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EESA06- Lecture- Notes LEC1-LEC7

Planet Earth (University of Toronto)

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

[LECTURE 1] – MAY 7, 2018

How are rocks formed before we existed?
- Prebiotic era (before life existed on land)

Stratigraphy – the study of layers

- In this case the study of layers of the earth
- Creating an order of layers which leave a history of formation in the rock

In the 1970s, there was a paradigm shift.

- Root word: PARADIGM
o A revolution in thinking, a change in history of how we look at things, in this case how
the earth is observed

The earth’s surface is always moving

- Nowhere on the earth is stable, that’s why we have earthquakes
- There exist earthquakes in western Canada (Vancouver area)
- Everywhere is on the move horizontally and vertically
- 3.7cm a year is being moved towards the Southwest in North America
- There are some areas that move 25cm a year
- Oceans are widening (pushes continent apart)

Super continent called Pangea (all the land) , Laurasia, etc.

- These super continents move apart

Some of the oceans are on the verge of closing

- This will cause the continents to re-connect again
- *See figure 2.2 in the textbook (Super continents)

Alp rocks (Tent rocks in Mexico)

Natural condition of Canada back then used to be buried under ice.

Why is Toronto rising?

- The group “rebounded”
o Ice sheets melted and depressed and then rebounds and causes the ground to rise in
Toronto

“Pangea 2”
- Torn apart again by the heat generated under the plate (similar to rebounding)

Figure 2.12 is an important diagram

- The real MVP of the course

Tectonics – means to build

- Plate tectonics → the building of plates

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

Convection system
- Hot air rises and cold air lowers
- Plume (similar to what a lava lamp works)
o Hot toffee
What is magma?
- Red hot molten rock
- New magma will push existing rock apart
o Causes the sea floor to spread
o The drive of plate tectonics

Oceanic crust
- They are made out of:
o Basalt (iron and magnesium)
▪ Has a relatively high density
▪ It wants to sink
▪ Crust would increase to the right and left (cooling at the same time)

Subduction
- To push one plate under another plate
- This causes earthquakes, tsunami, etc.

Andesitic
- Made of a rock called andesite
- Continental crust
- Lower density than salt (happy floating to the earth’s surface)

~3.5 billion is the age of the first continent which most of it existed in Canada

Volcanic Arc
- Caribbean islands
o A dangerous place where volcanos surface above the ocean
o The arc is made up of subduction zones
o Have a lot of sulfur gas

Most volcanos shoot up vertically

- But not always (lateral blast and usually without warning)
- Example: Plymouth was steam rolled by a lateral blast

Volcanic ash (tephra) is pulverized rock and not burned ash.

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

[LECTURE 2] – MAY 14, 2018

Mid-1960s was when computers started appearing to generate models
- Geophysics was easier to map (sound waves in relation to distance of the floor)

Continental drift vs. Plate tectonics

- They are both different ideas and concepts
Continental drift
- Old idea (1910)
o Wegener proposed that continents moved plowing through the sea floor
- The continents move around (like large ships)
Plate tectonics
- Continents are part of larger plates and are moving

Pangea can be broken down into continents

- Laurasia (North America and Asia)
- Gondwana (Southern continents)

Continuing with Wegener’s ideas…

- Conditions needed for salt to form
o You need a lot of evaporation (warm climate) and this can dry out lower sea
- Climate belts across Pangea
- Changes in weather are caused by the movement of continents and not the actual climate
system

Continental ice sheets

- Formed in Canada 20,000 years ago
- Natural state right now is to be covered by ice but there’s global warming
- These sheets move outward
- Deep scratches are left by ice sheets

Mapping the ocean floor:

- The 1960s
o “chirp systems”
o Map the layers of the bottom of the ocean
o Hydrophone is similar to a microphone
o Bathymetry (the depth of something)
- The ocean floor is not flat
o Consists of mid-ocean ridges and trenches
o Transform faults
o Continental ridges

Marianas Trench
- Deep water
- Trench is associated with subduction zones

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

Harold Hess (1962)

- Geologist and captain of a ship
- Geo-poetry
- Sea floor created MOR’s recycles into mantle at tranches

Continuous volcanic activity along mid-ocean ridges and rifts

- ‘Smokers’ and mineral deposits
- Cold water sinks into crevasses and cracks
o Deeper levels of sea water increase temperature
▪ Every 100m down, increase temperatures by 2.5 degrees Celsius
o Minerals get scavenged but the warm water
o These areas get mined often

*Google Greenstone belts (gold mining areas in Canada) – economic importance

Nickle is mined in Sudbury.

