Another Hat of Mine - Student

As most people do, I wear many hats: Wife, Mother, Employee, Nurse, Shuttle Driver, Laundry Lady. You get the point. Some hats I didn't really choose to wear. They just came with other hats that I did choose to wear. Almost two years ago, I chose the 'Student' hat.

For the last two semesters, I have been studying Geology as part of my core education. It is so cool that I can choose to use this blog to share a few geological facts with you.

I'VE LEARNED ABOUT FAMOUS PEOPLE:

Mary Anning is known as the "Greatest fossillist the world ever knew".
Mary Anning's most important find: discovery of the first plesiosaur.
Mary Anning was credited with the first discovery of the ichthyosaur fossils. She was just 11 years old at the time!
Mary Anning was considered to be a "women in a man's England".
British geologists were responsible for grouping of periods into eras.
Georges-Louis Buffon was the first to reconstruct geologic history in a series of stages.
Georges-Louis Buffon was the first to propose the theory that planets created in a collision between the Sun and a comet.
Georges Cuvier introduced the idea of extinction in 1796.
G.K. Gilbert was first to propose that the moon's craters were formed from impacts.
James Hutton was known as the "Founder of Modern Geology".
Richard Owen was a prosector at the London Zoo. He disected and preserved any zoo animals that died in captivity.
Richard Owen first used the term "dinosauria".
Richard Owen is best known for his part in the creation of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.
Paleogeography is the study of the Earth's surface.
Paleontology is the study of fossils.
William Smith published many trials that became the cornerstone of modern geology.
The fact that the Earth's magnetic field reverses itself was discovered by Bernard Brunhes.
Charles Dolittle Walcott is known as the "forgotten microbe reasearcher".
Charles Dolittle Walcott was the 3rd Director of the US Geological Survey.
Charles Dolittle Walcott became Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1907.
Alfred Wegener made several key contributions to meteorology such as the use of balloons to track air circulation.
Alfred Wegener was the first to present extensive evidence that continents had once been connected.
Abraham Werner was influential in the early attempts at forming a geological time scale.

I'VE LEARNED ABOUT OCEAN/SEA THINGS:

Agnathans were jawless fish known to be the earliest vertebrates.
Cyanobacteria, single-celled microbes living in the sea, are thought to have created breathable air.
It is predicted that millions of years from now the gulf of California will be an ocean.
The ocean contains about 80% of the Earth's life.
The ocean soaks up alot of carbon dioside for us.
The spreading of the sea floor was first discovered in 1960.

I'VE LEARNED ABOUT EARTH THINGS:

7 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by tropical rain forests.

200 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere every year by volcanic eruptions and the decay of plants.

Approximately 10% of the volcanoes that have erupted during the past 10,000 years are in the United States.

Asteroids were first detected in the 1800s.

Birds became airborn approximately 150 million years ago.

Carbon-14 is used to date the Earth's history.

In approximately 250 million years from now, scientists predict that there will be a new super continent.

Land makes up approximately 29% of the Earth's surface.

Mauna Loa has erupted 15 times since 1900.

Mauna Loa is taller than Mount Everest.

Mauna Loa is one of the largest active volcanoes in the world. It rises more than 9,000 meters above the sea floor.

Mauna Loa last erupted in March of 1984.

Our magnetic poles 'reverse' occasionally.

Oxygen was not part of the Earth's original atmosphere.

Radioactivity was discovered in 1896.

Tectonic plates are constantly moving.

The Andreas Fault is a plate boundary. It is responsible for many of the earthquakes in California.

The average diameter of the Earth is 7,962 miles.

The Earth collects "cosmic spherules" at a rate of 30,000 metric tons per year.

The Earth is about 4.570 billion years old.

The Earth is made of stardust, gravity, and hydrogen gas.

The Earth's crust is about 5 miles deep.

The Earth's crust is thinnest under the oceans.

The Earth is slipping at a rate of about 2" per year.

The geological history of the Earth can be found in the rock layers.

The most earthquake prone state in the US is Alaska.

The Plutonist Theories proposed that all changes on Earth were the result of volcanoes and earthquakes.

The tectonic plates had not separated completely at the beginning of the Cretaceous Period.

The theory that all of the continents were once one super continent is called pangsea.

The theory that the Earth has been affected by sudden violent events is called catastrophism.

The United States ranks third in the number of historically active volcanoes.

Tropical rain forests are found in a belt around the Equator.

I'VE LEARNED ABOUT ROCKS AND MINERALS:

Igneous rocks tell us the history of plate activity.
Geologists classify units as Lower, Middle, and Upper when referring to corresponding rocks.
Limestone is formed by the compression of marine organisms into the ocean bed.
Metamorphic rocks give information about processes that occur deep with the crust of the Earth.
Sedimentary rocks formed from older material; therefore, radiometric dating does not work.
Sedimentary rocks preserve a historical record of the Earth.
The Neptunist Theories proposed that all rocks occurred as the result of a single enormous flood.
Zircon crystals from Western Australia are the earliest recorded minerals and the Earth's oldest dated material.

I'VE LEARNED ABOUT THE GEOLOGICAL TIME SCALE:

90% of our gological past is accounted for in the Precambrian Era.

All continents untied into the supercontinent Pangaea by the close of the Paleozoic Era.

Eons are divided into eras.

Fossil records indicate that complex life began approximately 600 million years ago.

Fossil records indicate that life has existed for approximately 3,800 million years.

Gelogical history is now classified by four eras - Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic.

Geological history originally included four spans of time - primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary.

Geologists classify units as Early, Mid, and Late when referencing time.

Geologists have broken the Earth's history into periods called eras, periods, and ephochs.

Over 900 species of invertebrate animals were recorded during the Cambrian period.

Paleocene is the earliest epoch of the Tertiary Period.

Plant Life thrived during the Carboniferous Period.

Relative dating is using fossils to match up rocks of similar ages in order to determine age.

Same periods are often given different names in different locales.

The Age of Dinosaurs began 240 million years ago.

The Cenozoic Era is known as the "Age of Recent Life".

The Cenozoic Era is the era that we live in now.

The Cryogenian Period is known as the "snowball earth" period.

The Devionian Period is known as the "Age of the Fishes".

The end of the Paleozoic Period saw a mass extinction of nearly 96% of all marine life and 70% of all land animals.

The earliest attempts at forming a geological time scale were made in the 18th century.

The first geological time scale was published in 1913.

The largest defined unit of time is the supereon.

The Mesozoic Era is known as the "Age of Medieval Life".

The Mesozoic Era includes the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods.

The Mesozoic Era is the age of the dinosaurs.

The Mesozoic Era lasted almost 180 million years.

The Phanerozoic Eon is composed of three eras: Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic.

The Pleistocene Epoch is known as "The Great Ice Age".

The Precambian Period covers approximately 88% of the Earth's history.

The Proterozoic encompasses the largest period of time on the Geologic Time Scale.

We are currently in the Holocene Epoch.

We are currently in the Phanerozoic Eon.

Congratulations! You just read 101 geological facts!

A special "thanks" to my geology teacher for requiring me to think about things that we most often take for granted and for understanding the "adult learner".

Trudy :)