PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY: GEOL*1100

COURSE OUTLINE Fall 2006

M. E. Brookfield Course website http://www.uoguelph.ca/~mbrookfi/intro/brookintro.htm

The role of the schools is not to create “idiot specialists” to fill the special needs of different
sectors of the national economy, but to develop the individual capabilities of students in a
purposeful way, and to send out into life thoughtful people capable of thinking about the wider
social, historical and philosophical implications of their specialities.
Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic 1992.

At the start of all courses you should know the course content and approach, how and on what
you will be evaluated, and the times and dates of tests.

IF YOU ARE UNCERTAIN ABOUT SOMETHING - ASK!

This course introduces the geological concepts used to explain the nature, origin and structure of
rocks and the history of the Earth recorded in them. Geology nicely contrasts unchanging process
and historical explanations.

COURSE OBJECTIVES
The main aims are to show you, with geological concepts and examples:
a) what science is and how it operates;
b) how valid and how limited conclusions based on scientific methods are; and
c) the need for quantitative testing of ideas where applicable. Science is mostly a method of
analysis whose only justification is that it works.

METHOD OF PRESENTATION
Two sessions (1hr 20 min) per week: Mondays and Wednesdays 7.00-8.20p.m..
Course notes: essential. Available at Campus Bookstore for about $25. Exams are based on
these notes which are NOT COMPLETE. You must attend lectures, read texts, see videos, etc.
Text readings: relevant chapters in recommended texts are noted on lecture description.
Videos: see list at end. Most are available in the Library near the reserve desk.
Internet sites: some sites are given below each topic - use these as a start. Some sites give better
illustrations and animations than I can give in class; some are background; some give more
advanced treatments and detail for those interested in specific parts.

TEXTBOOK: There is no set text and you need to attend lectures and buy course notes, or look
at the notes on course website. The following are in the Library and available second-hand.
Press and Siever, 2001 'Understanding Earth' (basic text for taking further geology courses).
Press and Siever, 1986. Earth (older version with some things not in newer edition).
Tarbuck and Lutgens, 1999. Earth

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EVALUATION
Lectures Three tests: 2 in-class midterms and a final test.
Date
Midterm 30% Wed. Oct. 18 7.00-7.50 p.m.
Midterm 30% Wed. Nov. 08 7.00-7.50 p.m.
Final 40% (or 100%) Frid Dec. 09 2.30-4.30 p.m.
The lecture tests consist of multiple choice questions and no books or other aids to
memory are allowed during tests. Midterms have 30 multiple choice questions each. Final test
covering the whole course will have 100 multiple choice questions.
I will compare the total of the three tests with the percentage of the final test: the higher
of the two will count as your final mark. This lets you make up for a bad midterm. Previous
semesters tests are on the course website
(http://www.uoguelph.ca/~mbrookfi/intro/brookintro.htm) to give you an idea of possible
questions.
The ONLY EXCUSE acceptable for missing a test is a medical certificate. I have spent
much of the last 30 years working and living with the peoples of the mountains and deserts of
North Africa, and Central and South Asia, so I am not sympathetic with the trivia that pass for
major problems here.
Don't cheat. You will sit in alternate seats during all tests and will have to deposit bags
and coats at the front of the room, so don't bring valuables.
I do not defer test times because other Professors schedule tests later in the semester. I
make alternative arrangements for students with test conflicts only within the FIRST WEEK,
otherwise get the other Professors to change their times.

OUTLINE
Chapter references are to Understanding Earth (underlined), Press & Siever, 1986 (light)
and Tarbuck & Lutgens, 1999 (bold). Lecture numbers may vary between outline and course
notes because of semester and section changes. General internet sites are:
www.dc.peachnet.edu/~pgore/geology/geo101.htm (physical geol. course)
duke.usak.ca/~reeves/prog/geoe118/geoe118.011.html (physical geol.course)
www.geop.ubc.ca/Lithoprobe/linksgeneral.html (Canadian geology links)
LECTURES (numbers refer to chapters in course notes)
WEEK I. Introduction
1. Worlds without end: short history of the earth Ch. 1: 1: 1
2. Knowledge and certainty.
3. Changing knowldege, changing reality
WEEK II. Concepts
4. Time and uniformitarianism Ch. 1: 2: 1
5. Relative/absolute time Ch. 9: 13: 8
6. The rock cycle. Ch. 3: 13,14: 1
WEEK III.
7. Plate tectonics Ch. 20: 14,20,21: 18
8. Uniformity & catastrophe
9. The collapse of mountain belts.

