Оглавление
Alecia M. Spooner. Geology For Dummies
Geology For Dummies® To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Geology For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box. Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Illustrations
Guide
Pages
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Studying the Earth
Rocks for Jocks (and Everybody Else)
Finding Your Inner Scientist
Making observations every day
Jumping to conclusions
Focusing on Rock Formation and Transformation
Understanding how rocks form
Tumbling through the rock cycle
Mapping Continental Movements
Unifying geology with plate tectonics theory
Debating a mechanism for plate movements
Moving Rocks around on Earth’s Surface
Interpreting a Long History of Life on Earth
Using relative versus absolute dating
Witnessing evolution in the fossil record
Observing Earth through a Scientific Lens
Realizing That Science Is Not Just for Scientists
Using a Methodical Approach: The Scientific Method
Sensing something new
I have a hypothesis!
Testing your hypothesis: Experiments
Crunching the numbers
Interpreting results
Sharing the findings
Building New Knowledge: A Scientific Theory
It’s never “just a theory”
Scientific theory versus scientific law
The road to paradigms
Speaking in Tongues: Why Geologists Seem to Speak a Separate Language
Lamination vs. foliation: Similar outcomes from different processes
Gabbro vs. basalt: Different outcomes from similar processes
From Here to Eternity: The Past, Present, and Future of Geologic Thought
Catastrophe Strikes Again and Again
Early Thoughts on the Origin of Rocks
Developing Modern Geologic Understanding
Reading the rock layers: Steno’s stratigraphy
These things take time! Hutton’s hypothesis
FINDING SHARKS’ TEETH ON MOUNTAINTOPS
What has been will be: Lyell’s principles
Uniformi-what? Understanding the Earth through Uniformitarianism
Pulling It All Together: The Theory of Plate Tectonics
Forging Ahead into New Frontiers
Asking how, where, and why: Mountain building and plate boundaries
Mysteries of the past: Snowball earth, first life, and mass extinctions
Snowball earth
Earliest life
Mass extinctions
Predicting the future: Earthquakes and climate change
Earthquake warnings
Climate change
Out of this world: Planetary geology and the search for life
Home Sweet Home: Planet Earth
Earth’s Spheres
Examining Earth’s Geosphere
Defining Earth’s layers
Examining each layer
Heavy metal: The earth’s core
Flowing and solid: The earth’s mantle
It’s only skin deep: The earth’s crust
DRILLING FOR THE MOHO
Elements, Minerals, and Rocks
It’s Elemental, My Dear: A Very Basic Chemistry of Elements and Compounds
The Smallest Matter: Atoms and Atomic Structure
Getting to know the periodic table
Interpreting isotopes
Charging particles: Ions
Chemically Bonding
Donating electrons (ionic bonds)
Sharing electrons (covalent bonds)
Migrating electrons (metallic bonds)
Formulating Compounds
Minerals: The Building Blocks of Rocks
Meeting Mineral Requirements
Making Crystals
Identifying Minerals Using Physical Characteristics
Observing transparency, color, luster, and streak
Measuring mineral strength
Hardness
Tenacity
Cleavage and fracture
CONCHOIDAL FRACTURES AND STONE AGE TOOLS
If it tastes like salt, it must be halite: Noting unique mineral properties
Measuring properties in the lab
Realizing Most Rocks Are Built from Silicate Minerals
Finding silicates in many shapes
Grouping silicate minerals
Remembering the Nonsilicate Minerals
Carbonates
Sulfides and sulfates
Oxides
Native elements
Evaporites
Gemstones
DIAMONDS
Recognizing Rocks: Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic Types
Mama Magma: Birthing Igneous Rocks
Remembering how magma is made
Classifying melt composition
Reacting in sequence: Bowen’s reaction series
Evolving magmas
Crystallizing one way or another: Igneous rocks
Classifying igneous rocks
Counting silicate minerals in igneous rocks
Observing textures of igneous rocks
A BASALT BY ANY OTHER NAME: PAHOEHOE AND A’A
Studying volcanic structures
Spotting volcanic features
Distinguishing three types of volcanoes
SHIELD VOLCANOES
STRATOVOLCANOES
CINDER CONES
Looking below the surface
Merging Many Single Grains of Sand: Sedimentary Rocks
DIGGING IN THE DIRT: SOILS
Weathering rocks into sediments
Chipping away: Mechanical weathering
Reacting with water and air: Chemical weathering
Changing from sediment into rock
Sizing up the grains: Classifying sedimentary rocks
Detrital sedimentary rocks
No grains at all: Chemical sedimentary rocks
Searching for sedimentary basins
