Copper is an element that is essential to our technology and to our standard of living. Commonly, the copper is extracted from a variety of copper-bearing minerals that occur in veins. These fossilized fluid pathways record a complex set of geologic processes with non-linear couplings that are the products of hydrothermal activity associated with igneous intrusions (e.g. heat transport, mechanical fracture, mineral precipitation, permeability changes). By carefully examining a rock slab and its mineralogy, one can decipher the series of interrelated processes and their resultant impact on the final product.

Students set about to determine the relative age of veins by visual examination of the rock slab provided. Several generations of veins are recorded by different colors representing different minerals. Using cross-cutting relationships, they list the veins from oldest to youngest. Based on their color, they determine the sequence of minerals that fill veins. This provides an opportunity to review why color can be used to identify some minerals but not others. Once minerals are identified, their ideal chemical formula allows the percent copper in the mineral to be determined as well as the additional elements that must be present to form the mineral. The consequent change in mineral chemistry can be linked to the alterations in fluids flowing through the fractures by analysis of fluid-mineral equilibria on activity-activity (a-a) diagrams. For the more advanced classes, relevant thermodynamic data can be provided and students can write hydrolysis reactions and calculate the (a-a) diagram themselves.

Interpretation of the geologic history begins with the matrix and initial conditions and follows through rock fracture, fluid flow, mineral precipitation, evolving fluid composition, fracture sealing, pore-fluid pressure buildup, fracture, precipitation, etc. in a series of feedbacks. A feedback diagram can be provided and used as a base-map for interpretation not only of the sequence but changes to each reservoir, or students can be asked to draw the series of events and their reservoirs with the mechanisms of change. In the end, students understand the complex series of geologic processes that must come together in space and time to produce an ore-deposit that can be mined for our use. They also wrestle with the complications of reading the rock record and with the ambiguity of interpreting the interaction of various mechanisms that control the final product.

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Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum/Geology of National Parks module. Students calculate the haze index and standard visual range from concentrations of particulate matter.

Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum/Geology of National Parks module. Students calculate the haze index and standard visual range from concentrations of particulate matter.

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Students will view fossils, sometimes with supporting illustrations, and answer questions about them via deductive reasoning. The exercise is highly interactive, with the instructor providing hints and helpful questions. The questions concern ways in which fossil preservation reveals information about things like what kind of organism the fossil represents, how that organism lived, and how the fossil came into being.

This activity will help students to explore characteristics of microbes that live in the deep sea. This activity can be conducted as a jigsaw or research project, and can be used with face-to-face, remote, and hybrid students.

Provenance: Beverly Owens, Cleveland Early College High School
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This activity is a Google Slide playlist that will introduce students to microbes that can be found in deep sea sediments, and what roles they play in their environment. This playlist is suitable for use in remote, hybrid, or in-person instruction and can easily be added to a Learning Management System.

Provenance: Molly Ludwick, Kings Mountain Middle School
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Appreciating the depth of time is a bit like trying to understand the national debt -- it is easy to rattle off the number, but more difficult to appreciate what it means. Several popular writers have tried to convey the depth of time by incoporating one major (and important!) signpost in their scales: the first historical records of humans on the planet. Mark Twain famously referred to human history as the "skin of paint" at the summit of the Eiffel Tower, and John McPhee the "stroke of a medium-grained nail file" on the middle nail of an outstretched arm.

Eiffel Tower


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Vitruvian man


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I would like for you to evaluate these two metaphors for accuracy. How close were Twain and McPhee to appropriately contexualizing human existence in geological time? Use the pdf's of Twain's and McPhee's prose and what you know from class lectures to accomplish the following goals.

(1) Evaluate whether McPhee's and Twain's metaphors are appropriately scaled -- i.e., do their metaphors correctly depict the age of the earth relative to human history? How about if we incorporate the fossil record of humans?

(2) Create your own appropriately scaled metaphor. Add in at least three other "signposts", either biological or geological, into your metaphor and explain why you chose them.

