UGA-Geology GEOL 3030

University of Georgia Department of Geology

GEOL 3030 - Elementary Oceanography

GEOL 3030 is an introduction to . . .

Marine Geology & Plate Tectonics: the geography & geology of the ocean basins,

Physical Oceanography: the how and why of ocean currents,waves, & tides,

Biological Oceanography: life in the sea & marine ecology,

Chemical Oceanography (just a brief introduction)

Paleoceanography: the oceans of the past (and perhaps the future).

GEOL 3030 meets the UGA environmental literacy requirement. See our GEOL 3030 course description page for a description of the course, its requirements, its scope, its target population, etc.. That page is intended for students interested in taking the course.

This page provides day-to-day course information as needed and links to WWW sites useful to the course.

This page was last updated on May 6, 2009, to add news about the final exam and course grades.

News

The final exam has been graded and course grades have been reported to the Registrar. The distribution of course grades can be found on the GEOL 3030 course description page.

Exercise 8 has now been graded, and the graded submissions are now in the boxes outside Room 200A GG. Of the 51 graded submissions, the high score was 100, the low (after a later penalty) was 43, and the mean was 77.2. Of 52 total submissions, 10 were late, and all of the late submissions were by male sudents.

Exercise 7 has been graded. Of the 47 submissions by 10:30 am on April 24, the high score was 99 (two of them), the low score was 60, and the average was 84.3.

Exercise 6 has been graded. Thanks to a ridiculously generous grading scheme, even the large number of late submissions could only drag the average of 51 scores down to 87.4. The high score was 100 and the low score was 58. Students' averages for the six exercises completed thus far range from 0.0 to 95.8, with an average average of 72.3.

Exam II has been graded and will be handed back at the end of class on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. The distribution of scores is shown below. Scheduling of the make-up exam will take place on Wednesday, April 15, 2009, in a meeting at the end of class. Anyone wishing to take the make-up exam must justify doing so before 11:00 am that day and must be present at that meeting unless absent for reasons that justify missing an exam.

Three points were added to the score for every submitted Exercise 5 to account for a systematic problem that may have affected the scores as originally marked. Thus the recorded score is now three points more than the score marked on the returned exercise.

The are now illustrations of the nitrogen, phosphorous, silicon, and iron nutrient cycles available as resources to supplement our previous lectures on nutrients.

Exercise 5 has been graded and was handed back on Wednesday, March 25, 2009. Among the 47 graded submissions from the 56 students presently enrolled, the high score was 97 (three of them), the low was 68, and the mean was 85.3, despite numerous deductions for late submission.

Exercise 4 has been graded and was handed back on Friday, March 20, 2009. Among the 47 graded submissions from the 60 students presently enrolled, the high score was 100 (two of them), the low was 61, and the mean was 89.1.

If you received a grade of 71 on Exercise 2 or 3, please send an email message saying so.

Exercise 4, originally due at the beginning of class on Monday, March 2, 2009, will in light of the University's closure be due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, March 4, 2009.

Exam 1 has been graded and will be handed back at the end of class on Wednesday, February 18, 2009. The distribution of scores is shown below. Scheduling of the make-up exam will take place on Wednesday, February 18, 2009, in a meeting at the end of class. Anyone wishing to take the make-up exam must justify doing so before 11:00 am that day and must be present at that meeting unless absent for reasons that justify missing an exam.

Exercise 3 has been graded and will be handed back on Friday, February 13, at the beginning of class. Of the exercises handed in by the end of class on Wednesday, February 11, the high score was 96 (there were five of them), the low score was 52, and the mean of the 52 scores of graded exercises was 83.0. Seven students have handed in neither Exercise 1, Exercise 2, nor Exercise 3.

Exercise 2 has been graded and will be handed back on Friday, February 13, at the beginning of class. The high grade was 99, the low grade was 48, and the mean of 54 graded exercises was 81.3.

Exercise 3 has been handed out and will be due on Wednesday, February 11. It will be graded by, and handed back on, Friday, February 13, at the beginning of class, and so no late submissions will be accepted after 12:15 on Friday, February 13.

Exercise 2 will be due on Friday, February 6, 2009.

Exercise 1 will be handed back on Friday, February 6, 2009. The high score was 99 (there were two of them), the low was 47, and the mean of the 54 scores of graded exercises was 76.2.

Previous news:

Exercise 1 will be / was handed out on Friday, January 23, and it will be due on Friday, January 30.

Some of the illustrations used to discuss plate tectonics are on a webpage called Dynamic Plate Tectonics. We used the first two diagrams there, but the others may be of interest too.

You can download a pdf copy of the syllabus for 2009.

On Monday, January 5, 2009, the UGA Bookstore finally ordered the textbook requested last fall. Bookstore managment says that the book, Thurman and Trujillo's Introductory Oceanography (10th edn.) will be in on Thursday, January 8, 2009.

The histograms showing the distribution of grades for last year's Exams I and II are included below solely as an illustration of past performance.

Links to GEOL 3030 web pages:

Answers to questions recently or frequently asked about GEOL 3030.
Essay questions for the GEOL 3030 final exam.

Some of the illustrations used to discuss plate tectonics are on a webpage called Dynamic Plate Tectonics.

An animation of the Coriolis Effect.

Supplememtary reading about ocean circulation. The first four pages (pp. 47-50) are the main reason for providing this reading for those students wanting a broader and more modern view of ocean circulation. The "WOCE" to which the author refers is the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, a huge data-collection effort in the 1990s that was the subject of the entire book from which the reading is taken.

The eWOCE Gallery at which you can view many profiles of temperature, salinity, O₂, PO₄, SiO₂, and NO₃ through the oceans. These summarize data collected by WOCE, the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, and are the most up-to-date picture of ocean circulation.

A table showing the conceptual linkage of atmospheric circulation, ocean circulation, and plate tectonics.

An explanation of the interaction of ocean currents, tides, and waves.

Animations of the motions of the tides, a website prepared expressly for GEOL 3030.

GEOL 3030 exams from Spring 2008:
Exam I
Exam II
Exam III (the final exam)

GEOL 3030 exercise material:

An explanation of bathymetric maps for Exercise 1.
An explanation of bathymetric profiles for Exercise 1.

The map of seafloor ages for Exercise 2.
Supplementary instructions about measuring spreading rate for the Plate Tectonics exercise (Exercise 2).
Supplementary instructions for contouring the bathymetric map for the Plate Tectonics exercise (Exercise 2).
An explanation of bathymetric maps, made for Exercise 1 but still useful for Exercise 2 as well.

Everything that you need for Exercise 3 on Ocean Circulation should be in your lecture notes.

First considerations for getting started on the Tsunami Travel Time exercise (Exercise 4).
More thoughts on the heart of the Tsunami Travel Time exercise.
Possible use of a spreadsheet for the Tsunami Travel Time exercise.
An Excel spreadsheet for people who have never used a spreadsheet.
A suggestion in thinking about whether the tsunami will cause the sea to first advance, or first retreat, at a given destination..

Help finding locations on the map for the Georgia Tides exercise (Exercise 5).
Suggestions regarding the questions for the Georgia Tides exercise.

Supplementary instructions about plotting data in the Marine Biology exercise (Exercise 6).
A suggestion for Question 2 of Part 1 of the Marine Biology exercise.

Suggestions for the Marine Sediments exercise (Exercise 7).