GEOL 220
EARTH HISTORY
AND THE FOSSIL RECORD
SPRING, 2011
“Geologists, in their all but closed conversation, inhabit scenes that no one ever saw, scenes of global
sweep, gone and gone again, including seas, mountains, rivers, forests, and archipelagoes of aching beauty
rising in volcanic violence to settle down quietly and then forever disappear - almost disappear.”
John McPhee
Dr. James R. Ebert
Office: Science I, Rm. 209A
Office hours: M 2:00, Th 11:00, 1:00 and by appointment
Office phone: x3065
E-mail: Ebertjr@oneonta.edu
Class meets: Science I, Room 211; T, Th 10:00-11:15, Lab is in Room 204, M 3:00-4:50 or W 2:00-3:50
College Catalog Description of Course: An overview of the history of physical, chemical and biologic changes that have
taken place on Earth since its formation 4.6 billion years ago. A major emphasis in the course is on the tools and
techniques that are used to read and interpret this history using fossils and physical features in the rock. Laboratory and
field exercises illustrate events in Earth’s history and provide students with opportunities to engage in geologic inquiry.
Writing in the discipline is emphasized through laboratory reports, field trip reports and research papers. Prerequisite:
GEOL 115, 120, 150, or 182.
Attributes for General Education: LA, WS2
Course goals and activities: This course is designed to provide students with an overview of Earth’s history and an
understanding of the techniques that are used to read and reconstruct that history. Aspects of the physical and biological
development of the Earth over 4.6 billion years will be examined in class. Techniques for reading and interpreting Earth history
will be explored in laboratory activities. Field exercises will provide opportunities for students to employ the skills that they have
developed through previous lab activities.
TEXT:
Stanley, S.M., 2005, Earth System History, 3nd Edition, NY, W. H. Freeman and Company, 551p.
Compton, R.R., 1985, Geology in the Field: New York, NY, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 416p. (Recommended for lab and field.)
GRADING AND ASSIGNMENTS
You are expected to have assignments read before attending lecture and lab. This will better prepare you for class and
help to enable you to ask intelligent and informed questions. Attendance for labs and field trips is mandatory. If you have
conflicts with the Saturday field trip, you should consider taking the course in a different semester.
Participation and Professionalism will be evaluated. Attendance is essential and may affect your grade.
Your grade will be determined as follows:
In-Class Activities
Labs
Key Labs
Field trip report - Depositional Environments
Field trip report – Stratigraphy and Paleontology
Field trip report – The Big Picture
Lab Practical Exam
Midterm and final exams
Participation and Professionalism
TOTAL:
5%
15%
10%
10%
10%
15%
10%
20%
5%
100%
FIELD TRIPS
A REQUIRED ALL-DAY SATURDAY FIELD TRIP is scheduled for SATURDAY: May 7. We will tour some of the fabulous
geology of New York State where you will have opportunities to demonstrate all you’ve learned in the course! Also, there will be
two IN-CLASS REQUIRED FIELD TRIPS. They are scheduled for April 11 and May 2 for the Monday Lab and April 13 and
5/4 for the Wednesday Lab. These trips will last longer than the two hours normally scheduled for lab.
“It is thus, in seeing the former state of things that we are led to see the present with a scientific eye; and we shall investigate the
natural operations of the earth for a space of time that will astonish in proportion as it is perceived.”
James Hutton, 1785, on seeing erosion on the Isle of Arran
“If by some fiat, I had to restrict all this writing to a single sentence, this is the one I would choose:
The summit of Mount Everest is made of marine limestone.”
