GARCIA CATHOLIC COLLEGE, INC.

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

Earth and Life Science
GEOLOGIC PROCESS ON EARTH
A. Exogenous (External) Processes
 occur on or near the surface of Earth
 driving forces: gravity, water, wind, and organisms
1. Weathering – the disintegration of rocks, soil, and minerals together
with other materials through contact with Earth’s subsystem; the
breaking down of soil and rocks happen in situ or on the spot
 Physical Weathering: the breakdown of rocks by mechanical
forces concentrated along rock fractures (i.e., soil cracks because
of extreme heat or drought)
 Chemical Weathering: rocks break down by chemical reactions
(i.e., acid rain, hydrolysis, and oxidation)
 Biological Weathering: the weakening of rocks by plants, animals,
and microbes
Agents of Weathering: (1) Water, (2) Precipitates, (3) Fire, (4) Pressure,
(5) Bioweathering, and (6) Acids
2. Erosion – earthen materials are worn away and transported by natural
forces such as wind or water; unlike weathering, it involves movement;
if the wind is dusty, or water and glacial ice is muddy, erosion is taking
place
 Sediment: bits of rock and soil that are suspended in the fluid (air
or water) and being transported from one place to another
3. Mass Wasting – the movement of the large masses of materials (e.g.,
rock depris, soil, mud) down a slope or a steep-sided hill or mountain
due to the pull of gravity
 Debris Flow: happens when large amount of sediments, usually
rocks of various sizes, fall down the slope; doesn’t need water to
flow down
 Mudflow: happens when combine soil and water flow down a slope
 Slump: a slow movement of soil along a curved surface
4. Sedimentation – the accumulation of materials such as soil, rock
fragments, and soil particles settling on the ground
 B. Endogenous (Internal) Processes
 take place within or in the interior of Earth
 driving force: thermal energy of the mantle
 responsible for Earthquakes, development of continents, mountain building,
volcanic activities, and other movements related to Earth’s crust
1. Magmatism – happens when magma generated and develops into
igneous (magmatic) rocks, which can take place either under or on the
surface of the Earth
 Magma: the original material that make-up igneous rocks;
constantly moved by the internal heat that reaches the mantle
through convective flow
2. Volcanism – usually happens after magma is formed as it tries to
escape from the source through openings such as volcanoes or existing
cracks on the ground
 Lava: magma that reaches the surface of Earth
3. Metamorphism – the process of changing the materials that make up
a rock; the chemical component and geologic characteristics of the rock
changes due to heat and pressure that are increasing or decreasing
2 Types of Metamorphism: regional and contact
 Contact Metamorphism: a type of metamorphism where rock
minerals and texture are changed, mainly by heat, due to contact
with magma
 Regional Metamorphism: a type of metamorphism where rock
minerals and texture are changed by heat and pressure over a
wide area or region
TYPES OF STRESS THAT INFLUENCE ROCK BEHAVIOR
 Earth’s crust is like the shell of an egg since it is the thinnest of the Earth’s layers
 The crust is broken into several parts, known as the continental plates
 Stress occurs when the plates are pulled or pushed together
 Four Types of Stresses:
1. Compression Stress (→ ←) – a type of stress that causes the rocks to push
or squeeze against one another; it targets the center of the rock and can
cause either horizontal or vertical orientation; Mountains are a result of high-
impact compression stress
 Horizontal Compression Stress: the crust can thicken or shorten
  Vertical Compression Stress: the crust can thin out or break off
2. Tension Stress (← →) – a type of stress that forces the rocks to pull apart;
it can happen in two ways:
 two separate plates can move farther away from each other; or
 the ends of one plate can move in different directions
It is believed to have caused the ancient, massive continent Pangaea to
break off into the seven contents we have today
3. Shear Stress (↓↑) – a type of stress that usually happens when two plates
rub against each other as they move in opposite directions; the friction of a
shear stress at the edges of the plate can cause earthquakes
4. Confining Stress – a type of stress that is applied to all sides of the crust; if
the stress is too much, the crust can fracture from the inside, causing its
weight to decrease while its shape remains the same; it can cause sinkholes
in the Earth
DEFORMATION OF CRUST
 The plates make up Earth’s outer shell, called the lithosphere
 Lithosphere – includes the crust and uppermost part of the mantle
 The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries:
1. Convergent Boundaries – it is where plates move into one another or collide
a) Continent‐Continent Convergence: two continental plates collide, which
results in mountain ranges (e.g., India and Asia collided and gave rise
to the Himalaya—the highest mountain system on Earth)
 Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth, is located in the sub-
range of the Himalayas
b) Ocean‐Continent Convergence: an oceanic plate dives under a
continental plate in a process called subduction, which results in
volcanoes and volcanic eruptions
c) Ocean-Ocean Convergence: the denser oceanic plate sinks below the
less dense oceanic plate, which results in deep trenches (e.g., the
Mariana Trench—the deepest point on Earth found in the North Pacific
Ocean)
2. Divergent Boundaries – it is where plates move apart or diverge, allowing
magma to rise toward the surface and cool down to produce either mid-ocean
ridges (e.g., Mid-Atlantic Ridge) or rift valleys (e.g., Great Rift Valley in Africa)
 Seafloor spreading occurs along mid-ocean ridges wherein new
oceanic crusts are created, which results to the widening of ocean floor
  Mid-Ocean Ridge: the longest mountain range in the world
3. Transform Boundaries – it is where plates move sideways in relation to
each other or grind past each other along strike-slip faults; triggers large
earthquakes (i.e., the 1906 San Francisco earthquake)
 The San Andreas Fault in California is an example of a transform
boundary
GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF EARTH
 Fossils
 the remains or marks of plants and animals that lived a very long time ago
 usually found in rocks and stones
 can be studied to determine what kind of organism it represents, how the
organism lived, and how it was preserved
 understanding the ages of related fossil species helps scientists piece
together the evolutionary history of a group of organisms.
 by comparing fossils of different primate species, scientists can examine how
features changed and how primates evolved through time
 There are two general approaches that allow scientists to date geological materials
and answer the question: "How old is this fossil?“
1. Relative Dating – putting geologic events or objects in chronological order
without including actual dates or ages
 most of the rocks exposed at the surface of Earth are sedimentary—
formed from particles of olders rocks that have been broken apart by
water or wind
 with the passage of time and the accumulation of more sedimentary
particles, the sediments at the bottom of the pile become rock: gravel
becomes conglomerate, sand becomes sandstone, mud becomes
mudstone/shale, and the animal skeletons and plant pieces become
fossils
 Nicholas Steno, a Danish scientist, studied the relative positions of
sedimentary rocks in the mid-1600’s and found that solid particles settle
from a fluid according to their relative weight or size: the largest/heaviest
settle first and the smallest/lightest settle last
 Strata (the plural form of stratum): horizontal rock layers (e.g., the rocks
exposed in the walls of the Grand Canyon)
 Stratigraphy: the study or science of strata which deals with all the
characteristics of layered rocks, including the study of how rocks relate
to time
 geologists have established a set of principles to determine the relative
ages of geological events preserved in the rock record:
a) The Principle of Original Horizontality – states that layers of
strata are deposited horizontally or nearly horizontally; thus, any
deformations of strata must have occurred after the rock was
deposited
b) The Principle of Superposition – states that in an undeformed
sequence of sedimentary rocks, each layer of rock is older than
the one above it and younger than the one below it; the oldest
rocks are at the bottom and the youngest rocks are at the top

