GEOL 100

(PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY)

Engr. Gerome L. Amper

Instructor
 LECTURE 2
HISTORICAL GEOLOGY
What is Historical Geology?
The Origin of the Universe
Plate Tectonics: The Unifying Theory
Organic Evolution
Geologic Time: Concepts and Principles
2.1 WHAT IS HISTORICAL
GEOLOGY?
 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY

Distinguish Earth History from Earth Dynamics

Geology is the science of the Earth.

Geology studies the composition, structure, origin, life

forms, physical and chemical processes affecting it,
and its history.
 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY

deals with the history of the earth its changing face

and structures and the changing forms of living
things whose remains & traces are found as fossils in
the rocks.

deals with the historical evolution of the earths crust

 SCIENTIFIC METHOD
How do scientists/geologists study Earth?
The Scientific Method is a scientific investigation
involving an iterative process of empirical
observation, hypothesis building (with a predictive or
retrodictive component), and testing.
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD
A scientific theory is a unifying idea that incorporates
a number of provisionally accepted hypotheses.
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Knowledge based on many hypotheses and theories

can be used to create a scientific model a precise
representation of how a natural system is built or
should behave.
SCIENTIFIC METHOD

An Outline of the Scientific Method

 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY

The theories of plate tectonics and biological

evolution : two important scientific theories are
central to an understanding of Earth history
 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY

Plate tectonics theory is the great unifying idea of

geology. It states that the Earths outer shell (the
lithosphere), which consists of the crust and upper
mantle, is cracked and composed of pieces that
float on a hot, deformable asthenosphere.
 HISTORICAL GEOLOGY
Evolutionary theory is the great unifying idea of
biology. It is the process by which biological species
give rise to other species by way of genetic changes.
2.2 THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
 THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE

Cosmology is the study of the origins, creation, and

changes of the planets, Sun, and Universe.
 THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE
Several Hypotheses that explain for the origin of the
Solar System:

1. Nebular Hypothesis (one star hypothesis, by Kant & La Place)

2. Planetisimal Hypothesis (2 star hypothesis, by Chamberlin & Moulton)
3. Tidal Hypothesis (by James Jean & Harold Jeffries)
4. Dust Cloud Hypothesis (by Fred L. Whipple)
 THE BIG BANG THEORY

Currently the dominant theory

The theory is supported by the most comprehensive
and accurate explanations from current scientific
evidence and observation.
According to the best available measurements as of
2010, the initial conditions occurred around 13.3 to
13.9 billion years ago.
 THE BIG BANG THEORY

Georges Lematre proposed what became known

as the Big Bang theory of the origin of the Universe,
although he called it his "hypothesis of the primeval
atom".
Edwin Hubble discovered in 1929 that the distances
to far away galaxies were generally proportional to
their redshifts, as suggested by Lematre in 1927.
THE BIG BANG THEORY
2.3 PLATE TECTONICS:
THE UNIFYING THEORY
 TECTONICS

Tectonics (from the Greek tekton, meaning "builder")

the general term used to describe mountain
building, volcanism, and other processes that
construct geologic features on Earth's surface.
 PLATE TECTONICS

The lithosphereEarth's strong, rigid outer shell of

rockis broken into about a dozen plates, which slide
by, converge with, or separate from each other as
they move over the weaker, ductile asthenosphere.
 PLATE TECTONICS THEORY

The theory of plate tectonics describes the movement

of plates and the forces acting between them.
 CONTINENTAL DRIFT

The concept of continental drift large-scale

movements of continents over the globe has
been around for a long time.
Late sixteenth century and in the seventeenth
century - jigsaw-puzzle fit of the coasts on both sides
of the Atlantic, as if the Americas, Europe, and
Africa
 CONTINENTAL DRIFT

By the close of the nineteenth century, the Austrian

geologist Eduard Suess had put together some of
the pieces of the puzzle, once formed a single giant
continent called Gondwanaland (or Gondwana).
 CONTINENTAL DRIFT
In 1915, Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist
wrote a book (The Origin of Continents and
Oceans)on the breakup and drift of continents.
In it, he laid out the remarkable similarity of rocks,
geologic structures, and fossils on opposite sides of
the Atlantic.
He postulated a supercontinent, which he called
Pangaea (Greek for "all lands"), that broke up into
the continents as we know them today.
 EVIDENCES OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Continental Fit
Similarity of Rock Sequences and Mountain Ranges
Glacial Evidence
Fossil Evidence
CONTINENTAL DRIFT

Similarity of Rock Sequences on

the Gondwana Continents
CONTINENTAL DRIFT
 SEAFLOOR SPREADING

In 1928, the British geologist Arthur Holmes proposed

that convection currents "dragged the two halves of
the original continent apart, with consequent
mountain building in the front where the currents are
descending, and the ocean floor development on
the site of the gap, where the currents are
ascending."
 SEAFLOOR SPREADING

During the 1950s, Harry Hess of Princeton University

proposed, in a 1962 landmark paper, the theory of
seafloor spreading to account for continental
movement.
He suggested that continents do not move through
oceanic crust but rather that the continents and
oceanic crust move together as a single unit.
 SEAFLOOR SPREADING

The process that continually adds new material to

the ocean floor while pushing older rocks away from
the ridge.