Field trips involve visits to drilling sites, geotechnical and analytical labs, and an experimental field station where tests on monitoring wells can be performed. Standard methods of sample preparation, elemental separation, and mass spectrometric analysis are used to determine elemental concentrations and isotopic compositions. Students are required to complete laboratory exercises as well as a term project to be agreed upon with the instructor. Thrust Faults and Synorogenic Sediments Geometry and kinematics of thrust faults and controls on depositional systems, provenance of synorogenic sediments, and basin development. Principles of optical crystallography and their application in the identification of rock-forming minerals, mostly the silicates, with the polarizing microscope.
Lectures cover an overview of igneous and metamorphic petrology.
Trace element distribution and isotopes as petrogenetic tracers in the evaluation of the crust-mantle system are also covered in the lectures. Laboratories are devoted to description, identification, and significance of mineral assemblages in these rocks as observed in hand specimens and under the petrographic microscope. Petrographic analysis of clastic and carbonate rocks. Emphasis is on tectonic influences on sandstone composition and diagenesis. An introduction to the principles of geochemistry.