Telling stories of the past: Sedimentary structures
Stuck between a Rock and a Hard Place: Metamorphic Rocks
Turning up the heat and pressure: Metamorphism
Grading metamorphism with index minerals
Between the mineral sheets: Foliation, or maybe not
Categorizing metamorphic rocks
Transforming sedimentary rocks
Transforming igneous rocks
Creating hornfels
Tumbling through the Rock Cycle: How Rocks Change from One Type to Another
One Theory to Explain It All: Plate Tectonics
Adding Up the Evidence for Plate Tectonics
Drifting Apart: Wegener’s Idea of Continental Drift
Continental puzzle solving
Fossil matching
Stratigraphic stories
Icy cold climates of long ago
Meeting at the equator
Searching for a mechanism
Coming Together: How Technology Sheds Light on Plate Tectonics
Mapping the seafloor
IMAGING THE SEAFLOOR: MARIE THARP AND SEAFLOOR MAPPING
Flip-flopping magnetic poles: Paleomagnetism and seafloor spreading
SHARKS AND THE EARTH’S MAGNETISM
Measuring plate movements
Unifying the theory
When Crustal Plates Meet, It’s All Relative
Density Is Key
Two of a Kind: Continental and Oceanic Crust
Dark and dense: Oceanic crust
Thick and fluffy: Continental crust
Understanding Why Density Matters: Isostasy
Defining Plate Boundaries by Their Relative Motion
Driving apart: Divergent plate boundaries
Ripping open the ocean floor
Parting the Red Sea
Crashing together: Convergent plate boundaries
One goes up and one must go down
Diving into the abyss
Reaching for the sky
Slip-sliding along: Transform plate boundaries
Shaping Topography with Plate Movements
Deforming the crust at plate boundaries
Compressing rocks into folds
Faulting in response to stress
Dipping and slipping
Striking and slipping
Joints
Building mountains
Volcanoes and accretion
Stretching and thinning
Crushing and lifting
Who’s Driving This Thing? Mantle Convection and Plate Movement
Running in Circles: Models of Mantle Convection
Mantle plumes: Just like the lava in your lamp
The slab-pull and ridge-push models
Using Convection to Explain Magma, Volcanoes, and Underwater Mountains
Plate friction: Melting rock beneath the earth’s crust
Creating volcanic arcs and hotspots
Volcanic arcs
Volcanic hot spots
Remembering the ridges
Birthing new seafloor at mid-ocean ridges
Shake, Rattle, and Roll: How Plate Movements Cause Earthquakes
Responding elastically
OBSERVING EARTH’S INTERIOR BY PROXY
Sending waves through the earth
Measuring magnitude
Superficially Speaking: About Surface Processes
Gravity Takes Its Toll: Mass Wasting
Holding Steady or Falling Down: Friction versus Gravity
Focusing on the Materials Involved
Loose materials: Resting at the angle of repose
Bedrock: Losing its stability
Triggering Mass Movements
Adding water to the mix
Changing the slope angle
Shaking things up: Earthquakes
Removing vegetation
Moving Massive Amounts of Earth, Quickly
Falls
Slides and slumps
Flows
A More Subtle Approach: Creep and Soil Flow (Solifluction)
Water: Above and Below Ground
Hydrologic Cycling
Driving the cycle with evaporation
Traveling across a continent
Streams: Moving Sediments toward the Ocean
Draining the basin
Two types of flow
Measuring stream characteristics
Gradient
Velocity
Discharge
Carrying a heavy load
Suspended load
Bed load
Dissolved load
Measuring what is transported
Eroding a Stream Channel to Base Level
Seeking Equilibrium after Changes in Base Level
Leaving Their Mark: How Streams Create Landforms
Draining the basin
Meandering along
Braided streams
Meandering streams
Straight stream channels
Depositing sediments along the way
Reaching the sea
Flowing beneath Your Feet: Groundwater
Infiltrating tiny spaces underground
Measuring porosity and permeability
Setting the water table
Springing from rocks
Confining an aquifer
Heating up underground: Geysers
That sinking feeling: Karst, caves, and sinkholes
Drip, drip, dripping: The formation of dripstones
Sinkholes and disappearing streams
Flowing Slowly toward the Sea: Glaciers
Identifying Three Types of Glaciers
Understanding Ice as a Geologic Force
Transforming snow into ice
Balancing the glacial budget
Flowing solidly down the mountain
Eroding at a Snail’s Pace: Landforms Created by Glacial Erosion
Plucking and abrading along the way
Creating their own valleys
Speaking French: Cirques, arêtes, et roche moutonnées
Alpine glacial erosion
Ice sheet glacial erosion
FRENCH LESSONS
Leaving It All Behind: Glacial Deposits
Depositing the till
Moraines
Drumlins
Plains, trains, eskers, and kames
Outwash plains
Eskers and kames
Behaving erratically: Large boulders in odd places
Where Have All the Glaciers Gone?
