GEOLOGI SEJARAH

ATURAN MAIN

1. Dosen Tidak Boleh Terlambat dari waktu yang

disepakati
2. Tidak hadir Maksimum 3 x perkuliahan
3. Tugas harus masuk 100%
4. Ekskursi wajib
 Aturan Penilaian
 Ujian Tengah Semester 30%
 Ujian Akhir Semester 30%
 Tugas/Quiz 5%
 Presentasi Makalah 15%
 Ekskursi 10%
 Absensi 10%
 MATERI
PERKULIAHAN
Minggu Tanggal Materi Dosen
ke
I 08-02-07 Perkenalan dan aturan main As
II 15-02-07 Pendahuluan YR
III 22-02-07 Sejarah Geologi YR
IV 01-03-07 Dasar Teori: Geosinklin, Tektonik Lempeng dll YZ
V 08-03-07 Dasar Teori: Sedimentasi dan stratigrafi dll YZ
VI 15-03-07 Skala Waktu Geologi YR
VII 22-03-07 UTS
VIII 29-03-07 Prakambrium As
IX 05-04-07 Paleozoikum YR
X 12-04-07 Mesozoikum AS
XI 19-04-07 Kenozoikum: Paleogen AS
XII 26-04-07 Kenozoikum: Neogen YR
XIII 03-05-07 Kuarter I YZ
XIV 10-05-07 Kuarter II YZ
XV 17-05-07 Ekskursi As, YR, YZ
XVI 24-05-07 UAS
PENDAHULUAN
 Historical Geology is
the study of changes to Earth
and life in time and space
I. Time
A. How much time?

Oldest meteorites and oldest moon rocks are 4.6 billion

years old 4,600,000,000 years

Radiometric dating (Uranium, Thorium). Mass spectrometer

Oldest rocks found so far on Earth are zircon grains from a

sandstone in western Australia, dated at 4.1 to 4.2 bilion
years old. Previously, the oldest Earth rocks were 3.96
billion years old, from the Northwest Territories of Canada.
 Early ideas of the age of the Earth:
1654 Archbishop Usher (Ireland), genealogy in Bible Earth
was created October 26, 4004 BC, 9:00 am
Earth was 6000 years old. Led to the Doctrine of
Catastrophism:
Earth was shaped by series of giant disasters.
Had to fit many processes into a short time scale.
1770's, 1780's "Revolution"
James Hutton, Father of Geology (Scotland) 1726-1797.
Published Theory of the Earth in 1785. Hadrian's Wall
built by Romans, after 1500 years no change. Suspected
that Earth was much older.
 Slow processes shape earth.
Mountains arise continuously as a balance against erosion and
weathering
Doctrine of Uniformitarianism: "Present is key to the past".
The physical and chemical laws that govern nature are uniform
Unconformity at Siccar Point, Scotland
"No vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end"
 How old is Earth?
Quantitative scientific methods
 In 1897, Lord Kelvin assumed that the Earth was originally
molten and calculated a date based on cooling through
conduction and radiation.
Age of Earth was calculated to be about 24-40 million years.
Problem: Earth has an internal heat source (radioactive decay)
 In 1899 - 1901, John Joly (Irish) calculated the rate of delivery
of salt to the ocean. River water has only a small concentration
of salts. Rivers flow to the sea. Evaporative concentration of
salts. Age of Ocean = Total salt in oceans (in grams) divided by
rate of salt added (grams per year)
Age of Earth was calculated to be 90-100 million years.
Problems: no way to account for recycled salt, salt incorporated
into clay minerals, salt deposits.
 Thickness of total sedimentary record divided by average sedimentation
rates (in mm/yr). In 1860, calculated to be about 3 million years old. In 1910,
calculated to be about 1.6 billion years old. Early measurements of maximum
thickness of sediment ranged from 25,000 m to 112,000 m. With more recent
mapping, thickness of fossiliferous rocks is at least 150,000 m.
Sedimentation rates average about 0.3 m/1000 years.
At this rate, the age of the first fossiliferous rocks is about 500 million years.
Problems: did not account for past erosion or differences in sedimentation
rates; also ancient sedimentary rocks are metamorphosed or melted.
 Charles Lyell 1800's compared amount of evolution shown by marine
mollusks in the various series of the Tertiary System with the amount
that had occurred since the beginning of the Pleistocene. Estimated 80
million years for the Cenozoic alone.
Discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896. In 1905,
Rutherford and Boltwood used radioactive decay to measure the
age of rocks and minerals. Uranium decay produces He, leading
to a date of 500 million years. In 1907, Boltwood suspected that
lead was the stable end product of the decay of uranium.
Published the age of a sample of urananite based on Uranium-
Lead dating. Date was 1.64 billion years.
So far, oldest dated Earth rocks are 3.96 billion years.
Older rocks include meteorites and moon rocks with dates on
the order of 4.6 billion years.
Moon rocks, highland ~ 4.5 by, mare basalt ~ 3.2 - 3.8 by
Meteorites - older than 4.5 by
Many radioactive elements can be used as geologic clocks. Each
element decays at its own nearly constant rate. Once this decay
rate is known, geologists can estimate the length of time over
which decay has been occurring by measuring the amount of
radioactive parent and the amount of stable daughter elements.
Example: Potassium-Argon dating.
 Why is the Earth younger than the
moon and meteorites?
 Earth is geologically active.
 Has a hot, molten interior.
 Rocks are remelted and their internal clocks are reset.

