Exercise 10: Plate Boundaries in the Woodlark Basin Region part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary Students use a variety of data sets (bathy DEMs, SRTM DEMS, earthquake data, volcano data, ocean floor ages, and motion vectors) to 1) determine the locations ...
GIS Resource Portfolio part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary In this semester-long project, students develop a GIS resource portfolio that will be useful to them for future GIS tasks. You might also be interested in our ...
Exercise 3: Reclassifying the New York State Geologic Map part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary Students download and merge the multiple sheets of the New York State Geologic Map together and reclassify units to create an attractive and legible version of ...
GIS course final project part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary Final independent GIS analysis designed and carried out by the student; once the analysis is complete, each student develops an assignment or activity based on ...
Exercise 5: Choropleth Map of the Happiest States part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary Students create choropleth maps by creating data tables in Excel and merging them with existing shapefiles for US states; they also evaluate the effectiveness ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Rate of Lava Flow part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question In 1983, an eruption began at Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii that has proved to be the largest and longest-lived eruption since records began in 1823. Lava has poured out of the volcano at an average rate of ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Weight of Gold part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Let's suppose that you have a shoe box full of water (the box is waterproof, of course). The shoe box weighs about 9 kg (19.8 pounds). Suppose you emptied the box and filled it completely with rock ...
Structural Control of Giant Rock Avalanches in Argentina part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:Activities
Students analyze the influence of bedrock structures on the locations of giant rock avalanches in Argentina. Activity is available in two versions: 1) short case example that can be used as an in-class activity or ...
Fold Analysis Challenge part of GEODE:GEODE Teaching Resources
The Fold Analysis Challenge (FAC) uses Google Earth and a customized Google Earth interface to help students visualize the orientations of eroded dipping sedimentary layers and to visualize the geometries of folds ...
Reservoir-induced seismicity at Nurek Reservoir in Tajikistan: case example part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:Structure, Geophysics, and Tectonics 2012:Activities
Students use Google Earth to interpret aspects of the general bedrock geology and tectonic setting of the area around Nurek Reservoir in Tajikistan, evaluate reservoir induced seismicity associated with the ...
Threat of Flank Collapse at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii: Case Example part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:Structure, Geophysics, and Tectonics 2012:Activities
Students evaluate fault and earthquake data plus focal mechanism solutions, and develop a picture of on-going deformation of the south flank of Kilauea Volcano that might one day transition to catastrophic flank ...
Crandall Canyon Mine Collapse, Utah: Case Example part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:Structure, Geophysics, and Tectonics 2012:Activities
Students evaluate whether pillar failure and collapse caused ground shaking or whether an earthquake caused pillar failure and mine collapse in the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse in 2007.
Exercise 10: Egypt remote sensing part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary In this set of activities, students gain experience in creating multiband image composites and layering multiple raster data sets (DEM and hillshade, geologic ...
Exercise 6: Cartography part of GIS and Remote Sensing:Activities2
Barbara and David Tewksbury, Hamilton College Summary In the first part of the exercise, students examine a variety of ArcMaps to work out what data sets and techniques were used and to develop a list of the ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Eruption Rates part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Over the last 70 million years or so, the Hawaiian Hot Spot has been pumping out lava, a total of about 775,000 km3 worth. As the Pacific Plate has moved over the hot spot, the volcanic peaks and plateaus ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Percentage of Copper in Ore part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Suppose that you are building a new house. It will take about 90 kg (198 pounds) of copper to do the electrical wiring. In order to get the copper in the first place, someone needs to mine solid rock that ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Age of the Earth part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question The Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. Let's try to get a perspective on how long that really is. Suppose that you decided to count to 4.6 billion and that you counted 1 number every second. How ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Size of Olympus Mons part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question A picture-perfect strato-volcano such as Fujiyama in Japan is what comes to mind when most people think of a volcano. Mt. Fuji is an imposing volcanic construct, rising from nearly sea level to a summit at ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Collision with Asteroid part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question We have located an asteroid heading directly for the Earth. It is now 1.6 million km away from the Earth, about 4 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The asteroid is travelling at 25 km/second. ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Approaching Asteroid part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question If asteroids careen through the solar system at 25 km/second, how far away would we have to detect one in order to have a year's notice to prepare for an impact, as was portrayed in the movie Deep ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Orbital Distance Scale part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Let's imagine a scale model of the Earth with an orbiting Space Shuttle. Suppose that the Earth is the size of a basketball. How far above the basketball does the Shuttle orbit?
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: The Scale of the Atmosphere part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Let's imagine a scale model of the Earth and use a basketball to represent the Earth. Now, let's get ourselves some packages of fruit roll-ups and start covering the basketball with layers of ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Velocity of Asteroids part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Asteroids zip through space at truly astounding velocities. Let's try to put that into perspective. It took the Apollo astronauts about 3 days to travel from the Earth to the Moon. a) If you could ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Communication with Mars part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Suppose you were living in a Mars colony, and you wanted to call home to your parents on Earth. You say, "Hello! How are you?" How long do you have to wait until you hear them say, ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Volume of the Earth and Sun part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Suppose you and your friends wanted to make a scale model of the Earth and the Sun. You start by cutting a one-inch cube of Play-Doh to represent the volume of the Earth. - How many one-inch Play-Doh cubes ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Earth History Timeline part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question The Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. Let's try to get a perspective on how long that really is. A roll of good quality toilet paper has 1000 squares. If the roll of toilet paper represents the ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Scale of the Himalayas part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Let's imagine a scale model of the Earth, and let's imagine that the Earth is the size of a basketball. Suppose that you wanted to build the Himalayas to scale on the surface of the basketball. ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Size of KT Meteorite part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question About 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, a meteorite estimated to have been about 10 km in diameter slammed into the Earth. Let's put the size of this cosmic cannonball into ...
Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Spacecraft Acceleration part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Question Suppose someone offered you a ride to the nearest star in a new spacecraft that could travel at half the speed of light, or about 150,000 km/second. In order to reach such a cruising speed, you and the ...