Course Outline, Spring 2000

Scroll through the outline or click on a week in the calendar to find that week's topics, reading and assignments.

Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
1	Introduction What is Environmental Geology? How does it fit into the geological sciences? Fundamental environmental concepts and problems. Population growth. Systems and feedback. The Gaia hypothesis.	Chapter 1
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
2	Geologic Processes and Principles Fundamental geologic concepts. Earth systems and cycles. Earth in the solar system. Earth structure. Using the Internet and World-Wide Web and the information highway to gain access to global environmental conditions and happenings. Earth in the solar system. Special Topic: Introduction to the Internet and World Wide Web. How to use the Information superhighway for resources about geology and the environment. Check out Geology in the News , a collection of links to sources of news. The publisher of your text book has an environmental news page for you.	Article by McKibben (on electronic reserve). This article is entitled "A Special Moment in History."	Internet Exercise 1: You are required to learn how Web navigation works in this class. This first assignment gets you on the Web and investigates world population growth.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
3	Plate tectonics. Continental drift. Sea-floor spreading. How do we know? Convergent, divergent and transform plate boundaries. Intra-plate hot spots. Plate tectonics and the rock cycle.	Chapter 3	Plate Tectonics Practical Exercise: Past Positions of South America and Africa will be handed out in class. Plate Tectonics Internet Exercise: This assignment involves looking at some great sattelite images and figuring out the tectonic settings of the locations shown. The due date will be announced.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
4	Photo Credit: Amethyst Galleries, Inc. Earth materials. Rocks and minerals? What are the basic geologic structures and what is their origin? Rocks and minerals and their environmental significance. The rock cycle. The age of the Earth. Geologic time and geologic dating.	Chapter 2, Appendix A.	Practical Exercise on Geologic Time will be handed out in class.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
5	More on rocks and geologic time. First Exam Wednesday, February 9 Check your syllabus often for information about exams, including the first exam. Geologic Hazards We will begin our look at earthquakes at the end of Week 5.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
6	Photo Credit: c/o U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA Earthquakes. Where do they occur and why? What determines their impact on us and on the environment? Earthquake classification and prediction. Seismic waves. Mitigating earthquake risk. Tsunamis. Sometime this week we will watch the video The Day the Earth Shook. This is a great film about the Kobe and Northridge earthquakes which occurred exactly one year apart. The big question is how could two earthquakes of similar strength be so different in the amount of destruction they wrought. Credit: University of Washington Geophysics Program Later this week we will talk about tsunamis and how they relate to both earthquakes and volcanoes. Check out a great tsunami site with animations by clicking on the tsunami painting. Also check out the tsunami site by the University of Washington.	Chapter 4	Practical Exercise 3: Earthquakes will be handed out in class. For this project, you will identify the P- and S-wave arrival times of seismic waves from earthquakes and use them to locate the earthquake epicenter. Also, you will do an Internet Earthquake Exercise where you will use the Internet to get information about recent earthquake activity and report what you have learned. For help regarding picking P- and S-wave arrivals, see the Seismogram Help Sheet.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
7	Photo Credit: Cascade Volcano Observatory, U.S. Geological Survey Begin volcanic activity. Where does it occur and why? Volcano classification. Volcanic hazards and mitigation. Volcano prediction. Be sure to also check out the US Geological Suvey pages on Cascade Volcanoes, Alaska Volcanoes, and Hawaii Volcanoes. These all have some great pictures and information. Volcano World is a site that is advertised as being both educational and humorous. Check out this site maintained by scientists at the University of North Dakota. As Earth magazine said they must have spare time on their hands waiting for all the North Dakotan volcanoes to erupt. There is also the CNN volcano site. We finish volcanoes by watching the video In the Path of a Killer Volcano, a most excellent film. Hold on to your seismograph. This film will take you for a ride.	Chapter 5
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
8	Photo Credit: CNN Interactive U.S. News Begin surface water. River and drainage system morphology. Flooding: measurement, frequency and mitigation. Dams and disasters.	Chapter 6	Practical Exercise on flooding will be handed out in class. For this exercise, you will analyze the flood history of nearby Seven Mile Creek. You will use its flood history to make predictions about recurrence intervals of futurte floods. For some help on this exercise, click here.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
9	Mass wasting. Slope stability. The interactions of rock, water, gravity and time. Landslides and mass wasting. Photo Credit: U.S. Geological Survey, Geologic Hazards Team, 1711 Illinois St., Golden, CO 80401. For information about mass wasting, check out the USGS National Landslide Information Center. Second Exam Wednesday, March 10 Here is some information about the Second Exam.	Chapter 8
	Spring Break!
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
10	Use and Abuse of Earth Resources: Human Interaction with the Environment Weathering and soil formation. Soil profiles and horizons. Soil classification. Soil as an endangered resource. See this figure shown in class regarding physical vs. chemical weathering. Begin groundwater	Chapter 11 Chapter 10
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
11	Human interaction with the hydrosphere. Water as a resource. Water supply and use. Groundwater occurrence and hydrologic concepts. How does it flow? What are some problems of overuse? Surface-water and groundwater quality and pollution. Types of contamination. Begin weather and climate.	Chapter 16 Appendix B Chapter 9, pp. 192-204	Practical Exercise on groundwater will be handed out in class.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
12	The atmosphere and atmospheric circulation. Coriolis effect. Winds and climate. Deserts. Desertification.   Energy from fossil fuels. Energy Occurrence of petroleum: why and where? Oil production. Occurrence of coal. Coal production. Other fossil fuels. Problems with fossil fuels. Air pollution.	Chapter 10 Chapter 9, pp. 204-211 Box 9.2 Chapter 13 Chapter 17.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
13	Global warming and ozone depletion. Alternatives to fossil fuels: solar, wind, water and tides. Nuclear energy: benefits and disadvantages. Begin waste.	Chapter 10, pp. 211-218 Chapter 14	Optional Final Internet Exercise: Click here to go to the final internet exercise where you explore a topic of your choice relating to the final part of this course.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
14	Municipal waste. Garbage incineration. Garbage disposal. Sanitary landfills. Recycling. Environmental impacts of municipal waste disposal. The problem of hazardous waste disposal . Nuclear waste disposal. Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste disposal site, NV. Case studies of Love Canal, NY and Chem Dyne in Hamilton, OH. Click here to read a small article about wind power today.   Click here to read an article about American Indians and the struggle to aquire nuclear waste.	Chapter 15	Practical Exercise on oil and nuclear waste will be handed out in class. Click here for answers to this exercise.
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignments
15	More on waste and pollution legislation. The concept of environmental justice. Class debates on important environmental issues. Waste and environmental justice.	Chapter 15
	Final Exam Monday, May 1, 9:45 a.m. in Room 115, Shideler Check your syllabus often for information about exams, including the Final exam.

Important Note
This syllabus is provided as a guide to the lecture topics. There may be departure from the order of presentation and the time allotted for the various topics. Exams are based largely on lecture material and practical exercises with additional material coming from the text.