Stratigraphy (The Precambrian) - Lecture 6

Stratigraphy Lecture 6
The Precambrian
 Splitting up time:
Put the geological timeline here.
 The Precambrian:
 Represents around 4 billion years, ~90% of earth’s history.
 The Origin of Life:

 There are plenty of theories as to how life has begun.
 RNA – first hypothesis
 Clay – mineral mediated hypothesis.
 ‘deep hotspot biosphere’ model – origin in the crust
 Panspermia – Extraterrestrial ‘seeding’ (life didn’t actually begin on earth??)
 Life on earth was probably not possible on Earth before the end of the ‘ Late
Heavy Bombardment’ – around 3.8 Ga
 First Evidence For Life:

 Life seems to have appeared fairly quickly
 Earliest rocks that could contain evidence for life, do:
 3.7 Ga – Isua, Greenland – graphite rock found suggesting
‘widespread biological activity’.
 3.5 Ga – microfossils (probably) present.
 Stromatolites:
 Clearest record of life in the Precambrian
 Mounds formed by microbes binding sediment together.
 They still occur in ‘odd’ environments
 Theyre common in the precmbrian and they date back to ~3.5Ga.
 Nothing Much Happening:

 Life remained (mostly) single-celled for a VERY long time
 For most of this time, just ‘simple’ celled prokaryotes.
 Good evidence for this from rising oxygen levels too
 Eukaryotes –
 Occasional tiny multi- celled algae for next – 1.2 Gyr
 Snowball Earth – The Cryogenian:

 Around 650 Ma major glaciation occurred.
 Extent is disputed – ut it may have frozen the entire planet, including the
tropics
 Evidence includes:
 Ediacaran Fossils:
 Soon after - ~600 Ma – multicellular ‘animals’ appear.
 Controversial and hard to interpret
 This probably represents early ‘ experiment’
 Not same group as modern animals but there may have been a closely
related group.
 These creatures vanished just before the base of the Cambrain
 Then there was the “Cambrian Explosion”
 The Cambrian Explosion:

 Base of Cambrian – sudden profusion of animal life.
 Biosphere permanently changed in major ways
 This was a controversial event as we don’t know what triggered and drove
this
 Was it sudden origination or mas biomineralization?
 Precambrian Plate Tectonics:

 Cratons – very old crust at heart of continents.
 Younger material ‘welded on’ through Earth History
 ‘Canadian Shield’ is a good example.
 This includes some very old rocks - ~4 Ga in Hudson Bay and we find bits of
Britain in it!
 North American Geology:
 UK Terranes:
 ‘Terrane’ – piece of crust with distinct history.
 Bits of basin, arc, etc – welded together by PT.
 Normally fault – bounded.
 UK terranes all have different PC history.
 Represent ‘orogenic belts’ – results of Wilson Cycle plate tectonics.
 Our task – unravel their history with the toolkit.
 The Caledonian Orogeny:
 UK Terranes:
 Copy and paste diagram to annotate.
 The Hebridean Terrane:

 Oldest rocks in Britain are bounded by ‘Moine Thrust’.
 Lewisian ‘basement’
 Archaean – Proterozoic ~2.9 – 1.7 Ga
 Fragment of Canadian Shield
 Torridonian sediments
 Nonconformity
 Proterozoic ~1.1 – 0.6Ga
 Palaeozoic sediments:
 Angular unconformity
 Cambrian ~500Ma
 Lewisian Gneiss:
 High-grade metamorphism (heat and pressure)
 This is a good example of using toolkit to unpick events.
 Contains ‘Scourie dykes’
 Often found deformed
 Later intrusions undeformed
 Order of events:


 Torridonian:
 Terrestrial sediments unconformably above gneisses.
 Split into two groups, both fluvial and lacustrine facies.
 Stoer Group:
 Overlies the basement
 About 1.2 G in age
 Torridon Group:
 Unconformable on Stoer group.

 Northern Highland Terrane:
 Grampian (Dalradian Terrane):
 Monian (Anglesey) Terrane:
 Avalon Terrane:
These all show the history of the Precambrian.

Stratigraphy (The Precambrian) - Lecture 6

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stratigraphy (The Precambrian) - Lecture 6

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stratigraphy (The Precambrian) - Lecture 6

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Stratigraphy Lecture 6

 The Origin of Life:

 First Evidence For Life:

 Nothing Much Happening:

 Snowball Earth – The Cryogenian:

 The Cambrian Explosion:

 Precambrian Plate Tectonics:

 North American Geology:

 The Caledonian Orogeny:

 The Hebridean Terrane:

 Northern Highland Terrane:

 Grampian (Dalradian Terrane):

 Monian (Anglesey) Terrane:

These all show the history of the Precambrian.

You might also like