EARTH AND LIFE SCIENCE

TARRA ANGELA Y. GARSULA

CORE SUBJECT DESCRIPTION

 This learning area is designed to provide a general

background for the understanding of Earth Science and
Biology. It presents the history of the Earth through
geologic time. It discusses the Earth’s structure,
composition, and processes. Issues, concerns and problems
pertaining to natural natural hazards are also included. It
also deals with the basic principles and the processes in the
study of biology. It covers life processes and interactions at
the cellular, organism, population and ecosystem levels.
At the end of the class you should:

 recognize the uniqueness of Earth, being the only

planet in the solar syatem with properties necessary to
support life.
 explain that the Earth consists of four subsystems,
across whose boundaries matter and energy flow.
 identify commom rock-forming minerals using their
physical and chemical properties.
FORMATION OF THE
UNIVERSE
 COSMOLOGY- the understanding of the origin, evolution,
structure and fate of the universe.
 GEOLOGY- the study of earth, the materials of which it is
made, the structure of those materials, and the processes
acting upon them. It includes the study of organisms that have
inhabited our planet.
FORMATION OF THE
UNIVERSE (THEORIES)
BIG BANG THEORY

 massive explosion around 13.7 billion years ago (age of the

universe)
 In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was the first to
propose that the universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom.
 Origin of the Solar System and
Earth
The Nebular Hypothesis

suggests that the bodies of our solar system formed from an
enormous nebular cloud composed mostly of hydrogen and helium
with only a small percentage of the heavier elements.
nebula – a vast cloud of dust and gases
SUMMARY: Cloud spins, contracts under gravity  flattened disk 
Concentration of matter in center  proto sun (most of mass, 99.85%)
 Dense concentration of H and He at center  fusion  Hydrogen
burning, He produced  Source of sun's energy  Collisions of
particles of dust and gas in disk  protoplanets Continued impacts
enlarge planets  Heat of sun drove off H and He from inner planets
(weak gravity)
TERRESTRIAL PLANETS
Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars
• They’re made up mostly
of heavy metals such as
iron and nickel,
• have either no moons or
few moons
• No rings
 JOVIAN PLANETS
• huge planets swaddled in
gas, have rings
• all of plenty of moons each Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune
• Despite their size, only two
of them are visible without
telescopes: Jupiter and
Saturn

• Uranus and Neptune were the first planets discovered since

antiquity, and showed astronomers the solar system was
bigger than previously thought.
EARTH AS A UNIQUE PLANET
 Earth is one special planet.

 It has liquid water, plate tectonics, and an

atmosphere that shelters it from the worst of
the sun's rays.
 Water World

 To enable life, this most special of attributes, planet Earth

has a number of ideal features. It is unique among planets
in our solar system for having water in its liquid form at
the surface, in an amount conducive to life evolving.
 "The Earth is remarkable for its precisely-tuned amount of
water, not too much to cover the mountains, and not so
little that it's a dry desert, as are Mars and Venus, our
'sister' planets,"Geoffrey Marcy.
Goldilocks planet

 Our planet's Goldilocks-like "just right" location in the solar system

has helped, as has its system of plate tectonics, the slip-sliding
movements of Earth's crust that are thought to have created the
planet's towering mountain ranges and plummeting ocean depths.
 The presence of our big brother planet, Jupiter, farther out in the solar
system blocking Earth from much of the incoming debris, has also
helped Earth become a safe haven for life. Jupiter acts like a giant
broom, sweeping the solar system of debris rocks as small as cars and
as huge as moons that could snuff out life in one fatal blow.
A friendly moon

 Earth's moon stabilizes our planet's rotation, preventing drastic

movements of the poles that could cause massive changes in climate
that some scientists think could have doomed any chance for budding
life to form or evolve.

 The moon also helpfully pulls the ocean's tides, which scientists
suggest might have been the perfect place for early life to begin
evolving to survive on land.
EARTH SYSTEM
About 70% of the Earth is covered with liquid water (hydrosphere) and much of it is
in the form of ocean water
Only 3% of Earth's water is fresh: two-thirds are in the form of ice, and the
remaining one-third is present in streams, lakes, and groundwater.
The lithosphere includes the rocks of the crust and mantle,
the metallic liquid outer core, and the solid metallic inner
core
EARTH'S LAYERS
 CRUST
 Great variety of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.
 Composed of oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium,sodium, potassium &
magnesium.

1. OCEANIC CRUST
 5-1OKM thick
composed primarily of basalt, diabase, and gabbro.
denser than continental crust
mafic composition
density about 3.0 g/cm3
2. Continental crust
30 to 50km thick
composed of less dense
rocks, such as granite.
avg. rock density about
2.7g/cm3
felsic composition
Mineral
 Naturally Occurring
 Inorganic
 Definite Chemical Compo-
sition
 Order Crystalline Structure
 Solid Substance
Ore
a naturally occurring solid material
from which a metal or valuable
mineral can be profitably extracted.
How Minerals Form
Crystallization from magma
Precipitation
Pressure and Temperature
Hydrothermal Solutions