101 - 110 of 124 results for: GES

For upper division undergraduates and graduate students. Topics vary each year; focus is on paleontological, sedimentological, and geochemical approaches to the history of life. Topics may include: mass extinction events; evolutionary radiations; the history of global biodiversity; links between evolutionary histories of primary producers and consumers; and the quality of the fossil record. Term paper. May be repeated for credit.

Process-based approach to rock failure; the microstructures and overall architectures of the failure products including faults, joints, solution seams, and types of deformation bands. Fluid flow properties of these structures are characterized with emphasis on sealing and transmitting of faults and their role in hydrocarbon flow, migration, and entrapment. Case studies of fracture characterization experiments in aquifers, oil and gas reservoirs, and waste repository sites. Guest speakers; weekend field trip. Prerequisite: first-year graduate student in Earth Sciences.

Interdisciplinary. For upper division science undergraduates and graduate students. Synthesis of biology, geology, physics, and chemistry. Recent approaches for identifying traces of past life on Earth. How to look for life on other planets such as Mars, Europa, and Titan. May be repeated for credit.

Physical processes affecting habitability such as large impacts and the atmospheric greenhouse effect, comets, geochemistry, the rise of oxygen, climate controls, and impact cratering. Detecting and interpreting the spectra of extrasolar terrestrial planets. Student-led discussions of readings from the scientific literature. Team taught by planetary scientists from NASA Ames Research Center.

For earth scientists and engineers. Environmental, geologic, and water resource problems involving migration of contaminated groundwater through porous media and associated biogeochemical and fluid-rock reactions. Conceptual and quantitative treatment of advective-dispersive transport with reacting solutes. Predictive models of contaminant behavior controlled by local equilibrium and kinetics. Modern methods of contaminant transport simulation and reactive transport modeling using geochemical transport software. Some Matlab programming / program modification required. Prerequisite: Physical Hydrogeology EESS 220 / CEE 260A (Gorelick) or equivalent. Recommended: course work in environmental chemistry or geochemistry (e.g., one or more of the following: EESS 155, EESS 156/256 GES 90, GES 170/279, GES 171, CEE 177 or CEE 270).

Quantitative review of process-based hydrology and geomorphology. Introduction to finite-difference and finite-element methods of numerical analysis. Topics: biometeorology, unsaturated and saturated subsurface fluid flow, overland and open channel flow, and physically-based simulation of coupled surface and near-surface hydrologic response. Links hydrogeology, soil physics, and surface water hydrology.

Physical properties of the soil solid phase emphasizing the transport, retention, and transformation of water, heat, gases, and solutes in the unsaturated subsurface. Field experiments.

How molecular fossils in crude oils, oil spills, refinery products, and human artifacts identify their age, origin, and environment of formation. The origin and habitat of petroleum, technology for its analysis, and parameters for interpretation, including: origins of molecular fossils; function, biosynthesis, and precursors; tectonic history related to the evolution of life, mass extinctions, and molecular fossils; petroleum refinery processes and the kinds of molecular fossils that survive; environmental pollution from natural and anthropogenic sources including how to identify genetic relationships among crude oil or oil spill samples; applications of molecular fossils to archaeology; worldwide petroleum systems through geologic time.

The mechanics of sediment transport and deposition and the origins of sedimentary structures and textures as applied to interpreting ancient rock sequences. Dimensional analysis, fluid flow, drag, boundary layers, open channel flow, particle settling, erosion, sediment transport, sediment gravity flows, soft sediment deformation, and fluid escape. Field trip required.