GEO1111 midterm 1

Lecture 1
- Only info from powerpoints will be on midterm/exam
- Illuminated matter/objects in the sky is NOT stationary 
- Greek planet = wander
- Earth = Geocentric; Sun = Copericcus 
- Every planet orbits an imaginary centre (except for the sun…)
- Kepler: Sun = Centre NOT EARTH
- *Which object is the centre?
o Geocentric = Earth
o Heliocentric = Sun
- *Closest cousin to Earth within the solar system: moon (our satellite)
- Asteroids are in between planets
- Terrestrial = similar to Earth
- Pluto is denoted from being a planet as it has not cleared its neighbourhood from other
objects (not enough of a gravitational pull)
- Shadow: same side facing the sun will always face the sun while the other side never
does nor ever will (cold vs hot)
- Venus = Earth’s twin
- Mercury & Venus have similar densities
- *Which among the terrestrial planets has the lowest density? 
o MARS
- There is evidence of water (liquid form) on Mars
o So, hydrosphere + biosphere most likely = atmosphere 
- Jupiter is red because there is storm constantly occurring
- *Jupiter & Mars have the most satellites 
- Tidal energy on IO melts surface on Jupiter (waves on Earth)
- Saturn has the most prominent ring
o Gas giant, deep Hydrogen (H) layer (liquid & metallic)
- Gas giants = Jovienne Planets
- *Asteroid belt is found between Mars & Jupiter
- *What type of cores do terrestrial planets have?
o METALLIC
- Every 30 microseconds something hits Earth but it’s so small there’s no impact
- T/F: Impacts can result in both warming or cooling depending on where it is.
o TRUE
- Doppler Effect (firetruck)
o soundwave/pitch
o *Can we see a doppler effect in light waves? YES.
- *Big Bang = moment when expansion started from single point
- *What is the most abundant element in the universe?
o Hydrogen (H)

1
 - Cannot form substance heavier than iron in a star unless that star dies
o Star death = energy released, element > 26
- *Which elements can be formed from
o Big Bang:
o During a star’s life:
o After a star’s death:
- Nebula = cloud (weird shape, light atoms/molecules)
- Cooling to densification to gravity is required to form.
- Only way to make big objects from smaller objects: Repeated collision

Lecture 2

- No spaces empty in the center of the earth

- Earth is a blue dot from space
- Space is a vacuum, les then 1 atom per m2

Oort cloud
- Starts at 3500 AU (1 AU = distance between earth and sun)
- Consists of specks, flakes and balls of ice

Heliosphere
- At 200 AU, which is the edge of the solar system
- Represents the outer reach of solar winds
- At 55-30 AU there’s the Keiper belt which consists of icy objects and Pluto and Eris
- Neptune’s orbit is the Keiper belt’s inner edge

Comets and asteroids

- Escaped being made into planetesimals, so they are made of materials of the earliest of
the evolution of the universe so they can tell us about our planet
- Comets
o Expel gas and dust as they approach the sun
o Tails always point way from sun
- Meteorites that hit earth are fragments of comets and asteroids
o Meteors when still in space
o Thought to be fragments of planetesimals that had differentiated into mantle
and core
- Asteroids
o Mostly found between the orbits of mars and Jupiter
o Trojans and Greeks (names of asteroids) border Jupiter’s orbit
o Hildas found between the main asteroid belt and Jupiter

Interplanetary space
- Denser than interstellar space

2
Terrestrial planets
- Have very different sizes, atmospheres, surfaces, forms and presence of water
- Found in the inner part of the asteroid belt
- Includes Mercury, Venus, Mars and Earth

Magnetic field (magnetosphere)

- Like a magnet
- Shield us from cosmic radiation
- Currently has a southern polarity in the north (so compass points north)
- Lines of flux which point out of north pole and into south pole
- Distorted by solar winds
- Van Allen belts are strongest parts and deflect or trap the majority of solar wind charged
particles
- Occasionally flips
o Normal polarity (now)
o Reverse polarity (when the poles are opposite)
- Magnetic axis is not parallel with rotational axis

Auroras
- Charged particles that make it past the Van Allen belts are pulled towards the magnetic
poles
- When the ions interact with atmospheric gases, they give us the glowing aurora
- Aurora Borealis in north pole and Aurora Australis in south pole

Atmosphere
- Mostly oxygen (O) and nitrogen (N)
- Had different layers (bottom to top): each separated by a pause
o Troposphere (weather occurs here)
o Stratosphere
o Mesosphere
o thermosphere
- Denser than interplanetary space
- Denser at base of atmosphere, so more pressure but pressure decreases as you go up

The earth system

- Atmosphere – the envelope of gases surrounding a planet
- Hydrosphere – total amount of water on a plant
- Cryosphere – portion of a planet’s surface where water is in solid form
- Biosphere – the regions of the surface that is occupied by living organisms
- Lithosphere – the rigid outer part of a planet, crust and upper mantle

Habitable zone

3
 - Found between 0.8 and 2.5 AU (goldilocks zone, not too close and not too far from sun)
- Only earth has liquid water

Earth’s surface
- Topography – study of everything we see
- Bathymetry – study of depth
- Extreme highs and lows aren’t as abundant as average heights
- Hypsometric curve – shows the proportion of earth’s solid surface at different elevations
o Mostly continents and ocean floor
o Mountains and deep trenches are rare

Earth interior
- Mostly iron and oxygen (lots of silica and magnesium as well)
- Materials: organic chemicals, minerals, glass, melts, rocks, grains, sediments, metals,
volatiles
- Early view – like an egg, thin crust, dense mantle and even denser core
- Layers are defined by physical properties: may behave like a brittle solid, deform
plastically or melt and become liquid

Geothermal gradient
- Measure of the increase in temperature with depth
- Shows that there are differences in the layers
- Temperature goes up as you increase the depth
- Might not be the same if u evaluate it from different places on earth
- Increases 10-20 degrees Celsius per km in the crust, much less in mantle and core
- Universe is cooling but earth is not as much due to:
o Heat flow in the crust – conduction (heat moves from cooler to warmer parts)
o Mantle convection – transmits heat from core outwards
o Radioactive decay

How can we use earthquakes?

