G131 HOME
INFORMATION
SCHEDULE
RESOURCES
EXERCISES
NOTES
Links to summaries of key issues for each topic
PREAMBLE
Introduction
PART I
Ocean World
Plate Tectonics
Margins/Basins
Review 1
Sediments
Chemistry
PART II
Atmosphere
Ocean Circuln.
Waves
Tides
PART III
Coasts
Ocean Life
Primary Prodn.
Mar. Animals
Communities
Mar. Resources
Env. Concerns
VISUALS
Links to images employed in lectures on a topic-by-topic basis
NOTES
Links to summaries of key issues for each topic
 
An Ocean World (contd.)

Notes on Topic:

  • The notes identify the learning objectives within dominant themes
  • They present summaries of key issues for each topic
  • They emphasize the terminology used to describe the various phenomena.
 4. Origins of the Universe and Solar System:
Learning Objective: 
  • Understanding of the combination of physical and chemical processes that form the solar system, including the Earth.
"Big bang": 
  • Outward expansion about 13 billion years ago
  • Formation of galaxies (rotating around black holes?) as clumps of matter
  • Stars are formed in nebulae, coalescing from dust and gas
  • Stars are fueled by nuclear reactions, begininning with H fusion
  • Stars die in supernovae (depends on mass) to form heavier elements
Solar System:
  • Within the Milky Way galaxy (200 billion stars)
  • Sun formed from  a disk of coalescing, rotating gas and dust clouds
  • Planets formed from condensation of elements
5. The Earth/Moon System , 
Learning Objective:
  • Knowledge of how the Earth formed and pivotal events in early Earth history, especially the formation of the Moon and the origin of life.
Formation of Earth:
  • Formed from cold matter
  • Heated by bombardment, radioactive decay (U, Th), compressed by gravity  
  • Began to separate, forming layered structure, denser components (Fe) sinking
  • Volcanoes released water to eventually create atmosphere, and hydrosphere.
  • Contributions of volatiles from comets and meteorites during bombardment
Characteristics of the Moon:
  • Formed from the Earth by glancing impact of Mars-sized object.
  • Cratered, lunar regolith from bolide impact, ancient volcanism.
Earth's Atmosphere  and the Origin of Life:
  • Atmospheric compositions are influenced by temperature, chemistry and life processes
  • Stable over most of the past 1 billion years, except for variations in CO2
  • CO2 decreases, oxygen build-up starts about 2.5 billion, as a result of the evolution of photosynthesis organisms.
  • Miller-Urey experiment formed amino acids from gases
  • Life may have originated in hydrothermal vents (or from space!)

 
 
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Indiana University
Department of Geological Sciences, 
1001 E. Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-1403
Phone: (812) 855-5582  Last updated: 6 September 2002
Comments: simon@indiana.edu
Copyright 2002, The Trustees of Indiana University