Lava lamp Introduction

We will consider all spheres of Earth

Lithosphere – Rock – Geology

Atmosphere – Air - Meteorology & Climatology
Hydrosphere – Water – Oceanography
Biosphere – Life - Biology
http://www.hcsi.com/im_lib/space/geosna.jpg

Our goal is to understand interactions between spheres

First, we must agree on a method of work
 Scientific Method
• Hypothetico-deductive framework

• Hypotheses have testable consequences

• We test hypotheses to try to falsify them

1934 Popper Logic of
Scientific Discovery
• Karl Popper
Falsification
http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/
 biography of

Book: The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions (1962)

• Paradigm shifts
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle

An example: The earth’s orbit

• The Greek philosophers including Aristotle (
384 BC - 322 BC ) observed the Sun rising in
the east and setting in the west and inferred that
the Sun revolved around Earth in a geocentric
(Earth-centered) orbit.
Galileo's Letter to the Prince of Venice

http://www.mira.org/fts0/planets/099/text/txt002x.htm
 Aristotle’s model is wrong
Europa
Io
• Galileo’s observations of the orbits of Jupiter’s four largest satellites
revealed that the Aristotle-Ptolemy model is unbelievable

• Objects that do not orbit the Earth

• We now know that the planets, including the Earth, orbit the Sun

Callisto

Ganymede

http://www.hcsi.com/im_lib/imlib_space.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/jupiter/moons.shtml
 A new law
 Isaac Newton (1665) discovered the force that
held the planets in their orbits around the sun -
gravity.
 gravitation, "every body in the universe attracts
every other body.“
 Force = mass x acceleration = ma
 Gravitational Force = gm1m2/r2 identify symbols
Both orbit, but …

 Sun is much more massive, appears to

hold still while the earth orbits around it.
 We will see “g” again
 How Far Away?
• We use the speed of light to indicate distance – light
years 9460 billion kilometers

• Nearby Cepheids (variable stars) maximum brightness

varies with period

• Measure apparent brightness and get distance

of far away Cepheids

• Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is 100,000 light years

across (diameter)
Continuous, Emission and
Absorption Spectra

White light contains a continuum of colors from short wave violet to long wave red

Hot, dense materials emit discrete "emission" spectra Hydrogen

When light with a continuous spectrum passes through a

cold, rarefied gas, an absorption spectrum results.
Each gas absorbs the same wavelengths that it emits when it is hot.

The spectrum of the light from our Sun is an Absorption spectrum.

Helium
Redshift: absorption spectra shift to
red with retreat of the emitter

Analogy: Passing train whistle, high to low frequency = short to long wavelength
“Doppler Effect”
 Blue, moving toward us

Very distant objects aren’t just

single stars, those are galaxies
of stars! Hubble: What if their
colors reflect their speed and
direction?
Red, very distant, moving away fast

Hubble Space Telescope

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble

The Hubble Redshift

• Hubble discovered that the most distant
galaxies with Cepheids had their light
shifted to the red end of the spectrum. This
meant that they are moving away from us.
• Hubble: Turn this into a Very
new redyardstick:
and far object the
redder the shift, the further the galaxy
• Result: the edge of the universe (furthest
objects we can detect) is approximately 15
billion light years away.
http://skyserver.sdss.org/astro/en/proj
/advanced/hubble/conclusion.asp
 Origin of the Universe
 The spectral shift of light coming from distant
galaxies tells us that the universe is expanding
out of a very small volume that began at most
15 billion years ago

 Estimates vary according to method

 The universe expanded from a state of pure

energy, hydrogen atoms condensed from
energy in a process called nucleosynthesis
E=mc2
 Origin of the Elements
• Very small volume expands “Big Bang”
• A few minutes energy cools to form H
• Hydrogen gas clouds condensed to form
main sequence stars.
• H fuses to form He and heavier atoms
• “Main sequence stars” form Oxygen and
Carbon.
Water = 2 Hydrogen + 1 Oxygen

