The exercise is used in a Physical Geology Laboratory course (see course profile) that has Physical Geology lecture as a co- or prerequisite.

Discussion of earthquake focus and epicenter is useful during or before the lab, but otherwise there is very little the students need to bring to the activity. The reading assignment at the end of the activity contains many difficult words. I do not provide a dictionary and instead encourage students to ask questions of me and to look at the figures. We discuss this article together after the students have read through it.

This is often the second or third activity in my geology lab. The first activity is typically a tour of the campus and a discussion of the geological history of the area. Student interest in earthquakes is quite high because of our location in southern California, so student learning of these concepts is motivated by their desire to understand why near-time earthquake prediction is still an unattained goal.

• Learn what causes rock to deform or break
• Learn the names of basic geologic structures
• Learn how to visualize geologic structures in 3-D
• Learn about the brittle-ductile transition in the crust

• Running a simple thought experiment and systematizing observations into a set of variables that influence rock mechanics.
• Looking at data and understanding the hypothesis proposed based on the data.

Students learn about the variables governing the brittle and ductile behavior of rocks, the simple geological structures associated with differential stress, and look at and apply real data to evaluate the depth to the brittle-ductile transition in the crust and how that depth can change temporarily due to sudden changes in stress introduced by large earthquakes.

Questions asked of me in class during the activity and their own record of their answers to the questions on the activity provide the feedback as well as future use of these concepts in later activities.

http://seismo.berkeley.edu/annual_report/