Virtual Field Trip to Laki Fissure part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
This is a virtual field trip to Iceland's Laki Fissure, which explores the 1783 eruption as a type example of a large historical lava flow eruption that had a significant impact on the local human population ...

Building a Facies Model part of Sedimentary Geology:Sedimentology, Geomorphology, and Paleontology 2014:Activities
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 ...

Geologic Mapping on Mars part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
This activity consists of several mapping components exploring the JMARS software and completing detailed geologic maps and cross sections on Mars.

What are Volcanic Hazards? part of Videos:Video Gallery
In this video we will describe the most common types of volcanic hazards associated with a volcanic eruption. We begin by considering the threat of an eruption from a Cascade Range volcano for citizens of Portland and Seattle. These are examples of composite volcanoes. Eruptions of these types of volcanoes produce tephra, lahars, pyroclastic flows and lava. Tephra represents the debris blasted into the air and can range in size from tiny glass shards to large blocks blasted out of the volcanic cone. When tephra combines with water it forms lahars that can transport all sizes of debris. Fast moving, toxic pyroclastic flows are among the most dangerous volcanic hazards. Lava plays a relatively modest role in eruptions of composite volcanoes but is a common product of shield volcanoes such as those in Hawaii.

Sandy Hollow Virtual Field Geology Exercise part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
This is a Google Earth based virtual field exercise focused on Sandy Hollow, near Block Mountain and McCartney Mountain in southwest Montana. This is a classic field locality in the Montana portion of the Sevier ...

Seismology with smart phones and Raspberry Shake geophone systems part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
This activity introduces students to the concept of vibration recording and the monitoring of seismic shaking. The basic concept is to use motion-sensing devices to understand the character of vibrations and ...

Glacial Landforms part of Videos:Video Gallery
In this video we review the principal landforms created by glacial erosion (cirques, arêtes, striations, U-shaped valleys, fjords) and deposition (till, moraine, drumlins, eskers, kettle lakes, outwash plain, erratics). We discuss how a pair of glacial erosion processes - plucking, abrasion - work to break down rocks and modify the landscape. We compare and contrast glacial deposits made up of an unsorted mix of clay, sand and boulders and those that have been generated by running water. Finally, we start and finish the video by trying to figure out how a giant boulder ended up jammed in among the trees in Yellowstone National Park. The video ends with a short review quiz that asks you to identify four images of different landforms.

Virtual Landscapes Geological Mapping part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
A virtual landscape is a virtual reality environment designed to develop geologic mapping and field skills. They include natural landscapes where the geology can be mapped, and interactive 3D block models of ...

Introduction to Terrestrial Laser Scanning part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
In this assignment, students analyze terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) data in a similar manner as done previously with structure from motion (SfM) data, earlier in the course. Students compare and contrast the SfM ...

Virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway, Ireland part of Cutting Edge:Enhance Your Teaching:Teaching with Online Field Experiences:Activities
This online assignment takes the students on a virtual field trip to Giant's Causeway in northern Ireland. It begins with a brief video of the geological site, includes some questions relevant to the history ...