Teaching Phase Equilibria
What is the Purpose of this Site?
The purpose of this website is to provide a comprehensive introduction to heterogeneous phase equilibria in the geosciences. To support teaching and learning, this site contains the essential background information needed to understand phase equilibria, links to related resources, examples of worked problems, and teaching activities. This site provides a series of "primers" or tutorials that will enable students and other users to appropriately use modern thermodynamic modeling programs such as ThermoCalc, MELTS, TWQ and PERPLEX.
Why Use this Site?
This site provides a comprehensive development of the fundamental principles of heterogeneous phase equilibria. Students, faculty, and colleagues who need a "refresher" on the application of thermodynamics to the geosciences will find a full curriculum that introduces the basic concepts on the cover pages for each topic, example exercises, problem sets, and links to additional resources to enable deeper understanding.
Who is this Site For?
The material found in this site is appropriate for upper division undergraduate and graduate students and for professional colleagues in the broader geoscience community who need to apply heterogeneous phase equilibria (e.g. construction of phase diagrams, thermobarometry, PTt paths, modeling of melt systems) in their own education and research projects.
How to Use this Site
Browse this CollectionFor information about the following topics, click a link below:
- Phase Rule
- Phase Diagrams (and Pseudosections)
- Binary Phase Diagrams
- Ternary Phase Diagrams
- Metamorphic P-T Diagrams
- Metamorphic T-X Diagrams
- Other Phase Diagrams
- What are Pseudosections?
- Plotting Mineral Compositions and Chemographic Projections
- Clapeyron Equation
- Different Kinds of Reactions
- Deriving and Balancing Metamorphic Reactions
- Schreinemakers Method
- Experimental Petrology
- Mineral Formulae Recalculation
- Activity Models
- "Classical" Thermobarometry
- P-T-t Paths
- Advanced Modeling Programs
- For modelling equilibria involving melts: MELTS
- For calculating standard phase diagrams: TWQ
- For calculating standard phase diagrams and pseudosections (aka equilbrium phase diagrams): Perplex
- For calculating pseudosections (aka equilbrium phase diagrams): THERMOCALC
- For calculating pseudosections (aka equilbrium phase diagrams): Theriak-Domino
About this Project
This module was developed to aggregate and organize the resources and practical experiences of guest authors and editors who are experts in the field of heterogeneous phase equilibria, and who regularly teach this subject using web-based instructional resources, thermodynamic databases, and modern thermodynamic modeling programs (List of Participants). This is one of many explorations in ways to use information technologies to support integration of research and education. This project was developed as part of the DLESE Community Services Center, with funding from the National Science Foundation (EAR 03-06708).
The Teaching Phase Equilibria workhshop was convened in March 2007 at Montana State University to create the on-line curriculum goals of the workshop that led to this module included making significant progress in creating an on-line resource that effectively help the geoscience community. Workshop information includes workshop goals, a workshop schedule, and list of participants.