Course Meeting Times

Lectures and Labs: 3 sessions / week, 2 hours / session

Description

This course introduces major minerals and rock types, rock-forming processes, and time scales; temperatures, pressures, compositions, structure of the Earth, and measurement techniques; geologic structures and relationships observable in the field; sediment movement and landform development by moving water, wind, and ice; crustal processes and planetary evolution in terms of global plate tectonics with an emphasis on ductile and brittle processes. The course includes laboratory exercises on minerals, rocks, mapping, plate tectonics, rheology and glaciers. There are also two one-day field trips.

Textbook

Grotzinger, J., T. Jordan, et al. Understanding Earth. 5th ed. New York, NY: W.H. Freeman, c2006. ISBN: 9780716766827 (softbound), and 9780716776963 (paperback).

Grading

To earn a final grade in 12.001 students must complete all of the following:

Labs

The class is designed so that labs and lectures are intermixed: there is no "lecture hour" or "lab hour". Time spent in lectures and on labs will be variable throughout the course making it important that students attend for the full two hours every MWF.

Field Trips

There are two field trips: before Ses #12, and before Ses #32, each with an associated write up. Before Ses #12, we will spend half a day taking a walking tour through Boston examining rocks used to create buildings. Before Ses #32 there will be an all day field trip to conduct a mapping project.

Intangibles

This is determined by both class/lab/field trip attendance and participation.