How to contact me?

• Office - Durham Science Center, Dept. of Geography & Geology Room 266
• Phone numbers - 554-4807 (can leave messages here), 554-2662
• Office hours M,W, F 10-11AM, Th 2:30-4:00 or by appointment (I'm around a lot).
• email: harmon_maher@mail.unomaha.edu (I look at my email daily).

Exams and grades: Grades will be or are posted on Blackboard.

• The grading scale is as follows (444 points possible):
  • > 370 points -> A+
  • > 355 to 370 -> A
  • > 340 to 355 -> A-
  • > 325 to 340 -> B+
  • > 310 to 325 -> B
  • > 295 to 310 -> B-
  • > 280 to 295 -> C+
  • > 265 to 280 -> C
  • > 250 to 265 -> C-
  • > 235 to 250 -> D+
  • > 220 to 235 -> D
  • > 205 to 220 -> D-
• Points are awarded for the following (450 pts. total):
  • 3 exams each worth 100 points ( past performance indicates that the average grade is in the low 70s). Exams are a combination of matching, short answer and diagrammatic question. Copies of old exams are available.
  • lab grade is worth 100 points
  • discussion contributions (in the Blackboard forum) are worth up to 30 points.
  • 2 points for each participation in in-class labs.
  • 10 points for attendance and participation on field trip. Date TBA.
  • examination of the above shows that there are multiple ways to work towards the grade you desire.
• Consideration will be given if the first exam result is anomalously low (i.e. the test scores are high). The penalty for cheating is failure of the course.

Policy on make-ups: If you must miss an exam, and if you contact me by at least 24 hours before the test, then arrangements can usually be made for you to take the exam early (at my discretion). If you miss an exam without making arrangements beforehand, then you must take a make-up that will be given during finals week. The make-up will be essay in form. It is to your advantage not to miss the exams. You will be given at least a two week notice in class of the exact date exams will be given. They will be spaced roughly at even intervals during the semester.

Text: Lutgens/Tarbuck, Essentials of Geology, Learning System Edition. I propose that reading the material before the lectures can increase efficiency of learning by 100%. You will spend less time and get more out of it.

The stuff the earth is made of - levels of structure and building blocks:

• Common crustal elements and minerals; the structure of silicate minerals; the concept of solid-substitution series in minerals. Reading: Chapt. 2.
• Igneous rocks - the crystallization process, sialic versus mafic rocks and their significance; Bowen's reaction series, volcanic and plutonic igneous bodies, and modes of occurrence. Reading: Chapt. 3 & 4.
• Sedimentary rocks and assemblages - mineral components of sedimentary rocks and their origin; sedimentary structures as clues to depositional environment; shifting depositional environments and the record they leave. Reading: Chapt. 5 & 6
• Metamorphic rocks and assemblages - pressure & temperature space in the earth's crust; other important parameters in metamorphism; metamorphic rock types; intensity of metamorphism. Reading; Chapt. 7
• Recapitulation of the above fundamentals, the grey zones, the rock cycle concept, and open and closed systems.

Historical Geology - rates of geologic processes and interpreting the record.

• Time in geology - how it is determined and relative versus absolute dating; the geologic timescale. Reading; Chapt. 18
• Rates in geology - Uniformitarianism & gradualism vs. catastrophism, the pace of geologic activity. Chapt. 19
• History of life - evolution as an explanatory tool; gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium as two different views; mass extinctions or where did the dinosaurs go?

Geomorphology - the ever-changing surface of the Earth.

• Rivers and shorelines - factors in the development of rivers and associated forms; deltas, the interface between fluvial and marine systems; the dynamics of shorelines and the shifting forms. Reading: Reading; Chapt. 9
• Mass wasting - landslides, mudflows, and other forms of down-slope movement; the forces involved. Reading: Chapt. 8
• Glaciers as rivers of ice - features seen in glaciated areas; mechanisms of movement; the recent Ice Ages, and older examples. Reading: Chapt. 11
• Karst, desert landscapes, and other terrains of note. Chapt. 12

The structure and architecture of the Earth - big to small.

• The large-scale structure, nested shells - the core, mantle, and crust and the lithosphere and asthenosphere; and geophysics as our eyes into the Earth. Reading: Chapt. 15
• Plate tectonics - the definition of and historical development of the basic tenets; types of plate boundaries, a kinematic view. Reading: Chapt. 16
• Rifting and seafloor spreading - the birthplace of oceanic crust. Chapt. 14.
• Subduction zones and arcs - the sink for oceanic crust.
• Orogenic zones (mountain belts) and transcurrent boundaries, e.g. San Andreas. Reading: Chapt. 17.
• Deformation of rocks - stress and strain; brittle versus ductile rock behavior and the importance of time and scale; folds, faults, foliation, lineation and other structures.

Humanity and geology.

• Environmental geology - groundwater; geologic storage sites for radioactive and other wastes.
• Economic geology - formation of deposits; mining and processing of ores and the effects; distribution and politics of mineral wealth.

Field Trip: Without a doubt the best place to learn geology is out in the field, and so we take a Saturday morning field trip to local quarries. Good fossil collecting! Details are forthcoming.

Return to Physical Geology index page.

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I reserve copyrights to all the material in this site. Students are free to use or copy any material within for their individual educational purposes.