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ESSA06 Notes - Summary Igneous Rocks and Processes

Planet Earth (University of Toronto)

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Introduction to Planet Earth: READINGS

CHAPTER 1:

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 Granite  very popular in Ont.

 Uniformitarianism:
- The general principle that assumes that Earth history can be interpreted using observations of modern fay
geological processes. “the present is the key to the past” (contrast with catastrophism)
- the theory that changes in the earth's crust during geological history have resulted from the action of continuous
and uniform processes
 Modern understanding of how planet earth stems from a period of intense scientific discovery and creativity in the 60’s
 referred to as plate tectonic revolution
 Geologic time:
- From 1650-1950 (300 yrs), known age of earth increased more than 1 million times from 6004 yrs to 4.6 billion yrs
 Geology  study of planet earth, the various materials of which it is made and the processes that make those material
as well as the forces that act on them
 Many of the forces that help shape the planet are hazardous to human pops
 < 70% of world pop live in cities
 Role of geologist is to present pops with sufficient knowledge of such dangers and to sustain them by locating
sufficient mineral resources like metals, oil, water
The Geology of Ont.: 3 basic layers
 Ont. Straddles the Canadian shield, and interior platform regions of NA
 The region has underlying basement made up very old and hard rocks of the Canadian shield  we call these rocks
LAYER 1 bc they are the oldest in Ont. And formed during the Archean and Proterozoic eons (2500 million yrs & 570
yrs ago)
 3 geological ‘provinces’ make up the Canadian shield
1) Superior
2) Southern
3) Grenville
 Canadian shield acc extends far south into US (buried by younger rocks)  it’s also present in Greenland
- This is bc Greenland broke away (aka rifted) from NA between 80 million & 50 million yrs ago
 Canadian shield (CS) is partially blanketed by younger sedimentary cover rocks which were deposited in seas that
covered Ont.  called LAYER II sedimentary rocks during the Paleozoic era 570 million yrs ago
 These rocks occur is broad basins such as the Moose river & Hudson Bay basins in Northern Ont., Appalachian, &
Michigan basins in Southern Ont.
 Over large areas of Ont., Layer 1 & II rocks are draped by another layer of soft surficial sediments called LAYER III
which was deposited by ice sheets within the time interval that geologists refer to as the Pleistocene
Landscapes
 Ont. Large province (one tenth the area of Canada)
 Topographically, Ont. is one of the flattest provinces
 Highest point 694m above sea level
 Despite its vastness and low topography, a great variety of rocks and sediments has endowed Ont., with a wide range of
landscapes (called physiographic regions)
 Its varying geology, soils and climate all combine to create distinct vegetation types and wildlife habitats (called
ecoregions)
 Southern Ont., is divided into 3 main ecoregions:
1) Lake Erie-Ontario Lowland
- Lies along the borders of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and is characterized by fertile soils developed on the
glacial sediments of Layer III

2) Manitoulin-Lake Simcoe
- This ecoregion is where the sedimentary rocks of Layer II are covered by well-drained glacial sediments
of Layer III
3) Algonquin-Lake Nipissing
- This ecoregion of the CS dominated by old hard rocks and thin soils
Watersheds of Ont.
 Many rivers and lakes drain to Hudson Bay and the Atlantic Ocean
 The great lakes are relatively young landscape features and formed during the Pleistocene ice ages that commenced
after some 2 million years ago

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Canadian Shield and Amethyst

 CS has been source of great mineral wealth in Ont.; copper & silver were discovered in 1846 (north shore of Lake
Huron), gold at Madoc in 1866 and in 11883, the rich copper-nickel ores of Sudbury. Uranium and iron ore have been
major discoveries of the last century
 Amethyst is the official gem of Ont.
- It’s a tectosilicate mineral and a violet-red-purple coloured semi-precious variety of quartz
- The colour of amethyst is bc there’s a lot of iron; when heated it turns yellow
Rocks and the Economy
 Rocks provides rich natural resources for Ontarians
 The finding of oil, gas, salt, building stone, sand, gravel and clay, many minerals and metals such as copper, gold, silver
and iron provided the foundation for a prosperous society
 Geology has controlled the economic development of southern and northern Ont., since European colonization which
began in earnest after 1840
Urban Geology: The New Frontier
 Traditionally, most geologists worked in the mining and oil sectors
 These industries have undergone consolidation in the last decade and are no longer large employers of geologists
 Geology is one of the keys to the long-term viability and env’tal sustainability of our cities. Many geologists work in
the env’tal and engineering sectors, especially in urban areas

