Investigating Earth's Structure

This subject explores the structure and dynamics of planet Earth. It focuses on the large-scale processes that control the different types of rock that make up our planet, where those rocks are found and how they change over geological time. The subject emphasises the formation and evolution of surface features such as mountain belts and basins. As such, this subject provides the essential theoretical and practical framework to understand the fundamental geological processes involved with the rock cycle, including the later modification of rocks through deformation and metamorphism. These topics provide a conceptual framework for later geoscience subjects. Lectures, practicals and fieldwork will cover three linked themes: (1) solid Earth geophysics, (2) large scale tectonics, its drivers and its links to the formation of different rock types, and (3) deformation and secondary structures in rocks.

本课程探索地球的结构和动力学。它着重于控制构成地球的各种岩石类型、这些岩石的分布以及它们在地质时间尺度上如何变化的大尺度过程。本课程强调山脉和盆地等地表特征的形成和演变。因此，本课程提供了理解岩石循环所涉及的基本地质过程以及岩石通过变形和变质作用的后期改造所必需的理论和实践框架。这些主题为后续地球科学课程提供了概念框架。讲座、实践和野外工作。

• 1Explain the gross structure of planet Earth and how it is understood from geological and geophysical observations
• 2Evaluate large-scale geophysical datasets that can be used to investigate the structure and evolution of Earth
• 3Identify and describe the key controls on plate tectonics at a large-scale
• 4Explain how rocks form in different tectonic settings.
• 5Explain the processes involved in rock deformation at different pressure and temperature conditions and how these are central to tectonic and orogenic processes
• 6Interpret deformation features in rocks in three dimensions including on geological maps and in cross-sections