EESA06H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Supercontinent, Laurasia, Cenozoic
Document Summary
Geology study of the earth and its history. Plate tectonics: earth"s surface is broken down to various plates. We can also reconstruct how they moved previously. Previously, all the tectonic plates were joined to make pangaea, supercontinent. Convection broke them via convections, which breaks them to the continents we know today. Figure: map showing velocity and direction of plates. If the continents follow the same direction as in the map, then that means the supercontinent would be relocated in the middle. This is the cycle that happens: supercontinent breaks apart, and then reforms again, and then breaks apart again. We are going to use this to explain law of superposition oldest rocks always occur at the base. Higher up we go, more we are going into time. Rocks can have folds to them, so determining the age of rocks is difficult then. Lot of rocks originate as sediment, but they harden to rocks.