Order from
Oldest to
C Youngest:
1) A

B 2) B
3) C
4) D
A

c) The Principle of Cross-Cutting Relationship – states that any

geologic features that cut across strata must have formed after the
rocks they cut through and are therefore younger

C D

Order from Oldest to Youngest: E, C, B, D, A

 d) The Principle of Fossil Succession – states that different fossil
species always appear and disappear in the same order, and that
once a fossil species goes extinct, it disappears and cannot
reappear in younger rocks

 Index Fossils: fossil species used to distinguish one layer

from another; occur for a limited interval of time; are usually
fossil organisms that are common, easily identified, and
found across a large area (e.g., pigs and rodents)
 if an unidentified fossil is found in the same rock layer as an
index fossil, the two species must have existed during the
same period
 if the same index fossil is found in different areas, the strata
in each area were likely deposited at the same time
2. Absolute Dating – the process of finding a numeric age of rocks or fossils
using radiometric dating; provide chronological estimates of the age of certain
geological materials associated with fossils, and even direct age
measurements of the fossil material itself
 researchers and geologists use the following to establish the age of a
rock or a fossil:
a) Radiometric Dating: examines the ratio of one isotope to another
in rock
 b) Electron Spin Resonance and Thermoluminescene: assess the
effects of radioactivity on the accumulation of electrons in
imperfections in the crystal structure of a mineral
 Isotopes – atoms of the same element but with different number of
neutrons; identified by its atomic mass—the number of protons plus
neutrons
Example, Carbon has three Isotopes:
carbon-12 or ¹²C carbon-13 or ¹³C carbon-14 or ¹⁴C
protons = 6 protons = 6 protons = 6
neutrons = 6 neutrons = 7 neutrons = 8
some isotopes have an unstable nucleus and are therefore
radioactive—the number of protons and neutrons are unequal
 Radioactive Decay – the change in the number of protons, neutrons,
or both in the unstable isotope
 parent isotope: the atomic nucleus that decays
 daughter isotope: the product of the decay
 e.g., the unstable ¹⁴C (parents isotope) transforms to stable ¹⁴N
(daughter isotope)
 Radiometric Dating – measures the abundances of parent and
daughter isotopes in a sample to determine their age
 Half-life – the amount of time it takes for half of the parent isotope to
decay into daughter isotope; the rate of decay
Note: when the quantities of the parent and daughter
isotopes are equal, one half-life has occurred

