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It is widely believed that the early Earth was dominated by vertical tectonic processes, such as stagnant lid, [19] [20] heat-pipe, [21] or sagduction, [22] [23] [24] which eventually transitioned to plate tectonics during the planet's mid-stage evolution. However, an alternative view proposes that Earth never experienced a vertical tectonic ...
Solidified lava flow in Hawaii Sedimentary layers in Badlands National Park, South Dakota Metamorphic rock, Nunavut, Canada. Geology (from Ancient Greek γῆ (gê) 'earth' and λoγία () 'study of, discourse') [1] [2] is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. [3]
Historical geology examines the vastness of geologic time, measured in billions of years, and investigates changes in the Earth, gradual and sudden, over this deep time. It focuses on geological processes, such as plate tectonics, that have changed the Earth's surface and subsurface over time and the use of methods including stratigraphy ...
He argued that most geological change had been very gradual in human history. Lyell provided evidence for Uniformitarianism, a geological doctrine holding that processes occur at the same rates in the present as they did in the past and account for all of the Earth's geological features. [29]
Geology – one of the Earth sciences – is the study of the Earth, with the general exclusion of present-day life, flow within the ocean, and the atmosphere. The field of geology encompasses the composition, structure, physical properties, and history of Earth's components, and the processes by which it is shaped.
Neotectonics is the study of the motions and deformations of the Earth's crust (geological and geomorphological processes) that are current or recent in geological time. The term may also refer to the motions and deformations themselves. The corresponding time frame is referred to as the neotectonic period.
The first eon in Earth's history, the Hadean, begins with the Earth's formation and is followed by the Archean eon at 3.8 Ga. [2]: 145 The oldest rocks found on Earth date to about 4.0 Ga, and the oldest detrital zircon crystals in rocks to about 4.4 Ga, [34] [35] [36] soon after the formation of the Earth's crust and the Earth itself.
The rock cycle explains how the three rock types are related to each other, and how processes change from one type to another over time. This cyclical aspect makes rock change a geologic cycle and, on planets containing life, a biogeochemical cycle. Structures of Igneous Rock.