GEOSCIENCES 001
Introduction to Physical Geology
- Fall 2005
This class is all about
understanding how the Earth works, how it changes, and how these changes relate
to us.
To arrive at this understanding,
we need to explore the connections, history, and dynamics of the whole planet,
including the atmosphere, the oceans,
and life, as well as the solid, rocky part of the Earth.
To complement this global view,
many of our labs will be devoted to studying the local geology in the field.
Through these field trips, we will
reconstruct the long history of climatic, environmental, and tectonic
change that have formed and deformed
the rocks and the landscape we find in central Pennsylvania.
If you invest a little effort,
this class will change the way you look at the world; a bold claim, perhaps,
but just wait and see…
Study the list of lecture topics
and you will see that we follow the textbook somewhat closely in the first part
of the class, but then we begin to diverge from it more and more in the second
half of the class, exploring topics that I think are more important for you to
understand if this is your only geoscience class (I hope many of you will
become interested enough to take more geoscience classes, but the odds are that
most of you won’t). This gets to
an important point about the relationship between the readings and the lectures
and what you are responsible for. I view the readings as important and
essential background material that you need to understand in order to get the
most out of the lectures. The
lectures will not simply review and amplify on the textbook and the exams will
be weighted much more towards material covered in classes. In other words, you
cannot skip class, do the readings and expect to pass the exams.
Instructor: Dave Bice Office: 540 Deike (5-4477) Email: dbice@geosc.psu.edu
Class Meetings: MWF 1:25 – 2:15 in 26 Hossler Office Hours: M 10-11, T 9-10, W
2:30-3:30
Text: Earth, Portrait of a Planet 2nd ed. by Stephen Marshak
Lab Materials: 10x hand lens (available at bookstore),
colored pencils, pencils, field notebook
Grading:
Exams 3@ 15%
Random Quizzes 10%
Lab Reports 45%
Monitoring the Earth:
Check
these sites to see what our planet is doing
SCHEDULE OF LECTURE TOPICS, READINGS,
AND LABS
The readings
listed below for each day are to be completed before coming to class or lab
W Aug. 31 Intro to the Earth Systems Web
Reading
F Sept. 2 How was the Earth made? Ch 1 and browse The Nine Planets
LAB1: Maps
M Sept. 5 Labor Day – No Class
W Sept. 7 Inside the Earth Ch 2
F Sept. 9 The Core to Continental
Drift Ch 3
LAB2: Minerals/Rocks/Fossils
(read Ch 5 & Interlude A)
M Sept. 12 Plate Tectonics: How
the Whole Thing Works CH 4
W Sept.14 Earthquakes CH 10 & Interlude C
F Sept.16 Seismic Hazards
CH 10 & Interlude C
LAB3: Earthquakes
and Plate Tectonics
M Sept.19 Volcanoes and Igneous
Rocks Ch 6
W Sept.21 Metamorphic Rocks and
the Rock Cycle: What goes around comes around Ch 8 & InterludeB
F Sept.23 Interpreting
Sedimentary Rocks Ch 7 isostasy
LAB4: Field
Trip to Hwy 322 bypass: Bellefonte
and Nealmont Fms.
M Sept. 26 Making Mountains: Subduction leads to Orogeny Ch 11
W Sept.28 How to date a rock, how to think about
time Ch 12
familiarize yourself with the geologic timescale
F Sept.30 Life on Earth
Interlude D
LAB5: Field
Trip to Hwy 322 bypass: Coburn and Salona Fms.
