GEOS 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Mount St. Helens, Seismic Magnitude Scales

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Geosciences
• Course: GEOS 212
• Professor: Paul Goodman

Document Summary

Inro to course & water in the universe. Why is water essential for life: every living organism on earth must have liquid water in some form in order to survive, every living cell is composed primarily of water. Design a habitable planet: we need liquid water ! Not too much gravitational pull and not too little: we also need plate motion, volcanoes, carbon dioxide and plants, see website http://astroventure. arc. nasa. gov. Things to remember: liquid water covers 70% of the earth"s surface, oceans are 4km deep, but really thin skin, the earth is in the sun"s habitable zone , liquid water is the basis of all life on earth ! And everywhere else as far as we know: geology (and oceanography) happen over long time scales (plate tectonics) and short time scales (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami), remember to sign up for study groups!