CHAPTER 2:
1473-1543: Nicolas Copernicus
 Modern concept of a dynamic spinning earth within a cast sun-centered celestial system
Cast in Stone:
1531
 600 BC  Greek philosophers puzzled over origin of fossils
 Poet Martial wrote insects trapped in amber and Ovid referred to “sea-born lands”
 By middle ages, fossils were regarded as products of a curious vis plastica (a shaping power)
 Leonardo da Vinci  written in 1500, contained many thoughts on the formation of fossils by “petrification”
 Not until 1531: GEORG BAUER (GEORGIUS AGRICOLA)
- Identified “figure stones” as the remains of long-dead marine animals
- Introduced word “fossil”
- Regarded as the father of the mining industry and is famous for his work in the Erzgebirge (the ore
mountains) of Europe
- “bc human memory does not extend back into that remote past in which these mighty changes of the
landscape began. Most ppl think that there have not been such changes, although we can behold them
going on still today”
- Agricola was expressing for the 1st time the concept of uniformitarianism (“the present is the key to the
past”)
A Fitting Discovery:
1620
1561-1626: Francis Bacon
 English scientist
 He suggested that continents were once joined to form a single landmass
 340 yrs later he was to be proved correct by a computer
Book Review:
1650
1581-1656: Archbishop Ussher
 Irish theologian
 Examined lineage of Moses and his ancestors recorded in old testament
 Declared that earth formed at 9am October 26, 4004 BC
 Theophilus of Antioch in AD 169, had earlier determined a date of 5529 BC
 These dates continued to have a lasting influence on the debate about the age of earth well into 19 th century
1667
1631-1686: Nicholas Steno
 Danish physician to the Duke of Florence
 Recognized liker Bauer that fossils are the remains of long-dead organisms
 Scientific discipline of paleontology (study of fossils) was born
 Steno made important contributions to the discipline stratigraphy (subdiscipline og geology concerned with
establishing the order and age of rock strata whether igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary in origin)

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 “mountains can be annihilated, land can be conveyed from one place to another, peaks raised and lowered, and even
more things can occur which at first we would be inclined to regard as fables” This was straight on!
1715
1656-1742: Edmund Halley
 English astronomer
 Predicted the return of comet
 Used salinity of Mediterranean Sea and rates of evaporation to estimate the age of the Earth
 Similar calculation comparing salinity of river water and of seawater were repeated in 19 th century by Irish geologist
John Joly
 Joly’s estimate: 90 million yrs
 Based his calculations on the assumption that seawater contains all the salt delivered to it by rivers since the earth first
formed
 Joly failed to account for the processes which act to remove salt from the oceans
Cool Dudes:
1749
1707-1788: Georges Leclerc (Count Buffon)
 French scientist
 Wrote in Epochs of Nature that earth cooled from a molten mass some 74,382 yrs ago
 Leclerc based his estimate on the cooling rate of molten iron balls
 The notion of progressive cooling and contraction led (1769-1832:) Georges Cuvier to propose episodic “upheavals”
of the Earth’s surface caused by contraction
 He argued that such upheavals had caused the extinction of many organisms
A Flood of Ideas
1780
1750-1817: Abraham Werner
 Late 18th century, geological thought was dominated by Werner
 And the “German School” of global catastrophes (nicknamed the ‘Neptunists’ after the Roman god of the sea)
 They argued that the history of earth could reconstructed by literal interpretation of biblical scripture and that socks and
features of earth’s surface had been created instantaneously during Noah’s flood
 Werner never traveled out of his naïve Germany
 He believed canoes resulted from the underground burning of coal seams
A New Textbook
1795
1726-1797: James Hutton
 Scottish geologist
 Father of geology
 Published his theory of the earth in which he recognized unconformities & outlined the first scientific theory of
geology
 Hutton argued that the forces of erosion, deposition and volcanism observable at the present fay can be used to explain
conditions on Earth (uniformitarianism)
 He stated that there is “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end”. Putting him into direct conflict with biblical
scholars and Ussher’s estimate of the age of Earth
UNCOFORMITIES:
 Major time gaps for which no geological record survives, occur between the geologic layers of Ont.
- Think of a book with missing chapters
- The spaces forming missing chapters are called unconformities
 Hutton's Unconformity is a name given to various notable geological sites in Scotland identified by the 18th-century
Scottish geologist James Hutton as places where the junction between two types of rock formations can be seen. This
geological phenomenon marks the location where rock formations created at different times and by different forces
adjoin. For Hutton, such an unconformity provided evidence for his Plutonist theories of uniformitarianism and the age
of the Earth.
 An unconformity is any break in the normal progression of sedimentary deposits, which are laid the newer on top of the
older.

