GSC 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Edmond Halley, Submarine Volcano, John Joly
2 Jan 2020
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Lecture 10: geologic time & the rock record ii. Earth"s interior, he calculated time for earth to cool: his estimate of 100 million years is incorrect (20-400 my range) Issue was, earth"s interior is cooling so slowly that it has a nearly constant temperature over periods as long as hundreds of millions of years: problems with heat from convection, & radioactivity (temps vary based on this ) Radioactivity (h. becquerel & e. rutherford, m. curie/p. Kinds of radioactive decay: radioactive decay can happen in 3 main ways, 1. Beta decay: emission of an electron from nucleus: 2. Alpha decay: emission from the nucleus of a heavy atomic particle consisting of two neutrons & two protons called an (alpha: 3. Electron capture: by capture into nucleus of one orbital electron, decreases number of protons in nucleus by one. In radioactive decay, the proportion fraction or percentage of parent atoms that decay during each unit of time is always the same.