 Also, rocks on Earth's surface are acted on by erosion

and weathering. Rocks on Earth surface are not as old
as the Earth, they are "recycled" rock materials
Rocks broken down into sediment (gravel, sand, silt, clay).
Sediment will turn into sedimentary rock over time.
Older rocks are buried deeply under younger rocks.
 Where do we find
the oldest rocks on Earth?
Canadian Shield. (NW Territories near Great Slave Lake, 3.96 by).
Gneiss.
Narrows the gap between origin of Earth and first rocks to 640 million years.
(Geotimes 12/1989). Before this, oldest rocks known were from Isukasia
region of Greenland (3.8 by).
Glaciers 2 miles thick scraped off young recycled rocks.
Land rose 250 ft since ice was removed => more erosion.
Isostasy
Very old rocks are at the surface in the Canadian Shield area.
Up to about 3.8 or 3.96 billion years old.
Multicellular life did not appear until about 1 billion years ago.
Before this, 3 billion years ago single celled life only.
Hard parts like shells don't appear until 600 million years ago. (Trilobites)
 Origin of the Earth
The Earth in Space
 Origin of the Universe - Big Bang

 Hypothesis Our Galaxy - Milky Way - spiral.

Rotates once every 240 million years
 Solar System
 Sun - 70% H, 27% He, 3% heavier elements
Fusion reaction Planets
 Names?

 Terrestrial
 Small
 Dense (4 - 5.5 g/cm3)
 Rocky + Metals
 Jovian
 Large
 Low density (0.7 - 1.5 g/cm3)
 Gaseous
Origin of the Solar System

 Lines of evidence that must be considered:

 Planets revolve around sun in same direction - CCW
 Planets lie roughly within sun's equatorial plane (plane of sun's
rotation)
 Planets rotate CCW, except for:
 Venus - slowly CW
 Uranus - on its side
 Pluto - on its side
 Moons go CCW around planets (few exceptions)
 Distribution of densities and compositions related to distance
from sun
 Age - Moon and meteorites 4.6 by
 Hypotheses

Solar Nebula Hypothesis or Nebular Hypothesis - cold cloud of gas and dust,
contracts. flattens, and rotates, 90% of mass to center; condensed, shrank, and heated
by gravitational compression to form sun. Accretion of matter around central mass to
form protoplanets (cold accretion). Solar wind drove lighter elements outward causing
observed distribution of masses and densities.
 Cold accretion model - Earth was initially unsorted material; but now layered.
Requires a process of differentiation. Heating and at least partial melting. Iron and
nickel sink to form core. Less dense material forms mantle and lighter crust. Source(s)
of heat for melting?

