Triple Bottom Line - Incorporating social, environmental, and economic factors to be sustainable
Sustainable Engineering - Engineering that meets the needs of the present without comprising the
validity of the future
Geology - The science that deals with the Earth's physical structure, its history, and the processes that
act on it; includes physical, historical, and engineering geology
Physical Geology - Study of earth materials and processes beneath the surface
Historical Geology - Study of the origin of Earth and its development through time
Engineering Geology - Incorporates physical and historical geologies to solve real world problems (e.g.
population growth, mineral and energy resources, natural hazards, infrastructure, etc.)
Where does our lithium come from (that goes into making batteries for phones and cars)? - Lithium
comes from lithium-rich salt lakes such as in Columbia (used to come from ore)
Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) - Extremely large machine that cuts tunnels through mountains;
incorporates Earth Pressure Balance
Geosphere - Includes all rocks, landforms, Earth's interior
Hydrosphere - Includes all water: oceans, freshwater, ice (oceans account for 71% of Earth's surface)
Biosphere - Includes all living things on Earth
Atmosphere - Thin layer of gases above the surface of the Earth producing weather, climate
,Lithosphere - Crust and some of upper mantle
Asthenosphere - Semi-fluid upper mantle, below the lithosphere
Mesosphere - Mantle below the asthenosphere
What powers Earth's processes? - Sun and Earth's core
Gotthard Base Tunnel Geology - Two 60km tunnels through the Swiss Alps that encountered various
vertical strata unexpectedly which pushed the project back months
Catastrophism - Belief that Earth's landscapes were shaped by catastrophes (old though)
Uniformitarianism - Belief that if Earth processes are happening today, they happened in the past. (new
thought, presented by James Hutton - opposes catastrophism)
Big Bang Theory - Theory that a large explosion that sent all matter flying into the universe and initiated
our universe.
Nebular Hypothesis - Idea that bodies in our solar system evolved from contracting nebulae; protosun
and protoplanets formed from contracting slowly spinning nebulae
Earth's Outer Core (state, composition, result) - - liquid core due to high pressures
- composed of Fe, Ni
- results in Earth's magnetic field
Earth's Inner Core - - solid inner core due to high pressures
- composed of Fe, Ni
Rock Cycle - Process by which rocks change types (I,M,S)
Relative Dating - Placing geographic events in their proper order without knowing their ages
Law of Superposition - Younger rock layers are deposited over older ones
Principle of Fossil Succession - Older fossils are deposited first
Principle of Original Horizontality - Layers of sediment are deposited initially horizontal, thus flat rock
layers are undisturbed
Principle of Cross-Cutting Relations - Younger features (dikes, sills) cut across older layers
Unconformities - Break or gap in the rock record caused by erosion or non-deposition; includes
disconformities, nonconformities, and angular unconformities
Disconformity - Gap between two sedimentary start in which there is a large time difference between
their depositions (i.e. there was a long period of non-deposition, or lots of erosion)
, Nonconformity - Break between sedimentary rock and either igneous or metamorphic rock below
Angular unconformity - When sedimentary strata are deposited on tilted/angled layers
Index Fossil - Fossil widespread geographically and limited to a short time period
Absolute Dating - Specifying the absolute age of something; utilizes radiometric dating
Radiometric Dating - Calculating the age of rocks and minerals that contain certain isotopes which
undergo radioactive decay in which the ratios of decayed an non-decayed atoms can be used to
calculate the absolute age (if the half-life of the element is known)
Largest to smallest time division - Eon -> Era -> Period -> Others
How much of Earth's history does the Pre-camrbian era include? - 88%
Shield - Inner part of a continent where rock is untouched
Continental Drift Hypothesis - Proposed by Alfred Wagner in 1915, it states that continents about the
face of the planet
Plate Tectonics - Current detailed understanding of how continents move
Pangea - Supercontinent that existed about 250 mya
Wilson Cycle - Process in which supercontinents form:
1. Convergence
2. Supercontinent formation
3. Dispersal
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