- Pressure increases with depth which increases the density
- Waves can be refracted (change directions) across boundaries or even reflect off
boundaries
- We then send out waves and use their travel time to measure the depth of the layers
- Big changes in seismic waves concurred that there’s are different layers in the earth

Differentiation
- Formation of the layers of their interior
- Happened to all the terrestrial planets and the moon early in their history
- The layers of different planets have different proportions

Crust
- Continental crust – thick, less dense, primarily granitic
4
 - Oceanic crust – thin, denser, primarily basaltic
- Made of 8 elements, mostly oxygen and silica
- Element that makes up most of earth is iron and oxygen (not much iron in crust so must
be in core)
- Lithosphere – crust and upper mantle, brittle (rigid, cannot flow)
- Asthenosphere – below lithosphere, ductile (soft, able to flow)
- Mesosphere core – below asthenosphere

Mantle
- Biggest layer
- Upper and lower mantle (separated by transitional zone)
- Peridotite – most abundant rock on earth

Core
- Densest layer
- Liquid outer core
o Convention here generates magnetic field
 Has to be composed of a materiel that conducts electricity
 Has to be mobile
- Solid inner core
- S waves do not travel in core so proves that there in liquid

Paleomagnetism
- Use mineral magnetic alignment to determine the direction and distance to the
magnetic field
- Steeper dip angles indicate that the rocks were formed closer to the magnetic pole
- Marine magnetic anomalies ae bands of normal and reversed magnetic field signatures
o “bar code” pattern reflects plate motion away from ridge coupled with magnetic
field reversals
- Iron in rocks archive the magnetic field at time of formation
o In hot magma, the magnetic dipoles are randomly oriented
o When it cools, the magnetic dipoles in the iron-bearing minerals align with the
magnetic field

Continental drift
- Used to be a super continent called Pangea
- Evidence:
o The continents fit together very well
o The distribution of climate belts:
 Glacier striations are evidence of past glaciers, they smooth over and
scratch whatever surface they go over, we see striations in regions where
glaciers do not occur today, when looking at Pangea, glacier deposits fit
together

5
  Late Paleozoic rocks will preserve ancient climate belts and these rocks all
align when the continents are together, u can match up all the coal
sediment deposits in the places we now all the tropics
o The distribution of fossils: many of the same land animals (their fossils) are found
in different continents, these animals can’t swim and so they wouldn’t be able to
be on different continents if they were already separated
o Matching geologic units: the rock on south America and Africa have the same
composition and need the same environment to form

Mapping the sea floor

- Sonar
o Allows to measure depth of sea floor
o A ship sends out sound waves and they reflect off the sea floor
o the longer it takes for the wave to come back, the deeper it is
o if it takes less time, its shallower
- bathymetric profile shows that mid-ocean ridges are elevated above abyssal planes
- deep-ocean trenches

age of sea floor

- the mid-ocean ridges are the youngest and hottest part
- the outer parts r the oldest and coldest

Mid-ocean ridges and earthquakes

- earthquakes often happen at mid-ocean ridges, transform faults and deep-sea trenches

Seafloor spreading
- new sea floor is made at the mi-ocean ridges
- new materiel is continuously coming out of the ridge and pushing the older one to the
edges
- the older crust is eventually subducted under a continental crust and into the mantle

Paleomagnetism and continental drift

- The change in directions of the magnetic signature in the different layers of the plates
can preserve the history of tectonic plates moving a continent
- If the magnetic pole is fixed in place, then the continent has moved
- If the magnetic pole has moved, then the continent has stayed in place

Paleomagnetism and sea floor spreading

- Magnetometer were moved perpendicularly to the mid-ocean ridge
- recorded alternating strong (positive) and weak (negative) magnetic fields that lined up
and formed strips
- Strips are symmetrical around mid-ocean ridge
- Why stripped pattern

6
 o During reverse magnetic polarity, magnetic dipole points in opposite direction
o This is recorded in iron rich rocks, such as basalt
o The width of magnetic strips in sea floor basalts is proportional to the duration of
normal or reversed magnetic field condition

Sea – body of water over continental crust

Ocean – body of water over oceanic crust

Upper mantle
- Lithosphere is rigid but can deform over time
- When there’s a load on the crust (ex: mountain), the asthenosphere (soft) will move out
of way and the plate over it will sag

Theory of plate tectonics

- Observation: earthquakes happen where mountains rise, and volcanoes explode
- Plate tectonics can be summarized in 4 concepts
o Lithosphere is composed of plates
o The plates move SLOWLY (about the same as fingernail growth)
o Most large-scale geologic activity happens at plate boundaries
o Center of plates are relatively geologically quiet
- Plates float on asthenosphere

Earth’s plates
- Some plates are entirely oceanic lithosphere
- Some are made of oceanic and continental lithosphere
- 7 major plates and a bunch of little ones
- Very different in size and shape
- Passive margins are not plate boundaries
o Continental shelf – top surface of a passive margin basin