It’s a Gas
1796
1749-1827: Pierre-Simon Laplace
 French scientist

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 Proposed that the solar system originated by the cooling and condensation from a hot gaseous cloud (the nebular
hypothesis)
 Hence it came to be widely regarded that the earth was progressively cooling
- A basic notion that underlay many estimates as to the age of earth
Another Bestseller
1830
1797-1875: Charles Lyell
 British geologist
 Published “principles of Geology”
 He set out the “standard” textbook view of uniformitarian geology (a stable and static earth) countering the dangerous
European tendency to invoke catastrophes such as giant floods to explain geological history
 Lyell never accepted Agassiz’s theory of catastrophic Ice Age, preferring to explain the distribution of far-traveled
boulders and decries as the result of having been dropped b ice floes and icebergs (Called drift deposits)
 By denying that catastrophes had any part in forming the geological record, Lyell went too far in dismissing “unbridled
speculation”
“An Epoch of Great Cold”
1837
 Advocates of Werner’s school of Neptunism were asked for proof of their theory of a catastrophic flood, they said large
boulders and mounds of debris scattered over much of central Europe
 Boulders lay far from their source
 Neptunists reasoned, these erratics, had been transported by a giant flood
 Diluvium:
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German’s greatest poet), an avid collector of minerals was struck by observations of
rocks falling onto winter lake ice and being carried off in the spring breakup
 Lyell used the notion of deposition of debris from drifting ice floes and icebergs to explain the far-travelled “drift” of
Europe
 By 1829, Goethe realized that glaciers are more likely explanation and suggested that “an epoch of great cold passed
over Europe”
 Swiss geologist, de Charpentier, gave scientific credibility to Goethe’s idea
 Karl Schimper another poet coined the term the Ice Age
 Most famous ice age advocate was Swiss, Louis Agassiz
 Argued that a catastrophic ice age periodically wiped out all life om planet earth which would then be re-created once
again by a divine creator
 Agassiz, largely out of loyalty to the biblical deluge, believed his catastrophic ice age simply replaced one catastrophe
with another; Noah’s flood in slow motion
 The finding of ice age mammoths still frozen in their tracks in Russia excited the public’s imagination with this “fatal
cap of ice”
 Lyell and others began to compile evidence of several periods of cold and warmth and believed that species were
created and became extinct continuously
 By 1840 there were 2 main schools of thought regarding glaciation; Agassiz’s catastrophic ice age (wiped out all life
and ushered in new divine creations) (Etudes sur les Glacier) and Lyell’s drift theory of transport by icebergs
(Principles of Geology)
 1840: Agassiz visited Scotland with Lyell
 Evidence for glaciation on a grand scale
 1846: contrary to Agassiz’s idea, modern day species, including human beings, had been in existence prior to the last
ice age
 Humans had been alive and making tools while the great ice sheets covered Europe
 End of the 19th century, geologists had recognized 4 main glaciations

Geosynclines and Orogeny

1851
 Mid-19th century, doctrine of “Permanence” being proposed by J.D. Dana (1813-1905)
 “Once a continent, always a continent, once an ocean, always an ocean”
 Model allowed for some growth of continents by filling of deep basins with sediments (geosynclines) and their
subsequent uplift (orogeny) as a result of a contracting earth
How old are you Son?
1854
 Herman Heimholtz used estimates of the rate of heat production from the sun to argue for an age of 20-30 million years
for the solar system

