PLANETARY MUSINGS

Entries in "Classes"

What makes the Earth (and other planets) go?

For the coming Fall 2006 semester I will be teaching GEOL 315/415 - Structural Geology and Geodynamics.  Simply stated, the focus of this course is how and why the ground beneath our feet moves.  Most of this motion is hundreds to thousands of miles below us, but there are incredible and important consequences at the surface like earthquakes and volcanic activity.  GEOL 315/415 is required for the geology major, but students interested in engineering, math, and science have enjoyed and found value in the course as a technical elective in the past because it meshes with and reinforces or introduces concepts that are commonly used in many disciplines, the difference being that they are applied to a whole planet.  We will look at the basic principles of bending, breaking, and flowing materials as well as the transfer of heat and how those principles can be used to interpret the behavior and history of the Earth and other solid planets.  In particular, we study what drives plate tectonics, what are the consequences of volcano building beyond lava and explosions, why are there earthquakes, and how we know that the mantle is convecting. 

GEOL 512 and the Martian dichotomy boundary

This semester I am teaching a graduate seminar course centered around some unresolved problems regarding the history of the planet Mars.  The first topic is the origin of the hemispheric dichotomy.  Basically, the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars appear quite different.  The south is a few kilometers higher than the north, the north is smoother than the south, and the surface materials appear younger in the north than in the south.  The image below illustrates the basic idea - the colors are the topography of Mars from the MOLA instrument (a laser altimeter) and the blues in the north are low and the reds and oranges in the south are higher.  Several hypotheses have been put forth, ranging from one or multiple large impacts to internal processes like a past period of plate tectonics (Mars doesn't have plate tectonics today).  We are discussing the available data and how well various existing hypotheses work.  Students will be working on small individual projects related to the problem as well.  As sort of a catalog for myself and other students of Mars the following lists the papers we have been using to motivate our discussions so far.

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GEOL 390 - Introduction to Geological Research

This semester students taking GEOL 390 will be using blog.case.edu for online journaling.  GEOL 390 is the first course in the Capstone Senior Project that Geological Sciences has been operating for a few years now.  Use of the blog system will be new to this course and will serve two purposes. First, the students will be documenting their reflections and thoughts on their path to finding a senior project and writing their project proposal.  Regular journaling (blogging) will help students get in the habit of recording their research ideas and progress on a regular basis and help keep them on track for achieving the goal of being prepared for their project.  Second, by using the blog system on a regular basis students will be writing with the realization that their writing is public and there is an audience - in my mind an important factor in all science writing.  It should be an interesting semester and I am looking forward to helping all the students prepare for and find their Senior Project.