Homework assignments  

(there is no homework expected for the first class session September 13) _________________________________________________________________________________________

Week 1: 13 September -- Introduction, course mechanics, policies, etc.

Week 2: 20 September -- Geologic Time

Read text Chapter 1 + 10

Chapter 10 -- "The Rock Record and the Geologic Time Scale" -- is the single most important chapter in the book in the context of this course, and the single most challenging idea of modern geology, affecting not only all of science, but humankind's concept of itself.  It is also the most challenging idea for individual students, regardless of their leanings toward science or toward alternative concepts of history.  While the precise details of radiometric dating are of secondary importance, the ideas of relative vs absolute time are of fundamental importance.  

Essay Assignment #1: At the first class, you were given two numbered containers, each containing some material. Your job is to describe the contents of each of these containers in as much detail as you can, confining your description to things you can actually observe or test for. Make sure you label your descriptions by the number on the container! It may (or may not) be helpful to compare and contrast the two samples. There is no need to return the material to me: you may test the materials destructively if you wish. There is also nothing toxic in any of the samples. I would like the containers back, please. Be complete, but also to the point. No speculation is sought.

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Week 3: 27 September -- Plate Tectonics

Read text chapter 2

The theory of plate tectonics is very new -- only about 40 years old -- and is the current theory unifying geological science. This overview will help you organize a great deal of the geological information we cover in this course (as well as much of what you observe in the field), so it is worth paying attention to carefully.  Alfred Wegener's story is illustrative of both the glory (he was right, mostly) and the limits (he couldn't prove it) of science.

Essay Assignment # 2: Please read the overview of Maine Geology which will be handed out in class.  Please read it after you have read the textbook material on plate tectonics.  Pick out (underline or highlight, or write out -- your choice) TEN (10) things (words, phrases, concepts) you don't understand, and turn those into me.  I will return the article to you the following week (or email).  If you can't come up with ten -- hey, that's fantastic! "Not understanding" does not have to mean "have absolutely no clue".  If you come up with ten in the first paragraph, stop reading (but look at the pictures)!  We will use the aggregate understandings to discuss.  In the meantime, since this is a Physical Geology course, not a Historical Geology course, the article will give you some context for field trips in Maine.

Optional Project Idea: Construct an analogy to geologic time which means something to you. You may start with the putative origin of the earth (4.6 billion years ago) or with the beginning of the primary fossil record (beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 550 million years ago). Refer to Table 10.12 on p 224. It is sufficient to break the scale down to periods, but you may choose a finer scale if you wish. It is particularly important, however, to note the duration of human existence on your analog scale (roughly 100,000 years on the geologic time scale). Examples are: calculate the height of a pile of pennies corresponding to the periods of geologic time; put together a ball of yarn with one inch (or some other length) = 1 million years, with different colors of yarn for each period; make an analogy between the route you commute from your home to seminary with the geologic time scale. Use your imagination! The point of the exercise is to make the vast span of geologic time comprehensible to you. ________________________________________________________________________________________

Week 4: 4 October -- Minerals +  Rocks I

Read text chapter 3 + 4

Skim the chemistry here, but pay closer attention to "Rock-forming minerals" starting on p 60, and absorb as much as you can of the material following, as this material will stand you in good stead as we proceed.  Chapter 4 will give you an overview of the classes of rocks -- many of which we will see in the field or in sample -- and how each relates to plate tectonics. The important thing to realize is that these rocks are classified both by texture and by mineralogy. Pay special attention to the rock cycle (Fig 4.9).

NOTICE: You have a choice -- you may do EITHER Essay #3 OR Essay #4.  You may, of course, do both. They call on different aspects of your thinking.

Essay Assignment # 3: You will be given a diagrammatic geologic cross-section in class. You are to reconstruct the sequence of geologic events which produced this section. This will be a list of events, and should not consider causes. See text Figs 10.8, 10.9, 10.11

Essay Assignment #4: You are to evaluate the following statement in terms of the science involved. First of all, what does the statement actually say? What does one need to know in order to evaluate the statement in scientific terms? In other words, what are the facts, and what do we need to know to establish something as a fact, and, what is a fact, anyway? How would one go about investigating the allegations in the statement scientifically? Be as complete as you can, but don't say more than you need to. In evaluating this statement, it will probably be helpful to know where Fiji is.

". . .Sea level has risen in Fiji an average of 1.5 cm a year over the past nine decades."

Week 5: 11 October -- Reading Week -- No class: start project(s), and start the reading for next week.

Week 6: October 18  -- Igneous Rocks + Volcanism

Read text chapter 5 + 6

The beginning and end sections of Chapter 5 are most important: to recognize the different manifestations of intrusive versus extrusive rocks, and the features we can expect to see in/on the earth.  In chapter 6, note the contrasts on extrusive versus intrusive rocks of the previous chapter, and also the correlation between plate tectonics and the explosive/destructive potential of volcanoes.

