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Geology

What do Earth Sciences teach us about the Garden?

Plate Tectonics

Plate Tectonic theory explains the opening and closing of oceans over ~300 million year periods. 'Stripes' of magnetic signatures at the bottom of the oceans show the record of reversals of the earth's magnetic poles. Most volcanoes on earth are the result of these plates squeezing into each other, sliding under each other and stretching in other places.

Paleontology

Paleontology exposes a rich succession of life over time. We all remember thinking about dinosaurs as kids, but what else has popped up in the past 30 years?

Structural Geology

Structural geology exposes the fabric of rocks and how they move in response to stress and strain. Shifting plates cause extreme stresses which generate characteristic ductile and brittle responses in different lithologies.

Sedimentology

Clastic and carbonate sedimentology reveals the resulting structure and compositional characteristics of sand and reef deposits. Study of these processes and their resultant rocks today allow us to identify the same physical characteristics in older rocks, and thus infer the same processes in the past.

Petrology

Igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic petrology study the mineralogical and textural characteristics of rock types resulting from heating and cooling, melting and precipitation, and destruction and deposition of rocks. Again, the observations made from rocks in current natural settings, coupled with laboratory experiments, allows us to infer the same processes in older rocks that show the same characteristics.

Geochemistry

Geochem exposes chemical signatures which relate rocks and suites of rocks. One type of rock can be traced to its source lithologies through distinctive chemical signatures.

Geophysics

Geophysics provides further evidence of structure and composition by allowing a deep view into the crust.