Planetary Science

The term planetary science encompasses a whole range of studies involving a combination of earth sciences and astronomy. Sometimes known as planetology or planetary studies, these disciplines are concerned primarily with the geologic, geophysical, and geochemical properties of other planets.

Sun, Moon, and Earth

Earth is intimately tied to the star around which it revolves, the Sun, and the satellite that revolves around Earth itself, the Moon. Without the Sun, of course, life on Earth simply could not exist, not just because of the need for light but to an even greater degree because of the energy it supplies.

Historical Geology

Geologists are concerned primarily with two subjects: Earth's physical features and the study of the planet's history. These two principal branches of geology are known, appropriately enough, as physical geology and historical geology.

Geologic Time

The expression geologic time refers to the vast span from Earth's beginnings to the present, about 4.6 billion years. To examine the history of Earth, one must discard most familiar ideas about time.

Stratigraphy

Stratigraphy is the study of rock layers (strata) deposited in the earth. It is one of the most challenging of geologic subdisciplines, comparable to an exacting form of detective work, yet it is also one of the most important branches of study in the geologic sciences.

Paleontology

Thanks to a certain 1993 blockbuster, most people know the name of at least one period in geologic history. Jurassic Park spurred widespread interest in dinosaurs and, despite its fantastic plot, encouraged popular admiration and respect for the work of paleontologists.

Minerals

A mineral is a naturally occurring, typically inorganic substance with a specific chemical composition and structure. An unknown mineral usually can be identified according to known characteristics of specific minerals in terms of certain parameters that include its appearance, its hardness, and the ways it breaks apart when fractured.

Rocks

It might come as a surprise to learn that geologists regularly use an unscientific-sounding term, rocks. Yet as is almost always the case with a word used both in everyday language and within the realm of a scientific discipline, the meanings are not the same.

Economic Geology

Economic geology is the study of fuels, metals, and other materials from the earth that are of interest to industry or the economy in general. It is concerned with the distribution of resources, the costs and benefits of their recovery, and the value and availability of existing materials.

Gravity and Geodesy

Thanks to the force known as gravity, Earth maintains its position in orbit around the Sun, and the Moon in orbit around Earth. Likewise, everything on and around Earth holds its place—the waters of the ocean, the gases of the atmosphere, and so on—owing to gravity, which is also the force that imparts to Earth its nearly spherical shape.

Geomagnetism

Scientists have long recognized a connection between electricity and magnetism, but the specifics of this connection, along with the recognition that electromagnetism is one of the fundamental interactions in the universe, were worked out only in the mid-nineteenth century. By that time, geologists had come to an understanding of Earth as a giant magnet.

Convection

Convection is the name for a means of heat transfer, as distinguished from conduction and radiation. It is also a term that describes processes affecting the atmosphere, waters, and solid earth.

Energy and Earth

Earth is a vast flow-through system for the input and output of energy. The overwhelming majority of the input to Earth's energy budget comes from the Sun in the form of solar radiation, with geothermal and tidal energy rounding out the picture.

Earth's Interior

For the most part, this book is concerned with geologic, geophysical, and geochemical processes that take place on or near Earth's surface. Even the essay Plate Tectonics, which takes up one of the central ideas in modern earth sciences, discusses only the lithosphere and crust but not the depths of the mantle or the core.

Plate Tectonics

The earth beneath our feet is not dead; it is constantly moving, driven by forces deep in its core. Nor is the planet's crust all of one piece; it is composed of numerous plates, which are moving steadily in relation to one another.

Seismology

Disturbances within Earth's interior, which is in a constant state of movement, result in the release of energy in packets known as seismic waves. An area of geophysics known as seismology is the study of these waves and their effects, which often can be devastating when experienced in the form of earthquakes.

Geomorphology

The surface of Earth is covered with various landforms, a number of which are discussed in various entries throughout this book. This essay is devoted to the study of landforms themselves, a subdiscipline of the geologic sciences known as geomorphology.

Mountains

Among the most striking of geologic features are mountains, created by several types of tectonic forces, including collisions between continental masses. Mountains have long had an impact on the human psyche, for instance by virtue of their association with the divine in the Greek myths, the Bible, and other religious or cultural traditions.

Erosion

Erosion is a broadly defined group of processes involving the movement of soil and rock. This movement is often the result of flowing agents, whether wind, water, or ice, which sometimes behaves like a fluid in the large mass of a glacier.