Week 7: 25 October -- Weathering and Erosion; Sedimentary Rocks

Read text chapter 7 + 8

Chapter 8 is the more important of the two chapters, so read it with more care.  In Chapter 7 (Weathering), skim the chemistry -- but understand that chemistry is involved.  Get a grip on the various kinds of weathering, and some sort of a feel for the different weathering scales (micro-scale, versus ice-wedging or sheet exfoliation on a whole mountainside.  In Chapter 8 (sediments), try to grasp the idea of "a sedimentary environment", which includes many different kinds of deposits, all related to one another (for example, the lagoon-dune-beach system of Sand Beach, which grades offshore (underwater) into muddy-bottom and rocky bottom areas).  Although sedimentary rocks constitute only a few percent of the total volume of rocks, they constitute a significant portion of those rocks exposed at the earth's surface (although they are rare in Maine). Because they include many evidences of geologic processes we can observe directly, they link our present experience to the preserved record, an intellectual leap of faith on which much of geologic methodology is based.

We have looked in a general way at the various materials which make up the more or less solid parts of the earth's crust, and while we are looking at those in some detail now, it is time to turn our attention to process: how are rocks broken down, mechanically and chemically, and what evidence can we see of these processes.

The midterm will be passed out this week, and is due next week.  It will be open-book, any book.  Please pay attention to the directions.

Week 8: 1 November -- Mid-term due.  No Other Reading Required. Work on projects; get your state geological bedrock map.

Week 9: 8 November -- Metamorphic Rocks and Landscape

Read text chapters 9 + 18

This widely-variable class of rocks, the metamorphic rocks -- common in Maine, and therefore the fodder of many of our field trips -- are metaphors for the experience of translation: they are the "received text" from which we are challenged to reconstruct the "original text", and then the "original context."  These are complicated rocks, and the text, too: don't get lost in the details, but do try to get the big picture (up to p 203, although keep reading!).

As have been doing for some weeks, we will continue looking at process -- in this case, some of the processes which contribute to landscape. This is a sometimes bewildering mass of terms: don't get stuck on the terms -- just absorb the inter-relationships of topography/weather/landform, and the fact that this is a dynamic process, not just "an event".

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Week 10: 15 November -- All-day Field Trip:  leave Husson at 8 a.m.; return no later than 6 p.m.  Bring hand lenses, binoculars (if you like looking for migrating birds); sensible footwear; dress in layers.  Bring a lunch; though we will also stop for "rest" stops where one could buy eatables/potables.

Glaciers -- Read text chapter 16

This material is closely related to the landscape in which we live here in Maine -- we have met some of it in field trips.  Reading this material carefully may help to organize some of what you have already observed, here and at home.

Week 11: 22 November

No Class = Thanksgiving recess; start reading for next week 

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Week 12: 29 November-- Deformation and Mass Wasting

Read text chapter 11 + 12

Don't get bogged down in the technical details -- what is important in these two chapters is to see the relationship between BIG earth movements (as in continental collisions) and the landforms such events leave behind.  You will see these features in the field (in your travels), and will suddenly realize what you are seeing:  "AHA!!"  Mass wasting is a fancy term for both large and sudden and small and slow earth movements which, again, you will realize you are seeing.

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Week 13:  6 December -- Ocean Basins

Read text chapter 17

Ocean Basins -- the largest geologic features on earth, paradoxically, ocean basins are some of the youngest. You know why from chapter 2, but the fact is that we know more details about the backside of the moon than we know about much of the ocean basins. Be aware, as you read, that the Atlantic coast is a passive continental margin, and the Pacific coast (of the US) is an active margin: be alert to the ways these differences are expressed.  The focus of intense human development and much of human history, coastlines are inherently ephemeral, geologically speaking. Human/coastal interactions over the past 2000 years have taken place during a period of unusual geological stability: as conditions change, clashes between nature and coastal humans will become both more frequent and more disrupting (of human investments in the broadest senses). 

Week 14: 13 December DOUBLE CLASS, 9 - 12 A.M.; 1 - 4 P.M.-

Read text chapters 13 + 14 - Hydrologic Cycle, Groundwater, and Streams

Understanding the geological context of fresh water -- on which all terrestrial life depends -- is critical in making decisions about land use and planning, natural resource management, and waste disposal. Humans face a critical shortage of fresh water in many parts of the world, and our success at "making deserts bloom" has come at a price which may prove too high in the near future.

 These are fairly long chapters.  Don't linger on the technical material, but do try to grasp the ways in which water interacts with landscape, soil, and bedrock in various geologic settings.

Also:  Human Activity and Global Change

Read text chapters 23

A major scientific question concerns climate change -- earth's history vs. human-generated changes.  Answers to this question -- and all its subsidiary parts -- has direct implications for public policy, not only in our country, but around the world.  For example, industrial development in China will affect the atmosphere, rivers, and adjacent seas, which will have repercussions around the globe.

The final exam will be passed out this week, and is due by January 13, 2006, but preferably before -- don't let a little thing like this spoil your Christmas break, or your enjoyment of the holy days.. It is open book, any book. Please pay attention to the directions.

This is the last date on which you may turn in short papers/projects for consideration for possible revision. ______________________________________________________________________________________

13 January 2005:

Last date for the submission of papers/projects (no revisions possible) -- these may be mailed to me at my Brooklin address, OR emailed to me as attachments, or turned in at the Seminary (if you turn work in at the Seminary, please let me know in some way, as I will not otherwise be coming to Bangor after our last class).

20 January 2006: Grades are due to the BTS Registrar (my problem, our sigh of relief).