Geology (from the Ancient Greek ??, ge ("earth") and -?o??

a, -logia, ("study of",

"discourse")[1][2]) is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks
of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology
can also include the study of the solid features of any terrestrial planet or
natural satellite such as Mars or the Moon. Modern geology significantly overlaps
all other earth sciences, including hydrology and the atmospheric sciences, and so
is treated as one major aspect of integrated earth system science and planetary
science.
Geology describes the structure of the Earth on and beneath its surface, and the
processes that have shaped that structure. It also provides tools to determine the
relative and absolute ages of rocks found in a given location, and also to describe
the histories of those rocks.[3] By combining these tools, geologists are able to
chronicle the geological history of the Earth as a whole, and also to demonstrate
the age of the Earth. Geology provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics,
the evolutionary history of life, and the Earth's past climates.

Geologists use a wide variety of methods to understand the Earth's structure and
evolution, including field work, rock description, geophysical techniques, chemical
analysis, physical experiments, and numerical modelling. In practical terms,
geology is important for mineral and hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation,
evaluating water resources, understanding of natural hazards, the remediation of
environmental problems, and providing insights into past climate change. Geology is
a major academic discipline, and it plays an important role in geotechnical
engineering.

Geologic materials
The majority of geological data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These
typically fall into one of two categories: rock and unlithified material.

Rock

The rock cycle shows the relationship between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic
rocks.
Main articles: Rock (geology) and Rock cycle
The majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock
provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth.
There are three major types of rock: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The
rock cycle illustrates the relationships among them (see diagram).

When a rock solidifies or crystallizes from melt (magma or lava), it is an igneous

rock. This rock can be weathered and eroded, then redeposited and lithified into a
sedimentary rock. It can then be turned into a metamorphic rock by heat and
pressure that change its mineral content, resulting in a characteristic fabric. All
three types may melt again, and when this happens, new magma is formed, from which
an igneous rock may once more solidify.

Native gold from Venezuela

Quartz from Tibet

Tests
To study all three types of rock, geologists evaluate the minerals of which they
are composed. Each mineral has distinct physical properties, and there are many
tests to determine each of them. The specimens can be tested for:[4]

Luster: Measurement of the amount of light reflected from the surface. Luster is
broken into metallic and nonmetallic.
Color: Minerals are grouped by their color. Mostly diagnostic but impurities can
change a mineral's color.
Streak: Performed by scratching the sample on a porcelain plate. The color of the
streak can help name the mineral.
Hardness: The resistance of a mineral to scratch.
Breakage pattern: A mineral can either show fracture or cleavage, the former being
breakage of uneven surfaces and the latter a breakage along closely spaced parallel
planes.
Specific gravity: the weight of a specific volume of a mineral.
Effervescence: Involves dripping hydrochloric acid on the mineral to test for
fizzing.
Magnetism: Involves using a magnet to test for magnetism.
Taste: Minerals can have a distinctive taste, like Halite (mineral) (which tastes
like table salt).
Smell: Minerals can have a distinctive odor. For example, sulfur smells like rotten
eggs.
Unlithified material
Geologists also study unlithified materials (referred to as drift), which typically
come from more recent deposits. These materials are superficial deposits that lie
above the bedrock.[5] This study is often known as Quaternary geology, after the
Quaternary period of geologic history.

Magma and lava

However, unlithified material does not only include sediments. Magmas and lavas are
the original unlithified source of all igneous rocks. The active flow of molten
rock is closely studied in volcanology, and igneous petrology aims to determine the
history of igneous rocks from their final crystallization to their original molten
source.

Whole-Earth structure
Plate tectonics
Main article: Plate tectonics

Oceanic-continental convergence resulting in subduction and volcanic arcs

illustrates one effect of plate tectonics.

The major tectonic plates of the Earth.

In the 1960s, it was discovered that the Earth's lithosphere, which includes the
crust and rigid uppermost portion of the upper mantle, is separated into tectonic
plates that move across the plastically deforming, solid, upper mantle, which is
called the asthenosphere. This theory is supported by several types of
observations, including seafloor spreading[6][7] and the global distribution of
mountain terrain and seismicity.

There is an intimate coupling between the movement of the plates on the surface and
the convection of the mantle (that is, the heat transfer caused by bulk movement of
molecules within fluids). Thus, oceanic plates and the adjoining mantle convection
currents always move in the same direction � because the oceanic lithosphere is
actually the rigid upper thermal boundary layer of the convecting mantle. This
coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the convecting
mantle is called plate tectonics.

In this diagram based on seismic tomography, subducting slabs are in blue and
continental margins and a few plate boundaries are in red. The blue blob in the
cutaway section is the Farallon Plate, which is subducting beneath North America.
The remnants of this plate on the surface of the Earth are the Juan de Fuca Plate
and Explorer Plate, both in the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada,
and the Cocos Plate on the west coast of Mexico.
The development of plate tectonics has provided a physical basis for many
observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features are
explained as plate boundaries.[8]

For example:

Mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and
volcanoes exist, are seen as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart.
Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes are theorized as convergent boundaries, where one
plate subducts, or moves, under another.
Transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread
powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also has provided a mechanism for Alfred
Wegener's theory of continental drift,[9] in which the continents move across the
surface of the Earth over geologic time. They also provided a driving force for
crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology.
The power of the theory of plate tectonics lies in its ability to combine all of
these observations into a single theory of how the lithosphere moves over the
convecting mantle.

Earth structure
Main article: Structure of the Earth

The Earth's layered structure. (1) inner core; (2) outer core; (3) lower mantle;
(4) upper mantle; (5) lithosphere; (6) crust (part of the lithosphere)

Earth layered structure. Typical wave paths from earthquakes like these gave early
seismologists insights into the layered structure of the Earth
Advances in seismology, computer modeling, and mineralogy and crystallography at
high temperatures and pressures give insights into the internal composition and
structure of the Earth.

Seismologists can use the arrival times of seismic waves in reverse to image the
interior of the Earth. Early advances in this field showed the existence of a
liquid outer core (where shear waves were not able to propagate) and a dense solid
inner core. These advances led to the development of a layered model of the Earth,
with a crust and lithosphere on top, the mantle below (separated within itself by
seismic discontinuities at 410 and 660 kilometers), and the outer core and inner
core below that. More recently, seismologists have been able to create detailed
images of wave speeds inside the earth in the same way a doctor images a body in a
CT scan. These images have led to a much more detailed view of the interior of the
Earth, and have replaced the simplified layered model with a much more dynamic
model.

Mineralogists have been able to use the pressure and temperature data from the
seismic and modelling studies alongside knowledge of the elemental composition of
the Earth to reproduce these conditions in experimental settings and measure
changes in crystal structure. These studies explain the chemical changes associated
with the major seismic discontinuities in the mantle and show the crystallographic
structures expected in the inner core of the Earth.