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 WEEK IV. Materials
10. Atomic structure. Ch. 2: 3: 2
11. Mineral structures.
12. Volcanic rocks. Ch. 5: 16: 4
WEEK V.
13 Igneous rock example
14. Intrusive rocks. Ch. 4: 15: 3
15. Formation of igneous rocks. Ch. 23, 4:
WEEK VI
16. Weathering and soils. Ch. 6: 5: 5
Test on lecture 1-12 in class 7.00-7.50 p.m, Wed. Oct.18.
17. Erosion, transportation, deposition. Ch. 6,7,13: 6,7,8: 6,9,10
WEEK VII
18. Glacial environments. Ch. 15: 10: 12
19. Ancient and modern reefs. Ch. 7,17: 12: 6, 18
20. Metamorphic rocks. Ch. 8: 17: 7
WEEK VIII Time and structure
21. Plate tectonic cycle. Ch. 20-23: 20,23: 19, 20
22. Relative and absolute time. Ch. 9: 2: 8
23. Dating events.
WEEK IX
24. Biological uniformitarianism.
Test on lectures 13-24 in class 7.00-7.50 p.m, Wed. Nov. 8th.
25 Uplift and subsidence. Ch. 16: 21: 15
WEEK X
26 Deformation of rocks Ch. 10: 4: 15
27 Structural features Ch. 21: 21: 20
28. Development of a mountain belt.
WEEK XI
29 Earthquakes & structure. Ch. 18,19: 18: 16,17
31. Magnetism and gravity. Ch. 19; 19: 17
32. Comparative planetology. Ch. 22; 22
WEEK XII
33. Co-evolution life & earth. Ch. 20,21: 19,20
34. The last twenty-five million years.
35. The interrelationship of all things.

RESERVE MATERIAL
BROOKFIELD, Principles of Geology (2 hr and 3 day copies)
PRESS & SIEVER, Understanding Earth (2 hr and 3 day copies)
PRESS & SIEVER, Earth. 4th edit.(2 hr and 3 day copies)
TARBUCK & LUTGENS, The Earth, 6th edit. (2 hr and 3 day copies)

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OFFICE HOURS: Wednesdays 2.30-5.00, room 10, Land Resource Science.
COURSE VIDEOS AND FILMS
Those shown in class have lecture number given. Others are for background and interest.
You can obtain and view any videos/DVD’s with call numbers in the library.
Week Lect.
1 Origins (QB 631.T35 Pt.2) 30min.
Knowledge and certainty (Q 147.K56) 50min.
3 Changing knowledge, changing reality (BD221.C53) 50min.
Ancient futures:learning from Ladakh (HN690.L33.A52) 50min
2 The life & work of James Hutton (QE11.L53) 30min.
5 Herculaneum (my video) 30min.
3 7 Plate tectonics (QE 511.4.P52) 14min.
The day the earth melted (QE 33.D39) 50min.
9 The man who moved the mountains (GB 501.2.M36) 50min
Earth explorer: Marcia McNutt (QC 805.M26.E27) 60min.
4 Inside Hawaiian volcanoes (US1 SI89.I53) 29min.
Minerals (QE 365.M55) 30min
Volcanism (QE 521.2.V64) 30min
5 Anatomy of a volcano (QE 523.S23.A53) 60min.
14 Rocks that originate underground (QE475.A2R62) 25min
Mineral Resources (GF41.G54 Pt1) 30min.
Igneous intrusive rock (QE 461.I55)
6 16 Breaking down the rocks (QE 570.B78) film 25min.
Weathering and soils (QE570.W425) 30min
Sedimentary rocks (QE471.S379) 30min
Glaciers (GB2403.2.G52) 30min
17 Rocks that form at the earth's surface(QE 471.R6)25min
7 Reefs; past and present (QE 778.R43) 28min
Energy Resources (GF 41.G54 pt2) 50 min
Metamorphic rocks (QE475.A2 M49) 30min
8 Evolution; record in the rocks (QE 747.A7.B42) 20min
The record of the rocks (QE 747.A7.R42) 20min
9 24 Darwins Revolution (QH 375.D32)
25 The rise and fall of the Great Lakes(F5510.R5) 15min
Earth's structures (QE601.E27) 30min
10 Birth of the Rockies (QE 186.B57) 28min
The day the earth shook (QE 534.2.D2)
Earthquakes (QE534.2.E362) 30min
Tsunami (GC 221.2 T78 1997) 60min
11 The Solar Family (QB 631.T35 Pt. 1) 30min
The earth's interior (QE509.E38) 30min
12 35 Natural connections (CA1 BC 88N11) 47 min
Living with the earth (GF47.L58) 60min
Fate of the earth parts 1 and 2 (GF 75.f3) 30min each

