Earth Science - Fall 1998

Course Content: An introduction to physical geology with an emphasis on California's minerals, rocks, volcanoes, glaciers, mountains, faults, and earthquakes. Includes three in-class field trips and one optional off-campus field trips to study the caves, rocks and landforms of the UCSC campus and the Monterey Bay area. (General Education code IN). ES5L (lab) is optional, see below.

Discussion - 1 hr.

Instructor: Ken Cameron, EMS building, Rm. C458., ext. 9-2795, rocks@cats.ucsc.edu

Class time: TTh 12-1:45, Classroom Unit 1.

Discussion sections: W 3:30-4:30, W5-6, Th 9-10, Th 10:30-11:30.

Text Book: "California Geology" by Deborah Harden.

Course Work: Quizzes in discussion sections, two mid-terms, and a final exam.

Week	Topic
1	Introduction and California's Geological Provinces California and Plate Tectonics
2	Minerals Caves **Campus Field Trip: Caves **
3	Guest Lecture Igneous Rocks Volcanology
4	California's Young Volcanoes California's Young Volcanoes, continued ** Exam **
5	Sedimentary Rocks and Geological Time Metamorphic Rocks and Geological Structures ** Campus Field Trip: Quarries **
6	California's Deserts California's Deserts / California Through Geologic Time The Sierra Nevada: Granites
7	The Sierra Nevada: Gold The Sierra Nevada: Glaciers ***Exam***
8	The Sierra Nevada: Yosemite California's Coastline Coast Ranges **Field Trip: West Cliff Drive**
9	Klamath Mountains ** Campus Field Trip: View of the Coast Ranges ** Water in California / Great Valley
10	Earthquakes, Faults and Seismic Safety The San Andreas Fault System The Transverse Ranges and L.A. Basin

Laboratory sequence illustrating topics covered in ES5, and will include examples of rocks and minerals from California and topographic and geologic maps of the state.

Week 1: Mineral identification (ID)

Week 2: Mineral and Igneous Rock ID

Week 3. Sedimentary and Metamorphic Rock ID

Week 4: Rock and Mineral Quiz

Week 5: Topographic Maps

Week 6: Structural Geology and Geologic Map Exercise I

Week 7 Structural Geology and Geologic Maps Exercise II

Week 8 Structural Geology and Geologic Maps Exercise III

Week 9 In class field trip

Week 10 Structural Geology Quiz

The website for last year's class in Aquatic Toxicology (Earth Sciences 80e) may be accessed directly at: http://wwwcatsic.ucsc.edu/~eart80e/ or by following through the UCSC list of Academic Research Programs

Course Information

Class Web Pages

Fall 1997

The website is being rewritten over the summer, but the general content will be the same.

Russ Flegal will teach the class. The text has not been selected yet.

Earth Science 154/154L Paleomagnetisim

Instructor: Rob Coe
Office: A251 Earth & Marine Sciences
Ext.: 9-2393

Time & Place: Lecture - MWF 9:30-10:40
D250 Earth & Marine Sciences

Lab - M 6-9 pm, D250 Earth & Marine Sciences.

Rocks preserve a magnetic imprint that has proved important for understanding the geomagnetic field and the earth's deep interior and for solving problems in a host of other disciplines such as tectonics, structural geology, geochronology, stratigraphy, paleoclimatology & paleoceanography, and archeology. In this course we discuss these applications and learn enough of the practice of paleomagnetism to evaluate the significance of particular results.

This is also a good course for anyone who wants to get a taste of doing scientific research. Besides the lectures, reading, and a few lab exercises/homework problems, students will work together on a class research project. We collect oriented samples in the field, prepare and measure them in the UCSC Paleomagnetic Laboratory, and analyze the data. Each student then interprets the results and writes a final report on the project. This time we will drill oriented cores from outcrops of lava flows in the Coast Range north of Vacaville and in the Sierra foothills near Oroville to test a controversial hypothesis that these outcrops may belong to a single huge lava flow that originated in the northern Sierra and flowed 150 miles to the south 16 million years ago.

E.S. 10 and Math 11A or equivalent. Note: contrary to catalog, E.S. 110C not required.

Paleomagnetism: Magnetic Domains to Geologic Terranes by R. F. Butler (Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1992, paperback--available at Bay Tree Bookstore).

Quizzes (that collectively replace a midterm) and a final.

• Week 1 Geomagnetic field--discovery, description, origin (Ch 1).
• Week 2 Magnetism and magnetic minerals (Ch 2, 3, 4)&emdash;weekend field trip.
• Week 3 Natural remanent magnetization (NRM) of rocks (Ch 2, 3, 4).
• Week 4 Measurement, demagnetization, and stability of NRM (Ch 5, 6).
• Week 5 Statistics of paleomagnetic data; Paleomagnetic poles (Ch 6, 7).
• Week 6 Archeomagnetism and the paleomagnetism of young rocks (Ch 7, 8).
• Week 7 Geomagnetic reversals and the polarity time scale (Ch 9).
• Week 8 Continental drift, supercontinents, plumes and large igneous provinces (Ch 10).
• Week 9 Regional tectonics, terrane transport and accretion (Ch 11).
• Week 10 Polarity transitions, long-term field behavior, and Earth's tectonic engine.

Revised 7/15/04.