GEOL 489/789
Fall 2009: Principles of Geosciences
last updated November 20, 2009 (reload for updates as the semester progresses)

Overview	Goals	Schedule	Assignments	Policies	Resources

The 2008 NRC report, Origin and Evolution of Earth: Research Questions for a Changing Planet, will serve as basis for a survey of grand challenges in fluid dynamics, planetary evolution, origins of life, plate tectonics, surficial processes, climate science, geobiology, and predictability.  We will employ simple models of Earth systems to explore working hypotheses and identify areas for future research.

Overarching Questions

• What are the fundamental quantitative frameworks we use to approach grand challenges in the Earth Sciences?  
• What major results and outstanding research questions can we identify through their application and interpretation?

Goals 

By the conclusion of the semester, students should be able to:

• Identify and discuss active scientific research areas across the earth sciences.
• Model and interpret quantitative approaches to solving fundamental problems in the geosciences.

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Logistics

Location and Time: CHE 2116, MWF 10:00a-10:50a.

Reading and course materials: There is no textbook required for this course this semester.  Per copyright fair use guidelines, I will provide readings electronically as password protected PDF files, served from this webpage.

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Assignments (subject to revision)  

• Participatory discussion of topical literature (Monday sessions): 25%.
• Unless otherwise noted, prework for these sessions is due  at the beginning of  class on the due date.
  
• Weekly problem sets: 50%.
• Unless otherwise noted, problem sets are due at the beginning of  class on the due date.
• Final (likely take-home, essay; expansion on one of Monday topics): 25%.
• Midterm grades, as of 11/13/09, are posted here.
• Final grades will be posted here.
  

• Bender, An Introduction to mathematical modeling, New York: Wiley Interscience, 1979.
  
• Jacobson, Charlson, Rodhe and Orians (eds), Earth System Science, Volume 72 (International Geophysics), New York: Academic Press, 2000.  ISBN 0-12-379370-X.
• Turcotte and Schubert, Geodynamics, New York: Wiley, 1982.
  
• Albarede, Introduction to Geochemical Modeling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Strang, Linear Algebra and its Applications (3rd ed),  New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.
  
• Schey, div grad curl and all that (4th ed), New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.
• Dyson, Origins of Life (2nd ed), New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999.
• Faure, Principles of Isotope Geology (2nd ed), New York: Wiley, 1986.
• Brown and Mussett, The Inaccessible Earth (2nd ed), New York: Chapman and Hall, 1993.
• Shearer, Introduction to Seismology, New York, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999.
• Schubert, Turcotte and Olsen, Mantle Convection in the Earth and Planets, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
  
• Sharp, Principles of Stable Isotope Geochemistry, Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007.
  
• Others to be compiled and sourced ...
  
• A link to ISI Web of Science (UMD ID required for access) is here.
• An open-source, freeware Matlab workalike called Octave is downloadable here.

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Acknowledgements

Policies (per UMD guidelines)

• Absences: To make the most of in-class activities and opportunity for discussion, you are expected to attend class regularly.  Absences from graded assignments will not be excused except for those causes approved by University policy (see p. 33-34 of the UMCP Undergraduate Catalog 2006/2007). Only those students excused for these causes will be eligible for a make-up assignment, which will generally be an oral examination at the next possible office hours. Please make all efforts to let me know of excused absences well ahead of time; scheduling issues pertaining to the final absolutely must be resolved in advance.  MNE's special note on absences due to H1N1 flu (should it reappear this fall):  If you are even mildly sick with flu-like symptoms, please stay home and seek medical attention. You should return to school only after your fever and symptoms have abated for 24 hours.  Please let the instructor lknow about your absence so that required work can be made up as the situation allows.  If the instructor must miss class, MNE will contact you by email, and we will arrange to have class via remote links. 

• Academic Accommodations: If you have a documented disability, you should contact Disability Support Services 0126 Shoemaker Hall. Each semester students with documented disabilities should apply to DSS for accommodation request forms which you can provide to your professors as proof of your eligibility for accommodations. The rules for eligibility and the types of accommodations a student may request can be reviewed on the DSS web site.

• Religious Observances: The University System of Maryland policy provides that students should not be penalized because of observances of their religious beliefs; students shall be given an opportunity, whenever feasible, to make up within a reasonable time any academic assignment that is missed due to individual participation in religious observances. It is the responsibility of the student to inform the instructor of any intended absences for religious observances in writing within the first two weeks of the semester.

• Honor Code: The Student Honor Council observes that, "The University of Maryland, College Park has a nationally recognized Code of Academic Integrity, administered by the Student Honor Council. This Code sets standards for academic integrity at Maryland for all undergraduate and graduate students. As a student you are responsible for upholding these standards for this course. It is very important for you to be aware of the consequences of cheating, fabrication, facilitation, and plagiarism. For more information on the Code of Academic Integrity or the Student Honor Council, please visit http://www.studenthonorcouncil.umd.edu/whatis.html."  Any evidence of dishonesty on any graded assignment will result in a referral to the Office of Student Conduct.

• Course Evaluations: You will be notified when CourseEvalUM will be open for course evaluations later this spring.  The expectation is that all students will complete these. This is YOUR chance to anonymously evaluate this class: please use this opportunity!  Students who complete evaluations for all of their courses in the previous semester (excluding summer), can access the posted results via Testudo's CourseEvalUM Reporting link for any course on campus that has at least a 70% response rate. You can find more information, including periodic updates, at the IRPA course evaluation website.
  

• Mid-semester Course evaluations: Because I like to receive input while it can still be used to improve the course for you, we may have an informal mid-semester course evaluation following the midterm exam.  I will respond to this evaluation before beginning of the second half of the semester.