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A Heated Argument
1862
 Sir William Thompson (Lord Kelvin; 1824-1907) proposed that the earth had cooled from a molten mass over some 98
million years but revised this figure 20-30 million years in 1897.
 Though large, neither figure was satisfactory to geologists who recognized that the evolution of organisms evident from
the fossil record required much more time
 Kelvin did not know about heat produced by radioactive decay
Just Floating Around
1865
 George Airy (1801-92), the Astronomer Royal in Britain, proposed that mountain and continents are dominated by sial
(rocks composed predominantly of silica and alumina) and that they flow on a denser underlying substance which is
fluid (Sima; a molten rock or magma composed of silica and magnesium) high mountains act like large icebergs with
deep roots (isostasy)
 This model was to influence Wegener in his formulation of continental drift
Things are evolving
1880s
 By the late 19th century paleontologists were questioning the whole notion of “permanence”
 They recognized that the fossil record of evolution on many continents was very similar
 Darwin said this was very unlikely too
The debate heats up
1895-6
 Marie Curie (1867-1934) & Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) co-discovered Radioactivity which is the process by which
unstable atoms disintegrate, releasing heat.
 Radioactivity coined by curie in 1898
The Earth is Shrinking
1904
 Edmund Suess (1839-1914)
 Austrian geologist
 Book: Face of the earth
 Earth’s history consists of epochs and alternating rapid change and stability caused by shrinkage of the planet, much as
the skin of an apple wrinkles as it dries and contracts
 Argued that the present continents were fragments of larger ones, which had subsided and that oceans were increasing
at the expense of the continents
 He recognized the former existence of a giant “supercontinent” he named Gondwana
 He also coined CS
 He stressed the crust of earth was on the move; indisputable evidence of horizontal movement was found in the folded
rocks of the European alps and Canadian Rockies
Doing the wave
1908
 Croatian Andrija Mohorovici (1857-1936)
 Recorded a sharp increase in the velocity of seismic wave energy produced by earthquakes at the base of the Earth’s
crust (named the “Moho”)
 Analysis of the travel times of seismic waves would eventually allow detailed understanding of the earth’s interior
A nuclear-powered planet
1905-1909
 E. Rutherford, B. Boltwood, R.J. Strutt, and J. Joly spelled out the geological implications of the new discoveries of
radioactive elements
 They argued that the earth was not simply cooling but had likely maintained a stable heat balance for much of its
history bc of continued decay of radioactive elements present in the Earth’s crust and mantle
 1903: Joly had identified abundant evidence of the decay of radioactive elements present in rocks and minerals
 Boltwood showed that the transformation of uranium/lead ratios in rocks provided a means of dating
 Strut provided a new estimate for the age of earth: 2.4 billion years
 MODERN AGE OF GEOLOGY HAD BEGUN…
Where’s North Gone?
1906
 French geographer, Jean Brunhes (1869-1930)
 He discovered that volcanic rocks act as fossil compasses retaining a record of the Earth’s magnetic field at the time
they cooled

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 Also discovered many ancient rocks record times when the north magnetic pole switched to become the south magnetic
pole
 Confirmed in 1928 by Japanese geologist M. Matuyama who proposed that the polarity of Earth’s magnetic field is not
fixed but is reversible
1911
 Austrian geologist Ampferer argued tht rocks had acc been destroyed by being “down-sucked” to great depths, thus,
anticipating major discoveries of the plate tectonic revolution
 Suess earlier argued that earth’s crust was thickening (as a result of cooling)
 The contracting spasmodically resulting in horizontal compression
 The contracting earth theory explained the problem of palaeontology bc oceans were regarded as recent collapse
features leaving widely separated continents with similar fossil records
It’s Elementary…
1913
 Arthur Holmes (student of Strutt)
 Book: the age of earth
 Included a review of the techniques used to age-date rocks
 He used new radiometric methods, particularly the ratio of uranium to its daughter product lead, to produce the first
absolute time scale.
Deep Thinking
1914
 The fundamental internal structure of earth (core/mantle) was recognized by German-American seismologist Beno
Gutenberg (1869-1960) using the diff properties of seismic waves produced by earthquakes
Just Driftin’ About
1915
 German Alfred Wegener (1880-1930)
 Meteorologist
 Book: origin of continents and oceans
 Proposes notion of continental drift
 Proposed supercontinent  PANGEA (ALL THE LANDS)
 Proposed superocean  PANTHALASSA (ALL THE WATERS)
 Essentially same idea as Bacon, Hopkins, Snider-Pellegrini but these were only “rediscovered” after Wegener’s
publication
 He basically fit the coastlines either side of the Atlantic Ocean
THE REACTION
 Idea on continental drift made sense to some, the idea upset many bc Wegener did not specify just how continents could
move
 He had only said “pole gerflucht”, a centrifugal force acting to disperse continents across the surface of a spinning
planet
Early 1930s
 Dutch geophysicist F.A. Vening-Meinesz (1887-1966) used submarines for research and showed that deep sea trenches
in the Caribbean and Indonesia are marked by negative gravity anomalies showing less dense material at depth
 Indirectly, he had discovered the subduction zones proposed earlier by Ampferer in 1911
Well, it was about this big
1935
 Charles Richter devised a logarithmic scale to describe the magnitude of earthquakes
 Since then, geologists could talk intelligently about how big an earthquake was