Plate boundaries
- Earthquakes occur at the plate boundaries
- Gravity is driving force – old tectonic plates sink at convergent margins and new ones
are made at divergent margins, everything evens out
- Divergent – move apart
o Mid-ocean ridges produce sea floor spreading which causes the ocean basin to
widen and continents to move
- Convergent – move towards each other, subduction with 1 oceanic plate
- Transform – slide past one another

Mid-ocean ridge
- Magma chamber underneath rid axis
- Molten lava that comes out forms pillow basalts, form in deep water with high pressure

7
 - Basalt dikes inject above magma chamber and protrude upwards
- Gabbro forms at depth

- Mechanism of decompression melting

o Lithosphere pulls apart
o Less pressure on underlying rock
o Partial melting of mantle
o Basaltic magma is produced

Median valley
- Lenses of pillows spill out of distinct fissures where a dike gets close to the surface
- Newly formed crust breaks up along faults

Subduction
- The down going plate will slowly sink into the asthenosphere
- The subducting plat will become more perpendicular with time (not fully but you know)
- The Wadati-Benioff zone defines the position of a subducting plate above about 660 km
- As the plate sinks, it warms up and softens
- No earthquakes generated below 660 km
- The plates can either hit the 660 boundary and just slide on it or it can pierce the
boundary and keep going

Continental volcanic arc

- Cause by subduction along edge of continent
- Sediments from a down going plate produced by the subduction accumulate and form
accretionary prism

Island arc
- Formed when there’s subduction with 2 oceanic plate
- Formed on overriding plate, which is the denser, older and colder one

Island arc on continental crustal fragment

- Arc forms on fragment of continental crust that split away from main continent
8
 - Looks like oceanic crust but is actually continental

Transform boundaries
- Offset ridge segments
- Active faulting only happens in the part of the fracture zone between ridges
- Formed at the same time as the initiation of mid-ocean ridges
- Only the part between ridges is transforming
- Some cut continental crusts
- Triple junction – place where 3 plates intersect

Hot-spot volcanoes
- Mantle plume – materiel coming from deep within the mantle
- Hot-spot – localized magma source with a fixed mantle position
- Mantle plume doesn’t move but plate above is, so it forms a succession of volcanoes
- Continental crust – forms granitic magma (high in silica)
- Oceanic crust – forms basaltic magma (low in silica)
- Volcanoes increase in age with distance from the present hotspot
- Flood basalts – when u don’t form nice volcanoes but instead the magma just floods, a
lot of sulfur comes out of these and may have contributed to the extinction of dinosaurs
- Seamounts are formed after a volcano erupts and eventually sinks below sea level
- Guyots are flat topped seamounts

Hot-spot tracks
- Sequence of volcanoes
- Provide clues to the direction of plate movement
- Harder to form volcanoes through continental crust but still form rocks that also make
tracks

Rifting
- Formation of new plate boundary (mid-ocean ridge)
o Continental lithosphere stretches and thins out
o Upper crust breaks by faulting

9
 o Asthenosphere initiates volcanism
- May split continent in 2

Continental collision
- Starts after subduction has completely removed oceanic crust that was between them
- Continental crust is too dense so neither plates subduct
- Rocks compress and mountains form

Plate driving force

- Ridge push
o develops because of gravitational energy associated with the topographic
elevation of the mid-ocean ridge
o Ridge push is highest at the ridge
- Slab pull
o Old oceanic lithosphere is denser then underlying asthenosphere, so it pulls itself
down with its own weight

Convection
- All the subducted plates will influence the heat distribution and convection patterns
within the mantel itself
- Mantle convection may be the cause, or an effect of circulation set up by:
o Slab-pull: pulling crust into mantle by down-going slabs during subduction
o Ridge-push: pushing crust resulting from elevated position of oceanic ridge
system, causing crust to gravitationally slide down flanks of ridges

Velocity of plate motion

- Relative plate velocity describes motion of one plate relative to another
- Absolute plate velocity describes motion compared to a fixed reference point beneath
the plate
- Can now use GPS to track speed of plates

Elements form minerals that form rocks, different rocks form the different earth layers

Rocks
- Lithosphere – Si, Al (K, Na, Ca): felsic (acid), light in color
- Asthenosphere and mesosphere – Mg, Fe: mafic (basic), dark in color
- Oceanic crust has more Mg and Fe because its created in the mid-ocean ridges

Minerals
- Minerology – science of minerals,
- Natural occurring
- (mostly) inorganic crystalline solids (exception being oyster shell)

10
 o Crystalline – ordered atoms
o Glasses lack atomic order
- Formed by geological processes
- Definite chemical composition

Crystal
- Single, continuous piece of crystalline solid
- Usually have flat crystal faces
- Angle between 2 adjacent crystal faces of any mineral specimen will be the same as the
ones of another specimen of the same mineral
- Comes in a variety of shape and sizes

X-ray diffraction (XRD)

- Identify minerals
- Braggs method
- Determines spacing of lattice planes inside the mineral

Transmission electron microscope (TEM)

- Let’s you see the atomic structural patterns of minerals

Crystalline pattern
- Pattern of atoms control crystal shape and physical properties

Crystal symmetry
- All crystals are symmetric
- Every symmetry pattern is different for each mineral

Chemistry
- Polymorph - same chemical formula, different structure
- Some atoms have about the same radius and can then substitute the other (like Mg and
Fe)
- the size different between the anions and cations will define the different type of
packings of molecules

how do minerals form

- depends on characteristics of atoms of that element
o size and charge of atom
o relative abundance of available elements (within the crust)
 the big 8: most abundant in crust
 Oxygen (O)
 Silicon (Si)
 Aluminum (Al)
 Iron (Fe)

