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Geomorphology and Environmental Hydrogeology |
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Welcome to the Geomorphology class web page. Please check this site weekly
for announcement and links to web sites specific to that week's topic covered
in class and lab. Also please inform me of interesting links you find that I
can add to these pages. The links will lead you to data and information that
will greatly help in your decision of a research topic. See Class Notes for
course logistics.
Introduction: Earth scientists are
increasingly called upon to evaluate past, present and future environmental
changes on both local and global scales. They can be called upon to predict the
long-term stability of hazardous waste sites or to mitigate the effects of
natural disasters. Vital to evaluating and predicting environmental change is
an understanding of the origin and evolution of topographic features and the
role of groundwater in the environment. Geomorphology is concerned with the
evolution of landscapes and the earth surface processes that form and modify
them.
Since the land surface is located at the interface of the earth's
lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, geomorphology is
necessarily interdisciplinary. In addition to the natural forces modifying
landscapes, anthropogenic forces contribute to surface modification and will be
included in the study of geomorphology
Objective: The primary objective of this
course is to introduce the in-depth content of surficial geologic processes and
hydrogeology within a context of global geomorphology.
We do not have a formal textbook - I will be handing out several handouts in class and many links in this web page will be considered to be readings as well. Required Books : L: Leopold, L.B., 1994, A View of the River: Harvard University Press; Greg
Wiles |
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Introduction: The Cenozoic, Geomorphic Concepts and Basics |
| Reading: Handout and Links below. | |
| Preparation Questions | |
Lab and Assignments: Lab Topic: The pace of change in the Late Cenozoic - Reading
Handout. Lab meets in GIS Computer Lab. This lab will be review for some of
you and brand new to others. Those of you who have seen some of this
material help out the others. Get your Laboratory Writeup guide here..
Do your preparation questions and read. The Lab will be due at the beginning of next week's lab. |
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Links: Take a look at the Wikipedia description of Cz climate, tectonics, life etc.What is unique of this Era in which we live? In lab we will be focusing on the Ice Ages and the Pace of Environmental change in the past 2 my - the Quaternary. Announcements: Be
sure to check the GEOCLUB webpage
for Thursday seminars at 11AM in Scovel 205. You are all welcome
to attend the talks and join us afterwards for Geolunch in Lowry.
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Chemical and Physical Weathering |
| Reading: Weblinks, Handouts and M: through page 26 | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab and Assignments: Meet in Scovel 305 for an exercise looking at weathering products of rocks and minerals. Your writeup from last week's excercise is due at the beginning of Monday's lab. | |
Links: For a discussion and list of chemical and physical weathering go to Wikipedia. For a more in-depth discussion of the tectonic carbon cycle and weathering go to the Columia U. page. Weds. lecture will be on physical wx and the role of ice - as you walk across the soils - keep in mind the pipkrake. There was some question about what grus and the process of grusification was in lab - read about it. In addition felsenmeer - or sea of rock. The role of clays and cation exchange. Take a look at this explanation of how a water softener works. The role of clay minerals in phsical and chemical weathering is described here. Read about hydrolysis and oxidation. Announcements: This week's GEOCLUB will feature Cailin Fetters and Mike Krivicich (senior Geology majors) who will be speaking about their senior IS work in Alaska. Geoclub meets in Scovel 205 at 11 am on Thursdays. |
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Soils |
| Reading: Retallack Handout | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab and Assignments: Meet in Scovel 216 - Soils | |
Links: Soils is the topic we will start in lab. The Retallack handout gives a perspective of the role of soils through geologic time - the bottom line is soils are what we live on...where our food comes from.....carbon is soils has played and will play a major role in mitigating the buildup of carbon dioxide in the present day and future atmosphere. Read this. Two of the websites that will use in both lab and class this week are the various resources of the NRCS and the excellent site mantained by the University of Idaho. To find the soils survey maps online go to this site. To download the physiographic, glacial, soils, geologic and shaded relief maps for Ohio to to the ODNR site. Announcements: On Friday Wiles will be in DC at the National Research Council - you will work through some soils exercises. Continue on the lab that we started on Monday. There will be a quiz on Weds. |