 Accretionary heat from bombardment

 Heat from gravitational compression
 Radioactive decay
 Hot accretion model - Internal zonation of planets is a result of hot heterogeneous
accretion. Hot solar nebula (over 1000 C). Initial crystallization of iron-rich materials
forms planet cores. With continued cooling, lower density silicate materials crystallized.
Earth's First 3.7 Billion Years
I. IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS A
SINGULARITY.
At first there was just Hydrogen. The Hydrogen
condensed into billions of local large balls of
superdense Hydrogen in which fusion reactions
forming Helium began and stars were born. Other
elements up to the atomic weight of Iron were
produced in these stars.
About 5 to 6 billion years ago. One of these stars
began to run out of Hydrogen fuel. It expanded to a
red giant and then collapsed on itself and exploded
in a supernova. In this supernova, like billions that
have occurred elsewhere in our Universe, all of the
other elements were created.
II. The mass of new matter again collapsed into a
disk shape mass of dust and gas (a). The center
became superheated and formed a new star, our
sun (b). From this disk of matter the planets
began to condense (c), according to the widely
supported nebular hypothesis of Immanuel
Kant and Pierre-Simon Laplace. The two
strongest points in favor of this idea are: 1) that
the disk began by rotating in one direction and
the rotation of all of the planets around the sun
follows the original disk; and 2) that because the
disk flattened out as time progresses, all of the
orbits of the planets (except Pluto) lie more or
less in the same plane (d). Pluto is possibly a
captured giant asteroid.
III. The earth condensed in four basic steps. 1) It began to
accrete from the nebular cloud as particles smashed into
each other forming so-called planetesimals. These in
turn collided with each other and as their mass grew
began to gather material from the nebular disk. 2) As
the mass of the Earth grew so did it's gravitational
force and the Earth began to compress itself into a
smaller and denser body. This happened about 4.5
billion years ago. 3) In the third step the compression
itself began to heat the interior of the Earth; also there
was heat generated by radioactive decay. The interior of
the earth began to melt. Because iron is the heaviest of
the common elements that make up the Earth, as the
Earth began to melt droplets of melted iron began to
sink towards the center of the earth, where they
condensed. 4) Proceeding slowly at first it sped up to
catastrophic proportions - hence it is called the iron
catastrophe. Note that 3 and 4 in the figures to the right are
cross sections.
IV. However, the crust finally solidified by about 3.7 billion years
ago. Gasses pouring out of volcanoes and fissures, along with
lava, began to accumulate, perhaps added to by the impact of a
few giant comets (which are mostly gas).

The gases that accumulated were those we still find coming out
of volcanoes:
Water vapor (H2O)
Hydrogen chloride (HCl)
Carbon Monoxide (CO)
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Nitrogen (N2)

These gases combined to form:

Methane (CH4)
Ammonia (NH4)
Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN)
V. As the crust cooled water would condense and accumulate as
oceans. This happened very soon after the crust solidified.
Layering within the Earth
Seismic waves used to determine Earth's structure. Primary
Waves
 Secondary Waves
 Surface Waves - Rayleigh Waves and Love waves
 Discontinuities
 Moho (crust - mantle)
 Gutenberg (mantle - core)
 Shadow Zones
VI. LIFE EVOLVES
The origin of life is shrouded in mystery. But there have been
significant steps towards some understanding.
Making many complex organic molecules is the first step, but
apparently not a difficult one.
This was shown in the famous Miller-Urey experiments done in
the 1950's.
They planned to set up an experiment to see how complex
organic molecules could be produced. Basically they mixed
together gasses that they thought the primitive Earth would have
in a jar and zapped the gases with an electrical spark. Complex
organic good collected at the bottom of the jar. Included were
amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. But no life.
B. How do we know?

Radioactive materials serve as geologic clocks

C. What happened on the Earth during this long period
of time?
Many natural events:

meteorite impacts
volcanic eruptions and lava flows
mountain building
earthquakes
erosion
slow movement of continents (plate tectonics)
formation and destruction of ocean basins (plate tectonics)
glaciations
climatic changes
etc.
 All of these natural events are still going on today -
We see evidence in the rock record that these events
have been occurring for a long time.
Geologists call this uniformitarianism
Some events which occurred in the past, and left a record
in the rocks, ARE NOT OCCURRING TODAY, or have not
occurred in the human lifespan:
Huge meteorite impacts
Large glacial ice sheets

Other events occur so slowly that they are difficult to

measure:
Plate Tectonics - sea floor spreading, continental drift
Erosion of mountain ranges
Still other events are short lived but very catastrophic:

Volcanic eruptions
Earthquakes
Floods
Mudflows, avalanches, etc (mass wasting)

Evidence of all of these events is preserved

in the geologic record.
 Cakupan Geologi Sejarah
Combines many subdisciplines of geology
 Paleontology

 Sedimentology

 Stratigraphy

 Structural Geology

 Plate Tectonics & Paleogeography

D. What do you mean by geologic record?
The geologic record consists of rock units, each of which
records some event or series of events that occurred in
the past.

