Bruce Railsback will teach a course on Alpine and Glacial Geology (EES 2096) in the University of New Orleans-Innsbruck study-abroad summer program in Summer 2008. The course will cover mountain-building processes and the world's different kinds of mountains and mountain ranges. Naturally, we look in some detail at the geology of the Alps. The course also covers glaciers, glaciation, glacial deposits, glaciated landscapes, and earth's glacial history. Railsback taught the course previously in 1997, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2007.
The course is intended as a very real-world experience. There are of course lectures on basic geology, tectonic processes that generate moutains, glaciation, and alpine ecology. However, there are also several afternoon field trips. On those trips we go up into the mountains around Innsbruck or to glacial deposits in the Inn Valley. We also have a one day-long bus trip to an active glacier above Obergurgl in the Ötztal Alps. The Obergurgl Trip is one of the highlights of the summer for most participants. The field trips require some walking and occasionally a little scrambling over rough terrain, but they definitely are not rugged climbing trips. It may be reassuring to know that the instructor himself is something of an acrophobe.
Innsbruck and the Austrian Land of Tirol are naturally a great place for this course. Innsbruck is in the Inn River Valley, where the Sill River coming down from the Brenner Pass joins the Inn. Just to the north of the Inn Valley are the Limestone Alps or Calcareous Alps; just to the south of the Inn Valley are the Metamorphic Alps.
The photo at upper left shows two of Innsbruck's landmarks, the Inn River bridge from which the city took its name and the Jakobsdom (or Cathedral of St. Jacob). About halfway up the left tower of the cathedral, you'll see the top of a sloping terrace that extends across much of the slide. That terrace is made of glacially-related sediments that we explore in our field trips. Further back and higher in the backgound are the Limestone Alps themselves, into which we make a field trip via the Hungerburg cable car.
The course has no prerequisites and is taught in English to mostly, if not entirely, American students. We begin by covering enough basic geology about minerals, rocks, and geologic structures that we can understand each other. Then we cover plate-tectonics and mountain-building processes, glaciers, and glaciation, mass wasting, and alpine ecology. A solid high-school science background and/or some college science courses, an interest in and willingness to learn about the mountains, and a sturdy pair of shoes can get anyone through the course in good form.
Because both Railsback and his students have been frustrated at the lack of textbook appropriate for the course, he has generated a photocopy-and-bind textbook on Alpine and Glacial Geology for the course. It was used for the first time in the summer of 2007, and the second edition will be used in 2008.
There is also a Physical Geology course (EES 1000) in the UNO-Innsbruck program. As taught by Railsback, it is more classroom-oriented than field-oriented, and it covers a more traditional slate of geological topics, rather than specializing in alpine and glacial geology. The afternoon field trips for the Alpine and Glacial course are optional for students taking the Physical Geology course.
