Building Planet Earth: Fundamentals of Earth Science

Welcome to Te Kura Aronukurangi | School of Earth and Environment at Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury. In this introductory course, we aim to provide you with a basic understanding of how Earth and its materials have developed through deep time. Since the birth of the Earth 4.55 billion years ago the only constant has been change. The oceans and atmosphere, the distribution of the continents and the life that they support are all part of an interactive system that makes Earth unique. In this course you will learn about the essential building blocks of Earth (minerals and rocks) and the processes that are responsible for how they form and change through time. In addition this course teaches you how to read the stories that the rocks are telling us and decipher key events in the evolution of life on Earth through the fossil record. Building Planet Earth gives you the opportunity to explore how our unique planet works and has sustained life, by showcasing our Zealandia continent. Aotearoa | New Zealand, on the active margin of the Pacific with its volcanoes, earthquakes, dramatic geomorphology, and 500 million years of geological history, is one of the best places on Earth to study geological processes.