Angle of Repose part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Eric Baer, Highline Community College
A student activity to determine the angle of repose and what factors determine the angle of repose.

Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations: Rate of Lava Flow part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Barb Tewksbury, Hamilton College
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: Depth of Buried Metamorphic Rock part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Barb Tewksbury, Hamilton College
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: Percentage of Copper in Ore part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Barb Tewksbury, Hamilton College
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: Weight of Gold part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Barb Tewksbury, Hamilton College
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 ...

BotEC: The San Andreas Fault's Rate of Movement part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Peter Kresan
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 Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Peter Kresan
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 ...

GEOLogic: Lagerstatten and Unique Fossils part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
Students are asked to match up several unique fossils with the site and location where it was found and it's geologic age.

GEOLogic: Terrestrial and Jovian Planets part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
In this two-part example, students are given clues about properties about the terrestrial and Jovian planets respectively and asked to match up the planet with the correct equatorial radius, mean orbital velocity, and period of rotation.

GEOLogic: The Big Five Mass Extinctions part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Laura Guertin, Penn State Brandywine
Students are asked to match up the five largest mass extinction events with their relative dates, approximate duration, and severity (percentage of species that became extinct) based on clues given from various perspectives.