ERSC 1P92 (Extreme Earth)

Week 1
Module 1: Introduction to ERSC 1P92

The Nature of Scientific Ideas

 Science is a system of knowledge that is based on "proofs" derived from observation
and/or experimentation to determine general “truths” or facts.
 Scientists use observations (to gather the facts) and deduction to offer explanations of
natural phenomena.
 Deductive reasoning: to draw logical conclusions regarding a phenomenon based on all
that is known about it.
 Earth Science (Geology) focuses on natural phenomena that are related to the Earth.
 There are also other "systems of knowledge" such as religious beliefs which provide a
different basis for interpreting natural phenomena.

How do we develop and express such explanations of natural phenomena?

 Speculation: simply opinion or guess. Clearly not a good basis for a reliable
explanation!
 Hypothesis: a logically derived explanation that is based on a body of knowledge that is
made up of “facts”; everything known about what is being explained.
 A hypothesis remains tentative (and possibly wrong) until further evidence and rigorous
testing proves that it is better than other hypotheses (are new “facts” that become known
consistent with the explanation?)
 Several hypotheses may exist at the same time, but as new information is gathered
ultimately one will be most consistent with the facts.
 Ockham’s Razor (Principle of Parsimony): If more than one hypothesis seems to
explain a phenomenon it is the simplest hypothesis that is always preferred! (because the
simplest has fewer assumptions and unknowns).
 Theory: a very well verified and communicated explanation that links together a number
of separate hypotheses.
 Theories provide a basis for predicting outcomes and these outcomes can be tested by
further observation.
 Extensively documented theories that explain many aspects of the natural world are
called paradigms.
 Law: Theories become Laws (e.g., the Law of Gravity) when they are shown to be
absolutely correct for the conditions to which they apply.

What are the implications to scientific progress?

 The “illusion of knowledge” is created when any belief that forms the basis of that
knowledge is untrue. Any new knowledge that is built upon “false” truth will not only be
unreliable, but it may also hinder the recognition of “real” truths that lead to the
advancement of knowledge.
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Alternative Facts
 "Alternative Facts" is an expression used in the courts to describe various interpretations
of something that are all plausible given the available evidence at the time.
 Presumably, this definition could also apply to "facts" derived from different systems of
knowledge when different perceptions of "proof" lead to different conclusions of what is
true.

What is geology?
 Geology is the science that deals with:
o Processes acting within the Earth and at its surface.
o The materials that make up the Earth (rocks and minerals).
o The history of the Earth.
 Geology may be divided into two broad subdivisions of Physical Geology and Historical
Geology.
 Physical Geology: involved with the processes that act to form the Earth and the
products of those processes.
 Historical Geology: involved with the interpretation of the history of the Earth.

Age of Rocks
 Younger rocks on top
 Older rocks on the bottom

Structure of the Earth

 The Earth can be considered as being made up of a series of concentric spheres, each
made up of materials that differ in terms of composition and mechanical properties.
 Crust and Lithosphere: see the next figure for details.
 Upper Mantle: Soft, ductile material that flows due to convection driven by the internal
heat of the Earth.
 Lower Mantle: Rigid material or possibly a soft plastic that flows under stress.
 Outer Core: Nickel and Iron alloy that behaves like a soft plastic (i.e., it flows).
 Inner Core: Solid Nickel and Iron alloy (very high pressure and temperature)
 Crust: the outermost layer of the earth, a hard outer shell.
 Oceanic crust: relatively thin, varying from 5 to 8 km (but thinner at Oceanic ridges).
Made up of relatively dense, heavy rocks.
 Continental Crust: thicker and more variable in thickness than oceanic crust. Thickness
ranges from 20 km to about 75 km (beneath mountain ranges). Made up of “lighter”
rocks than oceanic crust.
 Lithosphere: the topmost layer of the upper mantle and the crust. Below the crust the
lithosphere has the composition of the upper mantle but is rigid, like the crust, because it
is cooler than the mantle.
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The Geothermal Gradient

 The temperature within the Earth increases downward to a maximum at its center. This
diagram shows the temperature at the boundaries of the major subdivisions of the interior
of the Earth. Note that the temperature is given in pink lettering in units of Kelvin (K)
and the temperature in Celsius or centigrade (C) is given in brackets in black lettering.
 The Geothermal gradient is the rate at which the temperature increases with depth
beneath the Earth’s crust.
 This gradient average 20°to 30° C per kilometer in the upper part of the crust. The
deepest mine is 3.5 km deep and the natural temperature is 70°C at that depth. Cooling
the mine's air temperature is a necessary action in order for people to work at depth
within the crust.
 Within the upper and lower mantle and within the outer core “convection” or mixing is
the main mechanism of moving heat from deep within the earth towards the surface.

