Bio 1_Lesson 5

Earth Science

Geologic Processes within The Earth’s Surface

Our planet’s surface topography, the distribution of landscape highs and lows, is complex and
intriguing. Landscapes consist of rugged mountains, gently sloping plains, rolling hills and
valleys, or elevated plateaus cut by steep canyons. These are just a few examples of the types
of surface terrain features, referred to as landforms, that contribute to the beauty and diversity
of Earth’s environments. Landforms are one of the most appealing and impressive elements of
Earth’s surface. Each year , local ,state, and national parks attract millions of visitors seeking to
observe and experience firsthand spectacular examples of landforms. Landforms owe their
existence and development to processes and materials that originate in Earth’s interior, at its
surface , or, most typically, some combination of both.

Understanding landforms and landscapes – how they originate, why they vary, and
their significance in a local, regional, or global contex- is the primary goal of geomorphology, a
major subfield of physical geography devoted to the scientific study of landforms.
Geomorphologists seek explanation for the origin , shape, and spatial distribution of terrain
features of all kinds and for the processes that modify and destroy them. Landforms represent
the interplay of one set of processes that elevate, depress, or disrupt. Earth’s surface, creating
topographic inequalities, and another set of processes that wear down, fill in, and work to level
the lands scape.

Landforming tectonic processes ( Greek: tekton, carpenter, builder) , which are

LANDFORMS AND GEOMORPHOLOGY

A fundamental characteristic of all landforms and landscapes is their relative amount of relief,
which is the difference in elevation between the highest and lowest points surface feature.
With no variations relief our planet would be a smooth , featureless sphere and certainly much
less interesting.

Earth’s landforms result from mechanisms that act to increase relief by raising or
lowering the land surface and from mechanism that work to reduce relief by removing rock
matter from high places and using it to fill depression. Geomorphic processes that originate
within Earth, called endogenic processeses ( endo, within: genic, originating ), tend to increase
the amount of surface relief, whereas the exogenic processes(exo, external, those that
originate at Earth’s surface, work to decrease relief. Tectonic and igneous processes constitute
the endogenic geomorphic processes. Exogenic processes consist of various means of rock
breakdown, collectively termed weathering, and the removal, movement, and relocation of
those weathered rock produces in the continuum of processes known as erosion,
transportation , and deposition. Erosion , transportation, and deposition act through the force
of gravity alone, as in the fall of a wethered clast from a cliff to the ground below, or operate
with the help of a geomorphic agent, a medium that picks up, moves, and eventually lays down
pieces of broken rock matter.

The most common geomorphic agents:

1. flowing water
2. wind
3. moving ice
 4. wave

But organisms including people, also accomplish some erosion, transportation, and
deposition of weathered pieces of Earth material.

TECTONIC FORCES, ROCK STRUCTURE, AND LANDFORMS

Tectonic forces , which at the largest scale move the lithospheric plates, also cause bending,
warping, folding, and fracturing of Earth’s crust at continental, regional, and even local scales.
Such deformation is documented by rock structure, the nature, orientation, inclination, and
arrangement of affected rock layers. For example, rock layers that have undergone significant
tectonic forces may be tilted, folded , or fractured or, relative to adjacent rock masses, offset,
uplifted, or downdropped. Sedimentary rocks are particularly . Sedimentary rocks are
particularly useful for identifying tectonic deformation because most are originally horizontal,
with each successive , overlying rock layer younger than the one beneth it. If strata are bent ,
fractured , offset, or otherwise out of sequence , some kind of structural deformation has
occurred.

Earth scientists describe the orientation of inclined rock layers by measuring their strike
and dip. Strike is the compass direction of the line that forms at the intersection of a tilted rock
layer and a horizontal plane. A rock layer , for example might strike northeast . Note that it
would be equally correct to express the orientation as a southwest strike. The inclination of the
rock layer; the dip, is always measured at right angles to the strike and in degrees of angle from
the horizontal ( 0° dip = horizontal). The direction toward which the rock dips down is provided
with the general compass direction. For example, a rock layer that strikes northeast and is
inclined 11° from the horizontal down to the southeast would be described as having a dip of
11° to the southeast .

