The oceanic crust is the part of Earth's lithosphere that surfaces in the ocean basins.
The lithosphere is fragmented into relatively strong pieces called tectonic plates, which move independently relative to one another.
The Earth's lithosphere provides us with the "terra firma" on which we live.
The lithosphere (from the Greek for "rocky" sphere) is the solid, outermost shell of a rocky planet.
The lithosphere is the solid, outer part of the Earth. The lithosphere includes the brittle upper portion of the mantle and the crust, the outermost layers of Earth's structure. It is bounded by the atmosphere above and the asthenosphere (another part of the upper mantle) below.May 20, 2015