This Is Planet Earth
An Introduction To Geology
Dr Liam Herringshaw (Email – lgh865@hotmail.com)
In the beginning
Introducing me, the course, yourselves
About me
About the course
Class 1. Beginnings
...of Geology
...of the Earth
2. Time
Fossil time
Absolute time
3. Fire
Magmas, Volcanoes & Igneous Rocks
4. Sand, Mud & Lime
Sedimentary rocks
Depositional
environments
5. Folds & Faults
Metamorphic rocks
Structural geology
6. Moving Plates
7. Ice & Water
Glaciology & Hydrogeology
8. Life & Death
Fossils and Evolution
9. Mines & Yours
Economic geology
Minerals, oil, gas
Human impacts
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
No vestige of a beginning,
no prospect of an end
James Hutton
1726-1797
“The Father of
Geology”
Deep Time and
Plutonism
Deep Time
Hutton's Unconformity
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
A second Charles
“I, a geologist...”
Reefs + sea
levels
Volcanic islands
Fossils
Other key figures
Anning
Wegener
A course in itself!
Smith
Beginnings of Earth
Radiometric dates from meteorites
Formed ~4.54 Ga (billion years ago)
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
Oldest rocks in Britain
Lewisian complex, 3.1 to 1.7 Ga
Inhabitable early Earth?
Beginnings of life
Archaean bacteria, W. Australia
Very simple for a very long time
Beginnings of animal life
Next week
Geological time
www.fossilhub.org