Late 1930s
 Geologists learnt more about isotopes and found that “common lead” contains radiogenic lead isotopes such as 208Pb
and 206Pb, formed by radioactive decay of uranium, tg with the non-radiogenic “primeval lead” (204Pb) which existed at
the time of the formation of Earth
 They recognized that the lower ratio between radiogenic and primeval lead isotopes in a rock, the older the rock
 Measurement of this ratio in meteorites in 1953 by C. Patterson and F. Houtermans provided the 1 st estimate of the age
of earth and is still accepted today (4.6 billion yrs)
Support for Pangea
1937

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 South African geologist Alex DuToit

 Book: Our wandering continents
 Basically, summarized a wealth of field data from the southern continents like Africa, south America, Antarctica,
Australia and India)  supported the notion of Pangea
 These now widely dispersed continents contain strikingly similar successions of rocks, recording a time period when
those continents were joined together as a single landmass, Gondwana, the southern part of Pangea
In with a bang
1941
 The Russian-American physicist George Gamov (1904-68) introduced the “Big Bang” theory for the origin of the
universe
Current thinking
1944
 Arthur Holmes (1890-1965)
 Book: principles of physical geology
 Contains modern view of role of mantle convection currents as a driving force for “drift”
 But this still didn’t lead to widespread acceptance of continental drift
The “Plate Tectonic Revolution”
1960-70
 Application of shipborne geophysical techniques fostered a better understanding of the structure of the earth and the
geology of the ocean floors
 In contrast to the complexity of the continents with their long history, the essential simplicity of the ocean floor geology
was revealed
 Most significantly, a handful of workers were able to generate powerful ideas regarding the planet
 These could be tested on long cruises of the oceans
 Land-based geologists tended to get stuck in the detail bc the geology of the continents was more complex
 Mapping of the ocean floor showed that it’s not flat but has prominent mountain chains (mid-ocean ridges)  with a
central valley along which shallow earthquakes are common
 Away from ridges, there are flat-topped underwater peaks (named guyots  named by H. Hess)
 Other discoveries included vast “fracture zones” & the existence of high heat flows below ridges and areas of low heat
flows above deep ocean trenches
 Hugh Benioff demonstrated the existence of very large earthquakes (EQ) in the vicinity of deep ocean trenches (their
distribution with depth supported notion of subduction)
 During this period, radiometric age-dating of rocks showed that continents are composed of very large blocks (terranes)
having very different ages and origins
1958
 Australian geologist, S.W. Carey produced synthesis involving drift of continents away from mid-ocean ridges
 He presented detailed maps of past continental configurations
 Nonetheless, his argument tht the earth is expanding prevented wider acceptant of continental drift
1962
 Realized the flat-topped guyots on the ocean floors were ancient volcanoes that had once stood above sea level, had
been eroded to a flat surface and then subsided below sea level
 Subsidence of seamounts is the result of cooling of oceanic crust formed earlier at mid-ocean ridges
 Towing magnetometers behind ships led to the discovery of magnetic strips on the ocean floor on either side of mid-
ocean ridges
 By this time, magnetic record in continental rocks were also being used to determine the latitude of deposition
 This led to the major discovery that continents had in face moved since the rocks were formed
 A. Cox and colleagues worked out a magnetic polarity timescale

1963
 F. Vine with D. Mathews & L. Morley proposed independently that the strip like magnetic anomalies on the sea floor
are created when hot new ocean crust moves away from spreading centres, cools and preserves a continuous record of
polarity reversals in the Earth’s magnetic field
 Continuous upwelling and cooling of magma along spreading centres and the outward movement of cooling oceanic
crust, creates a tape recording of changes in earths magnetic field
 This process was termed “sea-floor spreading” by Harry Hess
Hey, they actually do fit
1965
 Ted Bullard (English geophysicist)

