111 - 120 of 124 results for: GS

Quantitative methods to analyze digital topography and to interpret rates of tectonic and geomorphic processes from topographic metrics. Topics include analysis of digital topography using local and neighborhood-based methods, spectral methods, and wavelet methods. Course consists of two one hour lectures per week and one laboratory section that will help students gain proficiency in calculating topographic metrics using ArcGIS and Matlab.

Geomorphic-transport-rule-based, as well as mass- and momentum-conservation based models to understand the evolution of Earth¿s topography. Topics include formulation of land-sculpting processes as geomorphic transport rules, coupling this mass-conservation approach with mechanical models of crustal deformation, and analysis of landscape forms in terms of events for which mass and momentum of fluid and sediment can be conserved. Both analytical, as well as numerical (finite-volume) treatments of particular problems in tectonic geomorphology will be covered. The specific problems addressed as part of the course will be tailored to those currently investigated by class participants.

Classic studies and current journal articles. May be repeated for credit.

Preference to graduate students and upper-division undergraduates in GS and Biology. The influence of organism size on evolutionary and ecological patterns and processes. Focus is on integration of theoretical principles, observations of living organisms, and data from the fossil record. What are the physiological and ecological correlates of body size? Is there an optimum size? Do organisms tend to evolve to larger size? Does productivity control the size distribution of consumers? Does size affect the likelihood of extinction or speciation? How does size scale from the genome to the phenotype? How is metabolic rate involved in evolution of body size? What is the influence of geographic area on maximum body size?

For graduate students. Current research topics including paleobotany, vertebrate and invertebrate evolution, paleoecology, and major events in the history of life on Earth.

Weekly student presentations on continental collision tectonics, sedimentology, petrology, geomorphology, climate, culture, and other topics of interest. Students create a guidebook of geologic stops in advance of field trip. May be repeated for credit.

Metamorphic petrology is concerned with the range of solid-state recrystallization and chemical mass transfer processes under physical conditions ranging from those prevalent at the Earth's surface to crustal melting. This course explores the phenomenology of these processes from mineralogic, textural, structural, geochemical, and geodynamic perspectives. The focus is on subduction, arc magmatic, rift magmatic and regional tectonic (collisional and extensional) settings. Important concepts and methods in phase equiibria, thermobarometry, geo/thermochronology, and fabric analysis are explored.

Teaches petrographic methods for characterizing recrystallization of common clastic and chemically precipitated sedimentary, mafic and felsic igneous, and ultramafic mantle rocks. Features suites from contact and regional metamorphic settings including arc magmatic, subduction, convergent , and extensional metamorphic settings.

Topics vary by quarter. May be repeated for credit.