Welcome to the OpenGeology.org Historical Geology textbook!
This textbook is intended for undergraduate courses in Earth history. It was written by Callan Bentley, Karen Layou, Russ Kohrs, Shelley Jaye, Matt Affolter, and Brian Ricketts. It is a work in progress.
Chapters:
Earth Materials – The Rock Forming Minerals
Taphonomy: The Science of Death and Decay
Innovations of Life Through Time: Life Finds a Way
Mass extinctions
[NEW as of December 2022]
Stratigraphy – The Pages of Earth’s Past
Using sedimentary structures to interpret ancient environments
[NEW URL AS OF 12/27/2022]
Case studies:
Nebular theory and the formation of the solar system
Greenstone belts: primordial tectonics
Starting tectonics and making the first continents
The Grenville Orogeny & the rifting of Rodinia
Tippecanoe Sequence: A sequence stratigraphic view
California’s Coast Ranges: a Mesozoic accretionary wedge complex
The mixed-up quartzites of Cape Agulhas
Extremadura: interpreting a geological cross-section
Diversity in the marine fossil record
Dino Debates – dinosaur ecological controversies
San Andreas Fault & the Basin and Range
The Parallel “Roads” of Glen Roy
[NEW as of November 2022]
The Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington
[NEW as of November 2022]
The interplay of carbon & oxygen cycles in Earth history
[NEW as of January 2023]
Quaternary Quandaries: defining the geologic “now” and explorations of the Anthropocene
Additional case studies in the works (coming soon):
Big Bang
Crust formation & evolution & differentiation
Moon forming impact
Ocean formation & evolution
Atmosphere formation & evolution, oxygenation
Origin of life
A history of fossil plants
Sauk/early Paleozoic transgression
The Acadian Orogeny
The Alleghanian Orogeny
Large igneous provinces / Flood basalts
Pleistocene “Ice Ages”
Epicontinental seas – Pz, Mz, Cz
Carboniferous coal & natural gas – cyclothems
PETM
Tools of the trade:
Earth Materials – Mineral identification
Evolution Part II: Paleontological applications
Virtual field experiences (VFEs):
Glaciers, glaciated landscapes, and glacial sediments
Glacier National Park, Montana
The Geodetic Hills Fossil Forests: Unraveling a Paleoclimate Puzzle
Massanutten Synclinorium, Virginia
The Moho (crust/mantle boundary)
Stromatolite diversity in the Belcher Islands
Modern & ancient microbialites in Western Australia
Virtual sample sets (VSSs):
3D mineral samples, set 1
[NEW as of January 2023]
Primary sedimentary structures
Fossils
Funding for this project was provided by VIVA, the Virginia Library Consortium and the Northern Virginia Community College Presidential Sabbatical Award.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Please inform us of any feedback or technical issues: cbentley@pvcc.edu
