SCIENTIFIC

Established 1845
AM E RI CAN September 1983 Volume 249 Number 3

The Dynamic Earth

Presenting an issue on the earth as a system ofinteracting fluids,

including living matter. Some of the Rows are fast; others slow,

but overall the planet is maintained in a remarkably steady state

by Raymond Siever

S
cientists who study the_.earth .are. ac of space and time, the earth as a whole scale. On a map with an area of, say, 200
customed to working with many . stays remarkably constant. In particu- , square kilometers one can see patterns
,
different scales of space and time. lar, 'it has become apparent in recent of river valleys and the characteristic
The physicaLdimensions of their subject years that major parts of the globe-the folds and faults of bedrock. The wealth
range from the global to the submicro core, the mantle, the crust, the oceans of information at the outcrop level is
scopic, from volumes of matter mea and the atmosphere-can be profitably sacrificed in favor of grosser features.
sured in cubic kilometers to interatomic viewed as a complex, interacting system On a map that covers a region of many
gaps measured in angstrom units. Often in which there is a cyclic flow of materi thousands of square kilometers one be
a given research topic will encompass al from one reservoir to, another. The gins to see even larger features: plateaus,
widely disparate scales of length, as mechanistic model of the earth as a vast ' mountains, plains, entire river systems,
when an earthquake triggered by a slip recycling system has its counterpart in the outlines of a rift valley, the'distribu
page of a Jew centimeters along a fault the physiological model of dynamic tion of glacial lakes. As the map gets to
generates seismic waves that travel for equilibrium known as homeostasis. continental or global proportions one
thousands of kilometers through the sees the largest structures, of the conti,
earth's interior. Similarly, the temporal
dimensions of geology include not' only .. T he hierarchy of scales that pervades
the work of the earth scientist is.per,
_nental surface, principally.. mountain
chains. Whenever ,detailed information
short-lived phenomena such as earth haps best exemplified in the making of a is sacrificed for patterns that show up
quakes, volcanic eruptions and meteor geologic map, an artifact that can be de only on a large-scale map, the trick is to
ite impacts but also events recorded in scribed in somewhat nongeologic terms recognize what details to leave out. In
units of tens or hundreds of years (for as a graph of the position on a coordi other words, the essence of this kind of
example the meandering of a river), nate system at the earth's surface of rock geologic analysis is always to separate
thousands of years (glaciation), millions formations of .different ages. The first the "signal" from the "noise."
of years (continental drift) and even bil step in geologic mapping is the job of the Inevitably earth scientists face the
lions of years (the formation of the pres field investigator, who determines tW0 problem of reconciling scales. For ex
ent, oxygen-rich atmosphere). Again a, major properties of the rocks at a given ample, structural geologists and' geo
single process, notably weathering, can site: age and composition. At a typical physicists are currently trying to relate
be studied .over a wide range of time. rock outcrop one can see only small-' the large-scale collisions of tectonic
scales: from the minutes and hours of scale relations, usually over distances plates that throw up, high mountains
a laboratory experiment measuring the measured in meters. From an assem such as' the Alps and the Himalayas to
dissolution rate of a mineral to the thou blage of such observations the final map the small-scale folds and faults that can
sands of years needed to form a soil. of the region i.s constructed, like any oth- be seen on an individual mountainside.
'
Taken in various combinations, the pa " er graph, by interpolation and extrapo-_ The aim is to learn how_ to go in the
rameters of geologic space and time de lation, showing forms appropriate to its opposite direction: to infer from small-
fine the scope of this single-.t.opic issue.
of Scientific American: the IlliIltitude of
great and small changes that have taken
place-and ,continue to take place.""in EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT UPHEAVALS underlies the pastoral scene on the opposite
the history of the earth. page. The engraving is from James Hutton's Theory of the Earth, published in 1795. It shows
Most geologists,. oceanographers and an exposed riverbank of the river Jed in southern Scotland. 'The vertical beds of rock 'at the
bottom of the bank were originally laid down as oceanic sediments. They subsequently under
other earth scientists tend at one time or
went metamorphosis to become schist and ,were deformed and uplifted to become part of a
another to think or the earth as a ma
mountain chain. The band, of mixed material just above them is erosional debris dating from
chine, or perhaps as a living organism.
that period. The metamorphic rocks were then submerged again, and the horizontal sedimen
The metaphor of the machine captures tar-y beds of sandstone were deposited above them; Finally the entire formation rose above sea
an important aspect of. the earth's dy level once more and the new soil layers were formed at the top. Hutton cited such examples'
namism: in spite of all the changes that from his wide-ranging field trips as evidence both of the earth's antiquity and its dynamic ac
are observed at many different scales tivity. In modern terminology a rock formation of this type is called.an angular unconformity.

