THE GEOLOGIC CYCLE

Landscapes are the result of processes that have to do

with either internal energies or external External processes
Inner processes: • Weathering
• Subduction Sedimentary • Erosion/transport
• Rifting rock • Deposition,
• Continent collision landscape burial,
• Uplifting compaction.
• Folding Metamomrphic
• Magmatism and magmatic External energies:
• Faulting rocks Sun, gravity
• metamorfism
External agents: Temperature,
precipitation, rivers, glaciers,
wind, ocean dynamics,
Internal energy underground water.
(primormial)
 Explain the origin of the following landscapes

Internal processes External Agents: External Processes:

Continental colision, Temperature, Weathering (ice wedging)
uplifting, metamorfism precipitation, Erosion (transport),
Folding and faulting River deposition (morraines and
glacier alluvial deposits)
Internal processes External Agents: External Processes:
rifting sea Weathering (salt wedging)
Erosion (transport),
deposition
 Law of Original Horizontality– Beds of sediment deposited
in water form as horizontal (or nearly horizontal) layers due to
gravitational settling. (Not true if the depositional agent is in
movement).
Law of Superposition– In undisturbed
strata, the oldest layer lies at the bottom
and the youngest layer lies at the top.

Nicholas Steno XVII c

Law of Cross-Cutting Relationships– An event that
cuts across existing rock is younger than that disturbed
rock. This law was developed by Charles Lyell (1797-
1875).
 Unconformities
Unconformity – A surface that represents a very significant gap in the geologic rock
record (due to erosion or long periods of non-deposition).
There are 2 main types of unconformities:
1) Disconformity – A contact representing missing rock between sedimentary
layers that are parallel to each other. Since disconformities are parallel to bedding
planes, they are difficult to see in nature.

erosion

deposition
2) Angular Unconformity – A
contact in which younger strata
overlie an erosional surface on
tilted or folded rock layers.
This type of unconformity is easy to
identify in nature.
We can interpret the information stored in the rock or
current relieves by applying one of the most evident,
and important principles in geology. The principle of
actualism: The present is the key to explain the past
Example #1: When you go from Talavera to Los Montes de
Toledo, as soon as you pass the Cerro Negro, you arrive to
a plain called La Raña. It´s made up of quartzite pebbles
spread over many square kilometers
First: how does a pebble form?. We need an aquatic
environment and a lot of transport by rolling

Second: We need a lot of loose material. That means

an environment without plants.

Third: Because the pebbles are spread over a big

surface that means that the waters that made it didn´t
have a course, it wasn´t a river, but torrencial waters in
a desertic landscape
How this type of sediment can have formed (cross-
bedding)
How cross-
beds are
formed
Fluid agents like rivers, oceans, wind, they transport
materials rolling and selectively (when they loose energy
they deposit first the bigger sizes), so the materials get
separated by sizes: pebbles, gravel, sand, silt, clay

Rounded sediments: The sediments appear

they will be rounder as separated by sizes
they have been
transported longer
Tillites are sediments in wich we find all types of sizes
(big and small) and their shape is jagged (not
rounded). They are an evidence of?....
Glaciers transport all sizes at the same time and not
by rolling. The sediments from glaciers are called
moraines
Some other glacier
features that we can
find in current
landscapes.
Erratic boulders

They were boulders

that fell on a glacier,
and that the glacier
transported, very far
from the original
area. The boulder
was deposited many
km away when it
melted
U-shaped valleys
and the shoulder

U shaped valleys
have been carved by
a glacier. The
shoulder tells us the
maximum height
the ice reached
What processes may have formed this landscape?

Very intense erosion

Do you think the river in the picture has the strength
to carve those potholes?
Today something similar may be happening in some parts of the
globe, like the Himalayas. The melting that occurs each summer
brings down a huge amount of water able to carve potholes and
to smooth the rocks on the stream sides.
V-SHAPED VALLEYS ARE CARVED BY STREAMS
Stories told by the rocks
Once we have put in historical order the rocks in a region we
need to unveil the story that the origin of the different rocks
tell.
Sedimentary rocks tell us a story about the environment in
which they were settled. Also the possible fossils can speak
about the environment and even about the climate
Metamorphic rocks may come from sedimentary so they
speak the same language, and also tell us stories about
continent collisions

Magmatic rocks are evidences of past subductive processes

or volcanoes.
Continental shelves are the main environment where most
sedimentary rocks form:
• Limestone (It may have fossils. Corals are evidences of
tropical environments) Formed underwater.
• Sandstone is formed also in continetal shelves but also in
continental environments.
• Shale: comes from ocean mud.
• Conglomerate may come from continental shelves, but use
to be formed on the continents
• Evaporite: like gypsum. They form whe an ocean
evaporates leaving behind the salts. Hot climate
Metamorphic rock (form when other rocks are under a big
pressure and temperature. They form massively during
continental collisions)
Slate: comes from shale It may have fossils
Quartzite: comes from sandstone
Marble: comes from limestone

Plutonic rocks like the granit forms from slow cooling magma
(tipical of subductive orogenes like the Andes or the
cascades).
Volcanic rocks, like the basalt or the rhyolite they are
evidences of volcanic eruptions as well as the ash sediments