11
  Calcium (Ca)
 Sodium (Na)
 Potassium (K)
 Magnesium (Mg)
o Temperature and pressure at time of formation
 Control structural growth of crystal
- Solidification from a melt - while magma cools down, crystals start to form
- Precipitation from a water solution - water of a salty lake undergoes evaporation, so
water becomes supersaturated
- Solid-state diffusion – movement of atoms through a solid, atoms rearrange themselves
and form different mineral
- Precipitation from a gas – volcanic vent or geysers
- Biomineralization – living organism cause minerals to form

Crystal growth
- Early crystals act as a seed for the growth of mineral
- Growth happens when atoms attach to the outer surface
- Grow perfectly in open spaces
- Rare that minerals have large empty spaces to grow in, much more common for them to
grow in confined spaces
- Many centers of minerals start to grow and eventually all the growing crystals come in
contact with each other
- In large spaces, good crystals faces result, forming euhedral crystals
- Where growth is inhibited, no faces result and forms anhedral crystals

Mineral identification
- Color – good for some, bad for other
- Streak – mineral leaves crushed powder after scratching it on porcelain plate
- Luster – how a mineral’s surface scatters light
o Metallic and non-metallic
- Hardness – scratching resistance, scratch with something harder
- Specific gravity
- Crystal habit – for euhedral, refers to shape of crystal, Ex: asbestos – needle shaped
crystal that can be dangerous to health
- Cleavage – mineral breaks along lattice planes, no lattice planes means they fracture
instead of cleave and this is called conchoidal fracture (curved fracture), cleavage
creates flat shiny surfaces that are through going
- Reaction to acid - applying acid to see what pops up
- Fracture tendency
- Not all of these are good in all cases

Classification of minerals
- Silicates
o from big 8 elements
12
 o most abundant mineral family
o dominant substance comprising earth’s crust and mantle
- Non silicates

Silica tetrahedron
- SiO4
- Building block of silicate minerals
o Isolated tetrahedra – don’t share oxygen, bonded together by cations
o Single chain – 2 of the 3 oxygens are bonded
o Double chain – a single chain where their last oxygen connects with another
single chain
o Two-dimensional sheet – share oxygen at base of tetrahedron but not the top
one
o Three-dimensional framework – every oxygen is connected to another oxygen

Gems and gemstones

- Cut and polished in lapidary machine
- The facets that are cut are not naturally occurring
- Diamonds originate under high pressure

Lava and magma

- Same composition: molten rock, contains crystals and gases
- Lava – found on earth’s surface
- Magma – beneath earth’s surface

13
 o Liquids – melt (mobile ions)
o Solids- crystals/minerals (generally silicates)
o Gases – volatiles (compounds with low boiling points, water, CO2)
- Melt – liquid portion

How igneous rocks form

- Before crystals/minerals form
o Magma has random atoms in non-crystalline structure
- During magma cooling
o Atomic vibration slow
o Bods begin to form compounds and eventually a crystalline structure
- After cooling = igneous rock
o Rock that cooled and crystallized directly from molten materiel at/near surface
- Extrusive/volcanic – surface, include lava flow and pyroclastic deposits
- Intrusive/plutonic – subsurface, cooled before they reached the surface

Causes of melting
- The crust and asthenosphere are mostly solid rock
- 3 main mechanisms
o Decompressional melting – temperature stays constant, but pressure decreases
which causes melting because high pressures need a higher temperature to melt,
with quick release of pressure, solids will melt, found in
 Mantle plume
 Continental drift
 Mid-ocean ridge
o Flux melting – in subduction zones, volatiles like water or CO2 are brought into
the asthenosphere, volatile help break chemical bonds and lower the melting
temperature of solid rocks which will create a melt above the subducting plate
o Heat transfer – rocks surrounding magma chamber can be melted by heat
transfer

Types of melts
- Felsic magma – most silica
- Intermediate magma
- Mafic magma
- Ultramafic magma – least silica

Why do melts vary?

- Source rock dictate its composition
- Partial melting - not all of source rock melts immediately, makes melt enriched in silica
because felsic minerals melt first
- Assimilation – changing composition of magma by melting the rock wall around it

14
Viscosity
- Low viscosity
o Hotter
o Less silica (mafic)
o Flows easily
- High viscosity
o Cooler
o More silica (felsic)
o Doesn’t flow easily

Cooling rates of melts

- Cools quickly
o Shallow flows
o Smaller volumes
o Pancake shape due to larger surface area
- Longer to cool
o Deep plutons
o Larger volumes
o Spherical shape
- Circulating ground water removes heat

Magma
- Cooling results in symmetrical crystallization pattern
- Silicate minerals crystalize in predicable order -> Bowen’s Reaction Series
- Diversity of igneous rocks from a single magma source
o As they cool, different minerals achieve saturation at different temperatures
o Crystallization of the minerals change the chemical compound of the magma

Bowen’s Reaction Series

15
Bowen’s series crystallization occurs in 2 ways
1. Discontinuous – Fe and Mg crystallize one after the other in a specific sequence,
composition and structure change
2. Continuous – Ca-plagioclase (kind of rock) crystallizes early, as magma cools, Na ions
continuously replace Ca in crystal, little structure change

Bowen’s reaction series assumes

- Closed system
- Early minerals stay in contact with magma, reacting to form new minerals
- A full range of igneous rocks cold be produced from same mafic magma
- But truth is
o Crystals settle at bottom of magma chamber and get stuck – fractional
crystallization
o Assimilation of wall-rock materiel
o Magma mixing – 2 bodies of magma mixing with each other

Fractional crystallization
- Mafic crystal crystallizes first
- Felsic crystallize last
- As mafic minerals crystallize, magma become more felsic

