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Exploring our Evolving Planet: An Introduction to Geophysics
The book we are proposing will be based on a beginning geophysics course introduced at Northwestern University about 20 years ago that has been evolving since. This course is required of geology majors, and is taken as a distribution course by engineering majors. It provides a relatively rigorous and homework-intensive overview of the structure and evolution of the Earth and terrestrial planets. The course aims to provide students with an intuitive understanding of the physical processes that have shaped our planet, and does this through many interesting examples, analogies and demonstrations. The book we are proposing will do the provide students with a clear, exciting and intuition-based presentation of the complex and interconnected structure and evolution of Earth.
The course at Northwestern is a bridge between 100-level (descriptive introduction for non-majors, aka "rocks for jocks", "moons for goons") and 300-level (seismology, plate tectonics, mineral physics, tectonophysics, etc) classes taken by seniors & 1st year grad students. Hence the class is more of an overview (broader but not as deep) than geophysics courses for seniors or first year graduate students like those for which most texts (Fowler, Stacey, etc.) are designed.
The course gets good reviews because its approach seems to serve the three types of students in the
1) Geology majors who plan to take higher-level geophysics courses are introduced to a range of concepts that allow them to "see the forest" when they move up to specialized higher-level courses. They learn many basic concepts and vocabulary terms, and, most crucially, understand how the different topics are interrelated.
2) Geology majors who do not plan to take higher-level geophysics courses learn enough about basic concepts to appreciate them. The presentation is such that they can learn concepts at a level beyond the purely descriptive.
3) Engineering majors and students majoring in other sciences, who typically have not had previous earth science classes, get a good introduction to many topics in the earth sciences at a higher level than in a 100-level course. They seem to enjoy the class and do as well as the geology majors.
Because no book was fully suitable, class notes have been developed that will form the basis of the book. In the past few years, the class notes, overheads, homework, and demonstrations/labs have been put on the web (
An article (EOS, 78, 521-532, 1997) describing the demonstrations, such as having students test partitioning during fractional crystallization with half-frozen apple juice, drew a great deal of interest. A lot of instructors say they like the web site and find it helpful in developing their courses. As such, it seems that there will be a market for a book based on the course.
In the proposed book, concepts like Snell’s law and the heat equation will be derived for simple cases. Topics will be tied to the students' beginning physics, chemistry, and calculus courses because experience has shown that these subjects benefit from reinforcement. We thus discuss Snell’s law in seismology but explore its applications to fiber optics, the rainbow, and tsunami propagation. Similarly, discussion of phase diagrams incorporates freeze-dried food and liquefied natural gas. Students seem to find these connections interesting and helpful.
A basic theme of the book will be “how do we know this?” Hence a variety of data acquisition systems including seismometers, magnetometers, mass spectrometers, X-ray diffraction, diamond anvils, satellite al
The course at Northwestern is a bridge between 100-level (descriptive introduction for non-majors, aka "rocks for jocks", "moons for goons") and 300-level (seismology, plate tectonics, mineral physics, tectonophysics, etc) classes taken by seniors & 1st year grad students. Hence the class is more of an overview (broader but not as deep) than geophysics courses for seniors or first year graduate students like those for which most texts (Fowler, Stacey, etc.) are designed.
The course gets good reviews because its approach seems to serve the three types of students in the
1) Geology majors who plan to take higher-level geophysics courses are introduced to a range of concepts that allow them to "see the forest" when they move up to specialized higher-level courses. They learn many basic concepts and vocabulary terms, and, most crucially, understand how the different topics are interrelated.
2) Geology majors who do not plan to take higher-level geophysics courses learn enough about basic concepts to appreciate them. The presentation is such that they can learn concepts at a level beyond the purely descriptive.
3) Engineering majors and students majoring in other sciences, who typically have not had previous earth science classes, get a good introduction to many topics in the earth sciences at a higher level than in a 100-level course. They seem to enjoy the class and do as well as the geology majors.
Because no book was fully suitable, class notes have been developed that will form the basis of the book. In the past few years, the class notes, overheads, homework, and demonstrations/labs have been put on the web (
An article (EOS, 78, 521-532, 1997) describing the demonstrations, such as having students test partitioning during fractional crystallization with half-frozen apple juice, drew a great deal of interest. A lot of instructors say they like the web site and find it helpful in developing their courses. As such, it seems that there will be a market for a book based on the course.
In the proposed book, concepts like Snell’s law and the heat equation will be derived for simple cases. Topics will be tied to the students' beginning physics, chemistry, and calculus courses because experience has shown that these subjects benefit from reinforcement. We thus discuss Snell’s law in seismology but explore its applications to fiber optics, the rainbow, and tsunami propagation. Similarly, discussion of phase diagrams incorporates freeze-dried food and liquefied natural gas. Students seem to find these connections interesting and helpful.
A basic theme of the book will be “how do we know this?” Hence a variety of data acquisition systems including seismometers, magnetometers, mass spectrometers, X-ray diffraction, diamond anvils, satellite al
320 pages, Paperback
Published January 8, 1991
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