LECTURE 1: GEOLOGY
 It is the study of the earth.
 It involves studying the materials that make up the earth,
the features and structures found on Earth as well as the
processes that act upon them.
Main Classification
PHYSICAL GEOLOGY
 It deals with the study of the physical features of the earth
and the processes acting upon them
HISTORICAL GEOLOGY
 It is the study of the history of the earth. It focuses on
what has happened to Earth since its formation
HISTORY OF GEOLOGY
Geology is also defined as the study of how the Earth has
changed since it was first formed billion years ago.
Some noted accounts on people and events in the early
development of geology included the following:
BRANCHES OF GEOLOGY
 Cristallograpy is the experimental science of
determining the arrangement of atoms in the arrangement
of atoms in the crystalline solids.
 Geophysics (Physical Geology) is concerned with the
physical processes and physical properties of the Earth
and its surrounding space environment and the use of
quantitative methods for their analysis
 Engineering Geology (Geotechnics) is the application of
scientific methods and engineering principles to the
acquisition, interpretation and use of knowledge of
materials of the Earth’s crust and earth materials for the
solution of engineering problems and the design of
engineering works
 Geochemistry is the study of the chemical processes
which form and shape the Earth, it includes the study of
the cycles of matter and energy which transports the
Earth’s chemical components and the interaction of these
cycles with the hydrosphere and the atmosphere.
 Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution and
quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the
hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental
watershed sustainability.
 Mineralogy is the study of minerals, its composition and
properties.
 Petrology studies the origin, composition and structure of
rocks Mining geology is an applied science which
combines the principles of economic geology and mining
engineering of a defined mineral resource.
 Sedimentology is the study of sediment grains in marine
and other deposits, with a focus on the physical properties
and the processes which form deposit.
 Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the
propagation of elastic waves and the
propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or trough
other planet-like bodies.
 Stratigraphy studies rock layers and layering, it is
primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered
volcanic rocks.
 Volcanology is the study of volcanoes, lava,
magma and related geological, geophysical
and geochemical phenomena
 Structural Geology(Tectonic) is the study of the three-
dimensional distribution of rock units with respect to their
deformational histories.
EARTH COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
Earth layers
1. CRUST
 The ocean basins and the continents compose the CRUST,
the outermost layer.
 The thickest parts are under the continents and the
thinnest parts are under the oceans.
The Earth’s crust is made up of several elements:

 Two main types of crust
Oceanic Crust (OC)
Oceanic crust covers about 60% of the Earth’s surface. The
crust under the oceans is a thin layer of dense volcanic rock
called basalt and is about 4 to 4 miles thick. Oceanic crust
being so thin, is a very small fraction of the Earth, about 0.1%.
Continental Crust (CC)
The continental crust is much thicker, about 22 miles thick and
covers about 40% of the planet. Whereas almost all of the
oceanic crust is underwater, most of the continental crust is
exposed to air. There are many types of rocks in the
continental crust, but the most important is granite.
2. MANTLE
 The mantle under the crust is about 1,800 miles deep. It is
composed mostly of silicate rocks, rich in magnesium and
iron. Intense heat causes the rocks to rise. When the
mantle pushes through the crust, volcanoes erupt.
 The temperature of the mantle varies greatly from 1000
°C near its boundary with the crust, to 3700°C near its
boundary with the core. In the mantle, heat and pressure
generally increase with depth.
 The geothermal gradient is a measurement of the increase
in temperature.
 In most places, the geothermal gradient is 25°C per
kilometer of depth.
 The transfer of heat and material in the mantle helps
determine the landscape of Earth.
 Activity in the mantle drives plate tectonics, contributing
to volcanoes, seafloor spreading, earthquakes and orogeny
(mountain building).
The mantle is divided into several layers: the upper mantle,
the transition zone, the lower mantle and D”, the strange
region where the mantle meets the outer core.
 Upper Mantle
The upper mantle extends from the rust to a depth of
about 255 miles. It is mostly solid, but is more malleable
regions contribute to tectonic activity. Two parts of the
upper mantle are often recognized as distinct regions in
Earth’s interior: the lithosphere and the asthenosphere.
Lithosphere
 The lithosphere is the solid, outer part of the Earth,
extending to a depth of about 100 kilometer. It includes
both the crust and the brittle upper portion of the mantle.
The lithosphere is the coolest and the most rigid of the
Earth’s layers.
 The most well-known feature associated with Earth’s
lithosphere is tectonic activity. Tectonic activity describes
the interaction of the huge slabs of lithosphere called
tectonic plates.
The lithosphere is divided into 15 major tectonic plates
 North American
 Carribean  Indian
 South American  Philippine
 Scotia  Australian
 Antarctic  Pacific
 Eurasian  Juan de Fuca
 Arabian  Cocos
 African  Nazca
The Moho
 The division in the lithosphere between the crust and the
mantle is called the Mohorovicic discontinuity, or
simply the Moho. The Moho does not exist at a uniform
depth, because not all regions of the Earth are equally
balanced in isostatic equilibrium.
 Isostacy describes the physical, chemical and mechanical
differences that allow the crust to “float” on the
sometimes more malleable mantle. The Moho is about 8
kilometers beneath the ocean and about 32 kilometers
beneath continents. Below the Moho, the mantle is
characterized by peridotite, a rock mostly made up of the
minerals olivine and pyroxene.
Asthenosphere
 The Asthenosphere is the denser, weaker layer beneath
the lithospheric mantle.
 The temperature and pressure of the Asthenospere are so
high that rocks soften and partly melt, becoming semi-
molten.
 The asthenosphere is much more ductile than either the
lithosphere or lower mantle. Ductility measures a solid
material’s ability to deform or stretch under stress.
 The asthenospere is generally more viscous than the
lithosphere, and the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary
(LAB) is the point where geologists and rheologists
(scientists who study the flow of matter) mark the
difference in ductility between the two layers of the upper
mantle.
Transition Zone
 From about 410 kilometers to 660 kilometers beneath the
Earth’s surface, rocks undergo radical transformations.
This is the mantle’s transition zone. In this zone, rocks do
not melt or disintegrate. Instead, their crystalline structure
changes in important ways.
 The transition zone prevents large exchanges of material
between the upper and lower mantle. Perhaps the most
important aspect of the mantle’s transition zone is its
abundance of water. Crystals in the transition zone hold as
much water as all the oceans on Earth’s surface.
 Water in the transition zone is not “water” as we know it,
it is not liquid, vapor, solid or even plasma. Instead water
exists as hydroxide, an ion of hydrogen and oxygen with a
negative charge.

