1 / 26

WELCOME! Pick up a Syllabus at the corner as you enter

Geology 101, Section 150 10:30-11:20 pm MWF; 117 Bessey Hall Spring Semester, 2012 Instructor: Dr. David B. Loope, 322 Bessey Hall; 472-2647 (my office) dloope1@unl.edu or 472-2663 (Geosciences Dept. Office, 214 Bessey)

kali
Download Presentation

WELCOME! Pick up a Syllabus at the corner as you enter

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Geology 101, Section 150 10:30-11:20 pm MWF; 117 Bessey Hall Spring Semester, 2012 • Instructor: Dr. David B. Loope, 322 Bessey Hall; 472-2647 (my office) dloope1@unl.edu • or 472-2663 (Geosciences Dept. Office, 214 Bessey) • Office Hours: I’m always available right after class (11:20 MWF until the last student is gone). I’m • generally available Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30-11:30. • Textbook:Earth's Dynamic Systems (10th Edition) by W.K. Hamblin and E.H. Christiansen • Note: earlier editions (8th, and 9th) are OK; differences are minor and price can be much cheaper • Class Website:http://www.geosciences.unl.edu/~dloope/Teaching/GEOL2012web/index.html • (not Blackboard); bookmark it, or find it from UNL Earth & Atmospheric Sciences >people • >faculty>Loope; click on my picture; click on my picture again; go to Geology 101 • Test Grades: Tests in the lecture portion of the course will count for 75% of your grade. Lab will count • for the remaining 25%. Your lab grade is submitted to me by your lab TA at the end of the semester. • Your lecture grade will be calculated on the basis of your performance on five (5) tests. Each test will • consist of about 30 multiple choice questions. The tests aren’t easy. WELCOME! Pick up a Syllabus at the corner as you enter 1

  2. clickers no clickers

  3. Where does wood come from? 3

  4. First clicker question of the yearWhere does wood come from? • Soil b. Water c. Thin air

  5. Second clicker question of the yearWhere does wood come from? • Soil b. Water c. Thin air

  6. Third clicker question of the yearWhere does wood come from? • Soil b. Water c. Thin air

  7. Photosynthesis --making wood (and rocks) from thin air glucose 6CO2 + 12H2O C6H12O6 + 6O2 + 6H2O Simple sugars like glucose are the building blocks of cellulose and lignin--the main constituents of wood. When wood is burned, nearly all of it goes back to where it came from (thin air). Where does coal come from, and where does it go when burned? What process could lead to a build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? a build-up of oxygen? 7

  8. Keeling Curve The steady increase in carbon dioxide since 1958 Average is about 1.5 to 2.0 parts per million per year Loope starts teaching Geology 101 Missing data (Keeling ran out of funds) Mauna Loa (Hawaii) Observatory 8

  9. Keeling Curve The steady increase in carbon dioxide since 1958 Average is about 1.5 to 2.0 parts per million per year Loope starts teaching Geology 101 Missing data (Keeling ran out of funds) Mauna Loa (Hawaii) Observatory 9

  10. Keeling Curve The steady increase in carbon dioxide since 1958 Average is about 1.5 to 2.0 parts per million per year Loope starts teaching Geology 101 Missing data (Keeling ran out of funds) “This is science, so that answer could be wrong.” Gwynne Dyer, July 20, 2007 Mauna Loa (Hawaii) Observatory 10

  11. Keeling Curve The steady increase in carbon dioxide since 1958 Average is about 1.5 to 2.0 parts per million per year Loope starts teaching Geology 101 The 3 biggest ideas we will discuss this semester are: Plate Tectonics, Evolution, and Climate Change. All are products of slow change. But how slow? Missing data (Keeling ran out of funds) Mauna Loa (Hawaii) Observatory 11

  12. 12

  13. Venus: The Runaway Greenhouse Very dense carbon dioxide atmosphere Surface temperature:464o C 13

  14. On Earth, much less than 1% of atmosphere is CO2 On Venus, 96% of atmosphere is CO2 (Limestone) Coal, Oil, Natural Gas Unlike on Venus, most of Earth’s carbon is stored in its rocks. 14

  15. The thickness of limestone beneath Lancaster County, Nebraska (area=2,173 km2) is about 500 m. One million square m in each km2, so that means there are 1.09 x 1012 m3 of carbonate rocks beneath Lancaster County. Assume these rocks are 100% calcium carbonate (calcite--CaCO3) with zero porosity. 1 cm3 of calcite has mass of 2.7 g. Twelve percent of the mass of calcite is carbon. 1 m3 of calcite has a mass of 2700 kg (2.7 x 103 kg); This means there is 2.94 x 1015 kg of calcium carbonate beneath Lancaster County, and 3.52 x 1014 kg or 3.52 x 1011 metric tons of carbon. Total C in Earth’s atmosphere is 7.45 x 1011 metric tons, so the sedimentary rocks beneath Lancaster County contain nearly half as much carbon as the Earth’s atmosphere.

  16. The thickness of limestone beneath Lancaster County, Nebraska (area=2,173 km2) is about 500 m. One million square m in each km2, so that means there are 1.09 x 1012 m3 of carbonate rocks beneath Lancaster County. Assume these rocks are 100% calcium carbonate (calcite--CaCO3) with zero porosity. 1 cm3 of calcite has mass of 2.7 g. Twelve percent of the mass of calcite is carbon. 1 m3 of calcite has a mass of 2700 kg (2.7 x 103 kg); This means there is 2.94 x 1015 kg of calcium carbonate beneath Lancaster County, and 3.52 x 1014 kg or 3.52 x 1011 metric tons of carbon. Total C in Earth’s atmosphere is 7.45 x 1011 metric tons, so the sedimentary rocks beneath Lancaster County contain nearly half as much carbon as the Earth’s atmosphere. Bottom Line: Most of Earth’s carbon is stored in the solid Earth, not in the atmosphere.

  17. Keeling Curve The steady increase in carbon dioxide since 1958 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo (Phillippines) (2nd largest eruption in 20th century doesn’t even make a blip) 17

  18. Fossil Fuels are “left-overs” of the Carbon Cycle Energy Sources (U.S.) 18

  19. The “left-overs” of the carbon cycle (fossil fuels) are being burned at a very rapid rate. The US uses about 1 billion tons of coal per year; global consumption is about 7 billion tons per year. 19

  20. Another “controversy”: Evolution Hominid footprints in 3.5 million-year-old volcanic ash. (Laetoli site, Tanzania; found in 1976). video on Laetoli footprints See “Public Acceptance of Evolution” by Miller, Scott, and Okamato in: Science, v. 313, p. 765-766 (July, 2006) Science: based on doubt, experiment, and measurement; truth is unfolding, and provisional; skepticism is welcome and encouraged. Religion: Truth is revealed-- (God-given and final) 20 20

  21. Geology seeks to reveal Earth processes and history. Grand Canyon’s South Rim. 21

  22. Nebraska students encountering bedrock 22

  23. “Earth history is like the life of a soldier: long periods of boredom; short moments of terror.”Derek Ager 23 23

  24. “Earth history is like the life of a soldier: long periods of boredom; short moments of terror.”Derek Ager Tsunami or seismic sea wave 24 24

  25. “We are star-stuff” Carl Sagan Symphony of Science 25

  26. In times of change, learners inherit the Earth Eric Fromm Read Chapters 1 & 2 for Friday

More Related