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 He used the new power of computers to show tht coastlines on either side of the Atlantic Ocean fit very closely (as
proposed by Bacon in 1620)
 At the same time, Toronto geophysicist Jack Tuzo Wilson named and identified the role of transform faults (the
fractures of Menard) in offsetting mid-ocean ridges
 He also recognized tht “hot-spots” originate deep within the mantle and tht several island chains, such as Hawaii are
“hot spot traces” recording the movement of earth’s crust over the mantle and repeated volcanic activity
Voyages of Discover
Late 1960’s
 Deep Sea Drilling Project used a special ship (Glomar Challenger) to drill and dredge the ocean floor
 Results reveled tht rocks of the ocean floor increase in age away from the mid-ocean rides as predicted by the theory of
seafloor spreading
 This lead, in turn, to recognition tht the oceans and their underlying crust are no more than 200 million yrs old and that
they result from the breakup of a supercontinent (Pangea)
 This pioneering oceanographic and marine geological work is continued today by the Resolution shown in the Panama
Canal
 Resolution was built in 1978 in Halifax, Nova Scotia
 She is named after the famous ship used on Capt. James Cook’s 2nd and 3rd Voyages
 She is 470 feet long and 70 ft wide; the derrick is 202 ft above th waterline
 Costs about 1 million a week to keep at sea & is operated by international “consortium” of many nations (Canada
included)
 Much of the ship is taken up by labs whereas many of 50 scientists work for up to 3 months during scientific cruises
across the world’s oceans
 These cruises are called “Legs”
 Life on board for the scientists is very simple: SLEEP, EAT, WORK
At Last a mechanism: “Plate Tectonics”
1969
 Maps of global EQ distribution confirm the idea tht earth’s outer surface is composed of about 12 large plates with
narrow belts of intense deformation at their margins
 Plate tectonics (PT) recognizes tht continents do drift by being embedded in and carried along, by larger lithospheric
plates moving over a ductile asthenosphere
 Here then was the mechanism which had eluded Wegener in 1915
 “hot spot traces” such as the Hawaiian chain of volcanoes can be used to map plate velocities and trajectories
The end of dinosaurs
Late 1970s
 Luis Alvarez (1911-88)
 American physicist
 Noted an excess of mineral iridium, which is rare on earth but common in meteorites
 Suspected large asteroid impact some 65 million yrs ago that wiped out dinosaurs
 Rocks which span the age of the dinosaurs and record their demise at the end of the Cretaceous are found exposed in
Southern Alberta but do not occur in Ont., other than as thin deposits in the moose river and Hudson Bay basins

CHAPTER 3:
 Earth is composed of concentric layers (like an onion)
 But each layer has different physical and chemical properties
 We live on the cool, wet surface of a thin outermost layer called the LITHOSPHERE (which means “rocky sphere”)
 This shell is brittle and broken into large segments (called lithospheric plates) that move relative to each other, by
gliding across a softer layer called the Asthenosphere (the soft sphere)
 The lithospheric plates have been on the move for at least 3000 million years and in that time, they have caused
continuous rearrangement of continents and oceans
 This process (plate tectonics) is fuelled by heat created by radioactive decay in the Earth’s interior

 Early objections to Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift were based on the fact that rocks are hard and brittle

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Internal Structure of the Earth

