Cenozoic
Era
Quaternary Period - 2.5
million years ago (man)
Tertiary Period - 65 million years
ago (grazing and carnivorous mammals)
Cretaceous Period - 136
million years ago (primates, flowering plants)
Jurassic Period - 195 million
years ago (birds)
Triassic Period - 225 million
years ago (dinosaurs, mammals)
Paleozoic
Era
Permian Period - 280 million
years ago
Carboniferous Pennsylvanian
Period - 320 million years ago (reptiles)
Carboniferous Mississippian
Period - 345 million years ago (fern forests)
Devonian Period - 395 million
years ago (amphibians, insects)
Silurian Period - 430 million
years ago (vascular land plants)
Ordovician Period - 500
million years ago (fish)
Cambrian Period - 570 million
years ago (shellfish)
Precambrian
Era (algae, cells)
Formation
of the Earth - 4.65 billion years ago
Igneous:
made of molten material (magma, which comes to the surface as lava)
Falsic (contains feldspar
and quartz)
Grantie: contains large
quartz and feldspar particles
Rhyloite: small-grain
granite
Mafic (contains magnesium
and iron)
Gabbro: contains large
pyroxene and olivine crystals
Basalt: the most common
volcanic rock
Metamorphic:
rocks that have been changed by high temperature or pressure
Mica: minerals aligned
perpendicular to maximum pressure
Slate: fine, thin layers
caused by foliation at low pressure
Schist: coarse foliation at
medium pressure
Gneiss: very coarse
foliation at high pressure
Sedimentary:
rocks formed when loose fragments harden
Clastic: form from broken
fragments of current rocks
Sandstone: made from sand
Shale: made from mud
Chemical: formed when
minerals precipitate from solution; evaporites
Gypsum: used in plaster and
wallboard
Halite: used in table salt
Organic: made from animal
and plant remains
Limestone: made from calcium
carbonate of coral and shellfish skeletons
Coal: made from swamp plant
remains
Hematite
Fe2O3
Magnetite
Fe3O4
Bauxite
Al2O3
Cassiterite
SnO2
Periclase
MgO
Silica
SiO2
Iron
pyrites FeS2
Cinnabar
HgS
Rock
salt NaCl
Sylvite
KCl
Carnallite
KCl*MgCl2
Limestone
CaCO3
Magnesite
MgCO3
Dolomite
MgCO3*CaCO3
Gypsum
CaSO4*2H2O
Epsom
salts MgSO4*7H2O
Barite
BaSO4
Steel:
iron and 0.8% carbon and 0.5% manganese
Brass:
copper and zinc
Bronze:
copper and tin
Amalgams:
include mercury
Aristotle's
student Theophrastus wrote an essay about stones.
Georgius
Agricola (Saxon, 1556) wrote De Re Metallica.
James Ussher (English, 1600s) estimated from the
Bible that the Earth is 6000 years old.
Comte de Buffon (French, 1700s) estimated from iron
ball cooling rates that the Earth is 75,000 years old.
James Hutton (English, 1700s) formulated
uniformitarian theory, and is known as the father of geology.
Charles Lyell (Scottish, 1800s) advocated
uniformitarianism and wrote Principles of Geology.
Georges Cuvier (French, 1800s) advocated
catastrophism.
Alfred Wegener (German, 1912) proposed Continental
Drift and the Pangaea supercontinent, which split
into
Laurasia and Gondwanaland.
Eduard Seuss (Austrian, 1900s) named Gondwanaland.
Vine and Matthews (British, 1900s) proposed their
magnetic stripes hypothesis.
J. Tuzo Wilson (Canadian) and Jason Morgan
(American) proposed plate tectonics in the 1960s, saying that
lithosphere
plates move over less rigid asthenosphere and sink at subduction zones.
The Law of Superposition states that more recent
fossils are in layers of Earth closer to the surface.
Stratigraphy is the study of the Earth's crust, and
biostratigraphy studies it through fossils.