University of Georgia - Department of Geology |
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Course news:
Exam 2 has been graded and will be or was returned on Tuesday, October 16. The distribution of recorded grades is shown below.
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Your instructor forgot to stop for the Yoruba creation story (CS 10) on Thursday, September 22. It will be covered as the first item of business on Tuesday, September 27, 2011. CS 11 remains on the docket for the end of the period.
Exam 1 has been graded and will be or was returned on Tuesday, September 20. The distribution of recorded grades is shown below. There is a page about Question 15.
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The syllabus for this section of GEOL 1122 is now available as a PDF.
Histograms of grades from last year's two midterm exams are shown below, solely for historical interest.
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Geology majors, and anyone else, may be interested to know that Railsback will give a talk on The Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions on Tuesday, August 16, at 3:30 pm in Room 200A GG. Railsback created a new and different periodic table for geologists and, more generally, Earth scientists, that was published in 2003 and since has gone on to repeated re-release and translation. He gives this ready-for-the-road fifty-minute talk each fall for new students. GEOL 1122 students are no way required to attend, but they are welcome to do so if they like.
Persons withdrawing before the midterm withdrawal deadline will be given WPs, not WFs.
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| Schedule for Railsback's GEOL 1122 for Fall 2010 | |||
| Lxr | Date | Topic or Business | Reading* |
| Part I. Basic Materials in Historical Geology | |||
| 1 | 8/16/11 | Introduction; Minerals | Syllabus (read it!); 31-35, Introduction to GEOL 1122; Basics of geology; More basics of geology; Trends in silicate minerals |
| 2 | 8/18/11 | Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks | 35-37; 44-46; Metamorphic Rocks figure; CS #1 |
| 3 | 8/23/11 | Sedimentary Rocks, and Fossils | 8-10; 142-147; 37-44; 99-102 [106-123]; 47-53; Weathering-to-lithification; Steno's Principles; Unconformities |
| 4 | 8/25/11 | Structural Geology & Plate Tectonics | 178; 187-193; 202-204; Structural Geology diagram; Divergent plate boundaries sketches;
Convergent plate boundaries sketches |
| Part II. Basic Principles and Geologic Time | |||
| 5 | 8/30/11 | Goals and Theories | "What is Science?"; A quick assignment; CS #4 |
| 6 | 9/01/11 | Working Through Time | 3-5; CS #6 |
| 7 | 9/06/11 | Correlative and Relative Dating | 142-144; A stratigraphic diagram, Lecture cross-sections 1, 2, 3, and 4, Practice cross-sections and their key; CS #7 |
| 8 | 9/08/11 | Absolute Dating | 137-139; [28-29 on isotopes]; [Atoms, Isotopes]; Half-lives; A table of parents and daughters; CS #3 |
| 9 | 9/13/11 | Age of the Earth & Geologic Time Scales | 136-137; 10-12; 145-147; Lead isotope diagram |
| - | 9/15/11 | Exam I | - - |
| Part III. Biological Evolution of the Earth | |||
| 10 | 9/20/11 | Explanations of Biological Evolution | 152-158; Modern Example 1; Modern Example 2; Modern Example 3; [Modern human evolution] Artificial Selection 1; Artificial Selection 2 Artificial Selection 3 |
| 11 | 9/22/11 | Mechanics of Biological Evolution | 158-172; WWW Life ; CS #10 |
| 12 | 9/27/11 | Precambrian Life | 256-261; 269-275; Cells, [Prokaryotes], Cellular Evolution (Small printer-friendly version); Intra-cellular symbiosis; An endosymbiotic experiment; Slime Molds; Evolution of multicellularity; A summary of early evolution; CS #11 |
| 13 | 9/29/11 | Evolution of Vertebrates I | 70-73; 321-325; 327-330; 351-356; Chordate Evolution (jpg) or Chordate Evolution (pdf) |
| 14 | 10/04/11 | Evolution of Vertebrates II | 382-390 (incl. ESS 16-1); CS #13 |
| 15 | 10/06/11 | Evolution of Vertebrates III | 379-380; 411-414; ESS 17-1 |