1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC

 1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
scale folds and faults what an older, ob here is whether or not the geologic time two clocks date are apt to be different, as
literated mountain chain was like and scale embodied in fossil-bearing rocks is is the nature of the events timed. Work
how it might have been created by an precise enough to resolve the issue be ing with both clocks is a little like ar
cient plate motions. tween the "gradualist" and the "punctu ranging to meet someone at a certain
Scales of time involve additional sub ated equilibrium" models of the evolu time when one person relies on his pulse
tleties. A river flowing at several centi tion of species. to count seconds and the other has a
meters per second moves at roughly the Generations of geologists have relied watch with only an hour hand.
same speed as a fault block slipping in primarily on a biological clock: the se Geologists refer to the apparent mo
an earthquake. Yet the distribution of quences of fossils that by their evolu tion of the sun (or what might be called
these two movements over a longer peri tionary changes mark the major divi everyday time) to time comparatively
od is quite different. The river runs more sions of geologic history. In the 19th fast processes such as the weather,
or less steadily for months or years, century that was the only choice; in the floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions
whereas the movements along the fault 20th century, however, it became pos and earthquakes. They invoke radioac
are episodic, with intervals of little or no sible to calibrate the fossil clock by an tivity alone to time very slow processes
movement extending over as much as other timekeeper: the radioactive-decay such as the evolution of the atmos
hundreds of years. The distinction be clock, which depends on the known de phere. In between lies the scale of geo
tween steady and episodic change is cen cay rates of radioactive isotopes of car logic time over which continents move,
tral to the current debate over the rate of bon, uranium, potassium, rubidium and mountain chains rise, the earth's mag
biological evolution: the key question neodymium. The scales of the events the netic field reverses, fossil species evolve

HEAVY METEORITE BOMBARDMENT

ORIGIN OF LIFE?

FORMATION OLDEST OLDEST

OF EARTH MOON ROCKS EARTH ROCKS EARLY BACTERIA AND ALGAE BUILDUP OF FREE OXYG EN IN

TIME PRECAMBRIAN
I
ERA ARCHEAN

I I I I
4,6004,500 4,000 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,O(

FORMATION OF FINAL ASSEMBL'

COAL DEPOSITS OF PANGAEA
EARLY
SHELLED EARLY EARLY

ERA

PERIOD

OPENING OF NORWEGIAN SEA SEPARATION OF AUSTRALIA COLLISION OF INDIA WITH ASIA

AND BAFFIN BAY AND ANTARCTICA

EARLY
PRIMATES EARLY HORSES

PERIOD TERTIARY

EPOCH PALEOCENE

I
I
I I
EOCENE

I I
I I
OLIGOCENE

I
65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30

LINKING OF
NORTH AMERICA WORLDWIDE GLACIATIONS
AND SOUTH AMERICA

OLDEST HOMO
STONE TOOLS ERECTUS

EPOCH
I
1.8
I
1.7
I
1.6
I
1.5
I
1.4
I
1.3
I
1.2
I
1.1
PLEISTOCEN 6
I
.9
I
.8

TIME BEFORE PRESENT (MILLIONS OF

GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE, originally constructed by 19th-centu paratively short span of Phanerozoic time, during which fossils of
ry naturalists solely on the basis of fossil evidence, has been calibrat shelled organisms have been abundant in the geologic record, is en
ed by means of modern radioactive-dating techniques. In this repre larged in the second line from the top, and successively shorter time
sentation the top line shows the full sweep of geologic time from the segments are enlarged in the next two lines. The three eras of Phan
origin of the earth some 4.6 billion years ago to the present. The com- erozoic time (Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic) are divided in turn

48 1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC

 and glacial epochs last. Over this in the rate of change of the ice sheets and glimpse of what the conditions of life
termediate time scale reference is made their relation to the sea and on an impor were for early man. Finally, there are
primarily to the specific rock sequences tant property of the earth's interior. As those geologists who specialize in the
that constitute the geologic record. the ice retreated it unloaded the crust, search for evidence that the history of
For example, in order to study the and from the crust's "rebound" it is the earth is not just one random thing
meandering of a river one can rely on possible to estimate the viscosity of the after another but rather the playing out
historical records if they go back far mantle material that flowed under it in on a long time scale of the cycles of a
enough, perhaps supplementing this in order to accommodate the rise. great machine.
formation with data drawn from the rel The history of the earth is studied

