Geology for Civil Engineers: Earth's Internal Heat and Magmatism

Vertebrate and Invertebrate Paleontology

• Vertebrate paleontology studies the fossil record of animals with backbones.
• Invertebrate paleontology focuses on animals that lack backbones.
• Invertebrate animals include sponges, corals, bryozoans, brachiopods, molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms, and worms.

Paleobotany and Palynology

• Paleobotany deals with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts to reconstruct past environments and the evolutionary history of plants.
• Palynology is the study of microscopic fragments of organisms composed of acid-resistant organic material found in sediments, sedimentary rocks, and metasedimentary rocks, including mega and microfossils.

Mining Geology

• Mining geology involves the application of geology to mining engineering for selecting suitable sites for quarrying and mines, combining principles of economic geology and mining engineering to develop defined mineral resources.

Earth's Structure

• The Transition zone is a region in the mantle where high-pressure conditions lead to changes in mineral composition.
• The Lower Mantle is composed of silicate minerals in a solid state due to high pressures, even though temperatures are high.
• At the planet's center, a dense metallic iron-nickel alloy lies.
• The Inner Core is solid and composed mainly of iron and nickel.
• The Outer Core is primarily composed of liquid iron and nickel.

Plate Tectonics

• Continental drift describes one of the earliest ways geologists thought continents moved over time.
• The stress that separated all the continents in the world is called tectonic stress.

Geological Processes

• Exogenic processes are influenced by gravity, water, wind, and ice.
• Erosion is a process where rock debris or soil are moved due to rainfall, surface runoff, flooding, freezing, hurricane, and glaciers.
• Mass wasting is the movement of large masses of materials due to the pull of gravity.
• Sedimentation is the buildup of materials such as soil, rock fragments, and soil particles settling on the seafloor.
• Weathering is the disintegration of rocks, soil, and minerals through contact with the earth's atmosphere.

Ocean Engineering

• Ocean engineering is instrumental in helping preserve coastal structures from erosion and flooding.
• Engineers design ships and offshore structures to withstand challenging sea environments, considering factors like waves, currents, and tides.

Rivers and Wind

• Rivers erode, transport, and deposit sediments, influencing the formation of deltas.
• Wind erosion shapes dunes and transports particles.

Earthquakes and Faults

• The shaking caused by movements in Earth's outermost layer is known as an earthquake.
• Faults are fractures in rocks caused by tectonic stress or the push-pull on the crust.

Magma and Volcanism

• The driving force behind Earth's internal heat is the mantle's thermal energy, which mostly originated from the decay of radioactive elements in the Earth's core.
• Magma is the original material that makes up igneous rock.
• Volcanism occurs because of Earth's internal heat, and is associated with tectonic processes and a part of the rock cycle.
• Volcanic eruptions occur when molten lava reaches the surface of the Earth.

Rock Formation

• Due to endogenic processes, igneous and metamorphic rocks are formed.
• Compressional stress is usually what takes place in folding, which results in mountain building.