Small children can distinguish different animal species from one another. Children encounter a wide range of plant and animal species in various ways: in illustrated books, in stories, in school, while drawing or engaged in handicrafts, and so on. From childhood on we are trained to distinguish plant and animal species from each other. But what is the situation with rocks and minerals? Rocks are simply “stones” or “rocks,” and “crystals” are understood to be simply well-formed and transparent rock crystals (quartz). We are not exposed to ways to engage with rocks to identify and classify them. That is certainly one initial disadvantage, even though children are usually fascinated by rocks. Place a small child on a gravel bank, and you will enjoy some quiet for quite a while. Geology is either not taught at all in schools, or taught very little. Since the subject matter is so complex, students (and frequently teachers) struggle to master the concepts. Even so, we are ready to face the world of rocks. <...>

The term geology is a combination of two Greek expressions: “Geo” refers to the Earth, and “logos” refers to the logic and language used to explain your observations. So think of geology as a way to organize and explain the Earth processes that we see all around us. For some of the strange shapes we see, an educated explanation would be great. Most of what we know is good guesswork, based on lab experiments and inferences that take many detailed drawings to explain and a lifetime to understand. Fortunately, the more you see, the better things fall into place. <...>

Rocks are the foundations upon which humans and other forms of life on Earth stand. Rock makes up the solid outer skin of planet Earth, as well as the molten and solid layers of Earth’s interior. Across the wide span of geologic time, no rock remains the same. Rocks begin as volumes of magma (hot, fluidlike mixtures of minerals, gases, and steam) that slowly rise and cool into igneous rocks at or near Earth’s surface. Exposed to the elements on the surface over long time intervals, igneous rocks may crack, flake, and break apart to provide the basic materials for deposits of sedimentary rock. After being subjected to high temperatures, high pressures, or bathed in chemical solutions, igneous and sedimentary rock may become metamorphic rock or revert into magma if conditions are particularly intense. The first part of this book provides the reader with a general treatment of rocks and their important properties, while the remainder of the book considers the three major types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. <...>

This work is based on survey data from the 13th and 16th cruises of the R/V Akademik Nikolai Strakhov. The tectonic structure of the Romanche fracture zone in the Equatorial Atlantic is considered. Based on its dynamics, kinematics and historical evolution, the zone does not seem to be a uniform structure. Its segments are of different age and evolved according to different dynamic and kinematic laws. The fracture zone is not continuous in space: deformations complicating it migrate both along and a cross its strike, creating new fracture zones with somewhat different orientation. Three geodynamic systems are recognized within the fracture zone, namely Rom 1, Rom 2 and Rom 3.   In the eastern junction of the rift and the Romanche fracture zone, the rift valley jumps northward with simultaneous prograding. A "dry" spreading mode is pronounced in the region.