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Introduction to Geology

Phil Murphy
p.murphy@see.leeds.ac.uk
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“Civilisations are what they dig

from the Earth”
Gibbons
Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, 1776
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“If Kuwait had of grown carrots

no one would have given a damn!”

Senior Source - NSA

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Why is geology different from other

sciences?
• Often lacks experimental control
• Incompleteness of data
• Methodologies and procedures used to test
problems rather than the generation and testing of
universal laws

• GEOLOGY WORKS
• (everyone wants to drive to Sainsburys)
Principle of Superposition 5

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Principle of Original Horizontality 6

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Two kinds of ages

• Relative - know order of events but not dates
• Napoleonic wars happened before W.W.II
• Bedrock in Scotland formed before the glaciers
came

• Absolute - know dates

• Civil War 1803-1815
• World War II 1939-1945
• Glaciers finally left Scotland About 11,000 Years
Ago
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Two conceptions of Earth history

• Catastrophism
• Assumption: great effects require great causes
• Earth history dominated by violent events

• Uniformitarianism
• Assumption: we can use cause and effect to
determine causes of past events
• Finding: Earth history dominated by small-scale
events typical of the present.
• Catastrophes do happen but are uncommon
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Principles of Relative Dating

• Law of superposition
 Undeformed section of sedimentary or
layered igneous rocks
 Oldest rocks are on the bottom
• Principle of original horizontality
 Layers of sediment are generally deposited in
a horizontal position
 Rock layers that are flat have not been
disturbed (deformed)
• Principle of cross-cutting relationships
 Younger features cut across older features
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Superposition
Strata in the Grand Canyon
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Horizontality
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Cross-cutting Relationship
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Cross-cutting Relationship

Which
crater is
youngest?
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Cross-cutting Relationships
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Principles of Relative Dating

• Inclusions
• A piece of rock that is enclosed within
another rock
• Rock containing the inclusion is
younger
• Unconformity
• Break in rock record produced by
erosion and/or non-deposition of rock
• Represents period of geologic time
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Principles of Relative Dating

• Types of unconformities
 Angular unconformity
• tilted rocks (disturbed) are overlain by flat-lying
rocks

 Disconformity
• strata on either side of the unconformity are
parallel

 Nonconformity
• metamorphic or igneous rocks in contact with
sedimentary strata
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Angular Unconformity
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Angular Unconformity
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Angular Unconformity
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Uniformitarianism
• Continuity of Cause and Effect
• Apply Cause and Effect to Future - Prediction
• Apply Cause and Effect to Present - Technology
• Apply Cause and Effect to Past –
Uniformitarianism

The present is the key to the

past
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Ripple Marks - Scarborough

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Fossil Ripple Marks

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Modern Mud Cracks

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Fossil Mud Cracks

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The makings of good Index Fossils

• Abundant
• Widely-distributed (Global Preferred)
• Short-lived or rapidly changing
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Correlation
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The Geologic Time Scale

Quaternary Latin, “fourth” 1822
Tertiary Latin, “third” 1760
Cretaceous Latin creta, “chalk” 1822
Jurassic Jura Mountains, Switzerland 1795
Triassic Latin, “three-fold” 1834
Permian Perm, Russia 1841
Carboniferous Carbon-bearing 1822
Devonian Devonshire, England 1840
Silurian Silures, a pre-Roman tribe 1835
Ordovician Ordovices, a pre-Roman tribe 1879
Cambrian Latin Cambria, “Wales” 1835
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Absolute ages: early attempts

• The Bible
• Add up dates in Bible
• Get an age of 4000-6000 B.C. for Earth
• John Lightfoot and Bishop Ussher - 4004 B.C.,
October 26th 9 a.m (1584)
• Too short!
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Absolute ages: early attempts

• Salt in Ocean
• If we know the rate salt is added, and how much salt
is in ocean, we can find the age of oceans.
• Sediment thickness
• Add up thickest sediments for each period and
estimate rate.
• Both methods gave age of about 100 million
years
• Problem: rates variable
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Radiometric Dating: Half-Life

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Radiometric Decay
• Parent
• an unstable radioactive isotope

• Daughter product
• the isotopes resulting from the decay of a parent

• Half-life
• the time required for one-half of the radioactive
nuclei in a sample to decay
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Radiometric Dating
• Principle of radioactive dating
 The percentage of radioactive toms that
decay during one half-life is always the
same (50%)

 However, the actual number of atoms that

decay continually decreases

 Comparing the ratio of parent to daughter

yields the age of the sample
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Radioactive Decay Curve

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Radioactive Decay Curve

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Present Radiometric Dating Methods

Cosmogenic
• C-14  5700 Yr.

Primordial
• K-Ar (K-40) 1.25 B.Y.
• Rb-Sr (Rb-87)  48.8 B.Y
• U-235 704 M.Y.
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Radiometric Dating
• Sources of error
 A closed system is required
 To avoid potential problems only fresh,
unweathered rock samples should be used

• Carbon-14 (radiocarbon) dating

 Half-life of only 5730 years
 Used to date very recent events
 C14 is produced in the upper atmosphere
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Some Geologic Rates

Cutting of Grand Canyon
• 2 km/3 m.y. = 1 cm/15 yr

Uplift of Alps
• 5 km/10 m.y. = 1 cm/20 yr.

Opening of Atlantic
• 5000 km/180 m.y. = 2.8 cm/yr.

Uplift of White Mtns. (N.H.) Granites

• 8 km/150 m.y. = 1 cm/190 yr.
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Some Geologic Rates

Movement of San Andreas Fault
• 5 cm/yr = 7 m/140 yr.

Growth of Mt. St. Helens

• 3 km/30,000 yr = 10 cm/yr.

Deposition of Niagara Dolomite

• 100 m/ 1 m.y.? = 1 cm/100 yr.