I
icts of prehistoric terraces. To study the not only for its own sake but also for (earth history is cyclic, over what pe
long-term evolution of the river, from economic reasons: to explore for oil, riods of time does it repeat itself, and
the early cutting of its valley into bed gas, metallic ores and other useful sub how does one keep track of the process?
rock to its later broadening into a char stances formed at a specific time and The hydrologic cycle serves as a model
acteristic floodplain, however, one has place in the distant past. Simple curiosi of the cyclic flow of material between
no alternative but to consult the geolog ty, however, is what drives most geolo different parts of the earth. Water from
ic record. The rise in sea level since the gists to want to know just what hap one major reservoir, the atmosphere,
retreat of the glaciers some 10,000 years pened when. They want to know about falls on the land and the sea. Some of the
ago is also revealed in the geologic rec the last ice age both for what it can precipitation is stored temporarily in the
ord, which yields information both on reveal about the next one and for a I
ground and in lakes. The rest follows
various routes back to the other major
reservoir, the sea. Evaporation from the
FORMATION OF EARLY BREAKUP OF EARLY
sea and the land back to the atmospheric
SUPERCONTINENT SUPERCONTINENT
reservoir completes the cycle.
EARLY MULTICELLED The hydrologic cycle is global. Hence
I by adding up all the water in all the
world's reservoirs and flow paths one
can arrive at an estimate of the total

PROTEROZOIC
water content of the system and its ma
jor parts. Bypassing analysis of individ
1,500 1,000 570 500 o ual reservoirs has the effect of removing
J heterogeneity: one finds that the global
balance is quite steady from year to
year. In other words, there is always
OPENING OF FORMATION OF ROCKY MOUNTAINS
about the same amount of water in the
ATLANTIC OCEAN FORMATION OF ALPS
atmosphere, in the oceans, in the polar
EARLY BIRDS EARLY EXTINCTION ice caps and on the continents. Over pe
AND MAMMALS FLOWERING PLANTS OF DINOSAURS riods of less than a year the system may
not be so steady, and over periods of a
few years the global balance may shift
somewhat from one reservoir to anoth
er. Indeed, perturbations of the system
can elucidate the operation of the cycle.
200 100 65 0
The ice ages represented one such shift
J
in the cycle: water was removed from
the ocean and stored in the ice reservoir,
FORMATION OF H IMALAYAN MOUNTAINS and the flows from one reservoir to an
other were adjusted accordingly; the re
sult was a drastic change in the climate
OPENING OF RED SEA
AUSTRALOPITHECUS and a lowering of the mean sea level,
which exposed much of the area of the

MIOCENE
OUAITR,Jr
PLIOCENE
continental shelves. The continuing dis
cussion of this major perturbation cen
ters on the possible reasons for the shift
I I I I I and how rapidly the glacial ice caps ex
25 20 15 10 5 1.B 0 panded and then shrank as the earth re
--- turned to the comparatively unglaciated
stage that prevails today. Polar ice and
mountain glaciers still exist, of course,
and so it is not possible to know from
NEANDERTHAL
firsthand evidence what the hydrologic
MAN
cycle was like when the earth was com

OLOCENfl
MODERN
FIRST USE OF FIRE MAN pletely free of ice.

T
he movement of carbon dioxide
I I I I I I
.7 .6 .5 4
. .3 .2 .1 .01 0 through the atmosphere, the ocean
and the solid earth provides another op
Y EARS)
portunity for following the large-scale
flow of chemical elements from one part
into 11 periods; the Tertiary period is divided into five epochs, and the Quaternary period con
of the earth to another. The carbon di
sists of the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs. The calibration of the geologic clock by radioac
tive dating is a continuing con<:,ern. For example, according to a recent review of the radio oxide of the atmosphere is taken up by
metric evidence by an international group headed by the French geochronologist G. S. Odin, plants in photosynthesis and by rocks
the beginning of the Cambrian period may have been between 540 and 520 million years ago. in weathering. Photosynthesis manufac-