# of half-lives 1 2 3 4 5
% of parent isotope 50% 25% 12.5% 6.25% 3.126%
% of daughter isotop 50% 75% 87.5% 93.75% 96.857%
Example, the half-life of ¹⁴C = 5,730 years:
1 half life × 5730 = 5,730 yrs old (50% ¹⁴C)
2 half lives × 5730 = 11,460 yrs old (25% ¹⁴C)
3 half lives × 5730 = 17,190 yrs old (12.5% ¹⁴C)
4 half lives × 5730 = 22,920 yrs old (6.25% ¹⁴C)
5 half lives × 5730 = 28,650 yrs old (3.125% ¹⁴C)
 Note: radiocarbon dating is only useful for measuring
things that were formed in the relatively recent geologic past
 Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) method – allows dating of materials that are
beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating

PARENT DAUGHTER
ELEMENTS HALF-LIFE
SYMBOL SYMBOL
Uranium-238/Lead-206 ²³⁸U ²⁰⁶Pb 4.5 billion yrs
Uranium-235/Lead-207 ²³⁵U ²⁰⁷Pb 704 million yrs
Potassium-40/Argon-40 ⁴⁰K ⁴⁰Ar 1.25 billion yrs
Rubidium-87/Strontium-87 ⁸⁷Rb ⁸⁷Sr 48.8 billion yrs
Carbon-14/Nitrogen-14 ¹⁴C ¹⁴N 5,730 yrs

Example, the half-life of ⁴⁰K = 1.25 billion years

1 half life = 1.25 billion years (50% ⁴⁰K)
2 half lives = 2.5 billion years (25% ⁴⁰K)
3 half lives = 3.75 billion years (12.5% ⁴⁰K)
4 half lives = 5 billion years (6.75% ⁴⁰K)
5 half lives = 6.25 billion years (3.125% ⁴⁰K)
GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE
 Geologic Time Scale – a record of the life forms and geological events in Earth’s
history
 geologic time intervals are not equal because geologic time is divided using
significant events in the history of Earth
 Geologic time is divided into 4 major subdivisions:
1) Eons – largest intervals of geologic time that are hundreds of millions of years
in duration; based on abundance of fossils
 Phanerozoic Eaon: most recent eon that began more than 500 million
years ago
 Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic: subdivisions of the Supereon
Precambrian (88% of geologic time; older than 540 million years ago)
 Microscopic Bacteria: earliest living organisms (3.4 billion years ago)
 the final stages of precambrian time were marked by a prolonged global
ice age
2) Eras – very significant events in Earth's history are used to determine its
boundaries; defined by the different life forms found in the rocks; last tens to
hundreds of millions of years
 Paleozoic "ancient life" Era (pre-dinosaurs)
 Mesozoic "middle life" Era (dinosaurs)
 Cenozoic "recent life" Era (mammals)
3) Periods – the events that bound the periods are widespread in their extent
but are not as significant as those which bound the eras; generally tens of
millions of years long

rise of the humans & extinction of large

Quaternary Period
mammals and birds
Cenozoic

beginning of the “Ice Age” & spread of

Neogene Period
grassy ecosystems

Paleogene Period age of mammals & early primates

placental mammals, flowering plants, &

Cretaceous Period
Mesozoic Era

mass extinction of dinosaurs

Jurassic Period age of the dinosaurs

Pangaea formed and start to come apart,

Triassic Period
first dinosaurs, first mammals, flying reptiles

"the Great Dying"—a mass extinction event

Permian Period
where 95% of all life wipes off the planet

sometimes divided into Mississippian &

Carboniferous Pennsylvanian periods
Period first shelled eggs, first reptiles, abundance
Paleozoic Era

of sharks, & coal-forming swamps

Devonian Period first land plants and animals

Silurian Period first land plants and animals
first vertebrates or jawless fish; ended with
Ordovician Period freezing period and 2nd largest mass
extinction

age of early life & soft-bodied creatures lived

Cambrian Period in the ocean
 4) Epochs – finer subdivisions of time; subdivision of periods into epochs can
be done only for the most recent portion of the geologic time scale (i.e.,
Cenozoic period)