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Soils and Human Habitation |
| Reading: M: 49-177, Bloom Handout given out in class along with soils reading and The Green Revolution. | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab and Assignments: Spreadsheet modeling of Hillslopes (meet in GIS Lab) – We will start the lab period in Scovel 216 and discuss the lab as well as the upcoming exam next week. | |
Links: Rheology is the concept of the week. Announcements: Go back to the soils orders discussions and lab - the results of the quiz were not good. |
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Mass Movements, Hillslope Hydrology and Hydrographs, |
| Reading: M: 178-246, Chapter 3 in A View of the River and handout | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab and Assignments: Since the soils are still frozen we will be working with hydrologic data from Killbuck on the Killbuck River. The lab is built around this hydrograph. | |
Links: This week is the Week of Darwin's Birthday. Dr. Wilson will be speaking to GEOCLUB on Darwin and Evolution. In this class I want to focus on his work with earthworms. Announcements: 13 February is the first lecture exam. See a past exam here. Click here for a ppt of some key figures. |
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Fluid Mechanics |
| Reading: Leopold: 1-56 | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Assignments: Due to the power outage we ony were able to do by hand delineation of a drainage basin. During class this week we will boot up the Arcmap software and explore the DEMS, DLGs and DRGs in the GIS Lab and get an introduction to Adobe Illustrator. | |
Links:Three chapters in the online PhysicalGeography.net book by Dr. Michael Pidwirny at the University of British Columbia Okanaga, are very useful for the discussions this week. Announcements: Geoclub is back with the final student presentations - Meggie Edwards and your TA - Jodi Sprajcar will present their IS work. |
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Fluvial Landforms and the Cycle of Erosion |
| Reading: L: chapters 8-11 | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab and Assignments: We will be headed down to Killbuck to see the river and the gaging station - then we will work our way back north exploring a bit about the glacial and fluvial history of the valley. | |
Links: Readings for you lab writeup can be found by downloading these pdfs. Announcements: Meagen Pollock (Geology)is the Geoclub speaker this week. |
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Introduction to Groundwater |
| Reading: Y: through page 43 | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab Assignments: GIS lab - GW flow | |
Links: Groundwater and its interaction with surface water is the topic for after break. Announcements: James Little (Haley - Aldrich Co.) will be speaking in Geoclub regarding Geothermal Energy - is this right for The College of Wooster. Geoclub meets at 11 am on Thursdays in Scovel 205. |
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Aquifers and groundwater flow |
| Reading: Y: 44-73, 193-211 | |
| Preparation Questions | |
Lab Assignments: Field measurement of flow - surface and subsurface - now is the time to think about potential class research projects - I have put a two ppt. prestentations of past projects here and here to download. This can help you generate ideas perhaps building on this work. We will discuss this in lab. For lab we will be traveling to Wooster Memorial Park aka Spangler. The handout on the geology of the park can be found here. We will be having box lunches in the classroom with Cathy Coon, an alum. of Wooster Geology who works for Chevron in Texas. We will then leave about 12:45 for the field - the weather looks good and the streams are low. |
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Links: We will move on to the groundwater system - however since the groundwater and surface water are connected we will not leave the streams. In fact, in lab we will begin our work on streams - first looking at the fans then thinking about the aquifers below and above. Announcements: This week's GEOCLUB will be given by Dr. Tim Fisher (U. Toldedo) he will be presenting his group's work on reconstructing the past lakes levels of the Laurentian Great Lakes. We meet on Thursday (26 March) in Scovel 205 at 11 AM. |
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Groundwater, quality and plumes |
| Reading: Y 212-235 | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab Assignments: Wooster Wellfield | |
