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Teaching

GEOL 2303 - Earth Materials

This class is an introduction to minerals, rocks, magmas, and fluids: the materials that constitute Earth’s crust, mantle, and core, and the origins of these substances. The class emphasizes the connectivity between chemical composition and structures of minerals and the connectivity between mineral and rock compositions. There will also be a focus on the conditions and environments under which rocks and minerals form, and how geologists use this information to solve geologic problems and interpret geologic events. 

The laboratory emphasizes hand-specimen-based identification and classification of minerals and rocks and the characterization of textures and fabrics.

The course will also introduce and develop the skills expected in students of the Natural Sciences. Particular emphasis will be placed on observational skills, developing a descriptive narrative, and the correct construction and presentation of scientific data and literature.

 

Recommended Text Books

If you are majoring in Geosciences, a good mineralogy text book is an invaluable resource, and will come in handy throughout your undergraduate education.

I am recommending that you purchase two text books. This appears expensive, however, both books can be used in other REQUIRED courses including Crystalllography and Optical Mineralogy, Sed/Strat and Petrography.

For this course and Crystallography and Optical Mineralogy (Spring Semester) I recommend purchasing:

Dyer, Gunter and Tasa: Mineralogy and Optical Mineralogy, published by the Mineralogical Society of America (ISBN-978-0-939950-81-2) (see http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/DGTtxt/)

This book may be purchased directly from the MSA website (http://www.minsocam.org/). IMPORTANT: If you join the MSA ($10 per year for students) you will get a significant reduction, AND, you will be sent issues or ELEMENTS magazine, which is a great resource for learning about hot-topics in Earth Sciences.

The second recommended text book is:

Winter: An introduction to igneous and metamorphic petrology (*ISBN-10:* 0132403420 or *ISBN-13:* 978-0132403429).

A third text books that you may wish to consider is:

Klein and Dutrow: Manual of Mineralogy (23rd Edition)(ISBN-13: 978-0471-72157-4 or ISBN-10: 0-471-721573).

All of these books may be available on the second hand market, especially the Manual of Mineralogy (21st or 22nd Edition, which was written by Klein only).