Earth Planetary Sciences 101
In teaching General Geology 1 (EPS 101), I stress the systems approach to the Earth Sciences. Here are the topics we recently covered in this introductory course:
- What in Geology Today? Why is Geology Today so important?
- Fundamental Concepts: Space Scales and Geologic Time
- Relative and Numerical Methods of Geologic Age Dating
- Origin of the Solar System & Formation of Earth
- The Rock Record and the Geologic Time Scale
- The Organization of Matter and the Nature of Minerals
- Minerals: The Building Blocks of Rocks
- Rocks: Aggregates of Minerals Formed in 3 Major Ways
- Nature as the Great Recycling Agent: The Rock Cycle
- Intrusive Igneous Rocks: Melts->Mushes->Masses (of Crystals)
- Magmatic Differentiation: Bowen's Reaction Series
- Extrusive Igneous Rocks: Volcanoes, Fissures, & "Flood Basalts"
- Volcanoes and the Atmosphere
- LECTURE EXAMINATION
- Weathering: Physical, Chemical, and Biogeochemical
- Formation of the Regolith and the Soil Profile
- Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks
- Primary Features of Sedimentary Rocks
- Kinds of Metamorphism and Metamorphic Rocks
- Earthquakes and Seismology
- LECTURE EXAMINATION
- Lines of Evidence Linking Plates to Plate Tectonics
- The Kinds of Plate Boundaries
- Major Plates, Minor Plates, and Microplates
- How Long Have We had Plates?
- Mechanisms for Plate Movement
- Plate Tectonics and Mountain Building
- Effects on Rocks: Geologic Structures: Folding and Faulting
- LECTURE EXAMINATION
- Mass Wasting: Processes, their Triggering Mechanisms, and their Products
- The Hydrologic Cycle
- Groundwater
- Streams and Rivers
- Glaciers and Glaciated Landscapes
- Global Geologic Effects of "Glacial Ages"
- Geomorphology in deserts
- Waves, Currents, Beaches, and Coastlines
- FINAL EXAMINATION (Not Cumulative except for stated basic principles)
G. Michael Clark
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
1412 Circle Drive
Knoxville, TN 37996-1410
Phone: (865) 974-6006
Email: clarkgmorph@utk.edu