John McPhee
SCHEDULE OF LECTURES AND LABS
Date
1/19
1/20
Topic
Clues in the Rocks: Basic Rock Types – Textures, Processes of Formation, Recycling
Clues in the Rocks: Basic Rock Types – Textures, Processes of Formation, Recycling
1/24&26
Lab 1: Clues in the Rocks: Siliciclastic Sediments and Rocks
1/25
Introduction, The Denudation Dilemma, Deep Time and the Science of Geology
Clues in the Rocks: Texture and Composition
Evolution, Bioevents and the Fossil Record
Lab 2: Clues in the Rocks: Preservation of Fossils; Major Groups of Invertebrate Fossils
Principles of biostratigraphy and building a Geologic Time Scale
Calibrating the Geologic Time Scale
Clues in the Rocks: Geologic Structures and Relative Age Relationships
Clues in the Rocks: Principles of Paleoecology
► Lab 3: Clues in the Rocks: Paleoecology of Fossils
Origin of the Earth, the oldest rocks on Earth
A World before abundant Fossils: Precambrian Primer
Origin and early history of life
Introduction to carbonate sediments
Lab 4: Clues in the Rocks: Introduction to Carbonate Sediments
Two Konservat Lägerstatten and the dawn of the Phanerozoic: Ediacarans, the Small Shelly Fauna
and the Cambrian Explosion
Rodinia, Rifting, Iapetus, the Great American Bank and Epicontinental/Epeiric Seas Case
1/27
1/31&2/2
2/1
2/3
2/7 & 9
2/8
2/10
2/14 & 16
2/15
2/17
Readings
p. 35-46
p. 35-46
Ch. 1
p. 35-46,
Ch. 7
p. 47-72
Ch. 7, 11
p. 137-142,
Ch. 1,
p. 75-97
p. 75-97
Ch. 12
p. 258-262,
Ch. 12
Ch. 12
Ch. 13
No Classes 2/20-28
2/28&3/2
Lab 5:
3/1
3/3
3/7 & 9
3/8
3/10
3/14 & 16
3/15
3/17
3/21-23
3/24
3/28 & 30
3/29
3/31
4/4 & 6
4/5
4/7
4/11 & 13
4/12
4/14
Clues in the Rocks: Carbonate Rocks
Study in Sedimentary Tectonics: Taconic Orogeny
History repeats itself: Siluro-Devonian Epeiric Seas, the Acadian Orogeny and the Catskill
Clastic Wedge
Lab 6: Clues in the Rocks: Sedimentary Structures
Colonial history of terrestrial environments and a Devonian amphibious assault
Alleghanian Orogeny, cyclothems and coal swamps
► Exam I
Facies, Facies Patterns and Depositional Environments
► Lab Practical Exam
► Lab 7: Clues in the Rocks: Facies Patterns
Ch. 13
Ch. 14
Ch. 14
p. 125-137
Ch. 5, p. 125-137
Pangea and the Great Dying: the Terminal Permian Extinction
Ch. 15
Case Study in Sedimentary Tectonics: Mesozoic rifting and the East Coast
Ch. 16
No Class/Lab: Northeast/North Central Geological Society of America Conference, Pittsburgh, PA
GSA Debriefing; Mesozoic Marine Communities
Ch. 16
Lab 8: Clues in the Rocks: Comparing Geologic Histories – Correlation
Mesozoic terrestrial life: reptiles, dinosaurs and the dawn of mammals
Ch. 16
Mesozoic Highlights: Sölnhofen and Morrison Lägerstatten & the K-T boundary event
Ch. 16, 17
Lab 9: Clues in the Rocks: Regional Patterns from Geologic Maps
Cenozoic Life: Insights from another Lägerstatte
Ch. 18
Paleoclimate Indicators and Temperature Proxies
p. 461-470
Ch. 5
► Lab 10: Clues in the Rocks: In the Field! (Due 4/26)
Paleoclimates
p. 461-470
The Pleistocene and Holocene History of New York State
p. 495-508
No Classes 4/16-25
4/26
4/27
4/28
5/2 & 4
5/3
5/5
5/6
5/7
5/9&11
5/10
5/12
Discussion of Field Trip The Past Shapes the Present: Landscapes
Wednesday Lab 11: Landscapes: The Intersection of Past Products and Present Processes
Cenozoic Life: primates and early hominids
p. 484-494
► Lab 12: Stratigraphy and Paleontology Field Trip
Cenozoic Life: primates and early hominids
p. 484-494
Cenozoic Life: primates and early hominids
p. 484-494
FRIDAY: Earth Sciences Department Annual Picnic!!!
► SATURDAY FIELD TRIP – The Big Picture – Due 5/10
Monday Lab Meets on
Monday Lab 11: Landscapes: The Intersection of Past Products and Present Processes
Monday and Wednesday
FIELD TRIP REPORTS DUE; Discussion of Saturday Field Trip; Big Questions from Earth History
► Exam II: 8:00 – 10:30