Development of a 21st Century Undergraduate Geodesy Curriculum

1. Development of a 21st Century Undergraduate Geodesy Curriculum EarthScope Workshop May 20th, 2011

2. Motivation: • Current textbooks for introductory earth science and geophysics courses offer little if any substantive information about modern methods in geodesy and earth surface deformation

3. Goal: • To be refined here: • Initial idea is to create an effective community-reviewed geodesy curriculum ready for distribution in 2012, with subsequent review of success.

4. Outlining Team: • Shimon Wdowinski • Matt Pritchard • Bill Hammond • Gerald Bawden • Sridhar Anandakrishnan • Emma Hill • Andrew Newman • Dave Carlson

5. ~Agenda: 1:15 Identify target audience(s) 1:30 Develop outline of topics (w/ breakouts) 2:45 Break 3:00 Discussion 3:15 Identify delivery vehicles (w/ breakouts) 4:00 Discussion 5:00 adjourn

6. Ready your aim: • Identify target audience(s): • Introductory earth science courses • Majors only, or inclusive? • Snippets for other fields (e.g. physics, statistics) • Introductory geophysics courses • General audiences for online resources? • Pamphlets for Congress? Your thoughts?

7. Target Audience (cont): • What is our assumed level of knowledge? • Calculus? • F=ma? • Metric system (esp… for congress)?

8. Master Outline: • What is Geodesy? • Historical Geodesy • Measurements (ground/space based) • Potential Theory • Continuum Mechanics • Ancillary tools • Problems in Geodesy

9. What is Geodesy? • This is a great question, and one that we as earth scientists seem to through around. • Earth shape • Its rotational parameters • Its deformational features • Shape and deformation of features on it (geomorphology and ice dynamics) • We may need to come up with a new and simple definition that encompasses the community.

10. Historic Geodesy: • Early measurements of the shape and size of the earth • Eratosthenes: Determining earth size from the angle of the sun at 2 latitudes • Newton: flattening derived from slow clocks at the equator • Bouguer: Mountain roots from deflection of plumb bob

11. Measurements: • Geodetic datums and reference frames • Datums (e.g. WGS-84) • Flat earth, spherical, ellipsoidal. • Coordinate systems: • UTM • Lat., Lon., height • Earth Center, Earth Fixed XYZ

12. Ground-based Measurements: • Vertical: leveling • Horizontal: triangulation • Distance: geodimeters • White-light • Radio waves • Lasers • Electronic Distance measurements (EDM) • Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS)

13. Ground-based Meas. (cont.): • Local deformation (strain): • Tiltmeters • short and long-baseline instruments • Strainmeters • Capacitive instruments • Fluid Dilatometers • Extensometers • Sea level: • Marine terraces • tide gauges

14. Ground-based Meas. (cont.): Gravity: • Relative: • Weighted springs • Superconducting gravimeters • Absolute: • Pendulums • Free-fall

15. Ground-based Meas. (cont.): • Global measurements: • Latitude from zenith measurements • Longitude from sunrise and precision timing • Making local measurements global through benchmarks and standard datum

16. Seafloor Geodesy • Many of the same tools: • This may be better served as a ‘box’ describing upcoming innovations. Mariko Sato, Senior Researcher Geodetic Survey Division Office  Marine Navigation and Oceanographic Department

17. Air/Space-based measurements: • Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR): LAGEOS, moon • Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) • Doppler Orbit. And Radiopositioning integrated by Satellite (DORIS) • Altimeters • Radar: SeaSAT, GEOSAT, TOPEX/Poseiden, Jason, ERS-I/II, ENVISAT, SRTM • Laser altimeters: airborne LIDAR, space-borne ICESat-I/II

18. Air/Space-based measurements: • Global Navigational Satellite Systems (GNSS): • GPS, GLONASS, Galileo • Satellite Gravity: from SLR to dedicated missions (Ajisai, CHAMP, GRACE, GOCE) • Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar(InSAR) [Include longer sections for most common techniques – GPS, InSAR, GRACE – including error sources, how they work, cost/benefits]

19. Physics of Geodesy: • Gravity • Newton’s 2nd law • Defining the geoid’s shape • Potential Theory: spherical harmonics and satellite gravity

20. Continuum Mechanics • Stress/Strain relationship • Strain: • Infinitesimal vs. large strain • Normal vs. shear • Rheology: • Linear elasticity • Dislocations • Maxwell and Kelvin-Voightviscoelasticity • Timescales of viscoelastic response

21. Ancillary tools: • Simple statistics: • Introduction to least squares analysis • Error analysis • Inverse problems • Delaunay triangulation • Euler’s Theorem for motion of a rotating sphere (plate tectonics) • Coordinate transformations

22. Problems in Geodesy: • Fault strain accumulation and release • Geologic rate =S(Interseismic, Coseismic, transient) • Strain accumulation and release along infinitely long transform faults (Savage-Burford Model) • Inversion for coseismic slip distribution • Detection of transients, slow slip events • Volcanic deformation: Mogi/McTigue deformation from volume changes at depth • Isostasy and post-glacial rebound

23. Problems in Geodesy (cont.): • Coastal and urban subsidence (groundwater and hydrocarbon) • Sea-level rise, and loading from melting glaciers • Measuring glacier ice motions • How does water move between continents, oceans, atmosphere? • Hydrological/atmospheric loading (perhaps loading of elastic halfspace) • Landslides

24. What are the great unknowns? • Earthquake Prediction • Volcanic Eruption Prediction • Future shape of the earth • Sea-level rise

25. Ideas for lab exercises: • Using GPS pools from UNAVCO for lab-based projects (under discussion now) • Download PBO or other data from PBO or local datasets for: • Determining local plate motion • Earthquake locking along a fault • Find and predict transients! • Use global tide-gauge data from sea-level changes

27. Charge: • Identify speaker • Please create two columns for the topics that you find most important for: 1) Intro. Earth Sci. Course ; 2) Intro. Geophysics. • Please add anything you find missing I – Most important II – Intermediate III – least important (for time’s sake, we’ll only read category I for each) Discuss at 3:30

28. Vehicles for delivery of Content: • Electronic: • Web pages 1 • Web +Doc files • Wiki space for instructors (moderated, passwd?) 3 • PDF pamphlets covering individual topics, with - 1 different exposure level (a la cart) ----------- -- Modules: 5 • A single electronic master document : 2 Version control - 6 Ignore: Limited access problem sets and answer keys

29. A corollary product: a guide for big kids? • A possible information brochure about geodesy and its role to society and science aimed at congressional staffers.

30. Possible Funding Opportunities: Cyberlearning: Transforming Education New program that aims to incorporate advances in both technology and understanding of learning to: • better understand how people learn with technology and how technology can be used productively to help people learn… • better use technology for collecting, analyzing, sharing, and managing data to shed light on learning, promoting learning, and designing learning environments • design new technologies for these purposes, and advance understanding of how to use those technologies and integrate them into learning environments so that their potential is fulfilled. • Funding-level ~$1M ($30M program)

31. Possible Funding Opportunities: Transforming Undergd. Education in Sci., Tech., Eng. & Math. (TUES) Used to be CCLI. Diverse funding opportunities within. One possibility: • Creating Learning Materials and Strategies: • Projects developing new learning materials and strategies for improving courses, curriculum, and laboratories • Early stage projects typically carry the development of materials, and assessment of learning, to the stage where judgments can be made about whether further investment in the new materials or approaches is justified. • Several funding levels ($200k – $5M: $36M program)

33. Identifying community leaders! We are looking for volunteers to commit to working on: • Proposals? • pamphlets? • Problem sets? • Online material?