1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC 49

tures the earth's supply of organic car Jean Francheteau, page 1 14]. The ocean tion of two processes: the condensation
bon and weathering accounts for the ic sediment, which is found in front of of priinitive solar-nebula mater.ial and
calcium carbonate of limestones, a ma oceanic island arcs and along continen the accretion of bits and pieces of other
jor product of the transformation of ig tal margins where the subduction zone planetary matter in the vicinity. The ear
neous rocks into sediments. Dead plant borders a continental mass, is plastered ly history of the earth was marked by
and animal matter, together with the back onto the continent. The igneous continued accretion and by a rapid in
calcium carbonate shells of mollusks rocks generated at subduction zones are crease in temperature, due to a combi
and other organisms, immobilizes the also added to the continents. Thus over nation of three effects: heating from the
carbon. As these materials are buried in geologic time the continental masses re radioactive elements abundant in the
the form of sediment and incorporated main in a steady state, even though there early condensate, heating from the im
into the crust of the earth, carbon is re are frequent rises and falls in sea level pact of infalling material and heating
moved from the surface reservoir. At that periodically flood and bare the con from the contraction of the young plan
the same time ancient organic matter tinental shelves and the lower parts of etary body. The rise in temperature, ac
and limestones are eroded and chemi the continents proper. The sediments cording to the now conventional view,
cally weathered. By the oxidation of and igneous rocks that are added to led to widespread melting and a massive
organic matter and the dissolution of the continents are welded to them main differentiation of the earth into a core, a
calcium carbonate, carbon dioxide is ly as mountain chains associated with mantle and a crust. All these ideas, pro
returned to the dynamic system, keep plate boundaries [see "The Continen posed long before the exploration of the
ing it in balance. tal Crust," by B. Clark Burchfiel, page solar system by spacecraft, were refined
In much the same way one can con 13 0]. Old mountains, then, are the rem in recent years by studies of the moon
struct cycles of all the elements and their nants of a past recycling of the conti and of other planets. This was particu
isotopes. For example, from the rate nents brought about by the motions of larly true of the moon, where astronauts
at which dissolved calcium enters the the lithospheric plates. were able to sample a body whose his
ocean from rivers (about 1013 moles per The recycling story extends deep into tory was frozen at an early stage. The
year) and the total amount of calcium in the mantle, as crustal materials are moon, with no atmosphere or oceans,
the oceans (about 1019 moles) one can thrust to depths of hundreds of kilo suffered no chemical weathering that
estimate how long an ion of calcium can meters at the subduction zones where could obliterate earlier generations of
be expected to remain in the ocean: plates converge. There they mix with rock. It also did not offer a hospitable
about a million years. On the average some materials that have never been environment for life to begin. Viewing it
that is how long it takes before the calci part of the crust and others that have emphasizes how vital the fluid envelope
um combines with a carbonate group reached the surface before in their histo of water and gas was to the earth's
and settles out of the reservoir as a part ry. Geologists are just beginning to un machine. The composition of the gas,
of some limestone. The calcium ion derstand how the materials of the earth however, was not the same as that of
may then be buried, perhaps ultimately mix under the conditions of high tem the atmosphere of today. In its earli
to be incorporated into a silicate-bear perature and pressure prevailing in the est stages the primitive atmosphere was
ing metamorphic rock. Alternatively, it interior. The chief tracers of this mixing free of oxygen and contained reduced
may go deeper still, becoming part of a are the radioactive isotopes of rubidium gases such as methane and ammonia
magma that will return to the surface in and neodymium, which are helping to [see "The Atmosphere," by Andrew P.
a congealed form as an igneous rock, reveal the relations between age and Ingersoll, page 162].
there to be weathered, dissolved and mixing [see "The Earth's Mantle," by How the dynamics of the earth ma
sent back to the ocean by a river. D. P. McKenzie, page 66]. Studies of chine worked in the early days is a de
These chemical cycles are different the behavior of the core and the mantle ductive study, because no mountains or
versions of the grand geologic cycle that over various time scales will determine sediments are preserved to give any hint
James Hutton, the founder of modern to what extent they too can be viewed of the products. The radioactively dated
geology, enunciated almost 200 years as parts of the great recycling machine. rock record begins in a fragmentary way
ago. In Hutton's original version rocks about 3 .8 billion years ago, which is the
are weathered to form sediment, which
is then buried. After deep burial the I f the machine has been going for bil
lions of years, including some violent
age of metamorphism by pressure and
temperature of a series of originally sed
rocks undergo metamorphosis and/or perturbations at times, how was it built imentary rocks in southwestern Green
melting. Later they are deformed and in the first place? By what series of land. The record clearly demonstrates
uplifted into mountain chains, only to steady states did it evolve to its present that the essential operations of the geo
be weathered again and recycled. In condition? These are the questions that logic machine were similar to those in
spite of many arguments and theories link a fragmentary rock record of the effect today. Iron formations and other
about the mechanisms of Hutton's rock early history of the earth and the other types of sedimentary rocks such as sand
cycle its basic outlines remain intact as planets to deductions drawn from the stones and shales can be recognized
the geologist's way of viewing an earth astronomy of the formation of the stars in their metamorphosed forms in the
of constant change. and the evolution of the solar system. Greenland rocks. Igneous rocks found
The continental crust, the repository Theories of the formation of the solar at the site seem to have been created by
of the geologic record of the past 3 .8 system out of a nebula of gas and dust much the same kind of melting that can
billion years, is engaged in its own cycle are still being refined, but they all have be seen operating today. The deforma
of destruction and renewal. Each year in common the central idea that about tion of rocks is also similar to the defor
some 1016 grams of solid and dissolved 4.6 billion years ago the earth grew to mations of later times.
products of the erosion of the land sur roughly its present size by a combina- Nevertheless, there are differences be-
face are removed by rivers, wind and
glacial ice. Much of the solid detritus is
deposited on the continental shelves, but
a good deal is lost to the ocean basins.
CHANGING FACE OF THE EARTH is portrayed at 60-million-year intervals from the
The return is by way of subduction
Cambrian period to the present in the 10 computer-generated maps on the opposite page. The
zones, where some of the sediments of sequence documents the assembly and breakup of the supercontinent of Pangaea, the two chief
the deep-sea basins are scraped off as episodes of continental drift leading up to the present arrangement of the earth's land masses.
the oceanic lithosphere plunges into the The maps were assembled by Alfred M. Ziegler and Christopher S. Scotese of the Universi
mantle [see "The Oceanic Crust," by ty of Chicago's Paleographic Atlas Project mainly on the basis of paleomagnetic evidence.

