GEOL 8180 is a sandstone petrology course taught by Bruce Railsback at the University of Georgia. It's offered every other year, generally in alternation with GEOL 8200, a carbonate petrology course. The course was taught in 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Course outline:
     Sandstone Nomenclature and Basic Characteristics
     Provenance of Sands
     Petroleum Geology (an optional but popular section)
     Diagenesis of Sandstones
     Porosity and Permeability of Sands and Sandstones

Course format varies greatly from day to day. Sometimes we discuss previously-distributed lecture notes, sometimes students report on papers from the literature, sometimes we work on group projects, sometimes we have lab sessions with microscopes, and sometimes the students report on topics or sandstones that they've investigated. Railsback rarely lectures in this class; instead, he distributes his lecture notes beforehand and the class meeting consists of students asking questions about the notes. In 1998 there were 87 pages of lecture notes distributed, as well as a 16-page bibliography and a 3-page syllabus.

(left) Crossed-polars transmitted-light photomicrograph of a feldspar grain and overgrowth amidst later carbonate cements in a Cambro-Ordovician sandstone from northeast Iowa. This is from one of the thin sections that we examine in the laboratory portion of the course.  

GEOL 8180 Bibliography Part I: A-L.
GEOL 8180 Bibliography Part II: M-Z.

A page on scientific writing for Labs 2 and 3.
A page on scientific editing for Labs 2 and 3.

Some Links to sandstone images:

SEM images of the Silurian Clinch Sandstone from a former GEOL 8180 class project.
A USGS image-rich multi-page site on the Sussex Sandstone, including a section on Sussex diagenesis.
A nice web page about sandstones on Bornholm, a Danish island - with photomicrographs!.
Pictures and descriptions of a quartz arenite and an arkose.
British Geological Survey photomicrographs of not-too-typical sandstones and other sedimentary rocks.
An SEM photomicrograph of goethite cement in a sandstone.
Cathodoluminescence images of fractured sandstones.
An SEM photomicrograph of diagenetic quartz, kaolinite, and chlorite in a sandstone.
An SEM photomicrograph of authigenic illite in a sandstone.
A photomicrograph of quartz overgrowths in the Potsdam Sandstone - but don't take the caption too seriously.

To Railsback's main page
To the UGA Geology Home Page
email to Railsback at rlsbk@gly.uga.edu