Class 2: Chapter 1
Class 2: Chapter 1
COMPLETE WORKSHEET
Earth’s energy sources
Internal heat Sun
• Remaining from the • Drives the atmosphere,
Earth’s formation hydrosphere, weather
• Decay of radioactive and climate
particles
• Influences movement of
tectonic plates
• Provides energy for
volcanic eruptions and
earthquakes
The Scientific Method
• How new ideas are developed
• The natural world behaves in a consistent
and predictable manner.
• A hypothesis or multi hypotheses are
proposed, observations or data prove or
disprove
• Ideas evolve with new information
• Most every overview or concept presented in
this class is the result of many scientist’s
work using the scientific method.
History of geology as a science
• New hypothesis and theories alter the
evaluation of data
– Theory of plate tectonics
– Uniformitariansim versus catastrophism
Ideas evolve with new
information
James Hutton: father of geology
• Scottish
engineer/farmer
• 1785
• Observed that Earth’s
processes are slow
• Uniformitarianism:
geologic processes
that occur today also
occurred in the past
• The present is the key
to the past
Who cares? Why the big
deal???
His observations, descriptions,
hypotheses, and theories went
against the accepted philosophies
of the time.
18th century Europe was strongly
influenced by the Christian Church
• Bishop Usher
• Calculated the Earth’s
age by adding the ages in
the Bible
• Irish Archbishop
• 1654
• 4004 CE
• Catastrophism: Earth
formed by biblical type
events
William Whewell
• Earth history also
contains catastrophic
events
• 1850
• Catastrophism
Geological ideas were based
on the concept of
uniformitarianism.
Walter and Luis Alvarez
• Extinction of the dinosaurs
• 1980
• Asteroid impact
• Catastrophism
Today, uniformitarinism and
catastrophism are accepted ideas
worksheet
Space
• Features presented in the class vary from
microscopic to enormous
Fossil diatom
Orion
nebula