Study of Geology-

1. Systematic process of understanding and explaining the natural world.

2. Assumes the natural world behaves in a consistent and predicable manner and is comprehensive.
3. Lines of reasoning that scientists use in order to explain the natural world. (scientific method)
4. Scientists make observations to understand the natural world.
5. Scientist formulate hypothesis to explain how and why the world works.
6. Scientists gather, collect, analyze, synthesize and classify facts and data using an orderly and logical process to
test hypothesis.
7. Scientists may also need to conduct experiments.
8. Scientists accept, modify, or reject hypothesis and then... make more observations, collect more data, conduct
more experiments.
9. A scientific hypothesis is a tentative, untested inferred idea used to explain observed natural phenomena.

Continental Drift-

1. Alfred Wegener propose the idea of “continental drift” (hypothesis) in 1912.

- He was a German meteorologist who studied glaciers
2. Evidence for continental drift included:
- After the map was created, it looked like puzzle pieces that fit together.
- Fossils; and how similar fossils were found in different parts of the world
- Mountain ranges; parts of ranges seemed to be apart but distinctly fit together.
- Glacial striations and till; Till- ice from valleys pick up rocks and break things to make types of gravel.
3. “Continental Drift” was rejected because his proposal mechanism of continental movement didn’t work.
- What caused them to drift? – wasn’t answered
- He was a meteorologist, not a geologist.
4. Seafloor mapping and drilling after WWII resulted in a seafloor spreading hypothesis.
- Sonar created maps of the seafloor.
- Scientist found out that magnetic fields have been changing.
- Suggest the MOR is splitting and moving.
5. (MOR) – Mid Ocean Ridges - is a mountain range of volcanoes.
- They have symmetrical patterns of magnetism in seafloor rocks.
- Symmetrical patterns of rock ages on the seafloor (middle is very young as they push out, it gets older)
- Increasing thickness of the seafloor sediments. (MOR mud is thing, further as you go it gets thicker)
- Hot spot volcanoes – Seafloor acts like a conveyor belt (many holes but one spot of magma)
6. The Earth’s surface is divided into lager puzzle pieces called Tectonic Plates = continents and ocean move
together.
7. Plates are made up of oceanic crust and/or continental crust & upper mantle
- Continents + continental crust = Granite
- Oceanic crust = Basalt
- Mantle = Periotite
8. Plates float and move on the asthenosphere. It’s like silly putty. W/o it, there would be no movement of
tectonic plates.
9. Plate movement is related to mantle convection and slab pull.
– Mantle Convection – circulation of heat makes plate move
– Slab Pull – Cement melting down
 10. Most earthquakes and volcanoes are located at plate boundaries.
11. There are 3 types of plate boundaries:
– Converging – plates moving in together
– Divergent – plates move away from each other
– Transform – plates slide away from each other
12. Divergent plate boundaries are result of seafloor spreading and form (MOR) and Rift Valleys
- Most divergent plate boundaries are in oceanic crust.
13. Transform plate boundaries are also on the oceanic crust and are associated with divergent plates
(they create faults) in between divergent plates everything else is in rifts.
– San Andreas Fault
14. Convergent plates boundaries result in:
– Subduction
– Trenches
– Volcanic Arcs (chain of volcanoes)
– Complex mountain ranges (non-volcanic)

Origin and evolution of the ocean floor

1. Bathymetry – the science of measuring ocean depths using “soundings”

2. Echo Sounding uses reflected sound signals to measure ocean depths
3. – Satellites use microwaves to indirectly map seafloor wave forms because of little hills
4. Scientists know more about the surface of the moon than the bottom of the ocean.
5. Continental shelf: gently sloping, geological extension of a continent covered by sediment
– (10km – 1500 km) 70 km is average width
– 135m after shelf break in depth
– Roughly 0.1 degree of a slope
6. Continental shelf can be economically important because oil shows up at the crust, not the ocean floor.
7. Seafloor faulting resulted in island, banks and basins which created “Southern California Borderland”
8. Continental slope is between the shelf and deep ocean
9. – about 1km – 5km in width
10. – Roughly a 4 degree on average slope (can be 1 – 25 degrees)
11. Submarine Canyons are narrow “V” shape valleys carved into the slope. They are created by underwater
avalanches of mud, sand, rock called “turbidity currents”
12. The continental rise is a transition zone to the deep ocean floor that is made up of turbidite deposites and deep
sea fans
13. Abyssal plains are very flat, thick accumulations of mud formed by suspension settling
(microscopic plankton shell = mud)
14. Abyssal Hills (Seaknolls) are volcanic hills created on the flanks of MOR
15. MOR:
16. – Volcanic mountain made by basalt
17. – Offset by transform faults and fracture zones
18. – Rift Valleys are the crest
19. East pacific rises is a result of rapid seafloor movement
20. Rift Valleys:
21. – Pillow lava erupts from fissures and faults resulting in numerous earthquakes
22. – Hydrothermal vents are seafloor hot springs “chemosynthesis”
 23. Volcanic peaks:
– Seamounts
– Volcanic island
– Tablemount
– Hotspot volcanoes
24. Trenches – are a result of subduction and form the pacific ring of fire.
25. Continental margins – passive or active (plate boundaries)