50
1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
 51
1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
tween these early rocks and more re gradual changes, and there are also rec magnetic field, and so the dynamo in the
cent ones. Although no fossils have ords of abrupt episodic shifts. The first earth's core that generates the field must
been found in the Greenland rocks (per glaciation of the earth was recorded have been in steady operation [see "The
haps because the rocks have been so al early in Precambrian time. A more sig Earth's Core," by Raymond leanloz,
tered by metamorphism), evidence of nificant change in the cycle came about page 56]. Perhaps the plates were too
primitive life is found in somewhat 2.5 billion years ago, when there seems thin to act quite as they do today, or the
younger ones [see "The Biosphere," by to have been a sudden rise in the pro average size of the plates was smaller.
Preston Cloud, page 176]. Some of the duction of granite and the appearance Geologic knowledge of the Precambri
basalts found in the earliest earth rocks of large continental shelves. an is too fragmentary to give firm an
have compositions that reflect much Later in the Precambrian, about a swers to these questions yet.
higher melting temperatures, as if the billion years ago, the machine began' Most geologists working in the past
rate at which the temperature increased to look much as it does today. Oxygen two centuries would have agreed that
with depth in the earth were much great in the atmosphere started increasing as the biggest change of all was the one
er then than it is now; this is not surpris photosynthetic organisms grew in num at the boundary of Precambrian time
ing in view of the earth's early thermal bers and efficiency, and as the march and the Cambrian period, marking the
history. Moreover, before 'about 2.5 bil toward more complex life forms accel beginning of the Phanerozoic eon: the
lion years ago there were few large mas erated. Although the land surfaces were "known" part of the geologic record. It
ses of granitic rocks and the kinds of populated only by algal, fungal and bac was then that organisms with shells
sediments formed on shallow continen terial species, rock weathering in Pre evolved; their fossils make it possible
tal shelves. cambrian soils and the formation of riv to date the rocks more precisely and to
er and lake deposits were proceeding erect the stratigraphic time scale. Com

T he. differences indicate a machine

whose internal temperatures were
much as they are today; their rates, how
ever, may have been lower. The interior
pared with the Precambrian there are
many more areas of these younger rocks
higher, whose atmosphere and oceans of the earth had by now settled down exposed in an unmetamorphosed state,
were deficient in oxygen and whose land to something like its present state and and so one can more readily deduce
masses were isolated, smaller areas through partial melting some regions of the course of earth history since then.
rather than large continents. Yet at all the mantle were being differentiated and This change, which is generally believed
times the average compositions of the depleted in certain elements with re to have taken place about 570 million
rocks and their similarities from one spect to the mantle as a whole. Whether years ago, was far more important for
place and time to another demonstrate plate tectonics was the primary mode of the life of the. planet than it was for the
that the recycling machine was operat heat loss at that time is an open ques working of most other parts of the ma
ing at something like the. same rate and tion. The magnetism of ancient rocks chine, which by then had reached ma
with the same general character as it gives evidence of continental drift and turity. The parts most affected by the
does today. It undoubtedly underwent reversals in the polarity of the earth's evolutionary development of higher or-

....
"';
"

;'-2.'