Rock composition
- Ultramafic
o Very low in silica

16
 o High in MgO and FeO
- Mafic
o Low in silica
o Dark silicates
o Low volatile concentration
o Mafic volcanic (extrusive) rocks
 Volcanic rocks, erupt, flow or explode at surface
 Cooling time range from seconds to years
 Can have no, small or large crystals
 Basalt is the mafic volcanic archetype
- Intermediate
o Some silica
o Less volatile
o Less viscous
o Associated with explosive volcanic activity
- Felsic
o Lots of silica
o No MgO or FeO
o Viscous

Extrusive lava flow

- More silica = higher viscosity = less mobility
- Pyroclastic flows are deadly, fast moving avalanches and superheated volcanic ash and
debris
- Explosive volcanoes erupt debris of various sizes

Tabular intrusions
- If magma is stuck in crust
- Dikes – vertical, spread rock sideways
- Sills – horizontal, elevate land surface

Laccoliths
- Magma that can’t spread laterally accumulates in a blister-shaped intrusion

Plutons
- Entire magma chamber solidifies and creates blob-shaped intrusion
- Batholith – group of plutons that cover large area

Exposing igneous features

- Magma chamber that feed volcanoes may cool and become plutons
- After erosion, dikes, sills and mushroom-shaped laccoliths are exposed at surface

17
 - Intrusive rocks are more resistant to erosion so “unroofing” takes a long period of
geological time

Describing igneous rocks

- Described by color and texture
- Texture reveal history of how the melt cooled
o Crystalline texture – crystals fit together
o Fragmental texture – chunks and shards welded together
o Glassy texture – solid glass or glass shards
- Factors affecting size
o Rate of cooling
 Slow rate – fewer but larger crystals
 Fats rate – many small crystals
 Very fast rate – forms glass
o Amount of silica present
o Amount of dissolved gases

Crystalline texture
- Aphanitic – small crystals, can see them, grow usually in intrusive setting where cooling
is faster, may contain vesicles (holes from gas bubbles)
- Phaneritic – large crystals, can see them, typically intrusive settings where the cooling is
slower
- Porphyritic – small and large crystals embedded in matrix of smaller crystals; initial slow
cooling followed by rapid cooling
- Pegmatitic – exponentially coarse grained, formed in late stage of crystallization of
granitic magma with high volatile content

Glassy igneous rocks

- Glassy – no crystals
- Pumice – felsic rock full of vesicles
- Scoria – vesicular and glassy mafic rock
- Obsidian – glassy felsic rock, no vesicles

Pyroclastic
- Fragments release during violent volcanic eruption
- Often looks like its layered or make of shattered rocks
- Tuff – fused volcanic ash
- Volcanic breccia – angular fragments fused together

Igneous activity and plate tectonics

- Most igneous activity occurs at plate boundaries, except hot spots
- Subduction zones causes flux addition which adds volatiles (like water) into lithosphere
which helps with melting and creates volcanoes, this create variable igneous rocks

18
 - Mid-ocean ridges caused by decompressional melting make mafic igneous rocks
- Continental drift caused by decompression creates felsic igneous rocks
- Hot spots caused by decompression and some heat transfer makes felsic and mafic
igneous rocks

LIPs (large igneous provinces)

- Large areas of mafic melt that appear periodically over geological time
- Result from mantle plume at base of lithosphere that create large volumes of mafic
magma
- Lava flows cover large areas and can accumulate in thick piles

Sedimentary rocks
- Form layers
- Occurs only in uppermost part of crust
- Cover igneous and metamorphic rocks
- Sediments – rock fragments that settle and accumulate in layers
- Originate from mechanical and chemical breakdown
- most of exposed rocks but not a significant amount of earth’s rocks
- shows you past environments, record what happens on earth at moment of formation
- detrital/clastic rocks – transported sediments as solid particles
- chemical rocks – sediments that precipitate from solution or extracted from water

Sedimentary process
- Weathering – breakdown, physical (best agent is water) and chemical (ex: vinegar on
granite countertop) changes that happen when exposed to atmosphere and biosphere,
factors that control it:
o Parent rock
o Climate
o Soil/vegetation cover
o time
- Erosion – mass wasting, moment when sediment can be transported but isn’t yet
- Transport – by water, gravity, ice, glaciers, etc.
- Deposition – materiel can’t move anymore
- Lithification – compacting and cementation, formation of new rock, burial increases
pressure, squeezes out air and water and compacts grains, mineral precipitate from
groundwater into pore spaces and this cements the loose sediments together

Different types of sedimentary rocks

- Clastic – loose rock fragments cemented together
o Mineral grains
o Rock fragments

19
 o Cementing materiel - glue that hold grains together
- Organic – carbon-rich remains of once- living organisms
- Biochemical – cemented shells of organism
- Chemical – minerals that crystalize directly from water
- Clastic and chemical are 2 major categories

Classifying clastic rocks

- Grain size – can be very coarse to very fine, as transport distance increases, grain size
decreases
- Grain composition – minerals that make it up, gives clues about source rock, source area
ad transport processes
- Angularity – degree of edge or corner smoothness, indicates for far sediment was
transported, angular = not far
- Sphericity – degree to which shape of a clast approaches that of a sphere, , indicates for
far sediment was transported, non-spherical = not far
- Sorting – measure of uniformity of grain size, degree of sorting increases with transport
distance
- Maturity – degree to which the sediment evolved, mature sediments are well sorted
and well-rounded so like all the same type of grain

