Bioinfiltration

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This Is Planet Earth
An Introduction To Geology
Dr Liam Herringshaw (Email lgh865_at_hotmail.com)
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In the beginning
Introducing me, the course, yourselves
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About me
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About the course

• Class 1. Beginnings
• ...of Geology
• ...of the Earth

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2. Time

• Fossil time
• Absolute time

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3. Fire

• Magmas, Volcanoes Igneous Rocks

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4. Sand, Mud Lime

• Sedimentary rocks
• Depositional environments

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5. Folds Faults

• Metamorphic rocks
• Structural geology

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6. Moving Plates
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7. Ice Water

• Glaciology Hydrogeology

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8. Life Death

• Fossils and Evolution

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9. Mines Yours

• Economic geology
• Minerals, oil, gas
• Human impacts

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10. The Future
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Over to you...

• What do you already know?
• What do you want to find out?
• What geological topics interest you most?

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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
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James Hutton

• 1726-1797
• The Father of Geology
• Deep Time and Plutonism

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Deep Time

• Hutton's Unconformity

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Neptunism vs Plutonism

• All rocks deposited from water

• All rocks hot from the underworld

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Catastrophism vs Uniformitarianism

• Change by revolution
• Floods, extinctions, ice ages...

• Gradual change
• The present is the key to the past

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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

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Other key figures
Anning
Wegener
Smith

• A course in itself!

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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
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Oldest thing on Earth?
Zircon, Western Australia, 4.4 Ga
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Oldest rocks?
Hudson Bay, Canada, 4.28 Ga
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Oldest rocks in Britain
Lewisian complex, 3.1 to 1.7 Ga
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Inhabitable early Earth?
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Beginnings of life
Archaean bacteria, W. Australia
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Very simple for a very long time
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Beginnings of animal life
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Next week
Geological time
www.fossilhub.org