Dailygeologylessons

Geology of Earth and Planets

With Paul Doherty, John Lahr, and Modesto Tamez

This set of lessons is available online at http://www.exo.net/~pauld

The present is the key to the past.
James Hutton 1785

All you need to know about geology

The Rocks on the summit of Mt. Everest are Marine Limestone.
John McPhee

A draft plan of what we might do.

Day 1 Introductions of participants: Planets, orbits, rotations, web resources. How Planets Form:

Hydrogen is an odorless, colorless gas that after 13 billion years produces people. Carl Sagan

Gravity well Exhibit Exploration, Discover Kepler's Laws in a funnel.
Gravity Well Explainer, see the forces in the gravity well.
Gravitational Slingshot, A simple model
Moonwalk, feel what it is like to stand and jump on the moon.

Day 2 Planetary Magnetism, radioactive dating

Atomic Theory: "All ordinary matter is made of atoms, small indivisible particles which attract each other when a little ways apart and repel each other when close." Richard Feynman

Where's North?, hang magnets and they all hang in the same orientation.
Magnetic Poles, likes repel and unlikes attract, so why does the north pole of a magnet point north?
Magnetic Globe, explore the magnetic field of the earth.
Magnetic field of planets, images of planetary magnetic fields.
Magnetic Tape, use pieces of magnetic tape to model continental drift
also, Bits and Bytes, Snack.
Film can and black sand model of magnetization. By Tien.
Radioactive decay model, Snack, toss dice to show the half-life of radioactive decay. Math Root.

Day 3 Gravity, tides, cratering, icy bodies, atmosphere, hydrosphere,cryosphere

In the outer solar system think of liquid water as molten ice. Phil Karlton

PD craters, drop steel ball bearings into spice-covered salt to study impact craters.
Crater Illusion, change the lighting on a crater and make it look like a mound.
Playdough Moon, how big is the moon relative to earth?
Spin a koosh, planetary equatorial bulges
Tide-o-matic, explore how tides are made.
Icy bodies, use dry ice on warm water to make patterns like comets with tails.
Planet shapes, the fundamental building blocks of planet shape.

Day 4 Seismology, earth's interior,

Slinky models, model earthquake waves with slinkies, P, S, Raleigh and Love. See also Seismic Slinky
Squeezebox, create layered sediments from sand and flour, then squeeze the layers and observe folding and faulting.
Pasta quake, break spaghetti to model the energy in a quake.
Shake Table, build it and test structures.
Liquefaction, shake a wet sandy sediment and liquefy it.
Who's Fault is it? Model how seismologists locate an epicenter by holding hands.
Model of the Earth's interior, mark a scale model of the earth's interior on a sidewalk.
Use silly putty to model mantle rock, on a short time scale it is brittle, over longer times it flows.
Highway Seismograph, hold a pen against a paper at arms length and drive down a bumpy road to make your own seismogram.

Day 5 Teachers present lessons.

Day 6 Planetary Atmospheres, Volcanos MT

Boyle-ing water, boil water in a syringe by reducing pressure to Martian values.
Magnetic Atmosphere Model, stack magnets on a pencil to model the density of the atmosphere versus height.
Water Cycle Video, watch the video by Andre Zdravic and make a script for it.
Polyurethane foam volcano, liquids which create foam when mixed can be purchased at TAP plastics. Mix them in a cup then cover the cup with sand and watch the eruption.
Chocolate syrup pillow lava, Hershey's Magic syrup when squirted out underwater creates pillow lava structures. See the movie "Fire Under the Sea."
Chocolate Volcano, Make double strength clear Jell-O, inject chocolate pudding from a syringe from below, observe dikes and sill.

Day 7 Mapping part 1

Mercator Your Face, exhibit. Make a mercator projection of an image of your face.
Use nesting clear plastic boxes to make topographic models.
Make a clay mountain, slice it into layers, trace the layers on a piece of paper to make the topographic map.
Topographic mapping, use surveying instruments to map a slice through a hill. This day we survey the map.
Create a topographic model of a landform from a map by cutting out patterns of contour lines in construction paper and hot melt gluing the construction paper together spaced by pieces of drinking straws.

Day 8 Mapping p2 MT

This day we make the map.
See the movie "Fire Under the Sea." How pillow lava is formed.

Day 9 Subway to Subduction SF, Marin, triangulation.

Visit the San Franciscan formation in San Francisco, see slicknesides in chert along a fault.
Visit the Marin Headlands, see pillow lavas and deformed chert layers.
Use triangulation to measure the distance to the golden gate bridge.

Day 10 Teachers present lessons.

Web Resources, a compilation of information on the web about planetary geology.

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