Types of clastic sedimentary rocks

- Breccia - grains are big, very angular so close to source
- Conglomerate – smooth rocks so low angularity, but not necessarily more spherical
- Arkose – have large and small grains, transportation still pretty short
- Sandstone – only have sand sized particles, most sands r make of quartz because they
crystalize last, so they are the most stable one
- Shale and mudstone – silt-sized sediments form siltstone, clay-sized particles form
mudstone or shale, deposited into calm water, particles need a calm body of water for
them to settle down or else they will just continue to be transported
- Diamictite – large clasts in a muddy matrix, sedimentary rock left over from a glacier,
glacier is bulldozing everything it goes over and carry all grain sizes while leaves a very
poorly sorted rock
- Wacke – sand and rock fragments in a muddy matrix

Chemical sedimentary rocks

- Consists of precipitated materiel that was once in solution
- Precipitation of materiel happens in 2 ways
o Inorganic process (from water)
o Organic process (biogenic origin)

Biochemical sedimentary rocks

- Had to at one point had a living organism
- Limestone
o Made almost entirely of calcite (CaCO3) or aragonite which is in seashell

20
 o Need warm, tropical, shallow (because calcite dissolves in deep water), clear,
O2-rich marine water
o Marine biochemical limestones form as coral reefs, coquina (broken shells), and
chalk (microscopic organisms)
o Factors controlling CaCO3 precipitation
 Solubility of CaCO3
 Cold water has more CO2, in warm water CaCO3 precipitates
 Agitation of water (tides), photosynthesis and water depth
- Chert
o Made of cryptocrystalline quarts derived from silica from skeleton of some
marine plankton
o Occur as beds or nodules
o Can start off as organic material but be get into environment with lots of CO2
and got changed into biochemical… I think
o Can also be found as chemical sedimentary rock, does not originate from living
organisms

Organic sedimentary rocks

- Made of carbon
- Include
o Coal
 Decay and compression of land plants
 Organic materiel accumulates in swamp
 Eventually gets covered in layers and layers and get compacted
o Evaporites
 Triggers deposition of inorganic chemical precipitation
 Requires a restricted basin and warm temperature
 Need calm and shallow environment, but also need body of water to be
extremely saturated in salt, called evaporite because u need to get rid of
the water, as water evaporates, u get higher salt concentration and so ur
precipitating more water
o Travertine
 Calcium carbonate precipitated from groundwater where it reaches the
surface
 Occurs in thermal springs and caves
o Tufa
 Variety of travertine containing large pores or vesicles

Bedding and stratification

- Bedding appears as strips
o Reflects changing conditions
o Change in sediments composition, grain size, sorting, etc.
- Stratification is formation of layers

21
 o Sequence of sedimentary beds in a large region called stratigraphic formations
o Formation are rock units that can be recognized

Ripple marks and dunes

- Water flowing over loose sediments create bedforms which reflect velocity and grain
size
- Dunes are larger scale versions of ripple marks

Ripple marks and flow direction

- Symmetrical ripples have sharp ridges and form from the back and forth motion of
water in shallow water close to shore
- Asymmetrical ripples tell us that the current always flows in the same direction

Cross bedding
- Created by ripple and dune migration
- Internal curving surfaces within the layer

Turbidity currents and graded beds

- Turbidity currents are formed in water that receives a bunch of turbid water
- Loosens sediment on a slope
- Grains later settle
- Coarsest materiel settles first, then medium then fine materials
- Forms graded beds

Mud cracks and scour marks

- Alternating wet and dry conditions
- Scours form when debris is dragged along bottom of river
- Scour is filled in with sediments and can make casts

Depositional environment
- Where sediments accumulate
- Every environment is different and create unique sedimentary rocks
- Glacier environments
o Sediments are crated, transported and deposited by moving glaciers
o Glacier till – poorly sorted mixture of all grain sizes, gravel, sand, silt and clay
- Mountain stream environment
o Water carries large clasts during flood
o During low-flow conditions, cobbles and boulders are immobile
- Alluvial fan environment
o Cone shaped wedges of sediment that pile up where a rapid drop in stream
velocity occurs at a mountain front
- Desert environment

22
 o Sand-dune develop where there is an abundance of wind-blown, well-sorted
sand
- River environment
o Preserve evidence of channelized sediment transport
o Sand and gravel fill concave-up channels
- Lake environments
o Result form large ponded bodies of freshwater
o Gravels and sand trapped near shore
o Muds deposited in deeper water
- Marine delta environments
o Sediments accumulate where river velocity drops upon entering the sea
o Delta grows over time
- Shallow marine clastic environment
o Deposits are comprised of fine sands and silts that accumulate in quieter waters
offshore
- Shallow water carbonate environments
o Develop in tropical, warm, clear, shallow, normal salinity marine water
- Deep marine environment
o Accumulate fines that settle out far from land
o Skeletons of planktonic organisms make chalk or chert
o Fine silt and clay lithify into shale

Sedimentary basins: plate tectonics

- Accumulate sediment
- Foreland basins
o Weight of the mountain belt pushes down the crusts surface
- Rift basin
o For divergent plate boundary
- Intracontinental
o Forms in the interior of a continent, perhaps over an old rift
- Passive margins basin
o Edges of continents that are not tectonic plate boundaries
- Transgression – sea level getting higher, shifts towards land
- Regression – sea level falls, shifts environment towards basin

Diagenesis
- Total of all physical, chemical and biological changes that occurs to a sediment after it’s
deposition

Metamorphic rocks
- Undergone solid-state alteration of pre-existing rock
- Meta = to change
- Morphe = form

23
 - Protoliths – pre-existing rock that is altered, can be igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic
o Changes in texture and minerology
o Number of elements don’t change, only reconstruction
o CO2 is released and can leave rock or H2O can be released
o CO2 cannot return when rock cools

Metamorphism
- Process where pressure, temperature and chemical reactions all act together to form
new type of rock, no melting
- Pressure and temperature break some atomic bonds

