What is Geology Geology is the study of

What is Geology? Geology is the study of the Earth, the materials of which it is made, the structure of those materials, and the processes acting upon them.

Outline: • Earth’s crust • Plate tectonics • Disasters - earthquake e. g. Haiti - volcanoes - tsunamis • Useful? Where to live

Earth’s crust • Made of rocks and minerals - naturally occurring solids formed through geological processes • Feldspar and quartz most abundant minerals found in Earth's crust • Continental crust about 35 -40 km thick • Ocean crust about 7 km thick

Plate tectonics: • describes the large scale motions of Earth’s plates • vital role in global cycle • maintains the balance of carbon between the biosphere and atmosphere. • But can be danger on the lines where plates meet

Disasters: Earthquake • sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust • creates seismic waves. • recorded with a seismometer / seismograph • Richter scale: • 3 or lower earthquakes imperceptible • 7 causing serious damage over large areas

Haiti 7. 0 on the Richter scale 12 th January 2010

• opening, or rupture, in surface or crust, • allows hot magma, ash and gases to escape from below the surface. Volcano:

How do tsunamis happen? • plates suddenly move against each other • This causes an earthquake at sea • earthquake vertically jolts seabed by several meters, • displaces hundred of cubic kilometres of water. • where does tsunami happen most often? geology

Tsunami