forces great enough to break the lithosphere.
    — Lucia Perez Diaz, CNN, 5 Apr. 2018
  • This latest study examines what was lying below the Siberian Flood Basalts, rock between the crust and the mantle known as the lithosphere.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 28 Aug. 2018
  • Cool, thick lithosphere is mechanically stronger than warm, thin lithosphere, which could explain the Emerald Isle’s puzzling paucity of earthquakes.
    — Elise Cutts, Discover Magazine, 29 June 2023
  • Earth's upper mantle is separated into two layers, the lithosphere and the asthenosphere, though the lithosphere also contains Earth's crust.
    — Matt Benoit, Discover Magazine, 19 Dec. 2023
  • The lithosphere, however, is not in one piece and exists like a puzzle or series of fragments, according to the USGS.
    — Brandi D. Addison, USA Today, 15 June 2026
  • The lithosphere, however, is not in one piece and exists like a puzzle or series of fragments, according to the USGS.
    — Sam Morgen, USA Today, 19 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'lithosphere.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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