Geology

The Pacific Ring of Fire has the most active chains of volcanoes in the world. This is because tectonic plates collide and sink at these zones of subduction.

Beneath the oceans, lava erupts every day from mid-oceanic ridges. These divergent plate boundaries pull apart from each other creating new igneous rock.

The North American plate extends all the way over the North pole to Siberia. It also includes Greenland, Cuba, the Bahamas and part of the Atlantic Ocean.

Like a stack of pancakes, younger rock layers pile on top of older layers. We use the law of superposition to reveal Earth’s age and Grand Canyon geology.

The Cenozoic Era started with the extinction of dinosaurs and moved into the age of mammals.This led to the diversification and increase in size of mammals.

If you went 200 million years back in time, Earth was 1 supercontinent. Now, it’s made up of 7 separate continents. This is the supercontinent cycle at work.

Since Earth’s creation, oceans, continents and life have emerged. From evolution to extinction, here are the geological events and history of Earth timeline

By dating meteorites, we find the oldest rocks are 4.5 billion or so years old. Thus, we conclude the same staggering 4,543,000,000 years for Earth’s age.

Despite the popular belief that groundwater exists as a huge lake underground, water actually exists in tiny pore spaces within rock and soil beneath our feet.

About 200 million years ago, all the continents were together as one giant supercontinent known as Pangaea. Over time, these continents have broken apart.

From the remarkable process of plates colliding and building mountains. They are only to be dismantled by mass wasting (weathering, erosion and transport).

Four radioactive isotopes inside Earth account for 50% of its internal heat. Like a slow cooker, they slowly release heat within the planet keeping it warm.

Plate tectonics are deceptively slow. It’s just centimeters each year. Continental drift is the idea that continents passively move due to tectonic activity

Under the rigid layer of rock we live on, the Earth is plastic & more dense. Because of its fluid properties, mantle convection can occur within the Earth.

If you take an existing rock and add immense heat or pressure to it, the rock becomes soft and pliable like cookie dough transforming into metamorphic rocks.