The solid Earth is composed of minerals, melts, and rocks. These materials act as reservoirs for atoms that have been continually recycled since our planet’s formation by geological and geochemical processes. This course holistically considers the identification of these materials as we investigate the processes that drive their formation, alteration, and breakdown. We approach these topics through a combination of field (outcrop description, hand specimen identification), laboratory (optical and electron microscopy, x-ray analysis), and computational techniques (simple thermodynamic models).
- Instructor: John Zayac
