Determining Earthquake Probability and Recurrence from Past Seismic Events part of Activity Collection
A homework/classroom activity where students collect historical earthquake information and use it to forecast the probability of larger earthquakes.

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Rate of Lava Flow part of 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 ...

Global Phosphorus Cycle part of Activity Collection
Students create and modify a STELLA model of the global phosphorus cycle to test a number of scenarios.

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Depth of Buried Metamorphic Rock part of Activity Collection
Question In many high-grade metamorphic belts around the world, rocks were buried 20-30 km beneath the surface during deformation and metamorphism. How deep is that relative to the cruising altitude of a typical ...

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Weight of Gold part of 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 ...

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Percentage of Copper in Ore part of 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 ...

BotEC: The San Andreas Fault's Rate of Movement part of Activity Collection
Question: The San Andrea is an active fault zone, marked by frequent earthquake activity. The crust southwest of this strike-slip fault (including Los Angeles) is sliding to the northwest relative to the other ...

BotEC: The Grand Canyon's Rate of Erosion part of Activity Collection
Question: Some geologic processes, like volcanism and earthquakes, occur intermittently but can cause significant and sometimes catastrophic change very quickly. Others, like weathering, act continuously but ...

Investigating dimensions of the solar system part of Activity Collection
Planetary data are used to investigate and evaluate the Nebular Hypothesis.

Measuring specific gravity to answer questions about subduction. part of Activity Collection
Use a quadruple beam balance to measure the specific gravity of the minerals and rocks that are common in oceanic and continental lithosphere. The results of the calculations are tied to numerous concepts described in previous lectures.