New paradigm ahead!

Edward Bullard (1965)

- Computer reconstruction of the ‘fit’ of modern day continents either side of the Atlantic Ocean
(Illustration of Pangea today)

John Tuzo (1908-1993)

- Professor of Geophysics
- Introduction of the Plate Tectonics in 1967
- Example of a paradigm shift

Earthquakes can be categorized into three parts:

1) Shallow-focus
2) Intermediate-focus
3) Deep-focus (shows where the subduction zones are)

Epicentre
- Point of the earth’s surface directly above

THE UNITED PLATES OF PLANET EARTH

- Divergent boundary
- Convergent boundary (teeth show direction of subduction)
- Transform boundary

Earthquakes identify plate boundaries.

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

Magnetometers
- Detects small changes in magnetic properties of rocks as you travel
- Move across the ocean floor (it glides underwater)

Magnetic Stripes
- Positive/negative magnetic anomaly
- Rift valley at ridge crest

Cooling lava
- Magnetic alignment preserved in magnetite records orientation of Earth’s magnetic field

Paleomagnetic changes through time

- Magnetic reversals occur on average every 500,000 years
- Takes ~10,000 years or less for a reversal to occur (so you won’t notice if it occurs!)

Edge of North American plate slide.

Dereck
- Drill down into the ocean floor
- Ship called a resolution (deprecated)

Age of the ocean floors

- Rocks are older the farther you get away from the ridge
- How old are the ocean baselines?
- Missing parts of the diagram are due to the recycling via subduction
- Confirms the formation of Pangea

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

[LECTURE 3] – MAY 21, 2018

Asthenosphere – “A weak layer”

Types of waves:
- Primary Waves
o Fastest waves
o Travel up to 7km/s
- Secondary Waves
o Travel a bit slower, hence called secondary waves
o Travel up to 5km/s
- Surface Waves
o The waves that do the damage to buildings
o Much more violent
- Playdough Waves

Epicentre
- The centre of the quake and the waves are refracted

The closer you are to the earth quake, there exists a time lag within the primary wave.
- The farther away the focus of the quake, the larger the time gap
- Used to estimate the location of the epicentre

The Pacific Ocean is known as the dying/closing ocean.

The Atlantic Ocean is growing/widening (mature ocean).
- The Red Sea is an opening ocean

Sea vs Ocean?
- Oceans have mid-ocean ridges which seas do not have

Travel paths of P waves and S waves

- P waves refracture through the core (Figs. 4.8 & 4.9)
o This produces shadow zones where these areas do not receive seismic waves
- S waves do not refracture through the core
o Produces are larger shadow zone

Lithoprobe
- “Dancing Elephants”
- Creating out own earthquakes

Convention diagram of the earth:

- Onion skin model (Wrong)
o Overly simplified
- BOX 4.5 (Figure)

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

Meteorites
- Foreign minerals that land on the earth’s surface

Heat flow as a guide to the deep structure of the earth

- Oceanic crust generates little heat, so ocean heat flow must come from the mantle
- Heat flow from continents is largely generated within continents by radioactive decay
- Heat flow is the same from oceans and continents

Higher heat flow in the oceans

- Caused by the mid-ocean ridges
o Where most of the magma is produced

ULVZ – Ultra Low Velocity Zone

- The area where waves become refracted

D’’ layer is where diamonds come from

- Kimberlite
o The rock at which diamonds occur

Giant plumes
- Plume heads warm the plate and push it apart
o E.g. African plume

Long-term stirring of the mantle

- This process is going to run for about 4.5 billion years
- Source of heat is finite
- Convection of the mantle

Oceanic crust location

- Mid-ocean ridges
- Dominate rock type: basalt

Continental crust is produced from subduction zones

- Andesite and granite

Plate (Lithostatic plates)

Mantle convection generates large plumes

- Plumes come up and interact with lithospheric plates and move them around
o Similar to how ice flows around on water in winter