| 16 | 10/11/11 | Evolution of Mammals & Hominids | 434-437; 484-493; Hominid Cranial Sizes ; Primate Brain Structure; Primate Evolution jpeg or pdf ; A short essay |
| - | 10/13/11 | Exam II | |
| Part IV. Environmental Evolution of the Earth | |||
| 17 | 10/18/11 | The Origin of the Universe | 244-247; "In Defense of the Big Bang"; ["Spectra, Absorption, and the Red Shift"]; ["Doppler Effect & Red Shift"]; ["Gravitational Lensing"]; ["Further Evidence"]; |
| 18 | 10/20/11 | Evolution of the Earth | 247-256; 183-184; 284-286; 362-364; maps in cover and on 265, 289, 305, 343, 357, 358, 375, 391, 405, 415, 431, & 441; WWW: "The Fall Line" and "The Fall Line in Georgia"; Phanerozoic tectonic events in eastern North America. CS #14 and 15 |
| 19 | 10/25/11 | The Evolution of the Ocean & Atmosphere | 249; 261; 275-280; 219-229; Phanerozoic environmental time line as pdf or jpeg; [Bob Berner's box models]; [Soil carbonate and ancient PCO2] [Boron and ancient PCO2]; CS #16 |
| 20 | 10/27/11 | Phanerozoic Sea Level and Climate | 144-147; "Possible causes of sea-level change" |
| 21 | 11/01/11 | The Cretaceous and Cenozoic | 440-443 [232-234 on isotopes] Isotopes; Cenozoic O isotope records; ["O Isotopes", Glaciers]; CS #12 |
| 22 | 11/03/11 | Quaternary Glaciation | 104-106; 461-470; [Glaciers]; Pulse of Pleistocene, a CO2 record |
| 23 | 11/08/11 | The Last 120,000 Years | 507-513; Last 4 my, Last 120 ka, Later Quaternary events, Holocene events, "Changing the World" |
| 24 | 11/10/11 | Holocene I - Greenhouse effect & global warming | Lecture 23 outline; WWW pages on carbon dioxide |
| 25 | 11/15/11 | Holocene II - Some 20th-21st Century Environmental Issues | 503-507; 514-519; Web pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, |
| 26 | 11/17/11 | The Holocene III - Changing ecologies | Lecture Illustration #1 , #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, and #8; CS #20 . |
| 27 | 11/29/11 | The Holocene IV - Alternatives for the Late Holocene | Human lifestyles; Lifestyle effects; US energy consumption; World energy consumption; Human footprint data. |
| 28 | 12/01/11 | Summary and Review | The Land Ethic Revisited; A time line; Primate brain volumes revisited |
| - | 12/06/11 | Friday | UGA follows a Friday schedule on this Tuesday. |
| - | 12/13/11 | Final Exam 8:00am-11:00am Room 200A GG | - - |
*Notes regarding readings:
All readings are in Stanley's Earth System History (3rd edn), except for web pages, which are labeled "WWW", and for numbers labeled "CS", which are nunbers for stories in Creation Stories from around the World.
Pages in brackets are not required reading, and they will not be used to generate exam questions. They are suggested reading that may make lecture material easier to understand.
Reading assignments do not include "Earth System Shift" ("ESS") inserts unless specifically noted.
Reading assignments include all figures to which reference is made, even if the figures fall outside the page range indicated.
GEOL 1122 webpages:
How to do better in GEOL 1122 or How to study for college exams.
A little bit of advice for first-semester freshmen.
A letter that student athletes can print out and use to request that their grades by reported to an advisor in the athletic program. After filling all the blanks, they should give the letter to Dr. Railsback.
Past grade distributions in Railsback's GEOL 1122 lecture sections.
Questions asked frequently or recently by 1122 students, and the answers to those questions.
Part 1 of a glossary of terms used in Railsback's lectures in GEOL 1122.
Part 2 of a glossary of terms used in Railsback's lectures in GEOL 1122.
There's no longer a lecture on evolution of plants, but for persons trying to find one of the readings, here's the link to An Ode to Plants.
A table of possible course grades given certain Exam 1 grades.
The essay questions for, and other information on, this year's final exam.
Railsback's GEOL 1122 Exam 1 from 2010.
Railsback's GEOL 1122 Exam 2 from 2010.
Railsback's GEOL 1122 Exam 3 from 2010.
Email to Railsback (rlsbk@gly.uga.edu)
Railsback's main web page
UGA Geology Department web page