Provisional Schedule (subject to revision)
 

Jump to:
Week	Topic	Reading	Assignment
Aug 31	Introduction and Overview (2.4Mb pdf); The nature of modeling (3.1 Mb pdf).  Answers to pre-course assessment are here.	Oreskes et al. (1994) and letters to the editor (1994)	Problem set 0 due Friday 9/4/2009 at beginning of class.  An exemplary student response is here.
Sept 7 (Monday, 9/7: no class, Labor Day)	Introduction to computing and visualization with Matlab; Prework 1 due Weds 9/9/09 at beginning of class.  An exemplary student response is here. A class-compiled list of helpful Matlab functions is here.	Pratap (2002) excerpts; Felleisen et al. (2003), Ch. 1.	Problem set 1 due Monday 9/14/2009 at beginning of class.  My solutions are here.  An exemplary student response is here.
Sept. 14 I will leave class at 10:40a 9/18 (Fac. mtg.)	Review of relevant applied mathematics No Prework this week	Matrix algebra review notes are here (509Kb pdf). Vector calculus review notes are here (287Kb pdf).	Problem set 2 due Monday 9/21/2009 at beginning of class. My code is here; solutions are here. An exemplary student response is here.
Sept 21 Class meets Friday 9/25/09 at GEOL 3116	Planetary formation: How did Earth and other planets form? Prework 3 due Mon 9/21/09 at beginning of class. An exemplary student response is here.	Hahn (2006); Tsiganis et al. (2005) Tsiganis et al. (2005) supplemental materials on the low-ratio MMR are here.  2-body problem notes are here (246 Kb pdf).	Problem set 3 due Wednesday 9/30/2009 at beginning of class.  My code is here.  An exemplary student response is here.
Sept 28 (Monday, 9/28: no class, Yom Kippur) Class meets Friday 10/2/09 at CHE 2116	Origins of Life: How did it begin? Prework 4 due Weds 9/30/09 at beginning of class.  An exemplary student response is here.	Nisbet and Sleep (2001) Notes on Dyson's toy model of the origin of metabolism are here (154Kb pdf).	Problem Set 4 due Monday 10/5/2009 at beginning of class. My code is here.  An exemplary student response is here.
Oct 5 Class meets Friday 10/9/09 at CHE 2116 Midterm estimated grades are here.	Geochronology: What happened during the first 500My of Earth history? Prework 5 due Mon 10/5/09 at beginning of class.  An exemplary student response is here.	NNDC's interactive Chart of the Nuclides; Wilde et al. (2001).  Revised notes on radiometric geochronology are here (363 Kb pdf).	Problem set 5 due Monday 10/12/2009 at beginning of class.  Solution notes are here.  My code is here.  An exemplary student response is here.
Oct 12 Class meets Friday 10/16/09 at CHE 2116	Petrology/mineralogy: How are earth processes driven by the atomic nature of materials?  Prework 6 due Mon 10/12/09 at beginning of class. An exemplary student response is here.	Murakami et al. (2004).  Notes on the Adams-Williamson equation are here.	Problem set 6 due Monday 10/19/2009 at beginning of class.  Solution notes are here.  My code is here.  An exemplary student response is here.
Oct 19 Class meets Friday 10/16/09 at GEOL 3116	Geobiology: How has life shaped Earth, and Earth shaped life? Prework 7 due Mon 10/19/09 at beginning of class.	Cornette et al., (2002).  Notes on carbon cycle box modeling are here.	Problem set 7 due Wednesday 10/28/2009 at beginning of class.  Solution notes are here.  My code is here.
Oct 26 Class canceled Monday, 10/26/09 Class meets Friday 10/30/09 at CHE 2116	Surficial processes: Why does Earth have mantle convection, plate tectonics and continents? Prework 8 due Weds 10/28/09 at beginning of class. Peer course evaluation, 10/28/09.	Breuer and Spohn (1995).  Notes on parameterized thermal models of Earth are here.	Problem set 8 due Monday 11/9/2009 at beginning of class.  Solution notes are here.  My code is here.
Nov 2 Class meets Monday 11/2/09 at GEOL 3116 Class canceled Friday, 11/6/2009	Catch-up (worktime for PS8); Mid-semester course evaluations, 11/4/09.	Mid-semester evaluation questionnaire is here; scanned summary notes are here; results and response are here.
Nov 9/16 Class meets Monday 11/16/09 in GEOL 3116 Class meets Weds 11/18/09 in GEOL 3116?	Surficial processes: How do intermediate/deep earth processes shape surface features?  Prework 9 due Wednesday 11/11/09 at beginning of class	All optional:  Valley et al (2005); Kemp et al (2006); Simon and Lecuyer (2005).  My notes on stable isotope box modeling are here.	Problem set 9 Part A due Friday 11/20/09 at beginning of class; Part B due Monday 11/23 at beginning of class.  Part A Solution notes are here.  My code is here.
Nov 23 (Weds 11/25: no class; Friday, 11/27, no class, Thanksgiving)	Monday: discussion of Problem Set 9, part B.
Nov 30	Climate Science: What causes climate to change, and how much can it change?  Prework 10 due Monday 11/30/09 at beginning of class		Problem set 10 due Friday 12/4/09 at beginning of class.
Dec 7 (Last day of classes, 12/9/09)	Chaos, complexity, and predictability: A paradigm for the geosciences? Prework 11 due Wednesday 12/9 at beginning of class	Course Summary and Wrap-up End of Semester course evaluations	Final Exam assigned; due Dec 19
Dec 19	Final Exams due

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