Compare and Contrast the Earth with the Moon as seen from space:

Earth:
   water (blue)
   continents (multicolored)
   mountains and plains (a variety of landscapes)
   ice and snow (white)
   clouds, moving rapidly (also white)
Moon:
   craters
   light areas (highlands, rugged landscape, lots of craters)
   dark areas (lowlands, flatter landscape, fewer craters)

Three types of rocks:   Igneous, Sedimentary, Metamorphic
Igneous - cools and crystallizes minerals from a molten state (magma or lava)
   Texture: mostly crystalline, interlocking crystals of individual minerals that have grown
      together as the magma cooled
   Formation: either intrusive (cooling beneath the earth's surface) or extrusive (erupting as volcanic rocks)
   Minerals: a variety of minerals, 99% are silicate minerals, consisting largely of the elements
      Si (silicon) and O (oxygen), commonly including quartz, feldspar, mica, olivine and others
Sedimentary - forms as loose sediment accumulates as a deposit, is buried and lithifies (hardens) into rock
   Texture: usually layered, formed in "beds" as the sediments accumulate. May become more crystalline
     with lithification and "cementing" of grains due to new minerals growing in the spaces between sediment grains.
   Formation: sediment accumulates, is buried, compacted by the overlying weight, and new minerals (called cement)
     grow in the pore space between grains to lithify the sediment into a hardened rock.
   Minerals: quartz (SiO₂) is most common in clastic rocks (conglomerates, sandstones, siltstones), clay minerals (mica family)
     dominate in shales, calcite (CaCO₃) makes limestones, rock salt is halite (NaCl or table salt), many more
Metamorphic - forms from other rocks under very high temperature and pressure conditions.
   Texture: mostly crystalline, due to chemical changes, but typically with a "foliation" or preferred orientation or segregation of minerals
   Formation:  rocks metamorphose due to chemical changes that occur under high temperature and high pressure (deep burial) conditions.
   Minerals: a variety of minerals depending on the type of parent rock (rock that existed before metamorphism. A few
     minerals are almost only formed by metamorphism: garnet, graphite, kyanite, staurolite.

Outcrops and Landscapes form because we have a dynamic earth, where the landscape is undergoing uplift
(to create new mountains) and subsidence (sinking, where sediments accumulate).  Weathering (breakdown of rocks)
tears down the high areas and sedimentation (deposition of sediments) fills in the low areas.  Wherever rocks are exposed
at the earth's surface, we call this an "outcrop" of rock.  Geologists (and their students) study these for clues to help
unravel the long-term history of the earth.

Rock Cycle (draw it two ways)
A.  Draw it with symbols and arrows
B.  Draw it as a cross-section through the Andes of South America

Key points of the Rock Cycle:
1.  Weathering and erosion on land break down rocks into sediment and ions (dissolved chemicals)
2.  Sedimentary Rocks - from transportation, deposition, burial, and lithification of sediments
3.  Igneous Rocks - heating, melting, crystallization of rocks from liquid rocks (magma)
4.  Metamorphic Rocks - chemical transformation of rocks deep beneath mountain belts
5.  Plate tectonics makes it all happen.
6.  There is no “ideal” rock cycle, rather the rock cycle is simply a description of geologic processes on our dynamic planet.  All rock types can be weathered at the surface, any type can be transformed into another -- and somewhere, it is.

Redraw the rock cycle showing plate tectonics (subduction of the Nazca plate beneath the Andes)
 

Plate Tectonics -- Very Brief:
1.  Earth's outer materials are relatively cold and brittle, and we call these the Lithosphere (“rocky shell”).
2.  Beneath the lithosphere is a hot, metamorphosing rock layer called the Asthenosphere.
3.  Movement of the asthenosphere pushes the lithosphere around, causing the lithosphere to break into large pieces (called “plates”).
4.  Plate tectonics is the study of lithospheric plate movements, and the processes and products that result from this movement.
(“Tectonics“ = study of earth deformation, like breaking, bending and folding of rocks)

Plate Tectonics – a few details:
Lithospheric plates are typically about 100 km thick, and thousands of kilometers across.  They move at rates ranging from ~1 to ~15cm/year.

Each lithospheric plate may consist of:
A)  Continents or parts of continents, or...
B)  Oceans or parts of oceans, or...
C)  Both.

Three Types of Plate Boundaries:
Divergent - plates moving apart.  Many small volcanoes.  Mid-Ocean Ridges and Continental Rift zones.

Convergent - plates moving together.  Mountains, Volcanoes and Earthquakes.  Subduction zones are where one plate is pulled beneath another because it is heavier.

Transform - plates slipping past each other laterally.  San Andreas fault.  Earthquakes.

Divergent boundaries => new lithosphere is forming.
Convergent boundaries => old, cold lithosphere returns downward, into the asthenosphere.

Importance of Plate Tectonics?
- Primary control on the shape and character of the earth's surface (distribution of mountains, oceans, continents, more...)
- Primary control of major earth processes (volcanoes, earthquakes)
- Primary control on distribution of rock types around the world (where we find igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks, and how much of each).
- Provides a significant control on distribution of earth resources (oil, coal, many economic minerals).
- Provides a testable framework for describing earth history (for example, where plates were located in the past).

For really big questions about the earth, the answer is usually “Plate Tectonics”.  An example:
Q:  Why are the Appalachian mountains located along the eastern side of North America?
A:  Because North America collided with Africa and Europe about 300 million years ago along a convergent plate boundary, and the Appalachian mountains resulted from that collision.