H2O
Symbols for elements
 Origin of Heavy Elements
• A star more than 8-20 times the mass of
our sun burns faster, then expands into a
red super giant star, similar to Betelgeuse.
• Pressure is high enough to also produce
the heavier elements including silicon Si,
magnesium Mg, iron Fe.
• Once its fuel is exhausted,
a supernova explosion occurs.
http://www.solarviews.com/cap/ds/betelgeuse.htm
 8 Most rocks are Main Sequence Stars
14 made of these two

Super Giant
Stars
 Origin of Our Solar System

• Our solar system with its abundant

collection of heavier elements condensed
from the gas cloud left after the explosion
of a supernova.
Supernova ejects matter-rich
pressure waves into space

Local concentrations of dust

coalesce

Balance between gravity

and solar wind
During coalescence: 1. Rub your hands together.
Particles assemble 1_7 Motion (“kinetic”) energy
due to gravity – Planetesimals is converted to heat.
strike growing
heat up Earth

Iron melts and

begins to sink
Lighter materials
DIFFERENTIATION
concentrate
closer to surface
Crust and
mantle
Liquid
core
The moon formed
Atmosphere after a Mars-sized
Crust planet hit earth,
Mantle about 4.6 bya
Outer core
We got most of the
Inner core core material in the
exchange
 Earth’s Internal Structure

• Earth’s internal layers defined by

– Chemical composition
– Physical properties
– Deduced from Seismographs of Earthquakes
– Meteorites lend support

• Layers defined by composition

– Crust
– Mantle
– Core
Iron-Nickel Meteorite
 Earth’s internal structure
• Main layers of Earth are based on physical properties including mechanical strength

• Outer layers mostly Silicate Minerals: Crust and Mantle

• Lithosphere (behaves like a brittle solid)
Crust and uppermost mantle
• Asthenosphere “weak sphere”
Rest of Upper Mantle
Heat softened, plastic solid
• Lower Mantle
Solid due High Pressures

• Inner Layers Core Iron and Nickel,

outer core hotter than melting point - liquid,
inner core solid due to high pressures
 CRUST
(least dense) Continental crust
Upper mantle
1_8 Oceanic crust
Note progression of densities
Oil and water MANTLE 0 km Lithosphere
~100 km
Lower mantle ~350 km Asthenosphere

CORE
(most dense)
Outer ~2900 km
core

Conversion Factors
~5155 km
Inner
core 6370 kilometers to the center of the Earth

6370 km x 5 miles/8 km = 3981.25 miles

Earth has a radius of about 4000 miles

 Liquid Outer Core causes
Magnetic Field

“Lithosphere”

“Asthenosphere”

Earth has a large liquid outer core, makes a magnetic field, and so a thick atmosphere
 The Magnetic Field protects the
Atmosphere. The Atmosphere
protects Earth from most meteors

Origin of magnetic field: the liquid outer core

 An Important Magnetic Field

A magnetic field once surrounded Mars. The red planet lost its protective
magnetic field as the smaller planet cooled down more rapidly than Earth,
losing its hot liquid core. Mars retains just isolated remnants of its atmosphere
where pockets of relict magnetism remain.
 A Perfect Spot
 Earth's distance from the Sun allows water to exist as a
liquid.

 The biosphere of Earth has moderated the composition of

the atmosphere to make it more suitable for life. Vegetation
absorbed large volumes of carbon dioxide and produced
oxygen O2 and Ozone O3.

 Earth's atmospheric gases protect the planet from all but

the largest incoming space projectiles (comets, meteorites)
and ozone blocks harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun
 The Geothermal Gradient
 The temperature gradient in the crust averages
approximately 25oC per kilometer.
 Varies with location (higher in areas of volcanic
activity) and depth
 Shows the interior of the planet is much hotter
than the exterior.
 Volcanism an indication that heat is being
transferred from the interior toward the surface.
 Heat transfer occurs by convection, radiation
and conduction. (define)
 From the Asteroid Belt to Earth
• The gravitational attraction of Jupiter , or
passing comets, jostles asteroids from
their asteroid belt orbits causing collisions
• Sends asteroids toward the inner planets.

