CHAPTER 2

FUNDAMENTAL REGULARITIES
The most fundamental truths or regularities that have to be explain satisfactorily by any theory on the
origin of the Earth are grouped by Terr Haar into following four classes:
Orbital Regularities. It is now well established that
(i) All the nine planets have almost circular orbits around the Sun;
(ii) All the planetary orbits lie almost in the same plane;
(iii) The direction of revolution for all the planets around the Sun is the same.
Distance Regularities.
Various members of the Solar System as already mentioned are distributed at different distances
from the Sun. There is an order in this arrangement. The regularity cannot be attributed to any
accidental phenomenon. There is a discontinuity in distance, mass and density between the major
planet and the inner as observed after Mars. This also needs a satisfactory explanation.
Differentiation Planets.
It has been mentioned above all the nine planets can be grouped into two planets, viz. terrestrial
planets. The formation of one set of planets with higher densities and the other set of lower densities
is an important feature of the Solar System, giving it a character of a family of planets rather than
random collection of matter around the Sun.
Distribution of Angular Momentum.
It is characteristic of a body revolving around a central object to have an angular momentum.

THEORIES OF ORIGIN
The Nebular Hypothesis
 The nebular mass rotated around the primeval sun like a solid body with a characteristic feature
that the outer parts of the nebular disc moved faster than the inner parts.
 Somewhere during the rotation, the nebular mass started cooling and contracting
simultaneously.
 Due to contraction, the outer parts of nebular mass started rotating still faster so that eventually
the centrifugal force equaled the force of attraction. This resulted in breaking away of nebular
masses at equatorial belt.
 The broken nebular masses remained at the points where their break occurred. The rest of the
gas, however, continued to contract.
 The process of cooling, contraction and formation of gaps followed by the condensation of the
ring-shaped gaseous masses continued indefinitely.

THE TIDAL HYPOTHESIS

The tidal hypothesis explains, to some extent, the distribution of angular momentum
condition but fails in many other important respects. Thus, for instance:
The very possibility of encounter of any two stars in space in a manner postulated in the tidal
hypothesis is considered very rare. The stars are so far apart from each other in space that passing of
one star nearer to another and exerting a dragging influence is among highly improbable, if not
altogether impossible, events.
 The vast dimensions of the Solar System that ultimately developed from such a drag effect are
not all satisfactory explained.
 Under the postulated conditions of tidal attraction, material at exceedingly high temperature
(about one million degrees) would have gushed out from the interior of the primary Sun. Such a
type of gaseous material would have easily dispersed in the space rather than remain around the
Sun to form planetary agglomerations.

The Gas-Dust Cloud Hypothesis

The fundamental assumption of these modern concepts is that the planets have evolved out
of a cold cloud of gas and dust.
Weizasckers’s Hypothesis

Weizascker while explaining the origin of planets assumes a SUN surrounded by a cloud of
dust and gas particles and called it a protoplanetary cloud.

Schmidt's Hypothesis

1. Originally, a protoplanetary cloud of dust and gas surrounded the sun.

2. The dust particles are supposed to possess small random velocities because of their friction with
the gaseous part

3. The dust particles collected in the equatorial plane of the cloud. Such an assembly of dust particles
give birth to an equatorial disc of dust.
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4. From this disc, dust particles agglomerated in many bodies of originally smaller sizes, as like those
of present days asteroids.

5. The protoplanets rotated around the sun in circular orbits and in the plane of the original sun.

6. With their gradual growth in size, they acquired masses capable of exerting strong gravitational
pulls on one another and this caused slight irregularities in their original circular orbits making them
now slightly elliptical and inclined.

7. Further growth on planetary bodies continued as a result of collusions with other fragments and
the present planets are just grown up preplanetary asteroids like bodies.

AGE OF THE EARTH

OLD METHODS

 Many thinkers have attempted to tackle the question of Age of Earth, through unsuccessfully,
even in earlier periods.

 Archbishop Ussher, calculated from his interpretation of the Old Testament, a day in 4004 B.C as
the Day of the World. John Lightfoot even calculated the exact time and date: 8 p.m., FRIDAY,
October 22, 4004 B.C
 The first scientific effort was, perhaps, due to George L.L.de Buffon, who believed, on the basis
of cooling of the earth from an originally hot mass, that the Earth could not have been older
than 70,000.

 More rational assessments were made in the 19th century, of which those based on the rate of
sedimentation and rate of accumulation of sodium on oceans dominated the scientific world for
a good time.

