Emma Rainforth

Ramapo College of New Jersey

• Undergraduate (300-level) required course in paleontology for environmental science majors and elective for biology majors. The course is oriented towards 'environmental and ecosystem change'.
  
• Students will have already had 200-level ecology (which has 100-level biology as a prereq). 100-level geology is recommended but not required (the environmental science majors are likely to have taken geology already; biology majors will not).
  

Identification of sedimentary rocks and structures.

This is the first field lab and the first lab where fossil groups are explored. In class, students have had an overview of the Precambrian history of life. It is an introduction to reconstructing paleoenvironments, which is built upon in the following two field labs.

• Students will apply the principle of superposition, and identify lithologies, sedimentary structures and fossils, in order to reconstruct the physical environments represented in this succession.
• Students will analyze the succession to determine how environments were changing through time
• Students will apply the principle of initial horizontality, and identify the Quaternary (glacial) processes that acted upon these strata, in order to describe the post-depositional history of the rocks represented in this outcrop.

Students will collect and interpret data (lithologies, sedimentary structures, rock attitude) in order to reconstruct the geologic history of the site.

• Students will work collaboratively throughout the field trip.
  
• Students who have not had an introductory geology class may observe features but be unable to identify or interpret them; students who have had introductory geology will act as teachers to the other students in the class.
  
• Students will organize their field observations and site interpretations into a formal written report
• Students will gain practice making detailed field observations, and using prior knowledge and first principles to interpret their observations.

By this point in the semester students have had a refresher of basic geologic principles (Steno's laws) and depositional environments. On this trip students explore a roche moutonnee that has been cut in half by a road exposing the tilted strata in cross-section. The top surface (and others) are stromatolitic. Students are set loose on the outcrop with no prior information about the outcrop or geologic setting, and make observations at both large and small scales. We then walk the outcrop as a group to ensure all features are observed. Students then ascertain the variation in depositional environments over time, as well as the post-depositional history of the outcrop.

Students submit a written report. A rubric is used (and is provided to students along with the report instructions so that they know how to organize their report).