Lower Mantle
 The lower mantle extends from about 660 kilometers to
about 2,700 kilometers beneath Earth’s surface. The lower
mantle is hotter and denser than the upper mantle and
transition zone. The lower mantle is much less ductile
than the upper mantle and transition zone. Although heat
usually corresponds to softening rocks, intense pressure
keeps the lower mantle solid.
Fossils - Fossils are the remains or impression of a prehistoric
organism preserved in petrified form or as a mold or cast in
rock.
Different plants and animals lived at different times, so
geologists can tell from the fossils in rocks how long ago the
rocks formed.

D Double Prime
 Beneath the lower mantle is a shallow region called D” (d
double prime). In some areas, it is a nearly razor-thin
boundary with the outer core. In other areas, D” has thick
accumulations of iron and silicates
 At the base of the mantle, about 2,900 kilometers below Using fossils, they have divided the Earth’s history into 11
the surface, is the core-mantle boundary (CMB). This periods.
point, called the Gutenberg discontinuity, makes the end
of the mantle and the beginning of Earth’s liquid outer
core.

The Core
At the center of the Earth is the core, which has two parts. The
solid inner core of iron has a radius of about 760 miles. It is
surrounded b a liquid, outer core composed of a nickel-iron
alloy. The outer core is about 1,335 miles thick.