EVAPORATION EVAPORATION
,., - (40) (6) . . ,{</-\

i I I
'It I'lt

PRECIPlTATION
(37)

HYDROLOGIC CYCLE, represented quantitatively in this diagram, and polar ice caps-is quite steady from year to year. In addition to
serves as a model of the cyclic flow of material between different the amounts indicated here water is also brought to the surface of
parts of the earth. The numbers shown are multiples of a basic unit the earth by volcanism. This comparatively small increment consists
equal to 10,000 cubic kilometers of water per year. In spite of occa of former surface water recycled through the interior by way of sub
sional short- and long-term perturbations, the global balance among duction zones as well as "juvenile" water, namely part of the origi
the world's major water reservoirs-atmosphere, oceans, continents nal water of the mantle that has never escaped to the surface before.

52
1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
ganisms were those at the surface, where
the chemical influence of life processes
is felt. The atmosphere arrived at some
thing like its present oxygen level; the
deposits of limestone became dominat
ed by the shells of shallow marine or
ganisms, and the chemical cycles of car
bon dioxide, oxygen, phosphorus and
nitrogen rather abruptly shifted to their
present states.
w
a:

S

ince that time changes in the rates and (f)
(f)
quantities of sediments controlled w
a:
by organisms have been determined by D-
the course of evolution. The vascular o
Z
land plants first appeared about 400 <t:

million years ago and coal beds began w

a:
to be widespread. The evolution of the

flowering plants came about 120 mil

a:
w
lion years ago. The siliceous algae (di D
atoms) and the pelagic foraminifera
W
evolved about 130 million years ago f--
(9
and started to form the abundant sili z

ceous and calcium carbonate oozes of iii

<t:
the sea floor. Much biological sedimen w
a:
tation was shifted to the open sea floor, u
z
whose evolution can be understood only
for the past 150 million years. The older
record of sea-floor spreading has been
swept into subduction zones and de
stroyed by metamorphism or melting.
The earth in old age is predictable
from the present running of the ma
chine. As the original supply of radioac
tive elements steadily decreases, the in MAGMA
ternal heat of the earth will diminish and
simple heat conduction will slowly take ROCK CYCLE, first proposed by Hutton almost 200 years ago, is still the basis of the geolo
over from the currently dominant mode gist's view of the changing earth. In Hutton's version rocks are weathered to form sediment,
of heat transfer by convection. As the which is then buried. After deep burial the rocks undergo metamorphosis and/or melting. Lat
earth cools, the rigid plates of the outer er they are deformed and uplifted into mountain chains, only to be weathered again and recy
cled. The modern theory of plate tectonics is in a sense an elaboration of Hutton's rock cycle.
crust will thicken, and eventually they
will congeal and become motionless.
The "hot spots" that form volcanic cen
ters will cool and solidify. With no inter is sure, however, of how such perturba cies may be enough to seriously disturb
nal forces to throw up mountains and tions in the operation of the present ma its balance.
move continents around, the external chine can be predicted quantitatively, as In order to estimate the effects of
machine on the surface will take over, is suggested by the current experience increased carbon dioxide in the atmos
reducing much of the surface elevations with carbon dioxide. phere one must consider all the fluxes
of the land to plains elevated slightly and reservoirs. The human disturbance

I t Svante
above sea level. Sediment, the debris of has now been almost 100 years since has been to change a single flux by in
erosion, will spread over land surfaces A. Arrhenius, the great Swed creasing through coal mining and oil
and sea bottom with no interruption by ish chemist, called the attention of earth production the rate of return of buried
deep-seated rocks brought to the sur scientists to the effects of carbon diox organic carbon to the surface by orders
face. A new balance of chemical ele ide on climate and its possible relation of magnitude over the estimated prein
ments based on a static tectonic system to. glaciation. For much of that peri dustrial flux. To forecast the conse
will lead to a shift in the composition of od some workers have been concerned .quences one must follow through the
the atmosphere and the ocean, finally about the steadily rising amounts of car entire system the changes that result.
leading, as all mountain' building and bon dioxide in the atmosphere contrib More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
sedimentation ends, to a new steady uted by the burning of fossil fuels. As leads to a slight increase in global tem
state determined almost entirely by the pace of carbon dioxide emissions peratures as a result of the "greenhouse
life's balance between photosynthesis has increased dramatically in the latter effect." An additional dissolution of cal
and respiration. half of the 20th century and as knowl cium carbonate in the ocean and im
That balance itself, together with the edge of the carbon cycle has grown, the perceptible changes in the balance of
total mass of biological material, might issue has come to the point where gov weathering and sedimentation of silicate
change significantly as the nutrient res ernment commissions and other nation and carbonate minerals will follow. The
ervoirs of the ocean and the atmosphere al bodies estimate how much climatic warming of the atmosphere will lead to
interact only with the thin surface skin change there is likely to be and what some melting of the polar and glacial ice
of the earth. This brief essay at describ its effects might be. The comparatively and a rise in the sea level, and very prob
ing the future workings of the earth ma small changes man has worked in the ably a shift in climatic belts. Reciting
chine is enough to show how dependent earth machine might have enormous this list is only the beginning of a con
the present workings of the planet are on consequences. Large as the earth is, the sideration of the innumerable ramifi
interactions with the interior. No one behavior of one of its biological spe- cations of a shift in only one flux in

