Since experience indicates students benefit in a variety of important ways from completing such projects, you are being assigned a 3 page paper (no more, no less; typed and double spaced - computer printout is fine as long as it is dark and readable). Your audience for the paper is the educated layperson and the paper should be informational.

The purpose of this paper is to invesigate out how geologists answer questions. You should choose such a question and then research it. Many examples are given below of questions you can use for your specific paper topic. You can come up with your own, but you must OK it with me first to make sure it is workable or I will not accept it!

• How do you work out the detailed chemical composition of a mineral?
• How do you decipher the atomic architecture of an unknown or new mineral?
• Given some sand how can you tell if it has been transported by wind, water or ice?
• How might you measure long term erosion rates of a mountainous area?
• How would you figure out how much material a river moves?
• How do you figure out how sea level has changed for a portion of coast line?
• How can you decipher how closely one fossil organism is related to another by an evolutionary linkage?
• How do you decipher movement patterns within glaciers?
• How do you determine if a slope is unstable or stable?
• How do you link a volcanic ash deposit to its volcanic source?
• How can you estimate mineral and chemical make-up of surface material from a satellite platform?
• How can you estimate past atmospheric temperatures from ice cores and obtain a climatic record?
• How can you estimate sedimentation rates (how fast different types of sediments pile up in different areas)?
• How do you estimate the volume of gases an eruption gives off?
• How do you estimate the pressures and temperatures a metamorphic mineral grows at in the earth's crust?
• For hydrothermal precipitates (minerals that grew from hot waters) how do you what temperature (and sometimes pressure) the waters were at when the minerals grew?
• How do you measure how much heat is conducting through the crust in a given area, i.e. determine the heat flow?
• How do we know what the earth's core is made of?
• How would figure out how fast a fault has moved?
• How do you work out rates of plate motion, e.g. how fast Africa and South America have been moving apart?
• How do you work out the configuration of past supercontinents?
• How do you figure out if a fault is geologically active, i.e. if it has moved in the past 20,000 years?
• How do you find and map salt domes and other geologic features that are below the surface?
• How do you find gold?
• How do you compute the size, and worth of an ore body?
• How do you determine the magnetic history of a rock?
• How do you figure out how fast in what direction water flows through the ground?
• How can you tell the relative age of portions of a planetary surface?

Your paper should include an expanded statement of the question, established means of answering the question, theoretical means of answering the question where appropriate, and some examples of where this has been done before and what the results were.

Information sources must be:

• referenced by author and year within the text just after information taken from that source.
• included as full reference citations at the end of the paper (see below example). Failure to do so will lead to at least a 2 point penalty.
• minimum of 3 references.

You can quote material (with appropriate signifying quotation marks), but plagiarism, including paraphrasing, will result in immediate failure of the entire course. If you have any questions in this regard please see me. It must be your own formulation of the paper's content.

Example of style (format) of reference citation:

Example of sentence in text citing a fact from a source:

"Megafossils of Ediacaran type are stratigraphically above and below the glacial deposits of the Stelfox Member (Hofmann et. al., 1990)."

Here "et. al." means "and others", referring to a list of other authors. Note you reference by giving author and year of publication.

Complete accompanying reference in References cited section at end of text:

"Hofmann, H. J., Narbonne, G. M., and Aitken, J. D., 1990, Eidiacaran remains from intertillite beds in northwestern Canada: Geology, vol. 18, p. 1199-1202."

General scheme for arrangement of citations in reference section: authors, publication year, title, journal or book title, publisher if a book, volume number, pages of article or book.

Information sources include:

• textbooks will be a primary resource for this particular assignment.
• Our library has a wealth of books and professional journals that deal with a great diversity of geologic topics. Use genisys as a first pass, but don't forget the other search software. Ask the reference librarian if you have questions.
• Other books and/or articles not in our library can be obtained by inter-library loan.
• The world-wide-web is an incredible source of information.
• Interviews with experts.

Your effort will be graded mainly on content, although, in that poor spelling and grammar detract and distract from any presentation, these will also be considered in assigning a final grade. The grading sheet is available for your information. Good luck and don't hesitate to come in and talk to me if you have questions, or want help getting started.

This is a 3-step process - statement of intent, draft, final copy.

First due date - Thursday, October 4th - Prospectus: This should include a title, a paragraph description, and at least two references you will start with. If you want to get started earlier I will be happy to accept it early. I will not accept a paper later unless I have OKed the prospectus for it.

Second (voluntary) due date 1st draft - Tuesday, Nov. 6th - Papers handed in at this time will be critiqued and returned without a grade (in time for you to revise). This is a chance to get some feedback and improve your effort.

Final due date - Thursday Dec. 13th - Papers must be handed in at this time. No late papers will be accepted, unless you make prior arrangements with me.

I look forward to reading your papers.

Return to Physical Geology index page.

Return to my home page index.