Metamorphism changes texture

- Produced texture reflects degree of metamorphism
- texture changes can alter size, shape and arrangement of minerals

Foliation vs lineation
- Foliation
o Set of flat or wavy parallel planes produced by directed pressure/deformation
o Creation of alternating light and dark bands
o Caused by differential stress
o Types of rocks
 Slate rock
 Distinct foliation called slaty cleavage
 Foliation produces weakness in rock, which allows splitting along
cleavage planes
 Phyllite rock
 Metamorphic alteration of slate
 Silky sheen called phyllitic luster
 With further metamorphism, it turns into schist
 Schist rock
 Medium to high-grade metamorphism
 Metaconglomerate rock
 Metamorphosed conglomerate
 Clasts are flattened by pressure solution and plastic deformation
 Gneiss
 Distinct compositional bands
 Higher temperature and pressure then schist
 Migmatites
 Partially melted gneiss, called partial melting
 Characteristics of igneous and metamorphic rocks
o Non foliated rocks (granoblastic)
 Quartzite
 Hard, glassy and resistant

24
  Massive
 Marble
 Coarsely crystalline calcite or dolomite from limestone or
dolostone
- Lineation
o Needle like, elongated minerals
o When their pressure on the rock, the needles change orientation

Metamorphic prosses
- Recrystallization
o Minerals change size and shape through dissolution and growth of crystals
o Results in new, stable minerals
- Neocrystallization
o Formation of new minerals assemblage
- Pressure solution
o Mineral grains partially dissolve where their surfaces press together
o Minerals grow where there is less compression
o Requires small amount of water
o Mechanism for creating preferred mineral orientation
o Low temperature
- Plastic deformation
o Mineral grains soften and deform when rock is squeezed
o Elevated temperature and pressure
o Mechanism for creating preferred mineral orientation
o Higher temperatures
- Overprinting
o Every step along the way from original to final rock
o The temperature and pressure go up and down and the rock changes a bunch
o Might see ghost remnants from previous minerals

Controls of metamorphism
- Temperature
o Change in temperature
o Rock in new environment, adapts to surrounding conditions
o Metamorphism occurs between 250-850 degrees Celsius (above 850 rocks melt
so no longer metamorphism)
o Sources – geothermal gradient, magmatic intrusion, tectonic compression
- Pressure
- Hydrothermal fluids

Polymorphs
- Multiple new rocks can for with a single protolith, depending on condition
o Low temperature, low pressure

25
 o Low temperature, high pressure
o High temperature, high pressure
- Each of these new rocks have different crystal lattice structures
- Each rock also forms in different areas so if there are 2 or 3 different kind of rock in one
big rock, you can tell more precisely where it was formed

Pressure
- Lithostatic/confining
o Pushes on rock equally from all sides
o No shape changes
- Directed
o Pressure is greater in one direction
o Change in shape
o Creates foliations

Differential stress
- Stress that is greater in one direction
- Differs from pressure because pressure is of equal magnitude in all directions
- Common result of tectonic force
- Normal differential stress
o Perpendicular to surface
 Compression – push together
 Tension – pull apart
- Shear differential stress
o Parallel to surface
o Shear rotation and flattening
 Contribute to preferred orientation development
 Shear stress flattens and rotates grains into alignment
 Compressive stress flattens grains into alignment

Grain alignment
- Compression and shear combined with elevated temperatures and pressure
- Minerals rotate in preferred orientation

Compositional banding
- High temperature banding
o Sometimes during formation of gneiss, the rock is sheared under high
temperature
o Protolith is smeared into parallel layers, creating foliations
o Smears into layers
- Can develop by metamorphic differentiation
o During solid state differentiation
o Chemical reactions segregate light and dark layers

26
Hydrothermal fluid
- Hot water with dissolved ions and volatiles
- Accelerate metamorphism
- Can add or subtracts elements and in that case, it wouldn’t be metamorphism
o Hydrothermal alteration is called metasomatism

Classification based on texture

- Classified based on foliation and granoblastic texture
o Foliated rocks
 Size of crystals
 Nature of foliation
 Degree of segregation of light and dark minerals
o Granoblastic rocks (all minerals are of similar size)
 Always non foliated
 Mineral composition
o Porphyroblasts (some minerals are much larger than others)
 Can occur in both foliated and granoblastic rocks

Metamorphic grade
- Measure of the intensity of temperature and pressure conditions that lead to alteration
- Different temperature and pressure conditions occur in different geologic settings

Prograde and retrograde metamorphic paths

- Prograde – occurs when rock is buried deeply in organic belt, rock experiences changes
due to increased temperature and pressure, rock are eventually brought back to surface
via erosion
- Retrograde – occurs to deep-seated rocks that are brought back to surface, only
possible if hydrothermal fluids add water

Metamorphic zones
- Index minerals indicate the metamorphic grade of a rock and makes useful maps that
define metamorphic zones

27
Types of metamorphism
- Impact metamorphism
o Ex: asteroid hitting surface of earth
- Contact metamorphism
o Rocks alter due to contact with magma
- Orogenic metamorphism
o Occurs at island arcs and continental margins
- Seafloor metamorphism
o At mid-ocean ridges
- Burial metamorphism
o When sediments are buried even deeper than they already were
- Thermal
o Heated by a plutonic intrusion
- Dynamic
o Shearing in a fault zone
- Regional
o P and T change due to orogenesis (tectonic collisions)
- Hydrothermal
o Alteration by hot water leaching, mid-ocean ridges
- Subduction
o High p and low T alteration
- Shock
o Extreme high P from a bolide impact