Quaternary “warm period” of Earth, pretty much all of

Holocene
recorded history of man

11 “interglacial periods”, extinction of saber-tooth

Pleistocene
tiger, wooly mammoth, & large reptiles

saber-tooth tiger, wooly mammoth,

Neogene

Pliocene
disappearance of “terror birds”

Miocene age of apes and hominids, giant crocodiles

rise of grazing mammals (early horses, camels,

Oligocene
etc.) & widespread grasses
Paleogene

ancestors of horses, giant penguins, lots of

Eocene
reptiles, & whales

Paleocene “terror birds”, reptiles, 1st cacti & palm trees

NATURAL HAZARDS, MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION

 Natural Hazards – events that occur as part of the natural cycles of Earth and may
cause potential damage to a community
 Disaster – an event that causes widespread losses and disrupts the normal
functioning of a community
 Vulnerability – the characteristics and circumstances of a community, system, or
asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard (United Nations
Office for Disaster Risk Reduction)
A. Hazards Caused by Geologic Processes
1. Earthquakes
 the Philippines is located near the boundaries of active tectonic plates
(the Philippine Plate that is constantly pushed by an active Pacific Plate)
 hazards associated with earthquakes:
 Ground Shaking: the vibration of the ground due to plate
movement or seismic waves during an earthquake
 Surface Faulting: the tearing of the ground when the movement of
a fault deep within Earth breaks through the ground surface
  Tsunamis: a very high, large waves or seismic sea waves caused
by the sudden movement of the ocean floor
 Top 10 Provinces at Risk to Earthquakes (According to the Philippine
Institute of Volcanology and Seismology or PHILVOLCS):
1. Surigao Del Sur 5. Pampanga 8. Davao Oriental
2. La Union 6. Tarlac 9. Nueva Vizcaya
3. Benguet 7. Ifugao 10. Nueva Ecija
4. Pangasinan
2. Volcanic Eruption
 there are more than 20 historically active volcanoes in the country
 volcanic activities may be followed by lahar flow, ash fall, ballistic
projectiles, emission of volcanic gases, and lava flow
 lahars (or mudflow): a flowing slurry of volcanic debris and water
that originates on a volcano
 lawa flow: either fluid or viscous lava; seldom threatens human life
because their move slowly and their path is predictable
3. Landslides (common e.g., debris flow/mudflow/mudslides and rock falls)
 defined as the movement of a mass of rock, debris, or earth down a
slope
slope movement: falls, topples,
encompasses five modes of

slides, spreads, and flows

 Slope Movement: occurs when forces acting down-slope exceed the

strength of earth materials that compose the slope;
 Submarine Landslides: landslides underwater that could cause
tsunamis
 types of landslides:
a) Rainfall-Induced Landslides: a common phenomenon in places
with tropical climates after very intense and long rains during the
wet season
b) Earthquake-Induced Landslides: happens during or after an
earthquake when a piece of weakened land slide off primarily due
to gravity
B. Hazards Caused by Hydrometeorological Phenomena
 Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ): the area that encircles Earth near the
equator where trade winds meet
 the Philippines is in the Northern Hemisphere near the equator
1. Tropical Cyclones
  also known as typhoons (Northwest Pacific) or hurricanes (Atlantic and
Northeast Pacific)
 storm systems characterized by rapidly spiralling storms, low-pressure
center, and intensely strong winds
 the Philippines experiences almost 20 typhoons annually
 PAGASA issues public storm warning signal based on speed, intensity,
size of circulation, and direction of winds
 hazards associated with typhoons: (1) strong winds & (2) heavy rainfall
leading to flooding
2. Monsoons
 seasonal winds
 two monsoons in the Philippines:
a) Amihan “Northeast Monsoon” – cold gusty wind with little or no
precipitation
b) Habagat “Southwest Monsoon” – hot and humid atmosphere with
frequent heavy rainfall
3. Tornadoes
 a rapidly swirling condensation funnel whose narrow end comes in
contact with the ground
 occur at an average of 12-24 times annually in the Philippines
 immediate hazards of tornadoes are: (1) strong swirling winds, (2) flying
debris and dust, & (3) fire
C. Hazards Caused by Coastal Processes
 Coastal Areas: transition places between land and sea; interacts with all
natural system and processes that happen on land, in the marine
environment, and in the atmosphere
1. Coastal Erosion – the seawater through wave actions, tidal currents, strong
winds, or a combination of all of the loosens the soil on the shore, which
eventually destroys the integrity of land
2. Submersion – a global temperature rise which warms and expand oceans
and seas, as well as speeds up the melting of glaciers and ice caps
3. Storm Surges – may occur when typhoons make landfall; water is pushed
toward the shore, generating huge waves capable of destroying sea walls
4. Saltwater Intrusion – the movement of minerals and salts from coastal seas
to freshwater aquifers