 At great depths and pressures, solid rocks can deform (albeit slowly) in response to applied forces
 As a result, both the Earth’s exterior (the plates) and its interior are always in motion
 This motion produces EQ which, in turn, release energy in the form of seismic waves (like a gun producing a
soundwave)
 These waves can be recorded by an instrument called a seismograph (which produces a record called a seismogram)
allowing geologists to listen to the Earth at work
 EQ produce two kinds of body waves
- P WAVES (P = primary)
o travel at a speed that increases from 6km/sec in the lithosphere to about 14km/sec in the deeper
mantle and can travel through both fluids and solids
- S WAVES (S = secondary)
o Are much slower (3.5 to 8 km/sec)
o Cannot travel through fluid
- Both P&S waves are called body waves bc they travel through the body of the planet; other waves are
surface waves which travel around the surface of the planet
- These latter waves are the cause of much of the damage we attribute to EQs
- The difference in arrival times of these waves at a number of recording stations enables the geologist to
determine the distance they have travelled
- The greater the distance the greater the difference in arrival times
- P&S waves are bent (refracted) and bounced (reflected) by layers of differing composition and density at
depth
- Analyses of millions of seismic wave records (called seismic tomography) have produced detailed images
of convection cells within the mantle
Viscosity
 Viscosity  word refers to the ease at which a fluid moves
Radioactive Decay: The fuel for plate tectonics
 In 1944, Arthur Holmes suggested that plate tectonics is fuelled by convection currents in the mantle
 Hot rocks in the asthenosphere are warmed by radioactive decay of minerals and melt to form basaltic magma
 This rises and is erupted along mid-ocean ridges to form new “oceanic crust”
 Newly formed crust cools, becomes denser and is pushed away from the ridge to begin its long journey across the
ocean basins
 Eventually, it sinks back to the mantle down a subduction zone
 That major driving force is “slab pull” where the gravity-controlled sinking of the cold dense oceanic plate at a
subduction zone, drags the rest of the plate behind it
 “slab push” occurs where the magma being intruded to the surface along mid-ocean spreading centres and acts as an
additional force to maintain plate movement
 Seismic tomography has provided clear images of slabs diving deep within planet earth
Heat Sources
 Most of earth’s internal heat is produced by radioactive decay of 3 unstable elements: Thorium (Th), Uranium (U) and
Potassium (K)
 Geologists use this decay which occurs at a steady rate to age date rocks
 Total global heat production  38,000,000,000,000 (trillion) and is slowly being lost at the earth’s surface as a result of
convection within the mantle
 Average global heat flow to the surface is 0.075 Watts per every meter2 (m2)
 Very small compared to the amount of heat received over the same area as a result of heating by the sun (340 Watts/m 2)
 Heat flow to the earth’s surface is greater under the oceans where the crust is thin compared to the continents where the
crust is very thick and cold
 Temperature at the base of the crust is several hundred degrees centigrade and reaches about 6000 degreesC (Celsius) at
the centre of the earth
 Mantle is composed of minerals olivine and garnet (making dark coloured iron-rich rocks called garnet peridotites)
 Most rocks melt by 1200 degreesC which is reached at about 100km depth
- So why does mantle remain solid?
- Bc the garnet peridotite contains very little water
- As a result, with increasing pressure with depth, the melting temp of the rock is actually increased
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
How can we see and sample Earth’s interior?
- Its bc the mantle comes to us
- Happens in 4 ways: as hot spots, in kimberlite pipes, in ophiolites and in meteorites

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1) AND NOW ARRIVING DIRECT FROM THE MANTLE

 Hotspots are the sites where narrow columns (called plumes) of molten magma arrive at the Earth’s surface
direct from the deep mantle at least 700km below
 A very large plum (up to 300km across) exists under the island of Iceland (this is why that island occurs in the
middle of the North Atlantic Ocean)
 A smaller plume lies under the Hawaiian Islands (about 30km in diameter)
 Locations of plumes remains fixed through geologic time although the overlying lithospheric plate, through
which the plume has burnt, moves continuously
 Plumes build large volcanoes composed mostly of basalt. These broad dome-like shield volcanoes are very
different from the steep volcanoes that form above subduction zones
 Linear chains of volcanoes (hot spot tracks) make up the Hawaiian Islands
 These chains form when movement of the lithospheric plate carries volcanoes away from the hot spot
2) DIAMONDS: WHY THE MANTLE IS A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND
 If you’re wearing a peridot gem you are looking at a mineral (olivine) tht formed in the upper mantle and was
brought to the Earth’s surface by eruptions of basaltic magma
 Mantle rocks have also been brought to the surface as kimberlite pipes, which form ice cream cone shaped
bodies widening upwards
 The pipes are formed explosively by a mixture of rock fragments, gas and molten rock erupting at the earth’s
surface much like a giant geyser; this forms a crater called diatreme by geologists
 Several thousand pipes occurs worldwide mostly in southern Africa & Siberia
 A deep mantle origin for kimberlite is demonstrated by the presence of diamonds
 Diamond is simply carbon that crystalized at great depths (150km) & pressure
 Most famous pipes in the world occur in south Africa at Kimberly (hence kimberlite) and are about 65 million
yrs old
 Pipes are mined in Canada in the NWT and in Northern Ont., near Kirkland Lake
3) OPHIOLITES: THE REMAINS OF LONG DEAD OCEANS
 Mantle rocks of the asthenosphere like peridotite are found at very shallow depths below modern mid-ocean
ridges and have been collected by drilling and dredging from ships
 Ancient mid-ocean ridges have been thrust high above sea level when ocean floors were compressed between
colliding continents
4) METERORITES: THE POOR MAN’S SPACE PROBE
 Pieces of mantle and core from other planets are delivered daily from outer space to the earth’s surface as
meteorites
 Iron meteorites  highly magnetic, heavy and composed of nickel (10%) and iron (90%)
 Stony meteorites  composed of olivine, some feldspar and small nickel grains, are much like crustal rocks on
earth such as basalt.
 Stony irons are mixtures of minerals and metals and akin to rocks found in the earth’s mantle
 Most meteorites originate from the asteroid belt (a junkyard of broken planets and never used spare parts)
between Mars and Jupiter; others are fling off from the surface of the moon or mars
 Average annual fall rate to earth’s surface is one meteorite with a mass greater than 500g every million km 2;
some 100,000 tonnes of micrometeorite dust falls earth each yr
 Sometimes meteorites form fireballs when they enter earth which is called meteors
 Meteorites well known to ancient world  ancient Egyptians thought they were samples of the bones of the
gods who lived in the stars and were therefore sacred
 The Kaaba stone is a giant cube with a black meteorite set in its eastern corner
 Best known impact in NA is the Barringer Crater in northern Arizona identified by Daniel Barringer
 Crater was dug by 30m in diameter weighing 63000 tonnes and travelling 14km/sec between 20,000 and
50,000 yrs ago
 Most meteorites are destroyed upon falling to earth
 Largest meteorite known is 66 tonnes (Hoba Namibia) then the Ahnighito (Greenland, 34 tonnes)
 Inuit ppl made knives from iron meteorites
Earth’s magnetic field
 Bc earth’s mantle contains large convection cells, earth forms a large dynamo which creates its own magnetic field with
2 opposing poles (dipole)
 Now realized that this iron is too hot to be magnetic
 Every so often there are dramatic changes in the magnetic field and its direction reverses
 The last reversal occurred approx. 730,000 yrs ago
 If a reversal were to happen today, a compass would point to the South magnetic pole instead of the North
A Geomagnetic timescale

