Different Areas of Geologic Study

Archaeological Geology	Ocean Sciences
Biogeosciences	Paleoclimatology
Engineering Geology	Paleontology
Forensic Geology	Petrology
Geochemistry	Planetary Geology
Geophysics	Seismology
Geomorphology	Sedimentary Geology
History of Geology	Structural Geology
Hydrogeology	Tectonics
Medical Geology	Volcanology
Mineralogy

Task 4. Answer the following questions, using the vocabulary from Task 1.

1. What is the origin of the word “geology”?

2. What are traditional areas of geology?

3. Are there any other different areas of geologic study?

4. What does physical geology examine?

5. What is the aim of historical geology?

6. Why is it challenging to understand Earth?

7. How is geology perceived as a science?

8. Is geology based only on measurements and observations?

9. How does the development of computer stimulate the development of geology?

10. Geology is connected with other sciences, isn’t it?

11. How would you define the term geology?

Task 5. Complete the following sentences from the text in Task 3.

1. The study of physical geology logically precedes…

2. To understand Earth is challenging because…

3. Sometimes the changes are…

4. Sometimes scales of size and space must focus on…

5. The development of sophisticated computer models allows for..

6. Geology is a science that seeks…

Task 6. Find English equivalents for the following (see the text).

Вивчати матеріали; встановити хронологічне розташування безлічі фізичних та біологічних змін; осяжне майбутнє; мати справи з рисами, які за своїм масштабом є континентальними або глобальними; застосування знань і принципів з фізики, хімії та біології; швидкі та різкі зміни; відбуваються вулканічні виверження; відтворення багатьох складних систем нашої планети.

Task 7. Give a short summary of the text from Task 3.

Task 8. Look at Figure 1.1. Try to analyze into which components the geologic time scale divides the vast 4.6-billion-year history of Earth. In which epoch do we presently live? Is the Quaternary period a part of the Cenosoic era? Mind that numbers on the time scale represent time in millions of years before the present. These dates were added long after the time scale had been established using relative dating techniques. The Precambrian accounts for more than 88 percent of geologic time.

Task 9. Put 5 different questions (general, special, alternative, disjunctive and to the subject of the sentence) to the following sentences:

1. Physical geology examines the materials composing Earth and seeks to understand the many processes that operate beneath and upon its surface.

2. Geology is perceived as a science that is done in the out of doors.

3. Geology is a science that seeks to expand our knowledge of the natural world and our place in it.

Task 10. Read the following text, translate it into Ukrainian. Render its main ideas according to the following plan:

1. Historical notes about geology.

2. Catastrophism.

3. The birth of modern geology.

4. Geology today.

The nature of our Earth—its materials and its processes—has been a focus of study for centuries. Writings about fossils, gems, earthquakes, and volcanoes date back to the Greeks, more than 2300 years ago. Certainly, the most influential Greek philosopher was Aristotle. Unfortunately,

Aristotle’s explanations about the natural world were not derived from keen observations and experiments, as is modern science. Instead, they were arbitrary pronouncements based on the limited knowledge of his day. He believed that rocks were created under the “influence” of the stars and that earthquakes occurred when air in the ground was heated by central fires and escaped explosively! When confronted with a fossil fish, he explained that “a great many fishes live in the earth motionless and are found when excavations are made.” Although Aristotle’s explanations may have been adequate for his day, they unfortunately continued to be expounded for many centuries, thus thwarting the acceptance of more up-to-date ideas.

In the mid-1600s James Ussher, Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, published a major work that had immediate and profound influences. A respected scholar of the Bible, Ussher constructed a chronology of human and Earth history in which he determined that Earth was only a few thousand years old, having been created in 4004 BC. Ussher’s treatise earned widespread acceptance among Europe’s scientific and religious leaders, and his chronology was soon printed in the margins of the Bible itself. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the doctrine of catastrophism strongly influenced people’s thinking about Earth. Briefly stated, catastrophists believed that Earth’s landscapes had been shaped primarily by great catastrophes. Features such as mountains and canyons, which today we know take great periods of time to form, were explained as having been produced by sudden and often worldwide

disasters produced by unknown causes that no longer operate. This philosophy was an attempt to fit the rates of Earth processes to the then current ideas on the age of Earth.

Against this backdrop of Aristotle’s views and an Earth created in 4004BC, a Scottish physician and gentleman farmer named James Hutton published Theory of the Earth in 1795. In this work Hutton put forth a fundamental principle that is a pillar of geology today: uniformitarianism. It states that the physical, chemical, and biological laws that operate today also operated in the geologic past. In other words, the forces and processes that we observe shaping our planet today have been at work for a very long time. Thus, to understand ancient rocks, we must first understand present-day processes and their results. This idea is commonly stated as the present is the key to the past.

Today the basic tenets of uniformitarianism are just as viable as in Hutton’s day. We realize more strongly than ever that the present gives us insight into the past and that the physical, chemical, and biological laws that govern geological processes remain unchanged through time. However, we also understand that the doctrine should not be taken too literally. To say that geological processes in the past were the same as those occurring today is not to suggest that they always had the same relative importance or operated at precisely the same rate. Moreover, some important geologic processes are not currently observable, but evidence that they occur is well established. For example, we know that Earth has experienced impacts from large meteorites even though we have no human witnesses. Such events altered Earth’s crust, modified its climate, and strongly influenced life on the planet. The acceptance of uniformitarianism meant the acceptance of a very long history for Earth. Although processes vary in their intensity, they still take a very long time to create or destroy major landscape features.