Tectonic forces are divided into three principal types that differ in the direction of the applied
forces.

1. Compressional tectonic forces push crustal rocks together.

Compressional Tectonic Forces

Tectonic forces that push two areas of crustal rocks together tend to shorten and thicken the
crust. How the affected rocks respond to compressional forces depends on how brittle
(breakable) the rocks are and the speed with which the forces are applied . Folding ,which is a
bending or crumpling of rock layers, occurs when compressional forces are applied to rocks that
are ductile ( bendable), as opposed to brittle. Rocks that lie deep within the crust and that are
therefore under high pressure are generally ductile and particularly susceptible to behaving
plastically, that is, to deforming without breaking. As a result ,rocks deep within the crust
typically fold rather than break in response to compressional forces. Folding is also more likely
than fracturing when the compressional forces are applied slowly. Eventually , however, if the
force per unit area , the stress , is great enough, the rocks may still break with one section
pushed over another.

As elements of rock structure , upholds are called anticlines and downfolds are called
synclines. The rock layers that form the flanks of anticlinal crests and synclinal troughs are the
fold limbs. Folds in some rock layers are very small, covering a few centimeters , whereas
others are enormous with vertical distances between the upfolds and downfolds measured in
kilometers.
 If the tectonic force is large enough , or if it is applied rapidly, these rocks will break
rather than bend and the rock masses will move relative to each other along the fracture.
Faulting is the slippage or displacement of rocks along a fracture surface, and the fracture along
which movement has occurred is a fault.

When compressional forces cause faulting , either one mass of rocks is pushed up
relative to the other mass of rock along a steep-angled fault or one mass of rock slides along a
shallow, low-angle fault over the other rock mass. The steep , high-angle fault resulting from
compressional forces is termed a reverse fault. Where compression pushes a mass of rock along
a low-angle fault so that it overrides rocks on the other side of the fault, the fracture surface is
called a thrust fault, and the shallow displacement is an overthrust.

Tensional Tectonic Forces

Tensional tectonic forces pull in opposite directions in a way that stretches and thins the
impacted part of the crust. Rocks, however, typically respond to tensional forces by faulting ,
rather than bending or stretching plastically. Tensional forces commonly cause the crust to
break into discrete blocks, called fault blocks, that are separated from each other by normal
faults.

Each block that slid downward between two normal faults, or the remained in place
while blocks on either side slid upward along the faults , is called graben. A fault block that
moved relatively upward between two normal faults – that is ,it actually moved up or it
remained in place while adjacent blocks salid downward – is a horst. The great Ruwenzori
Range of East Africa is a horst as is thje Sinai Penensula between the fault through in the Gulfs
of Suez and Aqaba. Horst and graben are rock structural featres that are identified by the
nature of the offser of rock units along normal faults; topographically, horst form mountain
ranges and grabens form basins.
 In some case , large –scale tensional tectonic forces create rift valley, which are long but
relatively narrow zones of crust downdropped between normal faults. An escarpment, often
shortened to scarp, it is a steep cliff, which may be tall or short. Scarps form on Earth surface
terrain for many reasons and in many different settings. A cliff that results from movement
along a fault is specifically a fault scarp. Fault scarp are commonly visible in the landscape along
normal fault zones, where they may consist of impressive rock faces on fault blocks that have
undergone extensive uplift over long periods.

Shearing Tectonic Forces

Vertical displacement along a fault occurs when the rocks on one side move up or drop
down in relation to rocks on the other side. Faults with this kind of movement ,up or down
along the dip of the fault plane extending into Earth , are known as dip-slip faults. Normal and
reverse fault have dip-slip faults motion. There are also exist , however, a completely different
category of fault along which displacement of rock units is horizontal rather than vertical. In this
case , the direction of slippage is parallel to the surface trace , or strike, of the fault ; thus it is
called a strike-slip fault , because of the horizontal motion, a lateral fault.