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 The ability of the earth’s magnetic field to reverse itself has provided geologists with a useful means of constraining the
age of igneous rock
 As magma cools small magnetic particles align themselves to earth’s magnetic pole and remain fixed in tht position
when the rock finally cools
 Thus, the rock retains a record of the polarity of tht time period
Polar Wander
 Magnetic poles also move slowly or drift
 The North Magnetic Pole is in Arctic Canada (at 78 degrees. 30’N latitude) but moves about 6km each yr
 Average position of the magnetic pole remains stable and is only slightly different from the north Pole which defines
the axis around which the Earth rotates (called true North)
 When an igneous rock cools, iron particles align themselves to the magnetic field which approximates to true North at
the time the rock formed
 But rock is embedded in a lithospheric plate that is always moving and rotating
- So, with time, as the plates moves farther and farther from its position when the igneous rocks cooled, the
position of the pole recorded in the rock will differ increasingly from modern pole
 REMEMBER: THE MAGENTIC POLE STAYS FIXED AND IT IS THE PLATES THAT MOVE

Inclination
 Analysis of igneous rocks also allows a record of magnetic inclination
 Inclination is the angle at which magnetic particles dip (horizontal at the equator and steep at the poles) when magma
cools
 Reflects the lines of force in the Earth’s magnetic field
 The inclination of magnetic particles in ancient igneous rocks provides a measure of paleolatitude at which the rock
formed
 Sedimentary rocks like limestones and chemical rocks like evaporites require warm tropical low latitude conditions
 Tillites (rocks left by glaciers), indicate cold relatively high latitudes and coals indicate middle latitudes.
 Wegener used this approach when he reconstructed Pangea
A World of Caution
 Modern mode of PT (sometimes called Wilsonian Tectonics) volcanism is limited to the edges of lithospheric plates.
Ex: mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones
 Massive volcanism also occurs within plates
 Exploration of the ocean basins and mapping of the continents reveals the presence of large volcanic features such as
flood basalts and seamounts grouped under the term ‘large igneous provinces’ (LIPS)  records large-short lived
volcanic events within tectonic plate
 Some ocean plateaux are 20-30km thick
 Otong Java Plateau on the floor of the Pacific Ocean extends over 1.86 million km2
 Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean is more than 1.78 million km2 (only formed in only a few million yrs)
 Deccan Traps of western India is a continental flood basalt province recording the outpouring of basalt some 60-65
million yrs ago and contain some 2 x 106 km3 of lava
 Eruption of LIPS points to major episodes of melting in the mantle and the leakage of heat and mass to the Earth’s
surface in a way to quite unlike ‘steady state’ plate tectonics
 These events are known as MOMO (Mantle Overturn, Major Orogeny) episodes

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