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

[LECTURE 4] – May 28, 2018

East African rift
- To better understand ancient rocks and oceans
- Modern examples and old rocks
o “Uniformitarianism”
▪ The present is the key to the past
▪ Who we interpret how to world works today

Recall: Plates migrate because there are plums the rise and move the crust around.
- What happens on the surface is first what happens in the mantle

Magma is stiff when there is a lot silica content

- Causes volcanos to erupt very violently
- Make up of a large number of continental crust

Rift basin
- A crack the is widening and produces an ocean
- Failed rift
o Failed to become an ocean
▪ Filled in by settlements
▪ Cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Boston were built on failed rifts

Break-up of supercontinents are from Pangea

Computer generated diagram of Earth’s core

- Plumes float to the top and widen (creates oceans)
- A lot of convection

Hot spots
- A smaller plume
- Explains why there are so many small islands created (e.g. Hawaii)
- Fluid magma and basalt
- In fixed locations (Hot spots do no move around)
- Causes plate movement
o Creates a train of dead volcanos since the only thing that moves is the plate

Igneous Rocks
- Form from cooled and solidified magma
- Either at the earth’s surface (extrusive) or underground (intrusive or ‘plutonic’)
- Described by texture and chemical composition

Basalt – Oceanic crust

Granite & Andesite – Continental crust

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

Polymerization
- Where molecules are combined
- Silicate structure and its effects on magma viscosity

East Africa Rift Zone

- Triple junction
o Where the rifts begin to widen to create an ocean
o There is a prediction to see which arm will fail to become a failed rift

Triple junctions and aulacogens

- Failed rifts are preserved in modern continents from the break-up of Pangea
- At least two of the three arms will succeed

Intraplate means within.

The most active area in Canada is Western Quebec

Danakil Depression
- Severe climates on the planet
- Below sea level

Types of Lava
- Pahoehoe Lava
o Smooth looking
- Ropey Lava
- AA Lava
o Rough looking

Homo-Hablis
- Hablis meaning ‘handyman’
- Supposedly the first geologist

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

[LECTURE 5] – June 4, 2018

Adventures around Iceland.

NAF – North Anatolian fault

Cascading earthquakes
- Similar to opening a zip

Archaeozoology
- History of earthquakes
- Determining the frequency of Earthquakes

Petra, Jordan
- Buildings are carved into the rock

The depth of the ocean is used to measure ancient oceans.

Transform faults
- Rocks are sliding past each other
- Allows spreading to happen on a curved surface (shape of the earth)
- All underwater
- Iceland sits on top of a mantle plume (Icelandic plume)
o Hot rock right under the ice
▪ Volcano buried under ice and snow
o “Land of ice and fire”
o Can walk along the mid-ocean ridge
o Iceland is getting bigger every year since it’s being pushed apart
▪ North American plate and Eurasian plate moving apart
Icelandic plume North Atlantic Igneous province
- Position of plumes are fixed
- Rocks over the plume 70 million years ago have moved (Northwest)
o Moved to the left and divided
o Spreading centres
- Iceland is spreading (stretched)
o Moving towards the west
Fissures
- Site of crust
- Eruptions caused by magma that is under pressure
o Sulfur dioxide (smoke and ashes)
▪ Volcanic ash (tephra), very fine particles

Volcanic bombs – very, very fine particles

Magma erupting under water
- Common in Iceland

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

[LECTURE 6] – June 11, 2018

Death of Oceans
- “Pacific rim of fire”
o Pacific crust has been destroyed
▪ Taiwan earthquake (mega earthquake)
- Subduction

Why do oceans close (3 stages)?

1) East African Rift
2) Red Sea
3) Atlantic Ocean
- Outer margins of the ocean plate are dense and think and become too heavy and begin to
subduct back into the mantle creating a subduction zone (SZ).
- This consumes ocean floor crust faster than which it is being produced at the mid-ocean ridge
- This pulls continent towards closing ocean (green arrow) and eventually closes the ocean

A dead ocean
- Closure of the Tethys sea as Pangea breaks

Europe’s tallest mountain is composed of African crust.

- Caused by the collision of rocks

Folded rocks
- Marine fossils can be found inside these rocks

China is moving east since there are major faults.