Volcanoes

1. There are 169 Active Volcanoes in the US

2. 88 of them are very dangerous and can push out 20 – 30k feet of ash in the sky
3. There are 5 observatories on the west coast: Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii
4. They use seismometers, GPS, Tilt meters and cameras
5. Plates movement results in the formation of magma, lava and most volcanoes
6. Magma is beneath the surface of the earth and lava is surfaced magma
7. The explosiveness of a volcanos is controlled by lava viscosity. Determines how easily gasses are able to escape
– Silica (SiO2) and temperatures affect viscosity.
- If Silica is high, viscosity is high. If temperature is low, viscosity is low.
8. Volcanic eruptions can include: Lava, Gasses, Pyroclastic Material
9. Pyroclastic Material: Volcanic bomb, etc.
10. High viscosity eruptions form Aa lava
- Aa lava flows sound like glass cracking.
11. Chemically all volcanoes are different.
12. Low viscosity eruptions form pahoehoe lava
– Looks smooth and has a velvet appearance.
13. Volcanic activity can be generally described as:
Active – Is erupting or has erupted in the last 10,000 years or predicted to erupt in the near future (Alive)
Dormant – has not erupted in the last 10,000 years but is expected to do so in the future (Sleeping)
Inactive – may or may not erupt in the future (Coma)
Extinct – not ever to erupt again (Dead)
14. Shield volcanoes are broad and gently sloping and form entirely from basaltic lava flows
15. – Hawaiian, Galapagos, Canary, and Easter Island / Medicine Lake, CA
16. Cinder Cones are small, steep-sided accumulations of pyroclastic material that sometimes erupt basaltic lava
– Pebbles, rocks, cinder
– Loose material
– Red Hill Cinder Cone, Coso Volcanic Field, CA / Paricutin Cinder Cone, Mexico, 1943
17. Composite (Stratovolcano) are large, symmetrical cones made of alternating layers of pyroclastic material and
andesitic lava
– Most are located on the “ring of fire”
– Mount Shasta, CA / Mount Fuji, JP
18. A Caldera is a collapsed volcano magma chamber
– It’s a volcanic feature / Crater Lake, OR
– Partially emptied chamber, after an explosion, the volcano collapses and is filled up by rain and water.
19. Lava Domes are small and steep-sided, viscous silica rich lava flows, that generally form inside volcanic craters
– Lava slowly comes up, builds from underneath
– Monocrater near Mammoth, CA
20. Columnar Jointing:
- They contract during cooling / Devil’s Post Pile National Monument, CA
Earthquakes

1. Earth’s largest earthquakes occur at subduction zones and convergent plate boundaries and may create
tsunamis.
2. EQ’s result from rapid release of energy stored in rocks
- elastic rebound theory explains how rocks break
- adding stress = straining
- permanent stress = brittle strain (rocks)/plastic strain
- stretching – tensional stress (divergent)
- compressional – convergent
- sheer - transform
3. Energy is release at the focus and travels as seismic waves: P,S,L,R- Waves
4. Seismograph record seismic waves (ground shaking) on a seismogram – paper that it’s graphed on
– starts w/ P-waves – fastest / then S / L&R waves are surface waves (height of the wave = size)
5. Most EQ surface damage occurs near the epicenter of the fault
6. Fault are large fractures in the earth’s crust that may form during an EQ
– Faults are the movement along the crack or fracture – normal, reverse, thrust, strike-slip

Minerals

1. Elements substances made of one or more atoms which all have the same # of protons
– Ions are atoms of an element that have lost or gained electrons
– molecules consist of 2 or more atoms of the same element or different element that chemically bonded
together
2. Minerals are naturally occurring, inorganic crystalline solids with a specific chemical composition that may form
crystals
3. Minerals form when elements are chemically bonded together:
– Ionic chemical bonds are weak (halite) – can dissolve or break easy
– Covalent bonds are strong (diamond)
– Metallic bonds are strong (gold, silver, platinum)
– Vander Waals bond are weak (graphite)
4. There are over 4,500 minerals that have been identified but only a few hundred are common.
5. The rock-forming minerals are used to classify rocks and define their chemistry:
– biotite, calcite, dolomite, feldspar, hornblende, muscovite, olivine, pyroxene, quartz
6. Silicate (SiO2) minerals makes up 90% of the earth’s crust
7. Non-silicate minerals such as metals, salts, sands, and gravel have commercial value and are called ore minerals
8. Gemstones are minerals that are prized for their beauty, durability and rarity
9. Diamonds are the hardest known naturally occurring minerals
10. The value of a diamond is based on the 4 C’s:
Carat – Weight of a diamond (1ct = 2g = 100 points)
Color – all colors of the rainbow (the more colorful ones are rare)
Clarity – inclusions are carbon that didn’t crystalize
Cut – determines sparkle and brilliance
11. Cubic Zirconia and moissanite are not diamonds.