Chapter 4 - Basic petrology

Abstract

Petrology is the study of rocks, meteorites, and minerals as well as their occurrences, composition, origin, and evolution of the solar system. The processes involved are as follows: tectonic movements of masses, volcanic injections and eruptions, crystallization and solidification, melting and recrystallization, sedimentation, metamorphism, weathering, and megascopic and microscopic identification of minerals and rocks. The interior structure of the Earth from inner and outer core, mantle, lithosphere, oceanic and continental crust, hydrosphere, atmosphere to biosphere is illustrated along with the Nebular theory of origin and age. Rocks have been classified into three major genetic classes: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The theory of plate tectonics for the current configuration of the Earth lithosphere and component continents with a zone of subduction and plate boundaries such as transform, convergent, and divergent was discussed. The orogenic movements through collision and noncollision were explained. The study of Petrology turns out to be a wider application with the advent of Space Missions during the last five decades. Petrology is playing an immense role to understand the entire Solar System and a peep to the Universe as an overview. The resources in the Solar System appear to be vast.