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AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T BLINDLY FOLLOW ANY IDEA, INSTRUCTION OR
DOGMA WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT (READ NEXT TWO PAGES)
From Milligram, S. 1963. Behavioral studies of obedience. Jour. Abn. Psychol., 67: 371-8.
The subjects used in all experimental conditions were male adults, residing in the greater
New Haven and Bridgeport areas, aged 20 to 50 years, and engaged in a wide variety of
occupations....and were carefully balanced for age and occupational types.
The focus of the study concerns the amount of electric shock a subject is willing to
administer to another person when ordered by an experimenter to give the "victim" increasingly
more severe punishment. The act of administering shock is set in the context of a learning
experiment, ostensibly designed to study the effect of punishment on memory. Aside from the
experimenter, one naive subject and one accomplice perform in each session. On arrival each
subject is paid $4.50. After a general talk by the experimenter, telling how little scientists know
about the effect of punishment on memory, subjects are informed that one member of the pair
will serve as teacher and one as learner. A rigged drawing is held so that the naive subject is
always the teacher and the accomplice becomes the learner. The learner is taken to an adjacent
room and strapped into an "electric chair".
The naive subject is told that it is his task to teach the learner a list of paired associates, to
test him on the list, and to administer punishment whenever the learner errs in the test.
Punishment takes the form of electric shock, delivered to the learner by means of a shock
generator controlled by the naive subject. The teacher is instructed to increase the intensity of
electric shock one step on the generator on each error. The learner, according to plan, provides
many wrong answers, so that before long the naive subject must give him the strongest shock on
the generator.(Unknown to the teacher was the fact that the shocks were only simulated.)
Increases in shock level are met by increasingly insistent demands from the learner that the
experiment be stopped because of the growing discomfort to him. However, in clear terms the
experimenter orders the teacher to continue with the procedure in disregard of the learner's
protests.
Thus the naive subject must resolve a conflict between two mutually incompatible
demands from the social field. He may continue to follow the orders of the experimenter and
shock the learner with increasing severity, or he may refuse to follow the orders of the
experimenter and heed the learners pleas. The experimenters authority operates not in a free
field, but against ever-mounting countervailing pressure from the person being punished.
Postscript (follows experiment outline and data obtained)
There are now some other generalizations I should like to make, which do not derive in
any strictly logical fashion from the experiments as carried out, but which I feel ought to be
made. They are formulations of an intuitive sort that have been forced on me by observation of
many subjects responding to the pressures of authority. The assertions represent a painful
alteration in my own thinking; and since they were acquired only under the repeated impact of
direct observation, I have no illusion that they will be generally accepted by persons who have
not had the same experience.
With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of
authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life
responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their
perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenter's definition of the situation,
into performing harsh acts.
What is the limit of such obedience! At many points we attempted to establish a

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boundary. Cries from the victim were inserted; not good enough. The victim claimed heart
trouble; subjects still shocked him on command. The victim pleaded that he be let free, and his
answers no longer registered on the signal box; subject continued to shock him. At the outset we
had not conceived that such drastic procedures would be needed to generate disobedience, and
each step was added only as the ineffectiveness of the earlier techniques became clear. Finally, a
quarter of the subjects actually physically subdued the victim on command and proceeded to the
highest shock level.
The results, as seen and felt in the laboratory, are to this author disturbing. They raise the
possibility that human nature or, more specifically, the kind of character produced in American
democratic society cannot be counted on to insulate its citizens from brutality and inhumane
treatment at the direction of malevolent authority. A substantial proportion of people do what
they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of
conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority. If
in this study an anonymous experimenter could successfully command adults to subdue a
fifty-year-old man and force on him painful electric shocks against his protests, one can only
wonder what government, with its vastly greater authority and prestige, can command of its
subjects.

...Our business, if we desire to live a life, not utterly devoid of meaning and significance, is to
accept nothing which contradicts our basic experience merely because it comes to us from
tradition or convention or authority. It may well be that we shall be wrong; but our self
expression is thwarted at the root unless the certainties we are asked to accept coincide with the
certainties we experience. That is why the condition of freedom in any state is always a
widespread and consistent skepticism of the canons upon which our power insists.
Harold J. Laski, 1930. "The Dangers of Obedience"

...And just as the law in civilized countries assumes that the voice of conscience tells everybody,
"Thou shalt not kill," even though man's natural desires and inclinations may at times be
murderous, so the law of Hitler's land demanded that the voice of conscience tell everybody:
"Thou shalt kill," although the organizers of the massacres knew full well that murder is against
the normal desires and inclinations of most people. Evil in the Third Reich had lost the quality by
which most people recognize it-the quality of temptation. Many Germans and many Nazis,
probably an overwhelming majority of them, must have been tempted not to let their neighbours
go off to their doom (for that the Jews were transported to their doom they knew, of course, even
though many of them may not have known the gruesome details) and not to become accomplices
in all these crimes by benefitting from them. But, God knows, they had learned how to resist
temptation.
H. Arendt, 1963. "Duties of a law-abiding citizen"

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