Lecture 1

Question 1

What is physical geology?

Answer 1

Physical geology – studies Earth materials; seeks to understand processes that operate on and beneath its surface.

Question 2

What is historical geology?

Answer 2

Seeks to understand the origin of Earth and its development through time.

Question 3

What was the origin of the earth thought of in pre-science?

Answer 3

Origin of earth was thought of as separate and distinct from natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, etc.)

• Thought of as a singular event, whereas disasters were the result of divine intervention
• No concept of “Deep Time”

Question 4

What is deep time?

Answer 4

• Geological time is far more vast than time scales familiar to most people
• Ancient history involves thinking in hundreds or thousands of years, geological time is in millions (MA) and Billion (Ba)

Question 5

What are the two different types of time?

Answer 5

• relative time

- absolute time (Numerical time)

Question 6

What as the geological time scale developed using?

Answer 6

• biostratigraphy (fossil successor)

- radioactive decay

Question 7

What is the geological time scale divided into?

Answer 7

• phanerozoic

- precambrian/Archean

Question 8

What is the oldest rocks with conspicuous fossils?

Answer 8

Cambrian

Question 9

What is the principle of Uniformitarianism?

Answer 9

There are inviolable laws of nature that have not changed in the course of time

Question 10

What was the first founding principle of geology?

Answer 10

uniformitarianism

Question 11

Who founded uniformitarianism?

Answer 11

James Hutton

Question 12

What is actuals?

Answer 12

Application of modern processes to ancient system.

Question 13

What are rocks?

Answer 13

Interlocking or bonded grains of matter typically composed of single minerals

Question 14

What are minerals?

Answer 14

Naturally occurring inorganic solid element or compound with a particular chemical composition or range of compositions and a characteristic internal structure

Question 15

What is outcrop/exposure?

Answer 15

Rocky surfaces that stand exposed and are readily accessible for study.

Question 16

What is the Big Bang Theory?

Answer 16

Prevailing model that explains the development of the universe. Notion that the universe started from a single point.

Question 17

When did the Big Bang Theory occur?

Answer 17

About 14 billion years ago

Question 18

Where do all the components of an atom come from?

Answer 18

inside stars

Question 19

___of the universe is made of hydrogen, and nearly___of helium with the rest of the elements making up trace amounts.

Answer 19

• 75 %

- 25%

Question 20

True or False: The big Bang Theory wasn’t an actual explosion, but was (and continues to be) an expansion.

Answer 20

True

Question 21

Why did the singularity appear in space?

Answer 21

Because space didn’t exist before the singularity occurred.

Question 22

What are 3 pints of evidence for the origin of planet earth?

Answer 22

1) Reasonable to assume the universe has a beginning
2) Galaxies are moving away from us
3) Abundance of hydrogen and helium

Question 23

What is the Nebular hypothesis?

Answer 23

Bodies in solar system evolved from solar nebula

Question 24

How to stars from?

Answer 24

Stars from in a massive and dense could of molecular hydrogen, which coalesces and collapses, forming a star.

Question 25

What are the 4 points that explain how bodies in solar system evolved from solar nebula (rocky and gaseous planets)?

Answer 25

1) stars form in a massive and dense cloud f molecular hydrogen, which coalesces and collapses, forming a star
2) produces a gaseous protoplanetary disk around the star
3) initially very hot, the disk cools and dust trains made of rock and ice start to coagulate into planetismals (this produces terrestrial planets that are mostly made of heavy metals)
4) the both of gaseous planets is more complicated, and thought to be due to fuming far enough away from the heat of the sun that early planets are made of ice