ERTH 2403 - Lecture 3

Topic: War and Technology

1. Georg Wust (1925)

a. Meteor expedition German research Vessel
b. Crossed the Atlantic for 2 years
c. Used modern electronics and optics
d. Used an echo sounder: Most important innovation
e. First to use echo sounder to study depth and topography of the
seafloor
Wusts Contribution

Mapped Atlantic
Density of water masses
Determined 4-layer structure of Atlantic

Post WWII Technology Applied to Oceanography

1. HMS Challenger II (1951)
a. Two years voyage
b. Echo sounding Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Oceans and Mediterranean sea;
c. Measured precise depth
d. Discovered the Challenger Deep: deepest part of the deepest trench of
the ocean
2. US nuclear submarines
a. Beneath the North Pole
b. From Point Barrow, Alaska to the Norwegian Sean
3. Submersibles Manned and Remote
a. In 1960: Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard US Navy
b. Descent into Challenger Dee of Mariana Trench in Trieste (submersible)
4. Drilling Ship: Glomar Challenger: 1968
a. Drilled into the ocean bottom: beneath more than 6000 meter (water
and sediment samples)
b. Evidence of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics
5. JOIDES Resolutions: 1985
a. Deep sea drilling
b. In 2003: Deep sea drilling were conducted by Integrated Ocean Drilling
Program (IODP) = International Consortium
c. Joint Oceanographic Institute
d. ODP (Ocean Drilling Project) = The first Global Program designed to
study the nature of ocean floor = Deep sea Drilling Project
6. Chikyu (2007)
a. Japanese Ship
b. Drilling Cores up to 11 km long
c. 45% longer than JOIDES Resolution
d. 2.4 times the mass of JOIDES
e. Most equipped geological laboratories
7. Okeanus Explorer (2010)
a. US Navy 5 oceanic survey ship
 b. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established
in 1970
c. Research ship with remotely operated vehicle (ROV)

Manned Vehicles
1. Alvin
a. Oldest manned (3-person)
b. More than 4200 dives
c. Slow but to 4000m for 5 hours
d. 1970s East Pacific Rise
e. First Hydrogen
ROVs
Remotely operated robots (operated the ship or ashore)
Autonomous not tethered to the ship
Instructions are programmed before released
Collect samples & examine equipment
HROV (hybrid) Nereus: deepest diving robot: 1,902 meters
Skandi Neptune during Horizon Platforms oil spill (Gulf of Mexico) 2010

Satellites
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established in 1958
Important contribution to marine science
Imaging of oceans
Positioning of ocean vessels
1. 1978 NASA SEASAT
a. First oceanographic satellite
b. Determine wave height
c. Variation in sea surface temperature and contour
2. 1985 GESAT
3. 1992 TOPEX & POSEIDON
4. 2002 Jason-1
5. 2002 AQUA

Some Institute of Oceanography

1. Woods Hole Massachusetts
2. Scripps La Jolla California
3. Bedford Halifax
4. Qingdao Chine (Worlds largest)

Earth Structure and Plate Tectonics

Were the present day continent joined together?
1. In 1620: Sir Francis Bacon corresponding shorelines around South Africa
2. Observers of the late accurate 1700s charts
3. In 1885 Edward Suess (Austria): fossils of seeds of fern Glossopteris (southern
landmass) and fossils of reptiles Mesosaurs (Argentina and Africa)
4. In 1908 Sir Ernest Shackleton discovered coal fossil remains of tropical plants
in Antarctica
5. In 1912: Alfred Wegner (German Meteorologist and polar explorer) introduced
the Continental Drift theory
 a. Continental Drift: Earths land were joined into one supercontinent
(Pangaea) surrounded by Ocean (Panthalassa)
b. In 1858 French geographer Antonia Pellegrini was the first to suggest
single continent
c. Wegner: First to propose centrifugal force theory as a mechanism of
Continental Drift

Geological Time
1. Relative Age Dating
a. The sequencing of events
b. The rock layers
c. Fossils
d. Magnetic reversals
e. Oldest to youngest: No absolute age value
2. Radiometric (Absolute) Age dating
a. Radioactive dating: process to determine the age of rocks ratio of
unstable radioactive elements to stable decay productions
b. Radioactive decay: unstable atomic nuclei parent break apart and
release heat (radiation)
c. Rocks contain minerals that contain unstable isotopes
d. By measuring the ration of parent to daughter product.
e. By measuring the ratio of parent to daughter product we can
determine number of lives and the time since the formation of the
mineral (last time it was heated)
f. Gives date in years from time of crystallization
Evidence of Age and Formation of Ocean Basins
1. Radiometric dating oceanic crustal rocks
2. Magnetic Reversal

