Subject Description
Geology

GEOL 498 | Internship Seminar

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.

GEOL 490 | Seminar

In this course, students explore a variety of current topics in the geosciences. The choice of topics varies from year to year, but are primarily based on current or proposed research topics being conducted by faculty and students in the department. Each student is responsible for preparing for and leading one class session; all students are responsible for thoroughly preparing for and participating in all class sessions.

GEOL 390 | Directed Research

This course provides a laboratory or field research experience for juniors or seniors under the direction of a faculty mentor. Students may initiate a project or join a research project in the mentor's lab. Students must complete an agreement listing research activity to be completed, references, and a progress plan that will result in a written report and a presentation.

GEOL 340 | Climate Change

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.

GEOL 324 | Biogeochemical Approaches to Environmental Science

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.

GEOL 320 | Environmental Geochemistry

This course provides an introduction to the ways in which chemical principles are used to study geological and environmental processes. The emphasis is on low-temperature processes that influence the chemistry of water, sediment, and soil. Specific topics include aqueous solutions, thermodynamics, mineral-water equilibria, oxidation-reduction reactions, adsorption-desorption processes, and applications of radiogenic and stable isotopes. The laboratory component of the course is field-based and involves sampling and analysis of water and sediment from around Tacoma.