Exhumation
- Metamorphic rock can return to surface by exhumation
- Uplift-inducted softening of crust which leads to collapse and thinning
- Erosion takes over and removes materiel on top

Shields
- Eroded remnants of orogenic belts

Volcanoes
- Constructed by the eruption of molten rock form the earth’s interior
- Direct consequence of plate tectonics and mantle convection

Products of volcanic eruptions

- Volcanic gases – expelled vapor and aerosols
- Pyroclastic debris – fragments blown out of volcano
- Lava flows – molten rock that moves over ground
o Can be thin and runny or thick and sticky, depends on viscosity which depends
on composition, temperature and gas content
 Basaltic – runny, flows rapidly and for long distances

28
  Lava tubes – conduit for basaltic lava, as it moves, the upper
surface cools and a crust is created, basalt keeps flowing below
crust
 Pahoehoe is Hawaiian word for basalt with glassy, ropy like
texture
 A’a’ is Hawaiian word for basalt with jagged, sharp angular texture
 Columnar jointing – when solidified flows contract with vertical
features
 Pillow basalts – blob of basalt cooled rapidly by quenching in
water
 Rhyolite – thick
 Highest silica content
 Rarely flows
 Lava plugs vent as a lava dome, lava can’t flow so it gets stuck at
summit of volcano, which leads to over pressurisation and lead to
very explosive eruption
 More volcanic gases so more prone to explode
o Explosive eruptions generate huge amounts of debris,
especially volcanic ash
 Andesite – in between
 Slightly higher silica content then basalt
 Andesitic flow mounds around the vent and flow slowly
 Blocky lava – cooled external crust that fractures into rubble

Pyroclastic flows
- Avalanche of hot ash and debris
- Eruption clouds collapses and races down slope of volcano

Volcaniclastic deposits
- Volcanoes erupt lots of fragments called volcaniclastic deposits
- Includes
o Pyroclastic debris – fire fragments
 Tephra – ash and dust: fine and glassy fragments
 Cinder – pea-sized materiel
 Pumice – porous rock from frothy lava
 Lapilli – walnut sized materiel
 Block – hardened or cooled lava (meters)
 Bombs – ejected as hot lava, teardrop shape
 Tuff is lithified as which may or may not contain lapilli
o Pre-existing rock
o Landslide debris
o Lahars

29
  Water rich volcanic debris, lava mixed with lots of water
- Basaltic eruption yields less pyroclastic debris then more silica rich volcanoes but can
form lava fountains that spew tons of released gases, ejecting drops of molten magma
- Other volcanic deposits consist of fragmental igneous materiel
o Pyroclastic – materiel accumulated from cloud of debris that hasn’t moved since
deposition
o Volcanic-sedimentary – materiel moved after deposition
o Fragmented lava – materiel from broken lava flows, external crust cracks and
breaks apart
- Volcanic debris flow – wetted debris that moves downhill, occurs when volcanoes are
covers in ice or snow and lava mixes with little bit of water

Volcanic gases
- Expelled as pressure drops with magma rise
- Gas is less dense then magma, so it tries to go into atmosphere where its less dense and
this drives the magma up to the surface
- May be trapped in cooled volcanic rock causing air bubble called vesicles
- In low viscosity lava, gas escape is easier so more mellow eruptions
- In high viscosity lava, gas escape is harder so more violent eruptions

Volcanic architecture
- Magma chamber
o Located in upper crust
o Open cavity that contains large quantities of magma
o Inflate and deflate as they fill and empty
- Fissures and vents
o Magma may erupt along a linear tear, a fissure, usually a weak point in the crust
o Fissure evolve into discrete vents that erupt from craters
- Craters
o Bowl-shaped depression on top of volcano
o Form as erupted lava piles up around vent
o Summit eruptions – on top
o Flank eruption – on side
- Calderas
o Giant volcanic depression
o Form when magma chamber empties and volcano collapses
- Distinctive profiles
o Shield volcanoes – largest, dome shaped, constructed by lateral flow of basaltic
lava
o Cinder cones – smallest, cone shaped, deep summit crater
o Stratovolcanoes – medium, cone shaped, pyroclastic debris, ash and lava flow
coming out of these

30
Eruption style
- Effusive
o Mostly basaltic
o Produce lava flow
- Explosive
o Mainly rhyolitic and andesitic
o Blow up
- Strombolian
o Burps of magma
- Vulcanian eruption
o Moderate-sized explosive eruption
- Plinian
o Enormous explosion of volcanic materiel
- Factors determining violence of eruption
o Composition of magma
 Felsic – high in silica, very viscous, doesn’t let gases escape easily, violent
eruptions
 Mafic, low in silica, more fluid, lets gases escape easily, non-explosive
eruption
o Temperature of magma
o Dissolved gases in magma

Geologic settings of volcanism

- Mid-ocean ridges
- Convergent boundaries – most volcanoes form here, volatiles from sediments on
subducting plate initiate melting
- Continental rifts
- Oceanic hotspots
- Continental hot spots and flood basalts

Volcanic hazards
- Lava flows
- Pyroclastic flow – move fast and are very hot, kills everything
- Volcanic ash and lapilli – ash can burn landscapes, tephra is heavy
- Blast – when explosions are ejected sideways
- Landslides
- Lahars
- Threat of tsunamis – rare
- Threat of gas and aerosols many volcanic gases are poisonous

Protection from volcanic hazards

31
 - Recurrence interval – threat of volcano depends on likelihood of eruption, there is
always a chance of volcanos erupting even if extinct
o Active – recently erupted
o Dorman – hasn’t erupted in hundreds of thousands of years
o Extinct – no longer capable or erupting
- Predicting eruptions – magma movement causes a change in shape that can be detected
by satellites

32