GEOL

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.

This course surveys the wide range of modern energy sources, and considers the prospects for their future supply and availability. Each energy source is explored from a wide range of perspectives, including: its origin, geographic distribution, energy density, energy "type" (gravity, chemical, radioactive, solar), processing, refining, or transformation from one form of mass or energy to another, transport (both pre- and post- processing/transformation), environmental costs (upstream and downstream- lifecycle considerations), and economic costs (cost/unit of energy produced).

This course examines the physical, chemical, and geologic processes that determine the distribution, movement, and nature of freshwater resources (rivers, lakes, wetlands, and groundwater). The course pays particular attention to issues of water supply and quality in North America. Lab and field exercises introduce the fundamentals of measuring and modeling river and groundwater flow; field trips to several dams and reservoirs in Washington illustrate some of the ways that surface water resources are utilized.

In this course students learn a variety of techniques that are used to locate, describe, and document features in the field. Specific topics may include navigating with topographic maps and GPS, sketching features relating to scientific endeavors, recognizing and interpreting features on topographic maps, aerial photos and lidar images, and working with ArcGIS to produce a variety of different types of maps. All-day field trips on Saturdays and/or Sundays may be required.

This course investigates how life on earth has changed through time as recorded in the fossil record. It includes a survey of major invertebrate and vertebrate fossil groups, with emphasis on paleoecological pattern and process, and reconstruction of paleoenvironments.

The principles, methods, and materials of stratigraphy and paleontology used to interpret the physical and biological history of the Earth. Emphasizes the classification, correlation, interrelationships, and interpretation of rock strata and of the various types of fossils that occur in these rocks.

This course covers igneous rocks and the processes by which they form. Specific topics include magma formation and evolution, characteristics of igneous rocks in different tectonic settings, and the causes, styles, and impacts of volcanic eruptions. Students learn and utilize a variety of field and lab techniques including ICP analysis and thin section microscopy.

Study of earth's architecture, major tectonic features and processes, and folding and fracturing in rocks; lab and field projects included.

The origin, texture, composition, classification, and interpretation of sediments and sedimentary rocks. The various methods for studying these materials in the field and laboratory are emphasized. A portion of the course is devoted to the main groups of microscopic fossils that occur as components of many sedimentary rocks.

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.