Geology 110

Basic Information

• Lectures: 2A in Mudd 66
• Lab: Th 1:00-5:00 in Mudd 66
• TAs: Ella Kampelman and Paul Mains - office hours posted in the classroom
• Office hours: during 3A/convocation or by appointment
• To meet with outside of office hours, check my schedule to see times when I am available, then send me an email (where you also propose several times where you are available)
• Syllabus
• Tentative schedule

Course Updates

Week 5

• Bereket will be teaching on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. You will be responsible for the material. You will probably be going outside in lab on Thursday - given the temperatures, it's likely to be wet and possibly muddy.
• Your next journal assignment is due on Wednesday February 8, after mid-term break. For this one, find a geologic map of your home state (or country). A cross-section through the geology might be find-able as well. Describe the kinds of rocks and the ages of the rocks across your state. Be specific and try to use words from the geologic time-scale as well as actual ages (in Ma). Are there faults - if so, what kind? Are there folds - if so, what mountain range are they part of? Last, for some school assignment when you were growing up, you probably had some excursion or activity related to geology. (I went on a fossil hunt, for example.) Given the geologic map of your state, does your past geology experience make more sense? Why or why not?

Week 4

• Remember: Mary would you to a get a copy of a recent energy bill from your parents (electricity, heating/cooling).
• For textbook sections with plate tectonics, read Chapter 3 (all of it) and 10.1-10.6 and 10.12.
• I moved the exam to next Monday to give us a little more time with plate tectonics. There will be no journal assignment due over that weekend.
• I posted additional tips for the Geology-in-the-News presentations on the syllabus page.
• Your journal assignment for this week is about earthquakes. I want you to find about earthquake hazards near your hometown by exploring this USGS website. Do many (or few) earthquakes happen near you? On what kinds of faults? How deep are the hypocenters? etc. Then, find out about earthquakes in another country where you speak the language. [Pick somewhere seismically interesting.] Similar to last week, compare the earthquake hazard of your hometown with another place on Earth. For each place of interest, be sure to show a location map that includes earthquake information. If relevant, you could also mention whether either place is at risk for tsunamis. Your textbook might have some useful information, especially for people from the middle of the country.

Week 3

• NEW: You can earn extra credit by attending a talk in the geology department. The talks are on Friday afternoon from 3:30-4:30. There are snacks. Take notes during the talk (by sketching relevant graphs, figures, etc.) and when it's finished, create the standard format for answers in this class: an 11x17 that asks a scientific question (something that the speaker addressed) and answers it with text and images. Talks happen on Friday January 20 (about climate change), Friday January 27 (about Martian magmatic processes), Friday February 10 (maybe about subterranean Minneapolis?), and Friday February 24 (about the solar system).
• New journal assignment about volcanoes: Compare two different kinds of volcanoes. One should be the volcano nearest your hometown. The other should be a different kind of volcano on the opposite side of Earth from your town. Your comparison should include text and images (photos, cartoons, sketches). Mention what kinds of rocks you might expect from each volcano. Location maps may be useful. Don't forget to ask a question.
• Reading about volcanoes includes these sections of the textbook: 6.1-6.4, and 6.6-6.11.
• Reading about earthquakes includes these sections of the textbook: 12.1-12.3, 12.5-12.10, 12.15, and 12.17. It's probably worth trying out the activity on 12.18.

Week 2
Upcoming reading about rocks and minerals includes the following sections of the textbook: 4.1-4.6, 4.8., 4.10, 4.14, 5.1-5.8, and 5.13.

For Monday, your first installment for the hometown project is due. A couple of things to consider:

• The layout should be similar to the textbook - you ask a question and answer it with a series of figures (e.g. pictures, photos, maps, etc.) and text describing the important things to observe for each figure.
• The topic for the week is the topograghy near your hometown. Use the terrain feature in Google Maps/Earth to make topographic maps of your hometown - perhaps choose a zoomed out view and a close-up view. You can print these out and paste them into you booklet. [If you are having trouble printing the map, remember you can always take a screen capture.]
• Add some small and interesting blocks of text describing the major topographic features you can see on the maps.
• It turns out that aesthetics do matter - do you want to read a messy textbook written in sloppy pencil handwriting? No? Me neither. So try to be neat and consider the layout of your entry.

Week 1

• We will be going outside in lab this week. Wear warm clothes and shoes that can get wet.
• Read the following sections from the textbook this week: 1.1-1.4, 2.1-2.5, 2.7, 2.8, and 2.10.
• Please bring your textbook to class everyday.

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1 February 2012