Earth History and Geologic Processes

What learners will discover

• Use superposition, original horizontality, cross-cutting relationships and index fossils to put rock layers and geologic events in relative order.
• Use fossils and the geologic time scale to organise Earth's history of about 4.6 billion years, and compare the lengths of time spans.
• Explain the evidence for plate tectonics (continental fit, matching fossils and rocks, ancient climates, seafloor age) and relate plate boundaries to geologic features.
• Model the rock cycle, identifying how igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks form and the energy sources (Earth's internal heat and the Sun) that drive the processes.
• Calculate rates of geologic processes (such as centimetres per year) and use them to estimate distances or times over millions of years.

Lessons

1. Reading the order in rock layers 8 steps4 practiceabout 25 min
2. Fossils and the geologic time scale 9 steps6 practiceabout 25 min
3. Plate tectonics: the evidence 9 steps5 practiceabout 26 min
4. The rock cycle and the energy that drives it 8 steps5 practiceabout 24 min
5. Slow processes, big changes 9 steps6 practiceabout 25 min
6. Earth history check 12 questions at the end