M Oct. 3 Exam 1
W Oct. 5 Mass Extinctions Web Reading physical
effects of impacts
F Oct. 7 Weathering Web Reading
LAB: No lab
this week, except for Monday (Lab 5)
M Oct. 10 Soils Web Reading #1 Web Reading #2
W Oct. 12 The global water cycle
Interlude E, Web Reading
(read sections 1-4)
F Oct. 14 No Class
LAB6: Field
Trip #1 to Potter’s Mills
M Oct. 17 Intro to the Oceans Ch 18 Explore the Oceans Here
W Oct. 19 Rivers – Physical Processes
Ch 17
F Oct. 21 Rivers, Floods, and
Humans Ch 17 USGS Water Resources Spring Creek Gauge
LAB7: Rock ID and Context
M Oct. 24 Groundwater – Physical
Processes Ch 19
W Oct. 26 More Groundwater then Landslides Ch 16
F Oct. 28 More
Landslides
Ch 16
LAB8: Field Trip
– Spring Creek Excel file
of data
M Oct. 31 Introduction to the Climate System Web Reading
read intro through concepts and processes
W Nov. 2 Exam #2 study guide
F Nov. 4 Composition, Structure,
Origin of the Atmosphere
CH 20
LAB9: Field Trip
#2 to Potter’s Mills
M Nov. 7 General Circulation of
the Atmosphere CH 20
W Nov. 9 Daisyworld: A Parable Web Reading
F Nov. 11 The Global Carbon Cycle Web Reading
LAB10: Climate
Modeling Lab
M Nov. 14 Global Carbon Cycle
II Web Reading
W Nov. 16 Glaciers
CH 22
F Nov. 18 Pleistocene Ice Ages CH 22
LAB: No Lab
M Nov. 21 Astronomical Theory of
the Ice Ages CH 22 Web Reading
T Nov. 22 Snowball Earth
Hoffman and Schrag
W Nov. 23 No Class -- Thanksgiving
F Nov. 25 No Class -- Thanksgiving
LAB11: Carbon Cycle
Modeling
M Nov. 28 Highlights of
Phanerozoic Climate History (P/T, LPTM, Messinian)
W Nov. 30 Holocene Climate Change
F Dec 2 Modern
(last 100 yrs) and Future Climate Change Web Reading
LAB: no lab
M Dec. 5 Energy Resources and
Humans CH 14
W Dec. 7 Summary
F Dec. 9 Exam 3
ADDITIONAL NOTES
Readings
In the syllabus, the topic for
each day is accompanied by a reading assignment that should be completed before
class or lab. Most of the readings come from the textbook; other readings will
come from various articles or chapters from other books, or materials that I
have written, which are posted on the web. These readings are intended to
provide a basis and context for the things we'll discuss in class. If you
follow the readings, you'll have a much easier time seeing how it all fits
together. In general, you should think of your textbook and the library as
resources for answering questions - learn how to use these resources well and
you'll have the means for unlimited learning. You cannot expect everything
important to be served up to you - you have to go out and forage a bit and find
your own answers sometimes. Speaking of foraging, a word of caution about
information on the web – not all of the information that pops up in a Google
search is trustworthy. There are
good sources of geoscience information on the web and almost all of these are
connected with someone at a university or college or a government lab or a
museum. So, scrutinize the sources of the information you find on the web.
Field Labs
There will be several field labs
during the semester in order to gets some hands-on experience looking at and
interpreting rocks; many of these labs will lead to an overall understanding of
the geologic history of the State College area.
Come prepared with appropriate
clothing - boots are always recommended; raingear will sometimes be needed and
should always be brought along.
Toward the end of class, you will
draw together and summarize your field trip observations and interpretations in
the form of a short report on the local geology, so take good, abundant notes
in the field.
Deadlines
Lab reports are always due at the
beginning of the next week's lab. Late labs will be penalized by 10%.
Academic
Integrity
Academic
integrity—the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest, and responsible
manner—is a basic guiding principle for all academic activity in the college,
and all members of the college are expected to act in accordance with this
principle. Consistent with this expectation, all students should act with
personal integrity, respect other students' dignity, rights and property, and
help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the
fruits of their efforts.
General goals
of the course
I hope that by the end of this
course, you will have a good, basic understanding of how the whole Earth system
works -- the processes that operate in the interior, on the surface, and above
the surface. Through this, I hope you will gain a sense of the Earth as a
complex, dynamic system in which there is a high degree of connectedness. You
should also learn something about how the Earth has changed through its long
history, and what the future might hold. In addition, I hope that you will get
a feeling for how geologists think -- how we know what we do about the Earth,
and how we go about solving problems in the earth sciences. I hope that this
course will also provide you with some insight into how people are affected by
geologic processes, how our activities can in turn affect the Earth, and how an
understanding of geology can lead to a more intelligent way of occupying the
Earth. These are the kinds of things that I hope you will retain from this course,
along with a new way of looking at the Earth around you. These are lofty goals
and they won't be realized without a lot of hard work, but I think we can have
fun along the way too.