Week 1 Critical and Creative Thinking Questions
Name: Gardner

Chapter 1

3. How do you think the principle of uniformitarianism accounts for occasional catastrophic events such as meteorite impacts, huge volcanic eruptions or great earthquakes?

Uniformitarianism is a scientific clarification on how the rocks, continents and mountains in the planet are created. The material process that occurs on earth has not changed; although the objective conditions have changed radically the principle of uniformitarianism accounts for the outcome of the catastrophe or natural calamity.

4. In this chapter we have suggested that Earth is a close approximation of a natural closed system, and we have hinted at some of the ways that living in a closed system effects each of us. Can you think of some other ways?

Mainly a closed system is a system which is isolated from a larger system or environment. Closed systems, are detained to be isolated from their environment. The effect that changes in a reservoir, like CO2 levels have a close system effect on us.

5. In what ways do geologic process affect your daily life?

There are several ways that Geologic Processes affect our lives. By description a geologic process is a normal way of modifying the face of the Earth. With this significance, the processes such as withering, desertification, stratification, soil erosion,and alluvion. These processes can sometimes take form in natural disasters such as Tsunami and Earthquake. It is then obvious that changes in the face of the Earth can be negative or valuable to us. It is in Human nature to be adaptive to these changes. I believe that it affects our way of survival. The geological process affects or lives through weathering, erosion and plate tectonic changes, even earth quakes.The geological process affects or lives through weathering, erosion and plate tectonic changes, even earth quakes

Chapter 2

1. When astronauts brought back rock from the moon, the minerals present were mostly the same as found on Earth. Can you think of reasons this might be so? Would you expect minerals on Mars or Venus to be the same, or at least similar, to those on Earth?

I believe that they are similar, because it is likely that the moon was formed around the same time as the earth, however causing them to have comparable minerals. As for the other planets near earth they probably have related variables, but since one is too cold and one is too hot it would make worlds of difference in the matter of many of the minerals.

3. Identify which of the following materials are minerals and why, water, beach sand, diamond, vitamin pill, gold nugget, fish bone, and emerald. Should a synthetic diamond be considered a mineral?

The ones that I would consider not minerals is water, because it is not a solid, beach sand is a sediment, wood is organic material, vitamin pills contain vitamins which are organic and a fishbone is also organic. What I would consider minerals are diamonds, because they are firm solid and have acrystalline construction, gold nuggets are also solid, while having a chemical formula, an emerald is solid as well with a crystalline structure.

Chapter 3

3. How old are rock formations in the area where you live and attend college, university? How can you find the answer to this question?

In central Virginia’s Fall Zone where I live, and where the Piedmont meets the Coastal Plain, the granite is about 320 million years old, and the fossils specify that the mud layers are about 10 million years old, which means that a lot of geologic time has elapsed at this location, without the production of any rocks to record the passage of that time. The unconformity surface therefore is an display of that “missing time. The Petersburg Granite underneath the West End is 330 million years old. The silica rich magma solidified in the Carboniferous Period. When Africa and North America collided as the Alleghanian orogeny pushed rocks up over 20,000 feet high, at the same time pushed continental bedrock down as much as 10 miles, and shoved the old roots of the Taconic and Acadian orogenies towards the west.

4. Choose one of the geological periods listed in figure 3.8 and find out all you can about it. How are rock formations from that period identified? What are its most characteristic fossils? Where are the best samples of rock from your chosen period?

I chose the Jurassic period; because this time enclosed mainly marine deposits such as shale, sandstone and limestone. There were a diversity of fossils found from this period which was only found west of the Mississippi River.

5. Do some research to determine the ages of the oldest known fossils. What kind of life forms were they?

The oldest fossil was the microfossils known to be found in Australia by a group from the University of Western Australia and Oxford University. The tiny fossils showed credible indication for cells and bacteria living in an oxygen free world over 3.4 billion years ago.

Chapter 15 1. Recall chapter 1 that Earth and Venus are so similar in size and overall composition that they are almost twins. Why did these planets evolved so differently? Why is earth’s atmosphere rich in oxygen and poor in carbon dioxide, whereas the reverse is true for Venus? What would happen to the Earth’s oceans if earth were a little bit closer to the sun?

These planets evolved so differently, because of their space from the sun. Making Venus hotter than earth and causing changes to the planet and its matter. If the earth was nearer to the sun then most of the ice caps would melt causing major flooding around the world.

2. What do you think might have happened to mammals if the end-of-Cretaceous extinction had not wiped out the dinosaurs?

I think there would have been less room for resources and habitat causing mammals not to be able to increase in their environment. If dinosaurs had not been wiped out 65 million years ago, our kind would most likely never exist. The mass destruction that struck at the end of the Cretaceous was one of the most important events in earth's history that greatly affected evolution by the tree of life; it was in the arouse of the extinction that mammals became the dominant vertebrates on land.