Barrington Crater
Winslow, Arizona

• Impacts with earth, moon and terrestrial

planets have left scars that can still be
observed today
Comets – dirty snowballs – are jostled loose from the Oort Cloud and fall toward the Sun

A Dirty Comet Impact in 1908 -- No Crater

2100 km2 flattened

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

The Tunguska Event

• Had the object responsible for the
explosion hit the Earth a few hours later, it
would have exploded over Europe (most
probably Scandinavia) instead of the
sparsely-populated Tunguska region,
producing massive loss of human life and
changing the course of human history
 K-T Mass Extinction -  Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction
A Crisis in the History of Life claimed dinosaurs, flying reptiles,
marine reptiles, and many marine
invertebrates
 Chicxulub impact structure on
the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
65 mya this event placed dust in the atmosphere
and started fires that killed 70% of all species

The dust is found in a thick layer worldwide, and forms the K|T boundary
the boundary between the Age of Reptiles and the Age of Mammals.

Gravity Map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater
The K\T ash layer in Alberta

Shocked Quartz

Luis and Walter Alvarez

 The consequences of a Chicxulub
• Powerful air blast flattens everything for thousands of
square kilometers
• Massive earthquake 100 to 1000 x greater than historical
times
• Deep crater 10-20 x object diameter
• Massive plume of dust into atmosphere.
blocking sunlight
• Lower temperatures and a short-term cooling trend.
• Earth in darkness prevents photosynthesis for the next
year.
• Vegetation would not survive
• Colossal wildfires that would add smoke to the rapidly
darkening skies.
• Giant tsunami waves with heights up to 2 miles) would be
possible from a Chicxulub-sized event in the deep ocean.
 NASA's
annual
budget for
detection of
NEOs:
$3 million

One
superfund
cleanup
$21 million

The End of the Age of Reptiles

65 million Years Ago
Okay, that’s enough background. During WWII ships with depth sounders crisscrossed the earth’s oceans

The Geology Paradigm

What is That?
 Continental drift: An
idea
before its time

• Alfred Wegener
• Proposed hypothesis in 1915
• Published The Origin of
Continents and Oceans
• Continental drift hypothesis
• Supercontinent Pangaea began breaking
apart about 200 million years ago
South American and African
Coastlines Fit
Fossils, mountain ranges, glaciers
 Harry Hess
The revolution begins

• During the 1940s and 1950s technological

advances permitted mapping of the ocean
floor. Hess was captain of a minesweeper
with sonar. Left it on all WWII.
• Seafloor spreading hypothesis was
proposed by Harry Hess in the early 1960s.
http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/earth/p_hess.html

Remember Arthur Holmes

Convection, the basic idea of Plate Tectonics, Atmospheric Cells, and Ocean Currents

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~io/Bubble.html

Start with a hot bubble,

it expands and so is
less dense. It rises as
surrounding dense
material presses on it,
especially at deeper,
higher pressure,
levels. When it hits a
barrier it spreads,
cools and becomes
denser. It sinks and
returns material to the
start.

Bubble Convection ( i.e. the lava lamp model)

 1_20

Harry’s Idea:
Sea-Floor
Mid-ocean
Spreading ridge

Convection cells in the hot mantle hit the

lithosphere barrier. They spread out and cool,
pulling the lithosphere apart. New lava gets into the
cracks, filling the gap, and FORMING NEW
OCEAN CRUST!
 How Can We Test Harry’s Hypothesis?
Some mineral crystals in
solidifying lava align
with Earth’s magnetic
field. Tilt tells latitude.

Earth’s North –South

Poles can flip. Tilt will
change direction

New lava rock will have

the signature of the
magnetic field when it
froze
Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews: Harry’s idea is A TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS
Paleomagnetic reversals would be recorded
by lava (called basalt) at mid-ocean ridges
New lava rock will have the
signature of the magnetic
field when it froze
Maps of Magnetic Stripes in Oceanic Crust
Princeton PostDoc Fred Vine
and Drummond Matthews

Did they prove Harry’s idea?

