This course examines the range of natural environments of North America and the geologic, climatic, and biogeographic basis for this diversity. Focusing on the major physiographic divisions of the United States and Canada, the course looks at the relationship between these fundamental factors, the unequal distribution of natural resources, and the geography and history of human response to them. Includes laboratory.
This course focuses on one of several geologic provinces in North America in the most direct manner possible - in the field. After an initial lecture orientation, the class explores the rocks, land forms, structures, and fossils first hand. Students learn to make their own observations and interpretations along the way. Each student becomes an expert in the geology of a selected area and makes in-field presentations to the rest of the class, as well as compiling a field notebook of the features that the class examines. Trips include the Colorado Plateau, the Death Valley region, and the Pacific Northwest.
This course introduces the methods used to identify minerals and rocks and provides an overview of the processes by which they form. Topics covered include chemical and physical properties of minerals, mineral associations, and the classification, genesis, and interpretation of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Labs emphasize the identification of samples in hand specimen and by x-ray diffraction.
This course investigates the shape, composition, and formation of the major internal and external features of the Earth: ocean basins, continents, mountain ranges, the core, the mantle, and the lithosphere. A large portion of time is spent obtaining and interpreting quantitative geophysical measurements of Earth properties. This includes collecting and analyzing seismic, gravity, and magnetic and paleomagnetic data, measuring the gravitational constant, and determining Earth's size and mass, the thickness of the crust, and the distance to earthquake epicenters. Emphasis is placed on geophysical methods used by scientists in the measurement of basic Earth properties.
Study of earth's architecture, major tectonic features and processes, and folding and fracturing in rocks; lab and field projects included.
This course provides an introduction to the study of a variety of the Earth's natural resources, and the environmental impacts of their extraction and use. The course focuses on the origin of different types of resources including metallic and non-metallic mineral deposits, and building stone. A discussion/lab session is scheduled for in-class activities, labs and field trips. Course readings center around case studies from the primary scientific literature.
A broad review of quantitative and qualitative biogeochemical methods used in the study of environmental science. The course will focus on isotopic and elemental analyses of geological and biological materials with applications to a range of questions. Examples include; energy flow, nutrient cycling, animal migration, and paleoceanographic conditions. The course readings will draw heavily upon case studies from the primary scientific literature.
Cross-listed as ENVR/GEOL 324.
This course examines the wide variety of geologic, physical, chemical, and biologic evidence for the nature, duration, timing, and causes of climate change throughout the long history of our planet. In general, the course proceeds chronologically through geologic time. As the course approaches the modern world, students examine the paleoclimate record in progressively greater detail, and consider increasingly complex explanations for the patterns seen. Because of the great breadth (interdisciplinary range) and great depth (wide range of time periods) of the topics considered, students use a wide range of sources, including semi-popular articles, textbooks, and primary literature. The lab focuses on examining a variety of primary sources of paleoclimatic information and techniques of data analysis, such as tree rings, pollen, and stable isotopes.
This scheduled weekly interdisciplinary seminar provides the context to reflect on concrete experiences at an off-campus internship site and to link these experiences to academic study relating to the political, psychological, social, economic and intellectual forces that shape our views on work and its meaning. The aim is to integrate study in the liberal arts with issues and themes surrounding the pursuit of a creative, productive, and satisfying professional life. Students receive 1.0 unit of academic credit for the academic work that augments their concurrent internship fieldwork. This course is not applicable to the Upper-Division Graduation Requirement. Only 1.0 unit may be assigned to an individual internship and no more than 2.0 units of internship credit, or internship credit in combination with co-operative education credit, may be applied to an und