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This activity is designed to introduce students to the way in which thermohaline circulation and the biological pump influence the distribution of nutrients, oxygen, carbon, and radiocarbon in the Atlantic vs. Pacific Oceans.

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This page explains the position in defense of the Black Hills. The purpose is to ensure that the Fort Laramie Treaties are re-upheld.

Students match microstructures to the deformation mechanisms by which they form; compare pairs of photomicrographs chosen to highlight key differences between some common microstructures; and complete a self-quiz in which they identify microstructures and infer deformation mechanisms from photomicrographs.

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This assignment addresses cultural sustainability by asking students to go beyond distinguishing between five subsistence strategies to examining the impact of globalization on diet and culture.

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Students are given 4 hypothetical stratigraphic columns (each roughly 30 m thick) of deltaic deposits, 3 base maps with section locations, and a map scale. Students subdivide the stratigraphic units into subfacies and interpret subenvironments (delta plain, delta front, prodelta, marine) and describe/list features used to make these interpretations. Using depositional interpretations, 3 bentonite marker beds, and paleocurrent information, students draw 3 successive paleogeographic maps of the region showing delta migration through time.

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A demonstration (with full class participation) to illustrate radioactive decay by flipping coins. Shows students visually the concepts of exponential decay, half-life and randomness. Works best in large classes -- the more people, the better.

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One of the great challenges in teaching undergraduates is finding ways to get them to apply knowledge or skills learned in one class to problems encountered in subsequent classes. Case in point: the use of algebra, trig, and even rudimentary calculus in geology classes! This activity presents practical ways we can use to build student confidence in their ability to peer into the meaning of the equations they encounter in sedimentary geology. These techniques include: (1) Surgical Strike Reviews -- 5 to 10-minute review of relevant math principles at the beginning of the appropriate lecture, (2) Unit Analyses -- assigning fundamental units of Mass, Length, and Time to test whether an equation has been derived correctly or to explore the meaning of derivative units of measure that may be unfamiliar to students, and (3) Perturbation Interrogation -- asking students to identify whether the quantity of interest described by an equation will increase or decrease when individual components of the equation increase or decrease.

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This 3-hour hands-on guided-discovery lab activity teaches students the concepts of density, buoyancy, thermal expansion and convection.

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In this lab activity, students determine density differences of water samples with varying temperature and salinity levels. Students synthesize information to predict the effects of oil in given water samples.

This hands-on lab activity is designed to teach students about how density differences, due to salinity, drive the flow of currents in the ocean. It also helps develop skills in performing and designing simple laboratory measurements; data entry, calculations and graph plotting in a spreadsheet; and comparing experimental data with a theoretical equation.
Key words: ocean circulation; density driven flows; salinity; ocean density; thermohaline circulation.

Density, Isostasy, and Topography Anne Egger, Stanford University The original activity Density, Isostasy, and Topography already exists within the SERC website. This page describes how this activity can be used ...

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HideA critical component of this activity involves sharing team data with the entire class, done the old-fashioned way on the chalkboard. Details This activity begins with an exploration of a topographic map of the earth, ending with the question: Why is the distribution of topography on the earth bimodal? The students then collect two forms of data. They measure the density of the most common rocks that make up oceanic crust (basalt), continental crust (granite), and the mantle (peridotite). They also measure the density of several different kinds of wood, and how high each kind floats in a tub of water. In each case, they work in teams of two or three and then the entire class shares their data. Based on the data from the wood, they derive an equation that relates the density of the wood to the height at which the block floats in the water - the isostasy equation. They then substitute density values for real rocks into their equation to derive thicknesses for average continental and oceanic crust, and apply their knowledge in order to draw a cross-section of the crust across South America. This activity gives students a real, hands-on and mathematical understanding of the principle of isostasy.

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A lab where the students study the density of pennies. They will discover the limitations of measurements and the value of multiple trials.