Why is the interior of the Earth so hot?

 There are two sources of heat in the interior of the Earth.
 First, is what is often called "primordial heat" which is heat that has remained within the
Earth since the planet was formed by collisions of large objects that ultimately during
planetary formation (see Module 2.5).
o The energy released by the collisions of very large objects during this phase of
Earth history generated so much heat that the early surface of the Earth is believed
to have been in a molten state and some of the heat that was generated during
planetary formation still contributes to the internal temperature of the Earth.
 The second important source of heat in the Earth's interior is the ongoing radioactive
decay of elements within the Earth; this radioactive decay produces what is called
"radiogenic heat".
 About half of the heat within the Earth is primordial heat and half is radiogenic heat.

Minerals and Rocks

 The crust of the Earth is made up of rocks which are, in turn, made up of minerals.
 Mineral: A mineral is defined as a solid, crystalline substance that occurs naturally and
has a specific chemical composition that determines its physical properties.
 A solid, crystalline substance has a specific chemical composition that determines its
physical properties; the internal structure is made up of an ordered arrangement of
atoms. Gases and liquids (e.g., oil and natural gas) are NOT considered to be minerals.
 Solid Earth materials that are not crystalline are said to be glassy or amorphous (lacking
structure).
 Naturally occurring: synthetic gemstones and most mineral supplements are not real
minerals.
 Specific chemical composition: every mineral is characterized by a specific chemical
composition that determines the properties of the mineral.
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o For example, the mineral Halite, which is what table salt is made of, always has
the same chemical composition; it is made up of equal parts of the elements
sodium and chlorine.

 Approximately 3,500 minerals are known; only about 20 make up over 95% of the crust
of the Earth.

Rock
 A rock is defined as a naturally occurring solid material that is made up of minerals. The
minerals may occur as interlocking crystals or cemented “grains”.
1. Igneous Rock:
o An igneous rock is any natural rock that forms by cooling of a magma (magma is
molten rock within the Earth's crust) into a crystalline solid.
o Igneous rocks are made up of interlocking mineral crystals.
o Granite is a common igneous rock. In the section on volcanoes we will look at
igneous rocks in some detail.
o Igneous rocks commonly occur as large bodies such called plutons. A pluton
forms as a mass of magma is pushed into the Earth’s crust from deeper within the
Earth where it cools and crystallizes to form a large body of igneous rock.
o Smaller igneous bodies include dykes (oblique to vertical) and sills (horizontal),
linear bodies of igneous rock that form when magma is injected into cracks in pre-
existing rocks.
2. Sedimentary Rock
o A sedimentary rock is a natural rock that forms from the products of broken
down pre-existing rocks that have become “cemented” together.
o Sedimentary rocks are made up of discrete particles (called a clastic sediment) or
interlocking crystals (called a chemical sediment) if the rock material crystallizes
by precipitation from water.
o The individual particles are "sand grains" rather than crystals and these grains are
held together by minerals that precipitated in the pore spaces between grains. The
precipitated material acts as a cement.
o Sedimentary rocks normally occur in more-or-less laterally continuous, horizontal
layers or strata.
o Where sedimentary rocks are deformed by tectonic processes their layering may
vary from horizontal to vertical. Deformation of any rock can vary from simple
tilting to complex folding of originally horizontally layered rocks.
3. Metamorphic Rock
o A metamorphic rock is any natural rock formed by the modification of a pre-
existing rock by heat and/or pressure associated with burial deep within the Earth
and/or tectonic forces. Gneiss is a common metamorphic rock that is
characterized by bands of alternating light and dark colored minerals.
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The Geologic Cycle

