Progress in Geology

Geology- is the study of the solid Earth and the processes by which it is shaped and changed. Geology provides primary evidence for plate tectonics, the history of life and evolution and past climates. In modern times, geology is commercially important for mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, is publically important for predicting and understanding natural hazards plays an essential role in geotechnical engineering and is a major academic disipline.

Contributors

Jean Andre Deluc and Horace Benedict de Saussure

first to use the word geology from Greek word Geo meaning Earth and logos meaning speech.

Alfred Wegener

continental drift(is the movement of the Earth's continent relative to each other. It was not until the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s, that a sufficient geological explanation of that movement was found.)

Pangea Continent Map -

Continental Drift

Robert S. Dietz and Harry s. Hess

Seafloor spreading occurs at mid-ocean ridges where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics.

Seafloor spreading (This is how the Mariana's Trench was formed)

SK Runcorn

concept of paleomagnetism(is the study of the record of the Earth's magnetic field in rocks. Certain minerals in rocks can record direction and intensity of the field as it has changed over geologic time. This provides information on the geodynamo and the fluid dynamics of the outer core of the Earth. The record of these changes in rocks and sediments provides a time scale that is used in geochronology).

Pacific Northwest

Paleomagnetic Laboratory at WWU:

Gene Shoemaker

gave the study of the moon to the Lunar geologist.