Earth Magnetic Field

Earth magnetic field: fluid motion of molten metals and electrical current in
the outer core
Source in the inner core: results in convection currents in the outer core
Small particles of iron-bearing magnetic mineral is contained in basaltic
magma
At mid-ocean ridges basaltic magma cools and forms new seafloor
Fe minerals (hot) in basalts align with the Earths magnetic field
Freeze in place when cool below Curie point (about 580C)
The orientation of the Earth magnetic field at that specific time solidified in
the rock and recorded
The fossil magnetic field = Paleomagnetism

Seismology As evidence for layering of the Interior Earth

Mid-1800s: Scientists low frequency waves travel through the Earth Interior
Low-Frequency waves are generated by earthquakes: seismic waves
Time travel, arrival at the surface, change in frequency, strength of seismic
waves = information on the Earths interior
Seismic (Earthquake) waves
Surface Waves: move on Earths surface = caused most of damages
 Body waves: very important for the study of the Earths interior
Body Waves: Primary and Secondary
Primary Waves
o Compressional
o Fastest
o Solid and Liquid
Secondary Waves
o Shear
o Slower
o Solids only

Some behaviors of Seismic Waves

Increase speed with density of material
Faster in solids than liquids (P)
Refract (bend) and reflect (bounce off) when encountering material of
different layers
1. Core
a. Lies beneath the Mantle: Mantle-core boundary is ~2900km
b. Average Temperature ~5500C
c. Fe, Ni
i. Inner Core: Solid
1. Temperature ~6600C
2. Density ~13g/cm3
3. Mostly Iron
ii. Outer core: Dense, viscous liquid
1. Mostly iron and nickel
2. Mantle
a. Layer beneath the crust (continental and oceanic)
b. Rocky Solid (parts flow)
i. Fe, Mg, Silicate minerals
ii. Peridotite (overall rock type)
iii. ~68% Earths mass and ~82% Earths volume
c. Upper mantle 3.3g/cm3 and lower mantle 4.5g/cm3
3. Crust
a. Uppermost layer lightweight
b. Continental crust
i. 2.7g/cm3
ii. Granite AL Silicate minerals granite
iii. 40 km thick to 70 km under mountains
c. Oceanic crust
i. 2.9g/cm3
ii. Primarily heavy dark rock basalt: Fe, Mg, Si, and O
iii. 7 km thick

Division Based on Physical Properties

1. Mesosphere (lower Mantle)
a. Depth 360km (oceanic lithosphere), 650 km (continental lithosphere)
b. Density = 4.5 g/cm3
2. Asthenosphere (asthenes = weak)
 a. Plastic, partially melted, hot, flowing layer of upper mantle
b. Depth: 70-360 km (oceanic lithosphere), 200-650km (continental
lithosphere)
3. Lithosphere (Lithos = rocks)
a. Cool, rigid
b. Thickness 70-200km
c. Continental and oceanic crust and the upper mantle? Bitch went too
fast

Isostasy
Continental crust and the rest of Lithosphere float on the denser
asthenosphere
Why mountain chains dont sink in the asthenosphere
Buoyancy: ability of an object to float in a fluid and displacing a volume of
fluid equal in weight to its own
Under the weight of continental and oceanic crust the asthenosphere
behaves like a slowly moving dense and viscous fluid
When high mountains erode: the crust will rise in response to the reduced
weight of the crust isostatic readjustment
Isostatic readjustment = thinning of the continental crust under mountains
and subsidence beneath deposited sediments

Plate Tectonics
1645 Irish Bishop James Ussher: Creation on 26 October 4004BC
1788 Scottish Physician James Hutton: 1788 Principle of Uniformitarianism
Principle of Catastrophism (biblical flood)
1850s Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel: Natural Selection
Continental Drift idea was transformed seismology, echo sounder
In 1960 Harry Hess (Princeton University) and Robert Dietz of Scripps
Institution of Oceanography
o New seafloor is formed at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and spreads outward
o Continent could move along by the same forces
o This motion is generated by convection current within the mantle
o Hypothesis seafloor spreading source of hot new ocean floor rising
form the asthenosphere
In 1965 John Tuzo Wilson, geophysicist at the U of T: continental drift and
seafloor spreading: Plate tectonics
In 1965 John Tuzo Wilson
o Plates tectonics: Earths outher layer is composed of about dozen of
lithospheric plates floating on the asthenosphere
Rates = 1-2cm/year to 17/18cm/year

Plate Boundaries
1. Divergent
a. Oceanic
b. Continental
2. Convergent
a. Ocean to ocean
 b. Ocean to continent
c. Continent to continent
3. Transform fault
1. Divergent Plate Boundaries
a. Oceanic Divergent Plates boundaries
i. Ocean basins form at divergent plate boundaries
ii. Volcanism: basaltic (Fe, Mg, Silicates)
iii. New ocean floor: (seafloor spreading)
iv. Rift valley along center
v. Dense 2.9g/cm3, shallow earthquakes
2. Convergent Plate boundaries
a. Oceanic to oceanic crust