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Department of Geoscience GEOL766: Earth Syctems Change |
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| Course Section: 001 | Classroom Location: WRI C223 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dr. Ganqing Jiang | Office Location: SEB 3241 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Email: Ganqing.Jiang@unlv.edu | Lectures: M-W 10:00 – 11:15 AM | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Class website: https://ganqing.faculty.unlv.edu/GEOL766 | Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:00 – 10:00 am or by appointment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Class Description:This class will focus on four broad topics: (1) the long-term and short-term controls on global climate and ocean systems, (2) Isotope systems (C, O, Sr, N, S, U, Zn) and their applications for Earth Systems Science research; (3) redox indicators for tracking the oxidation state of the ocean-atmosphere system; and (4) geological and geochemical observations across critical transitions in Earth history. Students are expected to gain the knowledge of using multiple geological and geochemical proxies to explain the Earth systems change through time and learn to formulate hypotheses and testing methods for the specific event(s) of interest.
Learning Objectives:At the end of the class, every student should be able to:1. Understand the major controlling factors of long-term and short-term climate changes. 2. Apply concepts and mass balance calculations of carbon, oxygen, sulfur, strontium and other isotopes to interpret the earth systems change across critical transitions. 3. Use common redox indicators to interpret the major oxidation events and mass extinctions. 4. Integrate physical and geochemical observations to formulate hypothesis and derive testing methods for the specific event(s) of interest.
Class Format:Lectures - This class will include lectures and student presentations. Lectures will be given in the first half of the semester to introduce the isotope systems and to summarize the problems, hypotheses, and questions related to critical events/stages in Earth history.Discussions - Each student will lead the discussions of a specific topic related to his/her research directions for a week (two lectures). The student who is in charge of the topic will give a presentation and lead the discussion. Students who are not giving the presentation that week will read the papers and write a critique to answer the questions posted on the web. The student in charge of the discussion should choose the most important papers including contrasting ideas in that field (will provide a suggested reference list for each discussion topic, but you can choose the most important ones based on your evaluation). No Textbook is required. Recommended textbooks and articles include: 1. Ruddiman, W.F., 2014, Earth's Climate: Past and Future (3rd edition), W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 464p. ISBN: 9781429255257; 2. Kump, L.R., Kasting, J.F., and Crane, R.G., 2013, The Earth System (3rd edition), Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 432p. ISBN: 9780321597793. 3. Any reference book in stable isotopes and sedimentary chemistry, e.g., Sharp, Z., 2006, Principles of Stable Isotope Geochemistry: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 344p. ISBN: 0-13-009139-1. 4. Read papers in Nature, Science, Geology, and EPSL on relevant topics, and review papers in Earth Science Reviews, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, etc.
Grading: Class ScheduleClass Syllabus
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