Links: Announcements: 3 April is the second lecture exam. Dr. James Foradas - Canrig Drilling - will speak on mudlogging on oil rigs in Alaska and his views on the oil industry and drilling in Alaska. We meet on Thursday (2 April) in Scovel 205 at 11 AM. |
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Glacial Geology and Ohio Glaciation |
| Reading: Web links and Handout | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab Assignments: Wooster Wellfield and Gravel Pits | |
Links: Announcements: Dr. E. Scott Bair (The Ohio State University) will be speaking in Geoclub on Thursday - he is a world-renowned hydrogeologist who has studied the Wooster Aquifer and the Woburn, MA contamination cases. We meet at 11 am in Scovel 205 - all are welcome. |
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Glacial Deposition and Landforms |
| Reading: Handout and web links | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab and Assignments: Wooster Wellfield and flow exercise | |
Links: Announcements: Fieldtrip on Sunday, David Burney speaks on 16 April. |
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Glacier and Gobal Change |
| Reading: Handouts and links | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Lab and Assignments: On Monday we will be visting the Northern Appalacian Experimental Watershed. We will be examining some of their test plots and taking water levels in a bedrock aquifer we will map these out with GPS - plot the levels and contour tha map. Dr. Jim Bonta will be our host for the afternoon. Since it is an hour drive I will get box lunches and we will leave at noon. | |
Links: Click here for the T and S spreadsheet. Rattan Lal's talk is today (22 April - Earthday) at 11 am. Geoclub tomorrow will feature Jay Mosley a consuting geologist at URS Consultants in Cleveland. Be there at 11 am in Scovle 205 - Thursday 23 April. Announcements: No classes on Friday due to the IS celebration. |
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The Periglacial and Pluvial World. |
| Reading: Handout and links | |
| Preparation Questions | |
| Assignments: Final field excursion or poster session | |
I have many office hours during finals week - if you cannot find an open slot contct me. Announcements: Poster presentation on Monday 27 April. |
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7 May (Thursday): Final Examination (9:00 a.m. in Scovel 116) Preparation questions: At the beginning of each class I will handout a
sheet of two or three preparation questions that should be answered
before the start of the next class. I will occasionally collect
these at the start of the class and correct them as a quiz. A
complete set of questions will be available on this web page if
you need to miss a class.
Field trips: Many of our labs will involve fieldwork. Some of the scheduled trips may be changed depending on weather and streamflow. It is your responsibility to inform me of conflicts between academic commitments to this course and complementary programs in which you participate as soon as you are aware of them. You are to discuss with me how you might fulfill your academic commitments to our mutual satisfaction without sacrificing the academic integrity and rigor of the course. Labs: We will meet weekly for laboratory
on Wednesday afternoons. On occasion we will convene in the GIS Lab, the Taylor
209 or Taylor 210 computer classroom, in Scovel 116 or go to the field for the
lab period. Field excursions may be rescheduled as needed depending on the
weather and stream levels. Labs are due at the beginning of the following lab
period unless otherwise noted. Late labs will not be accepted.
Research paper: A 6 - 10 page
research paper is also required. The timetable for topic selection, submission
of outline, and presentation of results will be announced and listed on this
syllabus. You are required to hand in a first draft of your paper this is worth
5% of the course grade. You will also give a short 8-minute powerpoint
presentation on the results of your project. If you choose to work with another
student as part of a field project – each student must hand-in their own paper.
Course evaluation: There will be
three exams, two midterms (12% each) and one comprehensive final (16%). Ten
quizzes will also be given; students not attending lectures when quizzes are
given will receive a zero. I will drop the lowest quiz grades.
Academic Integrity: The College’s understanding and expectations in
regard to issues of academic honesty are fully articulated in the Code of
Academic Integrity as published in the Scot’s Key and form an essential part
of the implicit contract between the student and the College. The Code provides
a framework at Wooster to help students develop their own personal integrity.
Teaching Assistants: Jodi Sprajcar, a senior geologist doing a neotectonics study in Mongolia for her senior IS will be our TA. Instructor: Each week I will post office
hours outside my office (Scovel 119) - sign up for an appointment. I can also
be reached via email or at 2298.
Greg
Wiles
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