GEOSCIENCES 001
Introduction to Physical Geology
- Spring 2006
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 we think are more important for you to
understand if this is your only geoscience class (we 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. We 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.
Instructors: Dave Bice Office: 540 Deike (5-4477) Email: dbice@geosc.psu.edu Office Hours: M 11-12, T 10-11, W 2:30-3:30
Eliza
Richardson
Office: 406 Deike
(5-7326) Email: eliza@geosc.psu.edu Office Hours: By Appointment
Class Meetings: MWF 10:10 – 11:00 in 360
Willard
Text: Earth, Portrait of a Planet 2nd ed. by Stephen Marshak (used copies in bookstore, or e-book
(www.nortonebooks.com))
Lab Materials: 10x hand lens (available at bookstore),
colored pencils, pencils, field notebook
Grading:
Exams 3@ 15%
Random Quizzes 10%
Lab Reports & Quizzes 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
M Jan. 9 Intro to the Earth Systems Web
Reading
W Jan. 11 How was the Earth made? Ch 1 and browse The Nine Planets
F Jan. 13 Inside the Earth Ch 2
LAB 1: Maps
M Jan. 16 MLK Jr Day – No Class
W Jan. 18 The Core to Continental Drift Ch 3
F Jan. 20 Plate Tectonics: How
the Whole Thing Works CH 4
LAB 2: Minerals
M Jan. 23 Igneous Rocks Ch 6
W Jan.25 Volcanoes Ch 6
F Jan.27 Metamorphic Rocks & the Rock Cycle: What goes around
comes around Ch 8 & Interlude B
LAB 3: Plate
Tectonics
M Jan.30 Interpreting
Sedimentary Rocks Ch 7 isostasy
W Feb.1 Making Mountains: Subduction leads to Orogeny Ch 11
F Feb.3 Earthquakes CH 10 & Interlude C
LAB 4: Rocks
& Fossils (read Ch 5 & Interlude A)
M Feb. 6 More Earthquakes CH 10 & Interlude C
W Feb.8 Seismic Hazards CH 10 & Interlude C
F Feb.10 Exam 1 here is an exam from last
year
LAB 5: Earthquakes
M Feb. 13 Geologic time Ch 12 familiarize
yourself with the geologic timescale
W Feb. 15 How to date a rock Ch 12
F Feb. 17 More on Dating
LAB 6: Geologic Map
Lab tilted bed interactive
movie another
tilted bed movie
M Feb. 20 Weathering Web Reading
W Feb. 22 Soils Web Reading #1 Web Reading #2
F Feb. 24) Forensic Geology New
Yorker article
LAB 7: Oceanography Lab (as
a Word document) (as
a pdf)
M Feb. 27 The global water cycle
Interlude E, Web Reading
(read sections 1-4
W Mar. 1 Intro to the Oceans Ch 18 Explore the Oceans Here
F Mar. 3 Coastal Processes Ch 18
LAB 8: Field Trip
– Spring Creek Excel file
of data
M Mar. 13 Rivers – Physical
Processes Ch 17
W Mar. 15 Rivers, Floods, &
Humans Ch 17 USGS Water Resources Spring Creek Gauge
F Mar. 17 Exam #2 previous exam
LAB 9: Climate
Modeling Lab
M Mar. 20 Intro to the Climate
System Web Reading
read intro through concepts and processes
W Mar. 22 Groundwater – Physical Processes Ch 19
F Mar. 24 Landslides Ch 16
LAB 10: Field
Trip to Hwy 322 By-Pass
M Mar. 27 Life on Earth Interlude D
W Mar. 29 Mass Extinctions Web Reading physical
effects of impacts
F Mar. 31 Composition, Structure,
Origin of the Atmosphere
CH 20
LAB 11: Field
Trip to Hwy 322 By-Pass
M Apr. 3 General Circulation of
the Atmosphere CH 20
W Apr. 5 Daisyworld: A Parable Web Reading
F Apr. 7 Glaciers CH 22
LAB 12: Field
Trip to Potter’s Mills
M Apr. 10 More Glaciers and Ice
Ages CH 22Web Reading
W Apr. 12 Ice Ages, Isotopes, Astronomy CH 22Web Reading
F Apr. 14 Snowball Earth
Hoffman and Schrag
LAB13: Carbon Cycle
Modeling
M Apr. 17 The Global Carbon Cycle Web Reading
W Apr. 19 Abrupt Climate Change
F Apr 21 Modern (last 100 yrs)
and Future Climate Change
Web Reading
LAB: no lab
M Apr. 24 Energy Resources and
Humans CH 14
W Apr. 26 Summary
F Apr. 28 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 one
of us has 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. Expenses related to these field trips will be charged to you
after the class is over – it will be in the neighborhood of $40.
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% and they
cannot be handed in after the graded labs for that exercise have been
returned.
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
We 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, we 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, we 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. We 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 we 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 we think
we can have fun along the way too.