Ophiolite
- Remnants of former oceanic crust and sediments that previously separated the two continents.
o Ancient ocean crusts
o Pillowed basalt

Mount Everest
- Yellow band
o Made up of limestones
- Rate of erosion and rate of uplift balance out
o The mountain no longer grows after the collision
o “Uplift hypothesis”

Saligram
- Sacred object
- Ammonite

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

Effects of an earthquake liquify sediments on the ground (liquefaction)

East pacific rise
- Brand new crust
- Parts of the floor of the ocean have disappeared (subduction)

1. Ocean crust vs. ocean crust produces ‘island arcs’ (subduction)

o E.g. Japan, Indonesia
2. Ocean crust vs. continental crust product ‘magnetic arcs’ (subduction)
o E.g. West coast N and 5 America
3. Oceanic continental crust simply slides past each other (transform)
o E.g. San Andreas Fault

1 and 2 create new continental crust, and 3 moves it around.

- Surrounding continents around the pacific are growing in size at the expense of the Pacific
Ocean (crust being recycled)
o Size of continents increases through geologic time

Stratovolcano
- They grow in size
- It looks like it’s going collapse
- Slight earthquake will produce a collapse

It’s hard to predict pyro classical flows of volcanos

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

[LECTURE 7] – June 25, 2018

Older oceanic plates are heavier and subduct easier.
Japan is subduction central
- Where 3 plates meet
o Pacific plate
o Philippine plate
o Eurasian plate
- Where most of the earthquakes happen and there are active volcanoes
o Major earthquakes of the last 1000 years
o Identify areas with epicentres and occurrence in the last 100 years
▪ Longer than 100 years with not earthquake (gap filling earthquake)
- Nobi earthquake of 1891
o Neodani fault
o Excavation zone where the fault lies
▪ 6 meters vertically and horizontally
- Great Kanto earthquake (google earthquake nation)
o Took place in Tokyo in 1923
o Created earthquake preparedness day
▪ Since major earthquakes happen every 100 years
- Deformation and slip during March 11, 2011
o Seafloor is uplifted
o Pacific plate is subducted underneath Japan

Recall: Chikyu (“The Earth”)

- Drills the ocean bed

Tide glacier
- Where ice slides down into sea level
- Steep gradient that acts as a wall
- Orographic mountains generate high levels of erosion

Uplifted deep sea rocks

- Shipwreck being lifted by the sea rocks
- Raised cliffs

Ghost forests
- Killed when the land subsided after a major earthquake
o Caused by salt water
o Or giant waves that kill the trees
o Also, a process of liquefaction
▪ Burial of ancient soil
- The greater the earthquake the greater the subsidence

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EESA06 – Introduction to Planet Earth

Summer 2018
LECTURE NOTES

Cascadia earthquake sources

- Subduction zones → M9, 500-600 yr.
- Deep Juan de Fuca plate → M7+, 30-50 yr.
- Crustal faults → M7+, Hundreds of yr?

Vancouver
- Airport is located on the Delta
- If an earthquake happens, this will affect infrastructure and disable the airport
- White rock
o Relatively safe during an earthquake

San Francisco
- “Awaiting the big one”
- Strike slip or transform plate margin
o San Andreas fault
- Most damage of the major earthquake was done by fire and not the quake itself
- Buildings subsided into the ground (buildings sinking)
- Stadium splitting and moving in different directions
o Benches cracking and splitting in the stadium
- Jordan Hall
o Agassi statue (dived into the ground during the earthquake)
- Hollister, Ca is where the San Andreas fault keeps on creeping

Chile
- Known as a continentally skinny looking country
- Uplift of Chilean coastline
o A wedge hitting under the continent to lift the land
- Cobija, devastated by a Tsunami in 1877
- Concepcion earthquake of 1835 witness by Charles Darwin
- Lascar Volcano: most active volcano
o Magma does not flow very far (high silica content)
o Thick magma causes the Volcano to choke on itself and explode
- Volcanos are dangerous but useful
o Mining porphyry copper from long dead volcanoes
o Rocks filled with copper
- Chuquicamata open pit in northern Chile, largest mining site
- Chaiten volcano
o Also has magma containing high silica
o Caldera, massive eruption from old volcano
o Produced a large ash plume
- Town of Chaiten devasted by a Lahar in 2008

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