 The rock cycle is a concept that relates the three rock types through processes that act in
their formation. The cycle includes the following steps:
o Cooling and crystallization of magma (molten rock cools and crystallizes to form
igneous rocks).
o Heat and pressure inside the earth which can turn pre-existing rocks into
metamorphic rocks or if the temperature is high enough melting will take place,
forming magma.
o Uplift of rocks within the crust by tectonic processes (e.g., mountain building)
and erosion that ultimately exposes formerly buried rocks at the surface.
o Weathering: the breakdown of a rock exposed at the Earth’s surface into loose
sediment and solutions that may go on to form sedimentary rocks.
o Transport of the materials produced by weathering largely by rivers, wind,
glaciers.
o Deposition of transported material (as loose sediment) to where it can no longer
be transported.
o Burial and compaction: covered by subsequent deposition and pushed into close
contact due to the weight of overlying sediment.
o Cementation: the binding together of sedimentary particles by minerals that act
as a cement to form a sedimentary rock.

Fossils
 Fossils are a very important component of many sedimentary rocks because organisms
commonly lived in the environments in which sediment is deposited. When the
organisms die, they may be preserved for billions of years trapped within a sedimentary
rock.
 Geologists define the term Fossil to refer to any evidence of past life that is preserved in
sediment or sedimentary rocks.
 There are two major types of fossils: body fossils and trace fossils.
 Body fossils are fossils of all or part of the body of a once living organism.
o Often only part of the body, most often the hardest parts, are preserved such as
teeth and bones.
 Trace Fossil: preserving evidence that organisms were present in the environment in
which sedimentary rocks were deposited without preserving any body fossils.
o Most often trace fossils preserve evidence of an activity or behavior that the
organism conducted while it was alive.
o These behaviors might include burrowing to find food in the sediment, footprints
formed as they walked over a sediment surface or even shallow hollows on a
sediment surface where an organism rested.
 Coprolite: it is the fossil remains of an organism’s excrement. Sometimes coprolites are
well enough preserved to allow the identification of the food that the organism ate.
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Geologic Time
 The Geologic Time Scale divides time since Earth formation into the following units of
decreasing duration: Eons, Eras, Periods, Epochs and Ages (“Ages” are not shown in
accompanying image of the Geologic Time Scale).
 Note that the three oldest Eons are often collectively, referred to as the “Precambrian
Era”, a practice that is not consistent with the hierarchy of units.
 The three Eons that are older than the Phanerozoic Eon are also divided into Periods, but
these are not shown in the table.
 The Phanerozoic Eon is divided into three Eras based on the evolution of complex life
that is known from the fossils that are preserved in the Geological record.
 The meaning of the Era names refers to the nature of life on Earth over the time of each
Era:
o Paleozoic refers to “early life”
o Mesozoic refers to “middle life”
o Cenozoic refers to “new life”

A Brief History of Geology

 Herodotos (500 BC) recognized that the Nile River deposited sediment across its
floodplain when the waters of the river flowed over its banks during periods of high river
discharge. This is a notable observation because it leads to the conclusion that the Earth
changed as the land surface was modified by natural processes.
 Aristotle (384-322 BC) realized that fossils in rocks resembled many living organisms
and he concluded that fossils were once-living animals. For this to happen means that the
rocks that contain the fossils must have formed after there was life on Earth and,
therefore, the Earth has changed since it was initially formed.
 Theophrastus (374-287 BC): wrote the first book on the minerals that make up rocks
and began the science of mineralogy which is a subdiscipline of modern geology.

Neptunism versus Plutonism

 Neptunists: believed that all rocks (including igneous and metamorphic rocks) were
formed by deposition from an early global ocean. The Oceans receded and the Earth
surface has been much the same ever since.
 Plutonists: believed that rocks formed by igneous processes (i.e., all rocks formed by
crystallization from a magma).
 Neither group was correct but sparked a healthy debate that led to a better scientific
understanding of how the Earth changed over time.
 Over the 19th century the Church's view of the world was becoming more liberal because
of the growing evidence that the bible might be being taken too literally. By the end of
the century the Principle of Uniformitarianism was entrenched in geological thinking,
making it difficult (nearly impossible) for contrary ideas to be accepted by geologists.
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