Filling the erosional gaps
Cycling through ice ages
Moving to colder regions
Orbiting, spinning, and tilting around the sun
Rebounding isostatically
Blowing in the Wind: Moving Sediments without Water
Lacking Water: Arid Regions of the Earth
Transporting Particles by Air
Skipping right along: Bed load and saltation
Suspending particles in air
Deflating and Abrading: Features of Wind Erosion
Removing sediments
Scratching the surface
Just Add Wind: Dunes and Other Depositional Wind Features
Migrating piles of sand: Dunes
Shaping sand
Barchan dunes
Parabolic dunes
Transverse dunes
Longitudinal dunes
Star dunes
Laying down layers of loess
LIKE DUST IN THE WIND: THE ECOLOGICAL THREAT OF DESERTIFICATION
Paving the Desert: Deposition or Erosion?
Catch a Wave: The Evolution of Shorelines
Breaking Free: Waves and Wave Motion
Dissecting wave anatomy
Starting to roll
Going with the flow: Currents and tides
Shaping Shorelines
Carving cliffs and other features
Budgeting to build sandbars
Categorizing Coastlines
HEADING FOR HIGHER GROUND: TSUNAMIS
Long, Long Ago in This Galaxy Right Here
Getting a Grip on Geologic Time
The Layer Cake of Time: Stratigraphy and Relative Dating
Speaking relatively
Sorting out the strata
Putting rock layers in the right order
Losing time in the layers
Show Me the Numbers: Methods of Absolute Dating
Measuring radioactive decay
Three ways to decay
It takes a half-life: Transforming parent isotopes to daughter isotopes
Common radioactive isotopes for geological dating
Other exacting methods of geological dating
Fission-track dating
EXPOSING COSMIC RADIATION
COUNTING TREE RINGS
Radiocarbon
Relatively Absolute: Combining Methods for the Best Results
Eons, Eras, and Epochs (Oh My!): Structuring the Geologic Timescale
A Record of Life in the Rocks
Explaining Change, Not Origins: The Theory of Evolution
The Evolution of a Theory
Acquiring traits doesn’t do it
Naturally, selecting for survival
Mendel’s peas please
Genetic nuts and bolts
Spontaneously mutating genes
Speciating right and left
Putting Evolution to the Test
Against All Odds: The Fossilization of Lifeforms
Bones, teeth, and shell: Body fossils
Just passing through: Trace fossils
Correcting for Bias in the Fossil Record
Hypothesizing Relationships: Cladistics
Time before Time Began: The Precambrian
In the Beginning … Earth’s Creation from a Nebulous Cloud
Addressing Archean Rocks
Creating continents
Revving up the rock cycle
Granite- gneiss complexes
Greenstone belts
Piecing observations together
Feeling hot, hot, hot: Evidence for extreme temperatures
Originating with Orogens: Supercontinents of the Proterozoic Eon
Single Cells, Algal Mats, and the Early Atmosphere
Hunting early prokaryotes and eukaryotes
You know it as pond scum: Cyanobacteria
THE COMPLEXITY OF CLASSIFICATION
Waiting to inhale: The formation of Earth’s atmosphere
GOING TO EXTREMES
SNOWBALL EARTH
Questioning the Earliest Complex Life: The Ediacaran Fauna
Teeming with Life: The Paleozoic Era
Exploding with Life: The Cambrian Period
Toughen up! Developing shells
Ruling arthropods of the seafloor: Trilobites
BURGESS SHALE
Building Reefs All Over the Place
Swimming freely: Ammonoids and nautiloids
Exploring freshwater: Eurypterids
Spinal Tapping: Animals with Backbones
Fish evolve body armor, teeth, and … legs?
