Energy and materials
Big picture: All energy sources either directly impact our Earth (fossil fuels), or require metals, processing (wind, solar), and landscape changes (Hydro) which indirectly impact our Earth.
How many people live on Earth?
What are the major sources of energy?
Approximately how much of modern energy comes from fossil fuels?
Understand that wind, hydro, solar and geothermal energy contribute
What is rejected energy?
Where does oil come from?
What conditions are needed to make oi; (temperature and oxygen condition) and what conditions are needed to make an oil reservoir (geologically)?
Why are tar sands a lousy resource, both economically and environmentally?
Understand that most of the motherload mining is finished, and modern mining is mostly looking for low concentration ore deposits that requires large amout of material to be moved and refined.
Mining is messy (and dirty)!
What has drastically changed mining technology in recent times?
Thermodynamics
Big picture: Pressure, Temperature, and Chemical Composition.
What are the three man thermodynamic controls which are a useful way of thinking about geology?
How are diamonds and graphite both the same and different?
What are the phases of matter?
Understand that as mixtures of liquid cool, they will separate out into different materials (like water and alcohol freezing, or ice-cream (it’s not a solid brick because not all of the oils in the cream have reached their freezing point))
Science
Big Picture: Have a big tool kit of “ways of thinking” to get though scientific work efficiently.
As with all fields, time man agent and using your time efficiently is wise (and means more time to do something else that you would rather do).
What steps are contained within the scientific method?
Geology contains aspects which are outside the scientific method.
One of the most important aspects of science is to share the information discovered.
This includes the act of making it available to other scientists
As well as presenting the information in a way that other people can understand.
Understand that there are different ways to think (Abductive, Inductive, Deductive)
All of these thinking methods have some flaw to them, where the available evidence could lead even the smartest person astray.
Understand how to take a look at a graph and understand the big picture.
Understand that the “why” part to questions is very important in science (and worth a lot of partial credit)
Creation of the Earth
Big picture: Understand how the universe evolved from the big bang to the composition of Earth.
What was the big bang, and whatelements did it create (there are 4 of them, but only two of them are really that important).
What elements can be created within stars?
What elements can be created when stars explode? (Kilonova/supernova)
How did we go from the cloud of gases of our solar system to the 8 planets? Roughly know the steps.
What generation star is our sun?
Why did the majority of the elements in the earth separate out?
Understand the rough layers of the earth (Inner core, outer core, lower mantel, upper mantle, crust)
Know how most of the earth is made of Oxygen, Silicon, Iron, and some aluminum.
How much carbon is in the Earth (roughly)
Geochemistry
How big is the nucleus of an atom relative to the rest of the electron cloud?
What is the definition of a mineral?
What is a rock?
In this class we use the “hard sphere” model of atoms (we treat them like round balls)
Geology always adds up to zero (charge wise)
Understand that there are many ways to think about geology and chemistry (by atoms, by mass, by volume, etc).
Understand how to adjust a mineral formula.
Understand that geology is rarely going to add up nicely, real geology is very messy.
Understand that the minerals that form are strongly controlled by the size of the atoms, the charge of the atoms, and what atoms are involved.
Know the difference between a crystal and a glass (amorphous material).
Know what the silicon tetrahedron is and that its really important.
Minerals:
How is the silicon tetrahedron a basic building block of minerals?
Understand that some properties are dead giveaways for a specific mineral, and some properties are not.
Understand that slow cooling lava or magma results in big crystals, fast cooling will result in small ones, and super-fast cooling results in glass.
What does a high hardness of a mineral mean about the strength of its chemical bonds.
Understand that energy can be adsorbed or released when breaking chemical bonds.
Understand how a silicon tetrahedron can be joined with other tetrahedrons.
Understand that more silicon tetrahedrons = less room for other stuff.
Understand that silicon tetrahedrons can be lumped into groups (single isolated tetrahedrons, chains of them, sheets of them, and networks of them).
Understand that minerals grow layer by layer.
Plate tectonics:
Understand that radioactive decay powers the heat of the Earth from the inside.
As this heat works its way to the cold surface, it causes inside convection.
Why do the rocks in the crust end up in the crust?
What is so special about our liquid core? What does it protect us from?
What are some of the facts that helped support continental drift? (There are a lot!)
How can paleo magnetism help you identify a spreading ridge?
What do earth quakes tell us about seafloor spreading?
What do earthquakes tell us about the subduction of plates?
Plate tectonics part II:
Know the two types of plates:
What kind of magmas do each type of plate make?
Know each of the plate boundaries:
Divergent
Convergent
Transform
Know of an example of each type of plate boundary
Know which of these plate boundaries create volcanoes
If they create volcanoes, what type of magma would they create.
Magmas
How can we cause a magma to melt? (three methods)
Magma composition is controlled: What rocks melted to make the magma.
Could be everything melted.
Could just be some parts of a rock that melted and joined a magma.
Could be changed if some of the magma cools off to make minerals, and the rest keeps going.
Could be changed if two magmas join together.
What are the four classes of magmas (and igneous rocks)
What is associated with each class of magma?
Using Bowen’s reaction series, which minerals melt at the highest temperature, which rocks melt at the lowest temperature?
Big picture concept of this class so far:
The composition of the earth (its chemical makeup) is practically fixed. Atoms have been here for a long time, Earth processes do not change these elements, only mix them around.
Heavy things sink, light things rise up. “Heavy” and “Light” are relative terms which depend on what else is around.
The radioactive heat inside the earth powers plate tectonics and the creation of new rocks.