Written by David Rothery, who is Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University, Geology: A Complete Introduction is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear English.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: a mighty matter of legend
• Rock types and the rock cycle
• The structure of this book
• 2 Inside and outside: the solid Earth and the atmosphere
• The atmosphere and its development
• The Earth's interior
• Seismic waves
• The Earth's core
• Evidence from magnetism
• The Earth's crust and mantle – compositional layers
• Summary of compositional layers
• Another kind of layering – strong and weak
• The Earth's heat
• Radiogenic heating
• Radiometric dating and the age of the Earth
• The origin of the Earth and the Solar System
• A warning
• 3 Earthquakes
• How earthquakes happen
• Measuring earthquakes
• Protecting structures from earthquake damage
• Earthquake preparedness
• Prediction and prevention
• Tsunamis
• 4 Plate tectonics
• Moving plates
• Plates colliding
• Plates moving apart
• The break-up of a continent
• The life-cycle of an ocean
• Plates sliding past each other
• The global picture
• What makes the plates move?
• 5 Volcanoes
• Magma origin and eruption
• Magmatic gases and explosive eruptions
• Volcanic hazards
• Ignimbrite eruptions
• Volcanoes associated with continental rifting
• Volcanism at ocean ridges
• Hawaiian volcanism
• Lava hazards
• Predicting eruptions
• Widespread effects of eruptions
• 6 Igneous intrusions
• Minerals
• Granite
• Basaltic intrusions in the oceanic crust
• Dykes and sills
• Grain sizes in igneous rocks
• 7 Metamorphism
• Thermal metamorphism
• Regional metamorphism
• Metamorphic facies
• Textures of metamorphic rocks
• 8 Weathering, erosion and transport
• Chemical breakdown of minerals during weathering
• Physical weathering
• Sand-sized grains in wind and water
• Moving ice
• Glacial landscapes
• Erosion by rivers and streams
• Drainage patterns
• Marine erosion
• 9 Deposition of sediment and the origin of sedimentary rocks
• Ripples and dunes
• Turbidity currents
• Current directions
• Waves
• Finer and coarser sediments
• Other means of transport
• Using sediments to interpret ancient environments
• Depositional environments associated with rivers
• Flash floods
• Deltas and estuaries
• Logging a sedimentary succession
• Beaches and other coastal environments
• Evaporite deposits
• Limestone
• Turning sediment into rock
• 10 Deformation of rocks
• Different types of steep fault
• Low-angle faults
• Thrust belts and collision zones
• Brittle faults versus shear zones
• Folds
• Shapes and styles of folding
• Unconformities
• 11 Physical resources
• Reserves and resources
• Origins of oil and gas
• Oil and gas reservoirs
• Exploration for oil and gas
• The origin of coal
• Mining techniques
• Ores and their origins
• Ore exploration
• The mining of ores
• Diagenetic and sedimentary ore bodies
• Non-metallic raw materials
• Making good the damage
• Water resources
• 12 Past life and fossils
• The origin of life
• The first microbes
• More complex cells
• Multicellular organisms
• The major animal phyla appear
• Vascular plants and life on land
• The mammals take over
• Mass extinctions and adaptive radiations
• How fossils form
• Exceptional preservation
• Plant fossils
• The use of fossils in stratigraphy
• 13 A short history of the Earth
• The Earth's first crust
• Archean plate tectonics?
• The growth of cratons
• The Proterozoic Eon
• Phanerozoic plate configurations
• Climate change
• Human-induced climate change
• The future history of the Earth
• 14 Solar System geology
• Impact craters
• The Moon
• Mercury
• Venus
• Mars
• The asteroids
• Io
• Europa
• Large icy bodies
• Geology among the stars
• 15 Going into the field
• Things to do in the field
• Field equipment
• Field safety
• Geological maps and guidebooks
• Suggestions for field projects
• Appendix 1: Minerals
• Appendix 2: Rock names
• Igneous rocks
• Metamorphic rocks
• Sedimentary rocks
• Appendix 3: Geological time
• Glossary
• Answers
• Plates