Blair Schoene - Teaching
GEO372 - Rocks (Note new schedule: Spring 2015 and every other year after)
This course serves as an introduction to the processes that govern the distribution of different rocks and minerals in the Earth. We learn to make observations from the microscopic to continental scale and relate these to theoretical and empirical thermodynamics. The goal is to understand the chemical, structural, and thermal influences on rock and mineral formation and how this in turn influences the plate tectonic evolution of our planet. GEO378, Mineralogy, is a prerequisite.
GEO373 - Structural Geology (Note new schedule: Fall 2015 and every other year after)
An introduction to the physics and geometry of brittle and ductile deformation in Earth's crust. Deformation is considered at scales from atomic to continental, in the context of mountain building, rifting, and the origin of topography.
GEO464 - Radiogenic isotopes (Note new schedule: Spring 2016 and every other year after)
Theory and methodology of radiogenic isotope geochemistry, as applied to topics in the geosciences, including the formation and differentiation of the Earth and solar system, thermal and temporal evolution of orogenic belts, and the rates and timing of important geochemical, biotic, and climatic events in earth history.
GEO556 - construction and evolution of continents (every other year, new schedule TBD)
This course is co-taught with Prof. Frederik Simons and capitalizes on our complementary research on the evolution of continental lithosphere from the Archean to the present. It covers themes relating to geophysics, geodynamics, petrology, geochemistry, and tectonics with the goal of understanding the intersection of these diverse fields and what they combined tell us about the birth, stabilization, and long term evolution of continental lithosphere.