reading: Chapter 4

1.
Fission Hypothesis
Moon once part of Earth, somehow separated.
Rapid spinning, cast off outer layers.
Possibly separated from the Pacific Ocean basin.
Composition resembles Earth’s mantle.
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2.
Capture Hypothesis
Moon formed somewhere else in the solar system.
Gravitational field of the Earth caught it.
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3.
Condensation Hypothesis
Moon and Earth condensed in place individually from the solar nebula.
4.
Giant Impact Hypothesis
Planetesimal or planet struck the Earth just after it formed.
Ejected large volumes of hot material into orbit.
Disk of ejected matter formed, condensed into the Moon.

What did Apollo find?
- age of the moon is 4.5 Ga (same age as the solar system).
- Moon rocks dry (contain very little water, or other volatiles ).
- Moon is less dense than the Earth
Moon 3.3 g/cc
Earth 5.5 g/cc
- Earth has a large iron core, Moon does not.
- Moon has same ratio of oxygen isotopes as the Earth.
- Moon is unusually large compared to other moons.

1.
Fission Hypothesis
Earth would have had to spun much faster - not likely.
Moon lacks volatiles - water, Pb, Au.
2.
Capture Hypothesis
Moon would have to be traveling very slow - unlikely.
Moon would have very different composition - not seen.
Moon lacks volatiles - water, Pb, Au.
Moon lacks a core.
3.
Condensation Hypothesis
Moon is too large 1/4 Earth’s diameter.
Most other moons thought to have formed this way are small.
Moon lacks volatiles - water, Pb, Au.
Moon lacks a core.
4.
Giant Impact Hypothesis
Explains lack of volatiles, size, composition, lack of core.

Mars sized, grazing impactor.
Melted the surface
Ejected molten crust and mantle into space.
Molten material formed a ring of asteroids.
Asteroids accreted to form the Moon
…..
movie
….. simulation so… how old is the Moon and the Earth??

Erosion (wind, water, chemical) produces sediment
Sediment grains carried & deposited in different location
Sediments:
- often form flat layers
- made of sand, silt, mud
- can trap organisms or their remains - fossils
Fossils can be:
- tracks - physical traces
- chemical traces
- morphological traces
- macroscopic or microscopic

Molten rock that cools and solidifies
- if it erupts on the surface: lava
- if it is below the ground: magma basalt
Mg and Fe rich
Hawaii granite
Si rich
Cascades, Sierra Nevadas

Sedimentary or igneous rocks
Have been heated to high T or subjected to high P
- not quite enough to melt
- minerals in the rock change
- often see original layering
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marble gneiss
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deformed shale

augite/clinopyroxene garnet & clinopyroxene quartz SiO
2 calcite CaCO
3
Atlas of Igneous & Metamorphic Rocks

origin of the solar system
oldest rocks on Earth - end of heavy bombardment rise in oxygen plate tectonics?
first multicellular fossils
Cambrian
Explosion
Proterozoic
Phanerozoic
0.55
present billions of years ago:
4.56
Hadean
3.8
Archean
2.5
Hadean - Greek God of the underworld
- abundant impacts
- life??
Archean - “ancient life”
- minimal evidence of life
- microbial life
oceans and ‘continents’ different
Proterozoic - “earlier life”
- appearance of oxygen
- gradual increase in oxygen
- multi-cellular life (algae)
Phanerozoic - “visible life”
- multi-cellular animals
- plants
- fungi
- colonization of land most eons defined arbitrarily except for the Phanerozoic

3 eras in the Phanerozoic:
Paleozoic - “old life”
- 543-248 Ma
- origins of multi-cellular animals
- origins of plants
- colonization of land
- C, O, S, D, C, P
Mesozoic - “middle life”
- 248-65 Ma
- time of the dinosaurs
- T, J, C
Cenozoic - “recent life”
- 65 Ma to present
- age of the mammals
(Ma = millions of years ago)

Before the 1950’s ages were all relative.
Radioactive isotopes are unstable, spontaneously decay to stabler elements.
Parent Daughter
238 U 206 Pb
40 K 40 Ar
87 Rb 87 Sr
26 Al
14 C
26 Mg
14 N
Half-life
4.47 Ga
1.25 Ga
48.8 Ma
700,000 years
5,730 years
238 U time
Half-life = time for half of the starting material to decay to the daughter element
Amount of 206 Pb in the rock depends on:
- amount of starting 238 U and 206 Pb
- time
238 U +
206 Pb

Is a probabilistic process.
Any particular atom will have a 50% chance of decaying during the first half life.
1 µg 40 K (parent)
0 µg 40 Ar (daughter)
1.25 Ga
1/2 µg 40 K
1/2 µg 40 Ar another 1.25 Ga
1/4 µg 40 K
3/4 µg 40 Ar another 1.25 Ga
1/8 µg 40 K
7/8 µg 40 Ar

Measure the amount of 40 K and 40 Ar in the rock.
Assume all 40 Ar came from 40 K (this is reasonable -
Ar is a gas not normally found in rocks).
Calculate the age, calculate the # of half lives: current amount original amount
=
( ) t/t half (amount of radioactive material in the rock)
Can use different parent-daughter pairs depending on your sample.
14 C only useful for objects <50,000 years old.
238 U only useful for the oldest rocks on Earth.
Chose the pair with the most parent and daughter contents.
Note that the Age = date that the mineral in the rock formed.

Note that the Age = date that the mineral in the rock formed.
Is this method useful for sedimentary rocks?

Determine radiometric age of the oldest rocks in the solar system.
4.55 ± 0.02 Ga
4.6 Ga Meteorites
- left from from accretion
- carbonaceous chondrites (86% of stony meteorites)
- minerals formed during the process of accretion
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4.5/4.4 Ga Moon
- oldest minerals on the moon
- when the moon formed; minerals crystalized from molten material

Oldest rocks are ~ 4.0 Ga.
Heavily metamorphosed.
Older mineral grains in sedimentary rock are 4.4 Ga ( zircon mineral grains, ZrSiO
4
)
Rock ground, grains separated.
Put under SHRIMP = sensitive high-resolution ion micro-probe
Zap with a ions to vaporize a bit of the mineral
Separate out the atoms with a mass spectrometer bent magnet
Count 238 U and 208 Pb (plus 204 Pb, 206 Pb, 207 Pb)
Estimate original Pb content, calculate how much has decayed (age).
Is the Earth younger than the solar system?

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Water, erosion, plate tectonics.
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reading: Chapter 4