CHAPTER 1 – PLANETARY EVOLUTION - A German with a pen name

“Agricola”
- Ridiculed the views of Aristotle
Geology – the science of earth; synthesis - Stones, gems, and metals originate
of the natural sciences: astronomy, biology, from some action of the stars
chemistry, mathematics, and physics. - Set forth his ideas based on
personal observation of the earth’s
Kanchenjunga – one of the highest
crust
mountains in the world (28,000 ft)
- Recognized and explained the class
Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C) of rocks – sedimentary
- He broke the fetters of
- delay the birth of Geology. Aristotelian reliance on mystical
- Incarnation of arbitrary dictum guesses.
- “Earthquake weather”- agitated by
central fires until, in escaping Modern geology was born in 1788
violently, it shakes the earth in an
earthquake. James Hutton
- All things in nature were
composed of fire, air, earth, and - “The present is the key to the
water. past”
- Rocks are formed under the - Processes such as weathering,
undefined “influence” of sun and erosion, volcanism, and
stars. sedimentation have operated
- Earth is a mere shell surrounding similarly in the past.
central fires - “No vestige of a beginning”
- Volcanoes are safety valves
through which excess heat from William “Strata” Smith (England), George
these fires is occasionally vented. Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart
- Earthquakes are caused by an (France)
excess of air crowding into earth
locally-leaning the atmosphere - Unique groups of fossils
deficient and causing “earthquake characterize the rocks of a particular
weather” time and can be used to correlate
- De Respiratione “A great many rocks from place to place.
fishes live in the earth motionless
are found when excavations are 1898- Discovery of Radioactivity by the
made” Curies
- Fish lived and died in the rock in - Started the development of another
which they were found. major tool used in bringing geology
to where we find it today.
Shakespeare
- Had Aristotle at his elbow in Henry Hindu Chronology – the earth is 2 Billion
IV years old.

Bauer James Ussher

 - An Irish Bishop who specialized in Geophysics
Biblical chronology in the 17th
century - “physics of the earth”
- The world was created in the year - Studies earth’s structure,
4004 B.C. composition, and development

Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) Mineralogy

- World-famed British physicist
- Earth has been cooling steadily
since it solidified from a molten
state.
- 1862 announced that earth is
probably no older than 400
million years younger than 20
million years.
- Later narrowed at 40 million years.
No rocks have been found that are older
than 3 billion years. Earth is estimated to
be 5 billion years old
Geochemistry
- “science of minerals”
- Deals with crystal shapes, physical
and chemical properties,
classification, and identification.
- Specializes in gems and precious
stones
Oceanography
- “science of the oceans”
- Includes subjects such as ocean
boundaries and bottom topography,
the physics and chemistry of water,
currents, and many phases of
marine biology.

- “chemistry of the earth” Paleontology

- Geology that involves chemical
changes
- Studies the relative and absolute
abundance of the elements and their
isotopes in the earth in the
distribution and movements of
elements in various parts of the
atmosphere, oceans, and crust.
- Connected to mining metallic ores,
gas, oil, and radioactive minerals
Geomorphology
- The “science of ancient life”
- Deals with animal and plant life of
past geologic ages, and is based on
the study of fossils.
Petrology
- The “science of rocks”
- The study of natural history of rocks,
including their origin, present
condition, changes, and decay.

- “form of the earth” Seismology

- Treats of surface features of the
globe, their form, nature, origin, and - “science of earthquakes”
development, as well as the - Concerned with the cause,
changes they are undergoing. distribution, and effects of
- Breaking down rocks to soil and earthquakes.
supply sediments to the sea
- Dating of archaeological sites. THE ORIGIN OF THE EARTH
There is a strong astronomical evidence
that Earth is not much older than 12 billion
years.
Any theory about the evolution of our
planetary system must explain certain
striking characteristics:
1. The planets all move in the same
direction and very nearly in the same
plane as the earth’s orbit.
2. Their orbital paths around the sun
are nearly circular
3. Almost all the planets rotate on their
axes in the same direction in which
they revolve about the sun
4. Most of them have moons or
satellites which usually revolve
about the planet in the plane of its
rotation and in the same direction
Horsehead Nebula
- A cloud of interstellar material similar
to the one from which our solar
system is believed to have formed
Nebular Hypothesis
- The most widely accepted model in
the field of cosmogony to explain the
formation and evolution of the Solar
System. It suggests the Solar
System is formed from gas and dust
orbiting the Sun.
Dust Cloud Theory
- The theory begins with the
assumption that in this universe
there are many scattered clouds of
the same type. One of these clouds
underwent a process of compression
that occurred about 5 billion years
ago. As the compression process
takes place, the dust particles are
attracted to the center of the cloud,
forming a spherical clump that
begins to twist.With time, the gas
lump began to flatten and form a
thick disk in the center
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE
The generally held theory is that the
groups that appeared in the Cambrian
really arose slowly and well back in the Pre-
Cambrian, but that the earlier forms has no
shells or other hard parts to be preserved
Phyla known as fossils appear in the
Cambrian.
30 million years ago, our ancestor was
something like a primitive apes
60 million years ago, they are something
like a tree shrew.
Simple, small, soft-bodied animals of
several basic types had probably existed in
the Pre-Cambrian for a long time.
Pre-Cambrian
- The marvels of the origin of life and
the development of the cell and
cellular organisms had been
wrought.
400 million years ago – the first
vertebrates appeared and lived in the sea
200 million years ago – Dinosaurs ruled
the earth for a time and disappeared 70
million years ago and then mammals took
over.
1 million years ago – The earliest man
appeared
Amphioxus
- Remains in a general way an
approximate structural ancestor for
the vertebrates.
- Little sea lancelet which lives in the
shallow waters along certain tropical
coasts.
- Translucent animal of fishlike form
more than 2 inches in length.
Pre-Cambrian
- Longest portion of the earth’s history
- Extending through more than 2,500
million years of time.

Cambrian
- 60 -90 million years.
- Fossils first appeared in the
abundance of rocks which can be
dated as about 500 million years old.
- Animals were highly organized; with
hard parts capable of fossilization.

THREE GREAT ERAS OF EARTH

HISTORY

Paleozoic Era (Time of Ancient life)

- All the major groups of fishes
appeared by this time.
- The first land-living vertebrates, the
amphibians, made their appearance
as descendants of certain advanced
fishes.

Mesozoic Era (The Period of Middle life)

- Dinosaurs became the dominant
animals on the land; ruled earth for
more than 100 million years.
- Before the dinosaurs become
extinct, two other groups of
vertebrates arose from reptilian
ancestors; birds and mammals.
- By the end of Mesozoic Era, birds
had become highly specialized.

Cenozoic Era (The time of recent life)

- New opportunities were opened to
early mammals.
- The reign of the reptiles was at an
end, and the Age of Mammals
began.
- The age of intellect