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Unit III. Branches of Geology

Focus on:

1. интернациональная и терминологическая лексика

 

2. образование мн. ч. некоторых существительных:

o stratum – strata

3. словообразовательные префиксы («sub», etc)

 

4. образование частей речи путем переноса ударения (конверсия)

o récord – to recόrd

 

5. инфинитив цели (причины)

 

6. языковые трансформации: причастные обороты и придаточные определительные предложения

 

Text Study

 

We study our Earth for many reasons: to find water to drink or oil to run our cars or coal to heat our homes, to know where earthquakes will occur or to predict landslides or floods, and to try to understand our natural surroundings.

Geology may be divided into physical geology and historical geology.

Physical geology deals with the materials of the Earth, earth crust movements, the structure of the Earth and various processes and agencies, such as weather, wind, streams, glaciers, the sea, organisms, volcanoes, earthquakes, subterranean water, etc.

Historical geology is the branch of geologic science that relates to the past history of the earth. Earth is not stable – nothing on its surface is permanent. Thus to understand the world we live in, we must study Earth’s history. We study Earth’s history by studying the record of past events that are preserved in rocks. The layers of the rocks are the pages in our history book.

Rock layers are also called strata and the science that treats of these layered rocks is referred to as stratigraphy.

To tell the age of most layered rocks scientists study the fossils these rocks contain. Fossils are the remains of once-living organisms.

Today the animals and plants that live in the ocean are very different from those that live on land and the animals and plants that live in one part of the ocean or on one part of the land are very different from those in other parts. Similarly, fossils, animals and plants from different environments are different. Scientists must study the fossil from a variety of environments to build a complete picture of the animals and plants that lived in the past. The science that studies fossil remains is called paleontology.