What are rocks?

Rocks are defined as aggregates of one or more
minerals.

What are minerals?

naturally occurring
inorganic
solids
definite chemical composition
characteristic internal crystal structure (arrangement of
atoms in lattice)
E. How do rocks form?

By cooling, hardening, and crystallizing from hot, molten

lava: Igneous rocks
By forming from the compaction and cementation of
sediments: Terrigenous, clastic or detrital sedimentary
rocks
By forming from the precipitation of dissolved chemicals
in water: Chemical and biochemical sedimentary rocks
By forming from accumulated organic matter: Organic
sedimentary rocks (coals)
By the alteration of pre-existing igneous or sedimentary
rocks by heat and pressure: Metamorphic rocks
II. Fundamental principles of Geology
(7 principles to establish the relative ages
of rocks).
Most sedimentary rocks occur in the form of layers
called beds or strata.
Each layer is the result of the deposition of
sediment during some natural event (such as a
flood or storm).
A. Steno's Laws named for Nicholaus Steno, a Danish
physician living in Florence, Italy in the 1600's.

1. Principle of Superposition
Oldest rocks on the bottom
Younger rocks on top

2. Principle of Original Horizontality

Sediments are deposited in flat layers

3. Principle of Original Lateral Continuity

Sediments are deposited over a large area in a
continuous sheet
B. Other basic principles of Geology which we can use
for relative dating (or determining which rocks are older
or younger)
4. Principle of intrusive relationships

The intrusion is younger than the rocks it cuts

5. Principle of cross-cutting relationships
The fault is younger than the rocks it cuts.
6. Principle of components or inclusions

Note the irregular erosional surface. This is an Unconformity.

The clasts (in the bed above the unconformity) are derived from the
underlying (older) bed.
The gravel clasts are older than the layer which contains them.
The layer containing the gravel must be younger than the layer from
which the clasts originate.
The principle of components or inclusions also applies to
xenoliths.
A xenolith is a fragment of country rocks which has been
broken off during an intrusion, and has become
surrounded by magma.
The xenolith is older than the igneous rock which
contains it.
7. Principle of fossil succession
 Fossils occur in a consistent vertical order in
sedimentary rocks all over the world.
(William"Strata Bill" Smith, late 1700's, England).
 This principle is valid and does not depend on any pre-
existing ideas of evolution. (In fact, Charles Darwin's
ideas on evolution did not appear until 50 years later -
1858).
 Geologists interpret fossil succession to be the result of
evolution - the natural appearance and disappearance
of species through time.
 Unconformities:
Unconformities are buried surfaces of erosion or
non-deposition

 Angular unconformities Implies tectonic deformation and

erosion of underlying strata.
 Nonconformity Sedimentary strata overlying igneous or
metamorphic rocks (in an erosional - not intrusive- contact)
 Disconformity An irregular surface of erosion betwen two
units of parallel strata

 Paraconformity A planar surface between two parallel units

of sedimentary rock, representing a period of non-deposition,
but no erosion.
 Criteria for recognizing unconformities:
Sedimentary criteria
 Basal conglomerate - Many unconformities are overlain by a layer of
conglomerate or gravel. The clasts are commonly fragments eroded
from the underlying rock.
 Buried soil profiles (Paleo-soil, caliche, etc.).
 Layers of phosphatized pebbles, glauconite (greensand), or manganese-
rich beds.
Paleontological criteria

 Abrupt changes in fossil assemblages

 Presence of bone or tooth conglomerates
 Abrupt change from marine to continental fossils.
Structural criteria
 Discordance of dip above and below a contact (angular unconformity).
 Irregular or undulatory contact that cuts across bedding planes in the
underlying unit.
 Truncation of dikes or faults at a contact.
ORIGIN OF THE EARTH TO THE
ARCHEAN TILL RECENT