Welcome to Earth Science
Click here for the link to Interactives - Rock Cycle. Play through the interactives, using the red link at the bottom of each page to continue. When finished, read "The Story of the Wrightwood Marble" p93-97 in the Earth History Resource Book. If you finish early, begin reading "Destroying and Reconstructing Earth" p100-105
Rock Cycle Quiz Game click here.
National Geographic - Colliding Continents |
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Continents Adrift - An Introduction to Plate Tectonics |
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For Interactives - Dynamic Earth, click here.
Project - “A Million”
Due Date: ???
Guidelines:
Your challenge is to come up with a way to represent “a million.”
The representation should be something that can easily be pictured in your head.
You may draw, sketch, paint, and/or copy&paste pics from the internet. Your presentation must be:
• on a regular 8 ½ x 11 piece of printer paper – 20pts
• include at least 3 colors (black and white don’t count) – 20pts
• An explanation must accompany your visual representation – 20pts
• Both your representation and your explanation must be on the same side of the paper – 20pts
• Put your heading (H.A.N.D.) on the back of the paper – 20pts
Due Date: ???
Guidelines:
Your challenge is to come up with a way to represent “a million.”
The representation should be something that can easily be pictured in your head.
You may draw, sketch, paint, and/or copy&paste pics from the internet. Your presentation must be:
• on a regular 8 ½ x 11 piece of printer paper – 20pts
• include at least 3 colors (black and white don’t count) – 20pts
• An explanation must accompany your visual representation – 20pts
• Both your representation and your explanation must be on the same side of the paper – 20pts
• Put your heading (H.A.N.D.) on the back of the paper – 20pts
Check out the layers of the Grand Canyon and how they formed by clicking here.
Continental Drift
In the early 1900s a German scientist named Alfred Wegener (VAY-gen-er) put forth a pretty crazy idea. He thought that if the Earth's continents could move:
In the early 1900s a German scientist named Alfred Wegener (VAY-gen-er) put forth a pretty crazy idea. He thought that if the Earth's continents could move:
- (PUZZLE). They would seem to fit together like puzzle pieces.
- MOUNTAINS. Certain mountain ranges lined up and continued from one continent to another.
- FOSSILS. Fossils found on the edge of two different continents separated by an ocean, would make more sense if the continents were together in the past and the organism lived only in one place (especially if the creature couldn't fly or swim).
- CLIMATE. Fossils of plants and animals that lived in tropical climates have been found in Antarctica. This could be explained if Antarctica had once been closer to the equator.
Funny song about Alfred Wegener and continental Drift by the Amoeba People.
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A quick animation of the break up of Pangea, the supercontinent.
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Plate Tectonics
The current theory about the movement of earth's crust is called Plate Tectonics. Earth's surface is broken up into large pieces called tectonic plates and these plates are always moving. The areas where one plate meets another plate are called plate boundaries.
The current theory about the movement of earth's crust is called Plate Tectonics. Earth's surface is broken up into large pieces called tectonic plates and these plates are always moving. The areas where one plate meets another plate are called plate boundaries.
Plates in Motion
There are three possible boundary types between tectonic plates:
Divergent boundary: plates move apart
Convergent boundary: plates collide
Transform boundary: plates slide past each other
There are three possible boundary types between tectonic plates:
Divergent boundary: plates move apart
Convergent boundary: plates collide
Transform boundary: plates slide past each other
At convergent boundaries, if the land masses are both made of continental crust, then neither one is dense enough to go under the other, so they smash together and are forced upwards. This is what happened when India crashed into Eurasia, thus creating the Himalayan Mountains (and Mount Everest!) These two plates are still colliding today, forcing the Himalayas to grow just a tiny bit taller every year.
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Mid Atlantic Ridge
Several plates have boundaries along a line that runs down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This line is called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and is a divergent plate boundary. Every year North and South America move further west while Europe/Asia and Africa move further east. As magma from under the crust rises through the crack in the Earth it cools forming new igneous rock. Because the ocean is cold this new igneous rock (basalt) cools quickly and is very dense. |
Geologic Time Scale
The current Era is the Cenozoic Era.
The Mezozoic Era is known as the time of the dinosaurs. The extinction of the dinosaurs marks the end off the Mezozoic Era.
During the Paleozoic Era, small creatures thrived like fish and trilobites.
During the Pre-Cambrian Era, organisms were very basic, like bacteria.
The current Era is the Cenozoic Era.
The Mezozoic Era is known as the time of the dinosaurs. The extinction of the dinosaurs marks the end off the Mezozoic Era.
During the Paleozoic Era, small creatures thrived like fish and trilobites.
During the Pre-Cambrian Era, organisms were very basic, like bacteria.
Weathering & Erosion
"Weathering breaks it down. Erosion takes it away."
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Sediments
For billions of years, little pieces of our earth have been weathered and eroded by water. These little bits of our earth are washed downstream where they eventually settle to the bottom of the rivers, lakes, and oceans. Layer after layer of eroded earth is deposited on top of each previous layer of eroded earth. The weight of the layers above presses down on the layers underneath until the bottom layers slowly turn into rock.
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SOIL
What is soil?
Soil is a thin covering of land areas on the earth’s surface. It is made up of broken up (weathered) rocks, mineral fragments, water, air, and organic material like leaves, roots, twigs, dead bugs and things like that.
Soil is a thin covering of land areas on the earth’s surface. It is made up of broken up (weathered) rocks, mineral fragments, water, air, and organic material like leaves, roots, twigs, dead bugs and things like that.
To explore the different layers of soil and play an interactive game (Soil Safari) click here.
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To play a game of Soiltris (like Tetris, but for soil) click here.
3 Principles of Earth History
Uniformitarianism (uniform-itarian-ism): processes that happen today happened in the past with the same results; "the present is the key to the past." Examples of processes: Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition. Uniform = same.
Original Horizontality: sediments are deposited in horizontal layers. When rock layers appear shifted, tilted, or warped, some process or processes must have occurred AFTER the original horizontal deposition to cause the shifting, tilting, or warping.
Superposition: layers of rock on top are younger than layers of rock underneath.
Original Horizontality: sediments are deposited in horizontal layers. When rock layers appear shifted, tilted, or warped, some process or processes must have occurred AFTER the original horizontal deposition to cause the shifting, tilting, or warping.
Superposition: layers of rock on top are younger than layers of rock underneath.
For an interactive index fossil activity click here.
Earth's Layers
Earth is made of several layers.
Inner core: solid iron
Outer core: mostly hot melted iron
Mantle: mostly solid and rocky.
Crust: thin and brittle. We live on the crust.
As far as we've gone, we've never been able to drill all the way down through the crust to the mantle.
Inner core: solid iron
Outer core: mostly hot melted iron
Mantle: mostly solid and rocky.
Crust: thin and brittle. We live on the crust.
As far as we've gone, we've never been able to drill all the way down through the crust to the mantle.
Make a model of Earth's layers that's good enough to eat! For instructions how, click here.
The Rock Cycle
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