Harry Hess’s Seafloor Spreading developed into
Plate tectonics: The new paradigm
• More encompassing theory than
Wegener’s continental drift
• Explains motion of Earth’s lithosphere
by seafloor spreading (creation of new
ocean floor) and subduction (destruction
of old ocean floor)
• All major earth features are explained
 The Asthenosphere boils, like soup. This moves the cold Lithosphere PLATES above

Lithosphere is "the scum floating

on top of the boiling soup"

Here we see Divergent Margins (the Atlantic Mid-Ocean Ridge – Harry’s Sea-Floor
Spreading) and
Convergent Margins (the dense Pacific Ocean Plate is being dragged under South
America – called subduction zones )
 Continental Lithosphere

Oceanic Lithosphere

Asthenosphere

Subduction Zone
 Divergent Boundaries (Rising Convection Currents) Mid-Ocean Ridge
Convergent Boundaries
(Descending Convection Currents)
Subduction Zone

Mantle material rises, ponds under the lithosphere,

spreads, pulls the lithosphere apart. Mantle minerals
exposed to low pressures. Some mantle minerals are unstable at low pressures.
They melt, forming lavas, which get into the cracks, and cool into basalt,
the main rock of ocean lithosphere.
 180º 90º 0º 90º 180º

Mid-Atlantic
Ridge
1_15

45º 45º
NORTH EURASIAN
AMERICAN PLATE
JUAN DE PLATE
FUCA PACIFIC
PLATE ARABIAN PLATE
PLATE
PHILIPPINE
CARIBBEAN
PLATE
PLATE
AFRICAN
0º COCOS PLATE 0º
PLATE
FIJI
SOUTH
PLATE
AMERICAN
PLATE INDIAN-
PACIFIC NAZCA
PLATE AUSTRALIAN
PLATE
PLATE
Mid-Atlantic
SCOTIA
PLATE
Ridge
45º 45º

ANTARCTIC PLATE
ANTARCTIC PLATE

180º 90º 0º 90º 180º

Convergent plate
boundary Seven or so major plates, about an equal number of small plates
Divergent plate
boundary
Transform plate
boundary
 Components of Plate Tectonics: there are three main types of plate margins
Divergent, Convergent and Transform

Each plate bounded by combination of all

three boundary types
Divergent boundaries are located
mainly along Mid-Ocean Ridges
(MORs)
 The East African Rift

MORs can start

as rift valleys, the
dry land precursor
of mid-ocean
ridges.

Soon enough they

connect to the
sea, and flood,
forming a new
ocean
 Convergent Plate Boundaries
If Seafloor Spreading (Divergence) is occurring somewhere,
plates must push against one another in other areas

E NTA L PLATE
CONTIN
E
I NE NTA L P LA T
CONT Oceanic lithosphere
being subducted

(a)
Subducted Ocean Plate loses water and adjacent Mantle partially
melts, new buoyant magma rises to the surface, forming a
Volcanic Arc such as the Andes Mountains of South America
 Once the ocean crust between them is subducted, the continents collide.
Both are thick and made of buoyant (low density) minerals, so neither
continent can be subducted under the other
Collisional
mountains

Rocks deformed in collision Suture

(b)
Collisions formed the Appalachians, and, more recently,
the Himalayas and the Alps.
 The collision of India and Asia
produced the Himalayas

1. Subduction Zone Phase 2. Collision Phase

Convergent Boundaries
Types
Products
Ocean-Continent
Andes, Cascades

Ocean-Ocean
Japan, Aleutians
Favorite quiz picture

Asia
India Continent-Continent
Himalayas, Alps,
Appalachians
 Transform
Plate
Boundaries

Transform Margins accommodate movement

as plates slide past one another, for example
the San Andreas Fault and between Mid-
Ocean Ridge segments
 Plate Tectonics Explains It All
• The Plate Tectonic concept caused the
realization that Earth’s many geologic features
were all caused by the same process.

• We now understand mountains, volcanoes, and

big earthquakes associated with, for example,
the San Andreas fault.

• We understand rift valleys and how oceans form,

deep ocean trenches, mid-ocean ridges, and
why fossils and mountain ranges look alike
across vast oceans.