Lesson 2 Flashcards
What did James Ussher
- used the Bible to predict the beginning of Earth
- said Earth had a beginning date at 9 am on 4004 BC
- to the Christian imagination, the Earth was 6000 BC
- > mountains were made on the third day
- > the same that that the polar zones are frozen and the tropics were warmed
Who is Thomas Burnet
- did not think biblical explanations accounted for the creation of the World
- > did not believe the Great Flood of the Bible accounted for the creation of the World
- sets forth his theory of the Mundane Egg
- > immediately after creation, the Earth was unblemished without hills
- > it was flawless in appearance and uniform in texture
- > it had a complicated inner structure, the fiery core(yolk)
- > the white of the egg is the water filled abyss onto which the shell floated
- for Burnett, the action of the Sun cracked out the Earth’s crust, letting water come out of the crust
- > the water ripped out onto the world and caused massive floods
-his book was the The sacred theory of the Earth
What did Georges Buffon estimate the Earth to be
- 75,000 years ago
- > but even he said that was conservative
- he turned each of the seven Biblical days of creation into an epoch of indefinite length
- > created the space and time necessary for geologists to begin their work of exposing a deep history for the Earth
- > all the while staying within the bounds of Biblical scripture
What was the two schools of thinking for geologists at the beginning of the eighteen hundredths
Catastrophism
- > history of the Earth was dominated by major geological revolutions
- > eg; ice, fire, comets, earthquakes
- > drastic tidal waves, global tsunamis, severe earthquakes and volcanos, the passing of comets shaped the earth surface into its present disruption
Uniformitarianism
- > the Earth has not had a global catostrophy
- > earthquakes yes, volcanoes yes
- > the change was there but the change was slow
- > did not happy over night
- > these phenomena like earthquakes and volcanoes rearranged the Earth within their own vicinity
- > “the present is the key to the past”
What was the Grand Tour and who was the chaperone for it
- it was one of the earliest forms of modern tourism from the 17 th and 18 th century
- > it was a rite of passage for many young English and European elites to polish off their formal education by exposing themselves to continental architecture and to geography, history and culture
- > the tour required a crossing of the European Alps
-Burnet was the chaperone for the Grand Tour
What the biblical key to the Earth’s appearance
- it was the Great Flood
- > a biblical story of a flood so great that it destroyed civilization
- > but where on Earth could all that water come from
- Burnet concluded that it would take 8 oceans of water
- > a mere 40 days of rain, as it says in the Genesis, could hardly provide enough water to even lap at the feet of most mountains
Who wrote the Principles of Geology
- Charles Lyell did
- >he was a Scottish geologist
What is so special about the Burgess Shale
- this is the site of the world’s first protected complex marine ecosystem
- > it is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site
- > remnants of an ancient sea floor can still be found among the highest peaks
- most fossil deposits in the world preserve hard parts of animals like shells and bones and teeth
- > the Burgess Shale preserves the soft tissues of organisms
What was Wegener’s contributions to the theory of mountains
- he said continents move
- he also believed that the continents were all part of one continent, named Pangaea at one point in time
- for proof, Wegener said that the continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle
- > he also had proof of comparative fossil specimens and climactic evidence
When was Wegener’s theory of continental drift recognized
- in the 1950’s
- >with advances in the study of Earth’s magnetic field
What is the basis of plate tectonics on Eath
- that the Earth’s surface is broken up into several rigid plates
- > these plates are made up of the Earth’s crust and the upper part of the mantle layer underneath
What is the litrosphere
- the crust and the upper mantle are called the litrosphere
- plates gilde on the more ductile asthenosphere
What are the two kinds of crust are the litrospheric plates comprised of
-they are comprised of either continental or oceanic crust or both
How do ocean plates compare to continental plates
- ocean plates are thinner
- > often less than 100 km thick
- > but they are denser than continental plates
-continental plates are roughly 150 km to 200 km thick
At what rate do plates move
- each plate moves in various direction at rates of one to ten centimeters per year
- > the driving force behind the slow, relentless movement is the convection in the mantle
- > hot material near the Earth’s core rises and cold mantle rock sinks
- where the plates pull apart, new volcanic materials fill the void
- > hot magma wells up at these divergent plate boundaries, forming new crust and further shoving the plates apart
What is the largest and best known undersea mountain range
- it is the Mid Atlantic Ridge
- > which extends north/south for several thousand kilometers
- > this is roughly parallel to the coastlines of Europe, Africa and the Americas