1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC 53

the .system. It is this complexity that limited to the oceanic crust. The conse teoritic body. Among the potulated
makes the estimation of the ultimate ef quence of all these effects was a severe consequences of the collision (with a
fects so difficult. restriction of the area of the continen body estimated to weigh about 1018
Burning fossil fuels is only the most tal shelves. The diminished habitats of grams) were clouds of dust .that ob
recent perturbation of the earth ma the .shallow marine populations of the scured the sun, sudden cooling of the
chine. Geologic history is in one sense a world and more variability in the cli, atmosphere and the ocean, changes in
recital of the many small shifts of the matic regimes of the land, which had the chemistry of the atmosphere and the
balance, some local and some global, recently gone through another glacial deposition of a thin layer of clay en
that have characterized this otherwise age, set the stage for the rapid evolution riched in certain rare metals such as irid
smooth-running mechanism. The closer of new species and the extinction of old ium. These changes are thought to have
one looks at any complex machine,. the ones. A lot of guesswork is needed here led to the extinction of many plant and
more clearly one can detect fluctuations because the rock record for the period animal species in the sea and the dino
in its operation. In the midst of thou is sparse. Most of the sediments depos. saurs on the land.
sands of fluctuations that generate back ited on the continents have since been Regardless of the durability of this
ground noise-small shifts in sea level, eroded and the sea-floor record has hypothesis as an explanation of the geo
plate-spreading rates and erosion rates, been swept into the subduction zones. chemical and biological associations of
among others-one can see the signal Even this unusual time was soon su the boundary between the Cretaceous
of large and unusual events, infrequent perseded by a return to normal condi and the Tertiary, geologists have come
and sometimes catastrophic. Near the tions as the supercontinent proved un to recognize that collisions with aster
end of the Miocene epoch, about 1 1 mil stable. It began to rift into separate con oid-size bodies have been an important
lion years ago, the convergence of the tinental masses, and the Atlantic and feature of the earth's history since its
African and European plates closed the Indian oceans opened. The seas trans formation 4.6 billion years ago.Such
mouth of the MediterraneanSea. The gressed the continents, salt beds were heavy impacts may have come every
Mediterranean dried up and thick layers eroded, the salt returned to the ocean 100 million years or so. Most of the
of evaporites, principally salt and gyp and the normal pattern of life resumed events have left little trace because of
sum, were laid down.Soon afterward on the continental shelves. The episode erosion over the next few tens of mil
continuing plate motions reopened the demonstrates the machine's ability to lions of years, but some have left con
Mediterranean to the Atlantic and it re right itself and settle down to a smooth spicuous circularscars.
filled. An immense waterfall existed for operation after a violent shudder.
a time as water from the Atlantic spilled The glacial ages represent another As the interconnectedness of,the huge
in to fill up the entire Mediterranean ba kind of perturbation, one that primarily Il. and complex earth system becomes
sin.Spectacular as the event was for affected the. surface and near-surface more widely recognized, earth 'scientists
this area of the world, it probably had layers of the earth. The earth has been are learning how to link up subsystems
a negligible effect on the global cycle; glaciated several times in its history, and explore new relations. Oceanogra
the evaporated water and salt removed .at least twice during the Precambrian, phers have combined marine chemistry,
from the ocean was minor compared once in the early Paleozoic, once near marine biology and the geology of the
with the huge volume of water in the the end of the Paleozoic and many times sea floor, from midocean ridges to vol
world ocean. in the Pleistocene, which ended only canic-island arcs, to see the oceans as
about 10,000 years ago. Each of these an entire system. Indeed, it is the only

