Johannes Koch

   Department of Geology

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GEOLOGY 300 GEOMORPHOLOGY

Links:

John told me about an article he read about frost weathering and that it might not be as simple as was thought before. He also provided the article as pdf which you can download here.

Student presentations:

Karst
Aeolian landforms
Coastal landforms
Periglacial engineering
Humans and landscape

General:

Geomorphology is the study of landforms and the processes that shape these landforms. The aim is to understand why landscapes look the way they do and what processes are responsible for the formation of any given landscape. Landscape here obviously has different scales, so we will look at processes that impact large areas such as mountain building due to plate tectonics, and much more local events such as mass wasting events on hill slopes. Landforms evolve in response to a combination of natural and anthropogenic processes and every landscape is a representation of its history. For example, Ohio once was a shallow sea before it rose above sea-level. Since then many different processes have changed the landscape of Ohio, such as huge ice sheets that repeatedly covered Ohio and left only ca. 15,000 years ago. Since then rivers and mass wasting events have modified this landscape and more recently humans had an impact on the landscape of Ohio.

Course Topics :

This course aims to help you appreciate the forces that change the landscape of our planet from large-scale events to very localized, but dramatic processes. We will take our knowledge out into the field to look at landforms in Ohio and discuss their formation. In the end I hope your look at landscapes will have changed and you will be able to assess what processes are the most dominant ones in any given area you visit.

Text:   Ritter, D.F., Kochel , R.C., Miller, J.R., 2002. Process Geomorphology, 4th edition. McGrawHill, New York, 560 pp. ISBN: 0-697-34411-8.

Course Grading: Participation                                                            5% Term project – poster & presentation               20% Lecture presentation                                            15% Lab/fieldtrip reports                                           20% Mid-terms (each)                                                  10% Final exam                                                             20% Grades will NOT be scaled or “curved”. What you get is what you get! However, if your mark is near a grade transition (e.g., B to B+) and I find that you have made the effort (e.g., good attendance, participation, etc.) than I will take that into account when determining the final grade.

Exams

The exams will be primarily objective in nature with questions coming from the reading material and lectures. No make-up exams will be given unless an acceptable medical certificate is presented. Mid-Term I ( Feb. 15th, 11 am – 12 pm ) will cover material from weeks 1 through 5, Mid-Term II ( April 02nd, 11 am – 12 pm ) materials from weeks 5 through 10. The Final Exam (May 8th, 9 m ) will be comprehensive.

Student responsibilities:

•  Students are expected to attend every class and to have read the assigned readings before class.
Occassionally I will take attendance in lecture to check. Absence due to athletic obligations are not automatically considered excused absences, but you need to contact me about schedule conflicts as early in the semester as possible. If you are ill and unable to attend class, notify me by phone or e-mail before class.
•  Late assignments will not be accepted without prior approval from the instructor.
•  There will be no makeup exams unless an acceptable medical certificate is presented.
•  Students are responsible for all materials in the assigned readings and lectures.
•  Academic integrity (including cheating and plagiarism) is forbidden. It will result in disciplinary action. For information on academic dishonesty and codes of conduct, visit this website.

Acceptable medical certificates:

Medical documentation must be submitted on letterhead from your doctor with signature and date and addressed to the instructor.

Students requiring accommodations as a result of a disability are requested to contact Pam Rose, Director of the Learning Center (ext. 2595) AND notify the instructor within the first 2 weeks of classes. All discussions will remain confidential.

Schedule - Spring 2008

A.R. Assigned Readings

Lab and fieldtrip reports
The lab comprises work with Google Earth, that you can do during the Monday lab times, or if you so wish at home. However, our TA, Sophie, and myself will be around for any help if you need it during the Monday afternoon lab time. Furthermore, there will be three full-day fieldtrips to locations nearby to talk and observe the landscape in Ohio. These fieldtrips are mandatory and are currently scheduled for February 23 or 30, March 29 or April 5, and April 26; all these dates are Saturdays. Each fieldtrip will leave around 9am and we will return around 7pm. We will travel with two mini vans. On the first fieldtrip we will talk about fluvial landscapes, the second one will be about coastal processes at Lake Erie and the final one will visit locations of evidence for glaciations in Ohio. These fieldtrips will be a great experience to actually see what we will have talked about in class. If you cannot partake in any of these fieldtrips due to other obligations, please inform me within the first two weeks of the semester. There will be more information as we approach the dates. For each lab and fieldtrip you will have to write a short report (5 pages maximum).

Lecture presentation
Each students needs to pick one lecture topic and prepare the lecture. This means that you will be responsible for the topic you chose and you will be the expert who presents it to the class. Topics will be first come first serve, so chose your topic early. You can present whichever way you prefer, a PowerPoint presentation, the blackboard, or leading a discussion. The other students will have to provide a short critique of the student who's presenting to me. These comments will be taken in consideration when giving the grade. The reasons for this are two-fold. It provides me feedback what you think works and what doesn't and it will put some pressure on the student who's presenting. If you don't do a good job, all will suffer, as we won't have learned as much.

Term project – Poster and presentation
For your research on your term project you can choose your topic. It obviously needs to be geomorphology related, but other than that it's your project so you need to show initiative. And it needs to be a different one than your lecture topic. Once you have decided on a topic, or if you have trouble finding one, come and see me. The way you present your topic is up to you, so a critical review of what's known is as good as a descriptive summary of a few key papers, is as good as a hypothesis that you prove or disprove with evidence from published articles.

Use the Library resources such as GeoRef and GeoScienceWorld to get started, but the poster must be your own work. Be aware of the contents of C.O.W.s policy on academic honesty and the consequences for its violation.

The poster should cover your topic in detail and show that you understand the topic not just from reading a few articles, but understand the background of the topic. Basically you should structure your post like a paper, with an introduction, methods, results, and conclusions. Figures from published papers are completely acceptable, but you need to reference them.

Prepare posters in PowerPoint and provide the original file as well as a pdf file. Do not include a reference list on the poster, but provide a separate word document with the list. You can find information on using PowerPoint for posters here:
http://www.apsnet.org/meetings/2003/Powerpoint_Posters.htm
http://depts.washington.edu/mphpract/ppposter.html

Figures and tables are necessary as the poster should be visually appealing, but there also needs to be enough text to give me the impression that you understand the background. I will show some posters in class to give you an idea, but a walk around the Department or a search online will provide more options. The content of the poster will make up 85%, the presentation the remaining 15%, so the visual presentation, clarity, but also syntax and expression are important.

Last modified: 13.01.2008