Placoderms
Cartilaginous fish
Bony fish
Venturing onto land: Early amphibians
Adapting to life on land: The reptiles
Planting Roots: Early Plant Evolution
Tracking the Geologic Events of the Paleozoic
Constructing continents
Reading the rocks: Transgressions and regressions
Fossilizing carbon fuels
Pangaea, the most super of supercontinents
Mesozoic World: When Dinosaurs Dominated
Driving Pangaea Apart at the Seams
One continent becomes many
Influencing global climate
Creating the mountains of North America
Repopulating the Seas after Extinction
The Symbiosis of Flowers
EVOLVING TOGETHER: FLOWERS AND INSECTS
Recognizing All the Mesozoic Reptiles
Swimming in ancient seas
Taking to the skies: Pterosaurs
Flocking together
Climbing the Dinosaur Family Tree
Branching out: Ornithischia and Saurischia
WARMING THEMSELVES FROM WITHIN: WERE DINOSAURS WARM-BLOODED?
Horned faces and armor: Ornithischian dinosaurs
Long necks and meat eaters: Saurischian dinosaurs
Flocking Together: The Evolutionary Road to Birds
Laying the Groundwork for Later Dominance: Early Mammal Evolution
The Cenozoic Era: Mammals Take Over
Putting Continents in Their Proper (Okay, Current) Places
Creating modern geography
The Alpine-Himalayan belt
The Circum-Pacific belt
Consuming the Farallon Plate
Carving the Grand Canyon with uplift
Icing over northern continents
Entering the Age of Mammals
CAUSING GLOBAL COOLING
Regulating body temperature
Filling every niche
Living Large: Massive Mammals Then and Now
Nosing around elephant evolution
Returning to the sea: Whales
Larger than life: Giant mammals of the ice ages
Right Here, Right Now: The Reign of Homo Sapiens
SEEKING ANSWERS TO MYSTERIES OF THE PAST
Arguing for the Anthropocene
Altering the climate
Shaping the landscape
Damming rivers
Shaping waterways
Nourishing beaches
Changing coastlines
Removing mountaintops
Leaving evidence in the rock record
And Then There Were None: Major Extinction Events in Earth’s History
Explaining Extinctions
Heads up! Astronomical impacts
Lava, lava everywhere: Volcanic eruptions and flood basalts
LIVING FOSSILS
Shifting sea levels
Changing climate
End Times, at Least Five Times
Cooling tropical waters
Reducing carbon dioxide levels
The Great Dying
Paving the way for dinosaurs
Demolishing dinosaurs: The K/T boundary
Modern Extinctions and Biodiversity
Hunting the megafauna
Reducing biodiversity
The Part of Tens
Ten Ways You Use Geologic Resources Every Day
Burning Fossil Fuels
Playing with Plastics
Gathering Gemstones
Drinking Water
Creating Concrete
Paving Roads
Accessing Geothermal Heat
Fertilizing with Phosphate
Constructing Computers
Building with Beautiful Stone
Ten Geologic Hazards
Changing Course: River Flooding
Caving In: Sinkholes
Sliding Down: Landslides
Shaking Things Up: Earthquakes
Washing Away Coastal Towns: Tsunamis
Destroying Farmland and Coastal Bluffs: Erosion
Fiery Explosions of Molten Rock: Volcanic Eruptions
Melting Ice with Fire: Jokulhlaups
Flowing Rivers of Mud: Lahars
Watching the Poles: Geomagnetism
Index. A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Z
About the Author
Author’s Acknowledgments
Dedication
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