THE AGES OF THE EARTH GEOLOGICAL COLUMN

 The Earth was formed more than 4 billion years ago but
the first animals with shells and bones appeared less than
600 million years ago.
 Just as days are divided into hours and minutes, geologists
divide the Earth’s history into time periods.
 The longest are eons, thousands of million year ago.
 The shortest are chrons, a few thousand years ago.
 In between are eras, period, epochs and ages.
Geologic time is divided into four large segments, called
Eons, namely
 Hadean
 Archean
 Proterozoic
 Phanerozoic
The Phanerozoic Eon is divided into Eras, namely
 Paleozoic
 Mesozoic
 Cenozoic
GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE
The geological time scale is a method of relating the timing
and relationship between events that have occurred during the
history of the Earth.
 Geologists and earth scientists have used the relationship
between layers and types of rocks, presence of plant and
animal fossils and radioactive dating to assemble a
sequence of historical events that have occurred over
geologic time.
Layers of rock form on top of each other, so the oldest rocks
are usually at the bottom and the youngest at the top, unless
they have been disturbed.
The order of layers from top to bottom is known as the
geological column.
Fossils can only show if a rock is older or younger than
another, they cannot give a date in years. Also, many rocks
such as igneous rocks contain no fossils.
To give an absolute date, geologists may use radiocarbon
dating.
RADIOCARBON DATING
 Radiocarbon or radioactive dating allows the oldest rocks
on Earth to be dated. After certain substances form in
rocks, their atoms slowly break down into different atoms.
 As atoms break down they send out rays or radioactivity.
By assessing how many atoms in a rock have changed,
geologists work out the rock’s age.
WEATHERING
 Rocks exposed at Earth’s surface are constantly being
changed by water, air, varying temperature and
environmental factors. Granite may seem to be
indestructible, but given time and exposure to air and
water, it can decompose and disintegrate into soil.
The processes that affect rock are weathering, erosion
and transportation.
 The term weathering refers to the processes that
 change the physical and chemical character of rock at or
near the surface.
 Erosion is the picking up or physical removal of rock
particles by an agent such as running water or glaciers.
Weathering helps break down a solid rock into loose
particles that are easily eroded.
Transportation is the movement of eroded particles by
agents such as rivers, waves, glaciers or wind. Weathering
processes continue during transportation.
Rocks undergo both mechanical weathering and
chemical weathering
 Mechanical weathering (physical disintegration)
includes several processes that break rocks into smaller
pieces. Mechanical weathering breaks up rock but does
not change the composition.
 Chemical weathering is the decomposition of rock from
exposure to water and atmospheric gases. As rock is
decomposed by these agents, new chemical compounds
form.
Mechanical Weathering
 PRESSURE RELEASE. The reduction of pressure on a
body of rock can cause it to crack; pressure release is a
significant type of mechanical weathering.
 Exfoliation happens when rocks crack in layers as a
weight of rock or ice above them is removed.
Thermoclastis is when desert rock cracks as they get hot
and expand in the day, then cool and contract at night.
 FROST ACTION. The mechanical effect of freezing
water on rocks commonly occurs as frost wedging or frost
heaving.
In frost wedging, the expansion of freezing water pries rock
apart. Most rocks contain a system of cracks called joints,
water that has trickled into a joint in a rock can freeze and
expand when the temperature drops below 0 degrees.
Frost heaving lifts rock and soil vertically. Solid rock
conducts heat faster than soil, so on a cold winter day, the
bottom of a partially buried rock will be much colder than soil
at the same depth. As the ground freezes in winter, ice forms
first under large rock fragments in the soil. The expanding ice
layers push boulders out of the ground.
 Other Processes. Several other processes mechanically
weather rock but in most environments are less effective
than frost action and pressure release.
 Plant growth particularly root growing in cracks break up
rocks, as can burrowing animals. Extreme changes in
temperature, as in desert environment or in a forest fire
can cause a rock to expand until it cracks.
Chemical Weathering
The processes of chemical weathering, or rock decomposition,
transform rocks and minerals exposed to water and air into
new chemical products. The rusting of an iron nail exposed
to air is
a simple example of chemical weathering
ROLE OF OXYGEN
 Oxygen is abundant in the atmosphere and quite active
chemically, so it often combines with minerals or with
elements within minerals that are exposed at Earth’s
surface.
ROLE OF ACIDS
 The most effective agent of chemical weathering is acid.
Strong acids produce a great number of hydrogen ions
when they dissociate, and weak acids produce relatively
few ions. Some strong acids are naturally on Earth’s
surface but they are relatively rare.
Weathering and Earth Systems
ATMOSPHERE
Weathering has a dramatic impact on the composition of
Earth’s atmosphere. Chemical weathering removes carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, allowing it to be transformed
into limestone and stored in the crust. Without chemical
weathering, the elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere would have long ago made Earth too hot to sustain
life.
HYDROSPHERE
Water is necessary for chemical weathering to take place.
Oxygen dissolved in water oxidizes iron in rocks. Carbon
dioxide mixed with water makes a weak acid that makes most
minerals to decompose.
Running water contributes to weathering and erosion by
loosening and removing particles and by
abrading rocks during transportation in streams.
BIOSPHERE
Plants can physically break apart rocks when they grow in
rocks. Animals can also contribute to weathering and erosion.
Humans are agents of erosion, a single pass made by a
bulldozer can do more to change a landscape than thousands
of years of natural weathering and erosion.
SOIL EROSION
 Soil is one of Earth’s most vital resources, but it is also
one of Earth’s most abused
 Although soil accounts for an almost insignificant
fraction of all Earth materials, it is one of the most
significant resources in terms of its effect on life. Soil
provides nourishment and physical support for plant life.
It is the very base of the food chain that supports human
existence.
Soil consists of different layers that are often called
horizons.
Horizon
O This is a layer of organic matter that is about 2 inches
thick and is made up of dead plant materials such as
leaves and twigs.
A This upper soil horizon is also called topsoil, it is only
between 5 to 10 inches thick and consists of organic
matter and minerals. This is the soil layer where plants
and organisms primarily live.
B This layer is also called subsoil, it is mostly made of
clay, iron minerals as well as organic matter, which has
been washed down to this horizon by
rainwater.

