An abrupt global climate change event in Earth history- Evidence from the ocean
Kevin Theissen, University of St. Thomas (MN)
Students work in pairs to explore and synthesize key paleoceanographic evidence for the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)as found in marine sediment cores collected and analyzed during Ocean Drilling Program ...

Tell Me About the Forest (Dead Can Dance)
Robert Gastaldo, Colby College
Most students entering university have some experience with trees growing in a forest ecology. Most student perspectives are that of a northern hemisphere chauvinist. Several other forest structures now exist but ...

An Introduction to Seismic Interpretation Using Open Source Software (OpendTect)
Jeannette Wolak Luna, Tennessee Technological University
This is a series of three lab exercises integrating seismic interpretation and sedimentary geology. Each lab uses freely available software from dGB Earth Sciences, OpendTect. The seismic volume is the F3 Block in ...

Introduction to well logs for use in the petroleum industry
Walter Borowski, Eastern Kentucky University
This exercise uses a suite of well logs (aka electric logs) to interpret lithology within a stratigraphic section and to determine fluid content within borehole rocks.

Experiments with particle settling
Lonnie Leithold, North Carolina State University
In this activity, students experiment with the effects of Reynolds numbers (viscosity), particle shape, and particle concentration (flocculation) on settling velocity.

Building a Facies Model
William W. Little, Brigham Young University-Idaho
Facies models are often abstract and difficult for undergraduate students to fully understand. As a result, they tend to memorize idealized diagrams from text books that can be reproduced for an exam, then ...

Lag to peak with a stream table
Amanda Schmidt, Oberlin College
Students use a small stream table in groups to investigate how channel form determines the shape of the hydrograph (including lag to peak). They use three channels: no channel (just sediment filling the table), a ...

Fluvial Transport of Bones Lab Exercise
Thomas Evans, Western Washington University
The lab starts with a short lecture on the scientific method, after which students observe the results of a flume run that includes skeletal clasts. They form hypotheses about how bone clasts (or any clast for that ...

Outcrop Documentation Lab Exercise
Thomas Evans, Western Washington University
Stratigraphy students are tasked with documenting an outcrop (sketches, photographs, and rock descriptions) and providing a three panel display of the results. Students work on the lab in class and receive direct ...

Meander Migration in the Amazon Basin
Les Hasbargen, SUNY College at Oneonta
This activity is targeted at introductory to upper division undergraduate courses in geomorphology or Earth system science. Students view time series animation of satellite imagery of part of the Amazon River basin ...