Jake Gordon

Geology

Geology Guide Test 2

The Earth

Why does the Earth Look the Way is Does?
- Is it round/spherical?
- Oblate Spheroid
- Diameter is a bit larger at the equator
- Revolves/spins

Why Continents/Oceanic Basins?
- Continents: Rich in Aluminum (FELSIC)
- Oceanic Basins: Rich in Iron (MAFIC)

The Earths Relief
- Highest Mountain: Mt. Everest
- Himalayas
- 29,028 thousand feet
- George Everest
- Surveyed the mountain in the 1920s

Why Mountains? Why Mountain Ranges?
- Shrinking Earth Model
- Area of the Earths surface remains the same
- The volume of the Earth shrinks
- There is a geographic pattern to mountain ranges
- Many mountain ranges are along the edge of continents

Continental Drift
- Not a new idea
- 1620s
- Sir Francis Bacon
- Examined the coastlines of eastern South America and western Africa
- Appeared to have a jigsaw pattern

Francis Bacon
- Coined the term continental drift
- World not ready to accept the idea



1920s
- Alfred Wegener
- German-born, Russia climatologist
- Re-introduced the idea of continental drift
- Wegener thought about coal

Geography Coal
- Where? PA, WY, KY, China, Canada, Great Britain
- Coal: Organic matter
- Basically a fossil (leaves, roots, flora)
- Not decomposed
- Needs a tropical climate to make coal
- Mine coal in a temperate climate

How to Explain
- Continents remained fixed and climate moved
- Climate change
- Continents moved under a stationary climate model (a modern model)
- Continental drift

Wegener Makes a Hypothesis
- If the continents were joined as one, then wouldnt life have been the same along
that boundary
- No Atlantic Ocean
- Same environments (animals, plants)
- E.g. Australia

Where the Continents Wouldve Fit Together
- South America and Africa
- Same fossils (paleontology)
- Same rocks (petrology)
- Same structure (structural geologists)
- E.g. Faults, mountain ranges

South America Africa
- Same fossil found in South America and Africa
- Mesosaurus (era of time)
- Same mountain ranges along the edges of continents
- Appalachians and Caledonians match up

Wegeners Theory
- ALL continents were joined as one
- 1 Super continent (Pangea)
- Existed in the Mesozoic period


Wegener Presents Results
- Rejected
- No mechanism to move the continents
- Didnt know what the process was
- Seed of an idea was planted

Research Continues
- 1930s: Arthur Holmes
- Sub Crustal Convection
- Beneath the Earths crust
- Convection: Requires a fluid to work
- Proof of continental drift

Post WWII Technology
- New Tools
- Sonar
- Map the ocean floors topography

1. Sonar: Ocean Has Topography
- Mountain Ranges (MORs)
- Mid Atlantic Ridges
- East Pacific Rise
- Mid Atlantic Ridge
- Ocean floor map of the Atlantic was originally done in 1959
- Entire globe: 1977
- Trenches: long chasms
- Ex. Marianas Trench (largest trench on the planet)
- Challengers Deep (deepest point on the planet)
- Ocean Margins (edges)

2. Direct Observation
- Found volcanoes along MORs
- Oozing lava

3. Geography of Earthquakes
- Set up array/network of seismographs
- Monitor seismic activity
- Received background noise from the earth
- Earthquakes have geography (occur along MORs)

4. Age of the Ocean Floor Rock
- Absolute Age Dating: life decay
- Hypothesis: Ocean floor is created by oozing the asthenosphere out of
the Earths crust


Ocean Floor Statistics
- Atlantic floor is 180 million years old
- Pangea broke up 180 million years ago
- Ocean floor is new compared to the continents

1960s: Harry Hess
- Sea Floor Spreading

Term Continental Drift is Replaced with
- Plate Tectonics

Plate Tectonics
- Numbers of distinct, mappable plates
- Continental (FELSIC)
- Oceanic (MAFIC)
- Movement spatially
- Average: 6 cm/year
- Minimum: 0 cm/year; maximum: 18.3 cm/year
- Movement vertically
- Isostacy

Is the Earth Getting Bigger?
- NO; gravity prevents that
- Sea floor spreading creates new crust a mid-ocean ridges
- Subduction at trenches destroys oceanic crust
- Create at MORs, destroy at trenches
- Oceanic crust is basically recycled
- Oldest oceanic rock is around 200 million years old

Hawaiian Islands

What We Observe
- Volcanic Island
- Hawaiian Island Ridge and Emperor Seamounts
- No trench
- All islands have a volcanic origin
- ONLY the Big Island has active volcanism (Hawaii)
- All other islands are extinct
- Pacific plate is moving to the North-west

Hot Spots
- Lava comes out of the hot spot, from the asthenosphere
- Mantle plume
- Youngest rock is closest to the hotspot, oldest is further away
- Hot spots can be located far away from plate boundaries

3 Types of Plate Boundaries
- 1. Divergence
- 2. Convergence
- 3. Transform (Shear)

1. Divergent Plate Boundaries
- Most divergent plate boundaries occur in the ocean
- Sea Floor Spreading- Harry Hess
- Oceanic Ex. Mid-Atlantic Ridge, East Pacific Rise
- Continental Ex. East African Rift Valley














2. Convergence
- Deepest quakes are found at subduction zones
- Oceanic sinks below the continental crust, since its heavier (MAFIC)
- Ex. Andes Mountains (South American Plate)
- Ex. Cascades (North American Plate)

















3. Transform (Shear)
- NO subduction
- NO rifting
- NO Volcanism
- NO Uplift
- No Real mountain ranges
- Earthquakes!
- Ex. San Andreas Fault, California






































Earthquakes

Earthquakes
- 350,000
- 75% occur along Pacific Ocean margin

Most Earthquakes Occur at Depth
- Epicenter vs. Focus
- Epicenter: Area above the focus
- Focus: Origin of an earthquake (3-d model)
- Plate boundaries
- OLD plate boundaries
- Hot spots

How Earthquakes are Detected
- Seismograph
- Rotates on a clock
- Anchored to bedrock
- Weighted spring remains steady
- Amplitude

Seismic Waves
- Four different types of waves (P.S.L.R.)
- PS (Primary/Secondary)
- Always generated
- Generated at the Focus
- Called Body Waves
- Body of the Earth
- LR
- May not be generated
- Generated at the Epicenter
- Called Surface Waves
- 1. Primary Waves
- Fastest!
- Travel through anything
- Travel by compression
- Ex. Pool Balls









- 2. Secondary Waves
- A bit slower than P waves
- Often called shear waves (not compressed)
- Cannot travel through anything (including liquids)









- 3. Love Waves
- Tipped 90 degrees to S waves









- 4. Rayleigh Waves
- Most destructive waves
- Behave like water waves
- Restricted to epicenter