C It is the parent material from which the upper soils
developed, it consists primarily of large rocks
R This is the bedrock and is located several feet under the
surface, it is made up of solid mass of rock
Soil Erosion
 Soil particles are small and are therefore easily
eroded by water and wind. Raindrops strike unprotected
soil like tiny bombs, dislodging soil
particles in a process called splash erosion.
 As rain continues, a thin sheet of running water
forms over the landscape, carrying the dislodged soil
particles away, known as sheet erosion.
 Wind erosion is generally less significant than
erosion by water, but is a particular problem in arid
regions. The wind picks up the lighter components of a
soil such as the clay, silts, and organic matter and may
transport them many kilometers.
The rate of soil erosion is influenced by
several factors
 Soil characteristics. Less runoff occurs on the coarser
soils and less of the soil is eroded away.
 Climate. The type of rainfall influences the amount of
erosion
 Slope. The faster-moving water on steeper slopes has a
greater ability to dislodge and transport soil particles
down from a slope
 Vegetation. Thick vegetation can reduce the wind
velocity near the ground surface, preventing the loss of
soil due to wind erosion.
Soil Formation
Most soils take a long time to form. The rate of soil
formation is controlled by rainfall, temperature, slope and
to some extent, the type of rock that weathers to form soil.
Factors Affecting Soil Formation
Parent Material
The character of the soil depends partly on the parent
material from which it develops. The parent material is
the source of the weathered mineral matter that makes up
most of a soil
Slope
The slope of the land surface provides an important
control on the formation of soil. Soil tends to be thin or
non-existent, where gravity keeps water and soil particles
moving downhill. The optimal topography for soil
formation is flat or gently sloping uplands, allowing good
drainage, minimal erosion and healthy vegetation cover.
Living Organisms
The chief function of living organisms is to provide
organic materials to the soil. Decomposing plants form
humus, which supplies nutrients to the soil and aids in
water retention. Burrowing organisms such as ants,
worms and rodents bring soil particles to the surface and
mix the organic and mineral components of the soil.
Climate
Climate is the most influential factor affecting soil
thickness and character. Soils in temperate, moist climates
tend to be thick and generally characterized by downward
movement of water. In arid climates, soils tend to be thin
and are characterized by little leaching, scant humus and
the upward movement of soil water beneath the ground
surface.
Time
The character of a soil changes with time. Young soils can
retain the structure of the parent rock,
such as bedding layers. With time, soils tend to become
thicker. In regions of onion volcanic activity, the length of
time between eruptions can be estimated by the thickness
of the soil that has formed on each flow
Mass Wasting
Mass wasting is movement in which bedrock, rock debris
or soil moves downslope in bulk or as a mass, because of
the pull of gravity.
Mass wasting includes movement so slow that it is almost
imperceptible, called creep, as well as
landslides, a general term for the slow to very rapid
descent of rock or soil.
The systems used in classifying mass wasting are
based on (a) rate of movement, (b) type of material, and
(c) type or nature of movement.
Controlling Factors in Mass Wasting
GRAVITY
The driving force for mass wasting is gravity. The effect of
gravity is resolved into two component forces, the normal
force and the shear force. The resistance to movement or
deformation of the soil is its shear strength. Shear strength is
controlled by factors such as cohesiveness of the material,
friction between particles, pore pressure of water and the
anchoring effect of plant roots.
Controlling Factors in Mass Wasting
WATER
Water is a critical factor in mass wasting. When soil is
saturated with water, it becomes less viscous and is more
likely to flow downslope.
As the amount of water in soil increases, rate of movement
tends to increase. Slow types of mass wasting are generally
characterized by a relatively low ratio of water to earth.
TRIGGER
- A sudden event may trigger mass wasting of a hillside
that is unstable. Eventually movement will occur without
the triggering if the conditions slowly become more
unstable.
- Earthquakes commonly trigger landslides. Landslides
often are triggered by heavy rainfall. Construction
sometimes triggers mass wasting.
Types of Mass Wasting
1. Soil creep is very slow, downslope movement of soil. The
rate of movement is usually less than a centimeter per year and
can be detected only by observations taken over months or
years.
2. Flow occurs when motion is taking place within a moving
mass of unconsolidated or weakly consolidated material.
3. Rockfalls and Rockslides. When a block of bedrock breaks
off and falls freely or bounces down a cliff, it is a rockfall. A
rockslide is the rapid sliding of a mass of bedrock along an
inclined surface.

Types of Flow

EARTHFLOW
- In an earthflow, earth moves downslope as viscous fluid,
the process can be slow or rapid. Earthflows usually occur
on hillsides that have thick cover of soil in which finer
grains are predominant, often after heavy rains have
saturated the soil.
DEBRIS FLOW AND MUDFLOW
- A debris flow is flow involving soil in which coarse
material, such as boulders or gravel, is predominant. A
mudflow is a flowing mixture of soil and water, usually
moving down a channel. Ir differs from a debris flow in
that fine-grained material is predominant.
DEBRIS AVALANCHE
- It is a very rapidly moving, turbulent mass of debris, air
and water.