NEW METHOD
 Radioactivity.
In the 20th century, the problem of the age of the Earth has been dealt with considerable
success by methods based on radioactivity. It was French physicist Becquerel who discovered in 1895
that nuclei of certain elements are inherently unstable and are actually in a process of spontaneous
disintegration at a constant rate to form stable end products.

 Principles.
The radioactive methods for the determination of age of the Earth are based o a simple
allocation of theory of radioactivity.
 Methods.
A number of methods based on radioactive decay have used to determine the absolute age
of the Earth. Methods based on ratios of different isotopes of lead found in the same sample have
also been used to give better results.
1. Uranium-Lead Method
2. Rubidium-Strontium Method
3.Led-Lead Method
4. Meteoric Lead Method

 Conclusion.
Radiometric age determination gives broader limits about the age of the Earth. The age
determination on the granites of Greenland and from many other continents is around 3.8 billion
years. Hence the earth cannot be younger to those rocks formed on it.

INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE EARTH

Introduction
the real interior of the earth is nowhere exposed to our direct observation. With our present
scientific skill, we can penetrate up to a few kilometers below the surface of the Earth whereas the
average radius of the earth is 6371b km. Therefore, the entire discussion given below about the
internal structure of the Earth id based on the evidence yielded by indirect geophysical methods. The
study of seismic waves ( released during earthquakes and nuclear shocks) from the single most
important source of information for the interior of the Earth.

Seismological Evidence

SEISMOLOGY
is a branch of geophysics that deals with the study of elastic or seismic waves generated
within the earth during an earthquake. The most important facts about seismic waves as are relevant
to the internal structure of the earth are summarized as follows:

 In every earthquake elastic waves of three main types are generated at the focus (point of origin
below the surface) of the earthquake. These are name in short as P- waves, S-waves and L-waves.
The P and S waves travel through the body of the earth and hence are distinguished as body
waves.

 The three types of seismic waves are recorded during each earthquake in a definite sequence at
various seismographic stations; their records are known as seismograms.

In actual practice, a number of such seismic discontinuities have been repeated observed
from the records of many earthquakes.

I. The Mohorovicic Discontinuity.

This is the first major discontinuity in the seismic record for the earthquakes and is named
after its discovers A Mohorovicic (Pronounced as Mohoroveechick).It occurs in the seismic records at
depths of 30-40 km below the mountains. It is observed that both P and S waves on reaching these
depths undergo sharps increase in their velocity.

II. The Mantle-Core Discontinuity.

The seismic waves that cross the mohorovicie discontinuity continue to travel downwards
with almost a uniform increase in their velocities. Such a gradual and uniform increase with increasing
depth is on expected lines since their velocity is related to density of the medium which is normally
expected to increase with depth
 The zone of the earth lying between these two discontinuities, the M- Discontinuity and the
Mantle-Core Discontinuity, is called MANTLE.

 The second discontinuity, recorded 105 at depth of 2900 km, while demarcating the end of M of
Mantle also marks the beginning the third major zone of the Earth that is named as CORE. This
discontinuity is therefore aptly known as mantle-core discontinuity. It was first discovered from
the seismic records by B.Gutenberg in 1918 and subsequently confirmed by Jefferys in 1939.

The final picture of the internal structure of the Earth as developed from the study of the
seismic wave records of the earthquakes divides it into three well defined shells or zones or spheres:
1.THE CRUST
It is the uppermost shell of the Earth that extends to variable depths below the mountains
(75 km), continents (35 km) and oceans (5 km). The Mohorovicic discontinuity marks the lower
boundary of the crust. Study of seismic waves reveals following details about thickness of the crust:
Mountainous Areas.

2. THE MANTLE
It is the second concentric shell of the Earth that lies beneath the crust everywhere. This zone
starting from the lower boundary of the crust continues up to a depth of 2900 km. The exact
nature of the mantle is as yet incompletely understood. It has been sub-divided into an upper
and lower mantle, the boundary between the two layers being placed at 900-1000 km below the
earth. The upper mantle is further divided into two layers of 400 and 600 km thickness
respectively.

3.THE CORE
It is the innermost concentric shell of the Earth as concluded from the record of seismic
waves. Its existence was suggested by R.D.Oldham in 1906 and subsequently confirmed by other
seismologists. The core boundary begins at depth of 2900km from the surface and it extends to the
center of the earth at 6371 km.