S
alt deposition at another time in the events may have been triggered by con way to estimate the interactions of the
history of the earth was a part of a tinental-drift patterns that put a conti oceans with the carbon cycle and the
much more pervasive global cycle, one nent in a polar region and caused shifts carbon dioxide greenhouse [see "The
familiar to all geologists for its relation in oceanic circulation. Perhaps there Ocean," by WallaceS. Broecker, page
to massive extinctions of many biologi was a correlation with a wider than nor 146]. With' geologists and paleontolo
cal species and almost complete with mal fluctuation of the carbon dioxide gists they are now mapping the past of
drawal of the seas from every part of the level. In each glacial period the peri the oceans, particularly in relation to the
continents. The end of the Paleozoic era, odicity of changes in the earth's orbit recent glacial epoch. Predicting the op
the boundary between the Permian and around the sun led to oscillations in the eration of the surface part of the ma
the Triassic periods, about 225 million advance and retreat of the ice; the oscil chine, powered by solar radiation, has
years ago was marked by the complete lations, called Milankovitch cycles, are become the business of oceanographers,
assembly of the supercontinent Pangaea. now thought to account for the glacial geologists, atmospheric scientists and
with the superocean Panthalassa sur; and interglacial stages of the most re biologists. The ability to predict is de
rounding it. Over a period of about 200 cent ice ages. Each time, the postglacial pendent on devising ever more inclusive
million years plate motions had gradu earth returned to its preglacial state with and sensitive models of the system and
ally joined various pieces of continents little change, leaving behind a record of testing them against observations. Geo
into a single land mass. In the process glacial sediment and grooved and stri physicists working on the dynamics of
evaporation from' the narrow gulfs and ated bedrock, the pavement over which the interior heat engine are engaged in
bays of closing oceans and from arid the ice moved. correlating. its structure and constitu
regions led to great amounts of salt be In the past few years geologists have tion, as revealed by earthquake waves,
ing withdrawn from the oceans, decreas begun to evaluate disturbances of the with its mineralogical and chemical. con
ing the salt content of the open ocean earth's balance due to extraterrestrial stitution, as deduced from laboratory
slightly and perhaps altering its density sources. A thin bed of iridium-enriched experiments on rock systems at high
driven circulation. clay has been found in a . number of temperatures and pressures. Isotope-ra
As the continents joined, their total places around the world where sedi tio studies of rocks derived from the in
perimeter shrank. As a result of moun ments were deposited during the tran terior and brought to the surface pro
tain building caused by continental col sition from the Cretaceous period to the vide observations that tell about mixing
lisions in the course of the assembly Tertiary, about 65 million years ago. It mechanisms in the mantle. Theoretical
the continents were dominated by high has been proposed by Luis W. Alvarez, studies of convection dynamics in plas
mountains. The ocean basins were en WalterS. Alvarez, Frank Asaro and tically deformable solids at high pres
larged by the slowing of plate-spreading Helen V. Michel of the University of sures are showing how the mixing pro
rates and the lowering of midocean California at Berkeley that this bed is ceeds. The core, the mantle and the crust
ridges as plate motions became largely the product of the impact of a large me- are no longer regarded as separate do-'

54 1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC

mains but as interacting parts of a larger they are seeing how chemical weather be thought of more in the ways one
system whose properties and dynamics ing and the differentiation of the materi thinks of a highly differentiated organ
are modeled by geophysicists, geochem als of the interior as they are brought to ism: as a system so complex that the ul
ists and petrologists. the surface react on the interior as the timate reduction to simple forces and
Earth scientists have long been famil altered material is plowed back into bulk compositions does not lead to a
iar with the ways in which the actions of the mantle by subduction. In this way satisfactory understanding of the won
the interior affect the exterior through the surface machine is further coupled derful diversity and detail that can be
volcanism, mountain building, the flow to the interior machine. As the subsys observed directly at the surface and
of heat and the geomagnetic field. Now tems are linked the earth may come to sensed remotely in the interior.

OCEANIC CRUST

CONTINENTAL CR

6 4 o
RADIUS (THOUSANDS OF KILOMETERS)

LARGE-SCALE MOTIONS of the major parts of the earth are in ocean ridges and other places. Solid material is returned to the interior
dicated by arrows in this highly schematic diagram. Heat-driven con at subduction zones. The degree of mixing between the upper mantle
vection in the fluid outer core has a dynamo effect that is responsible and the lower mantle is a subject of debate; in this case a model call
for the geomagnetic field. Convection in the upper mantle drives plate ing for separate convection cells has been adopted. Mixing of materi
tectonics. Volcanism transports molten material to the surface at mid- al between the lower mantle and the outer core is still speculative.

1983 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC 55