Resources for Teaching Geochemistry

Content for Faculty and Students

Geochemical Instrumentation and Analysis

This project provides an on-line tutorial of the analytical techniques commonly used to characterize geological materials. The goal is to help novices (such as students or scientists working out of their field) to gain an understanding of mineralogical, petrological and geochemical analytical techniques. This module covers X-ray crystallography, electron microbeam, elemental analysis, mass spectrometers and more. See the entire list of techniques covered on this site.

Teaching Phase Equilibria

This web-based learning resource provides a comprehensive introduction to heterogeneous phase equilibria in the geosciences. This site contains the essential background information needed to understand phase equilibria, links to related resources, examples of worked problems, and teaching activities.

Some of the highlights of this module include:

Descriptions, definitions and worked examples of standard topics like the Clapeyron Equation or deriving and balancing metamorphic reactions
Phase diagrams for teaching, which contains pdf files of common phase diagrams, plus animated versions that take students step-by-step through the reactions
User-friendly tutorials for modern thermodynamic modeling programs such as ThermoCalc, MELTS, TWQ and Perplex.

Resources for the classroom, laboratory, and field

The collections below are built by suggestions, ideas and submissions from faculty across the country. We are always looking for more good stuff, so please contribute materials, resources, or URLs of your favorite geochemistry web sites.

Internet Resources useful for teaching geochemistry, organized by topics and fully searchable.
Activities and assignments ready to use in the classroom. Do you have a favorite lab exercise, computer activity or other type of teaching material? If so, please contribute your favorite teaching activities.
Visualizations that can be helpful in teaching concepts related to Geochemistry.
Join the email list of geochemistry faculty, or read the email list achives.

Chemically zoned allanite by Kurt Hollocher

Chemically zoned allanite, photo courtesy Kurt Hollocher.

Check out the April 2007 volume of Elements Magazine on teaching mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry. To complement this volume, we have developed the Elements Bibliography that includes an extensive collection of articles, teaching activities, on-line resources, and related information on the scholarship of teaching.

Mineralogy-petrology-geochemistry community discussion.

Visit the discussion board to submit your recommendations to identify the most significant contributions made in these fields to the geosciences, the larger scientific enterprise and to society. Post a new topic or add to existing topics to create a threaded archive to demonstrate the relevance, importance and centrality of mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry to the geosciences and beyond.

2005 Teaching Geochemistry Workshop

A workshop on teaching undergraduate geochemistry was held May 18-20, 2005 at the University of Idaho in Moscow, ID. This workshop preceded the 2005 Annual Goldschmidt Conference. Please visit the Teaching Geochemistry workshop home page for more information and to see the PowerPoint presentations that were given at the workshop.

Geochemical Instrument Registry

This database of geochemical equipment serves two functions. If your department has instruments that could be used to run samples for others' research, then you may list your instruments here. If you are seeking access to instruments for your work, then you can use the registry to find instruments that are available for use. Go to the instrument registry.