Course overview
Planet Earth has until recently been a geologist's natural laboratory, and with increasing space exploration and new technologies geologists have new laboratories to study: New and exciting other worlds. This course provides an opportunity to use the skills of a geologist to observe and understand these other worlds, how did they form and how have they evolved through time? This course will introduce students to the geophysical, geochemical, geochronological and stratigraphic datasets used by geologists to understand internal and surface processes of different planets. Do these planets have water? Can they support life?
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate proficiency in practical skills relevant to an introductory geology course
- Describe the formation, development and structure of the solar system and the bodies within it and beyond
- Outline and describe the formation and physical properties of minerals and rocks and use that knowledge to identify them
- Describe a planet's internal and external systems and their intimate links, including plate tectonics, volcanoes, magnetic fields, surface processes, atmospheres and the development of life or possible life
- Recognise that both episodic short-time events and long-time scale events have shaped what we observe todayin our solar system and beyond
- Use information learned in class and develop observation skills to be able to recognize the various geological features and materials a planet is constructed from