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This Is Planet Earth

Dr Liam Herringshaw (Email – lgh865@hotmail.com)

An Introduction To Geology

In the beginning

Introducing me, the course, yourselves

About me

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About the course

Class 1. Beginnings

...of Geology

...of the Earth

2. Time

Fossil time

Absolute time

3. Fire Magmas, Volcanoes & Igneous Rocks

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4. Sand, Mud & Lime

Sedimentary rocks

Depositional

environments

5. Folds & Faults

Metamorphic rocks

Structural geology

6. Moving Plates

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7. Ice & Water

Glaciology & Hydrogeology

8. Life & Death

Fossils and Evolution

9. Mines & Yours

Economic geology

Minerals, oil, gas

Human impacts

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10. The Future

Over to you...

What do you already know?

What do you want to find out?

What geological topics interest you most?

Course information

No class Tuesday May 6th

Extra class at end of course (July 1st)

Course notes on www.fossilhub.org

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No vestige of a beginning,

no prospect of an end

1726-1797

“The Father of

Geology”

Deep Time and

Plutonism

James Hutton

Deep Time

Hutton's Unconformity

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Neptunism vs Plutonism

All rocks deposited

from water

All rocks hot from the

underworld

Catastrophism vs Uniformitarianism

Change by

revolution

Floods,

extinctions,

ice ages...

Gradual change

The present is

the key to the

past

Geological science

The Principles of

Geology

(1830-1833)

X religious

X philosophical

X anthropocentric

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A second Charles

“I, a geologist...”

Reefs + sea

levels

Volcanic islands

Fossils

Other key figures

A course in itself!

Anning Wegener Smith

Beginnings of Earth

Radiometric dates from meteorites

Formed ~4.54 Ga (billion years ago)

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Our ancient Moon

Genesis Rock: ~4.1 billion years old

Oldest thing on Earth?

Zircon, Western Australia, ~4.4 Ga

Oldest rocks? Hudson Bay, Canada, 4.28 Ga

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Oldest rocks in Britain

Lewisian complex, 3.1 to 1.7 Ga

Inhabitable early Earth?

Beginnings of life

Archaean bacteria, W. Australia

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Very simple for a very long time

Beginnings of animal life

Next week

Geological time

www.fossilhub.org