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News and Events
January 1, 2023: Some interesting online articles that may well perk your interest for the Term Paper (update February 16): On Metaphysical cosmologies? Tasneem Zehra Husain is a theoretical physicist and the author of Only The Longest Threads. She is the first Pakistani woman string theorist. @TasneemZHusain
News and Events 2022 Winter
January 1, 2022: Some interesting online articles that may well perk your interest for the Term Paper (update February 16): Tasneem Zehra Husain is a theoretical physicist and the author of Only The Longest Threads. She is the first Pakistani woman string theorist. @TasneemZHusain
Kernowite, Bridgemanite Whence the heavy elements? Between Geology and Archaeology: Sheanderthals, Studying our Neanderthal cousins Using Earthquake Forensics to Study Subduction from Space Stromatolites: Earth's Oldest Lifeforms The Turbulent Formation of Stars Martian Mineral (Jarosite) Found in Antarctic Ice CO2 Mineralization in Common Rocks for Carbon Storage Stone Age Apocalypse The Toba Eruption What would happen if Yellowstone Supervolcano Erupted? Italy's Campi Flegrei Volcano is Showing Signs Asteroid Impacts in the Eocene (~14.5 Ma) in Germany Videos: Volcanoes in East African Rift Valley with very inviscid alkaline lavas Kīlauea is activeHawaii's Main Coastline Expanded 1.5 Kilometres Due to LavaEarth's Oldest RocksScoria cones may change our understanding of volcanic eruptions Some UGrad research presentations in EPS Climate change 'delayed migration of plant-eating dinosaurs by millions of years' Mt. Etna in explosive eruption Olivine, Dunite and early earth Carmeltazite: harder than diamond? When the magnetic poles flip out, Earth seems to suffer Borexino experiment detects neutrinos from the Sun’s carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle It's time to take Gaïa seriously Spectacular fireball display in UK leads to rare meteorite recovery Gas and Oil pipelines are a major source of GHG emissions Comets are more dangerous than we thought Scientists Create Crystal Stronger Than Diamond How the Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Spurred the Evolution of the Modern Rainforest Rethinking Oceanic Overturning in Nordic Seas Past Climate Change Affected Mountain Building in the Andes Scientists probe mysterious melting of Earth's crust in western North America DRC: Goma residents flee as Nyiragongo lava reaches city outskirts Does Time Exist? Carlo Rovelli How Humanity Came To Contemplate Its Possible Extinction: A Timeline The Uncertain Future of Antarctica’s Melting Ice Tsunami Generation from the 2004 M=9.1 Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake Oldsite: newly discovered and named mineral Earth’s Early Magma Oceans Detected in 3.7 Billion Year-Old Greenland Rocks Extreme Solar Storm Hit Our Planet 9,200 Years Ago What drives plate tectonics: A new theory Mighty powerful microbes: New insights into microbes that breathe rocks Trojan asteroid hitchhiking on Earth's orbital path Why Twin-Like Ice Giants Uranus and Neptune Are Different Shades of Blue East Africa’s Oldest Modern Human Fossil Is Way Older Than Previously Thought The High Fraction of Thin Disk Galaxies Continues to Challenge ΛCDM Cosmology a challenge to Newtonian mechanics? Rethinking the Search for the Origins of Life Scientists Reveal Superionic Secrets of Earth’s Inner Core
News and Events 2021 Winter
January 5, 2021: About 5000 distinct minerals are known but we continue to discover more. Recently, a mineral that has been named Kernowite was discovered in a Cornwall mine. You might, from time-to-time check this site: www.geologyin.com for daily news concerning geology. January 4, 2021: I link here to some possibly interesting papers and videos that will orient you to the course: December 25, 2020: And Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and enjoy your holidays. Through the last weeks, I have been receiving geology news items from this source: GeologyIN
News and Events 2020 Winter
May 8, 2020: Through the last weeks, I have been receiving geology news items from this source: GeologyIN March 12, 2020: As we worry about COVID-19 and the Novel Corona virus, many of you might be considering not attending classes. Moreover, it might well be that McGill closes classroom teaching in the next couple of weeks, depending on the progress of the possible pandemic in reaching into the Montreal region. MIT, Harvard and Columbia universities among many others have already done so in New England/New York. If classroom lecturing is cancelled, the on-line lectures for this year will be curtailed. While the lectures from last year were almost inaudible, in last term's session you would find our next lecture at November 8, 29:52 into the recorded lecture. You might follow these last-term lectures if or when the current online lectures are suspended. In the meantime, we expect that the course website and myCourses will be served normally. March 10, 2020: Welcome back from your Winter break. Five midterm exams have not been properly graded. I shall grade them this evening and then post the very generous grades from the everyone who wrote the midterm on myCourses. Two or three students in this class have provided valid medical reasons for having missed the midterm; I would like them to contact me. For the non-OSD students, I would like to schedule this make-up midterm for March 17 at 5:00PM. OSD students should contact OSD for their date and time. February 25, 2020: A Mt. St-Helens tradition, the Mother's Day Climb. The history of the tradition. February 20, 2020: Next week we have our midterm. It is scheduled for those with family-name first letters early in the alphabet (A-L) for the 25th and those late, (M-Z) for the 27th. The midterms are held in our (this) classroom. The midterms cover the same materials as listed in the Feb. 18 posting on this site but the questions asked on each topic are largely different. Pay attention to the suggested topics for study as listed on the Feb. 18 posting. The midterm is held in our classroom. I would ask you to wait aside so that papers can be distributed throughout the classroom. The test should begin at 2:35; you have 80 minutes to complete the test. We shall collect them so as to be finished with the room for 3:55PM. Grade averages on the two midterms will be brought to correspondence so there is no advantage in writing one over the other. February 18, 2020: I list the topics that will be covered in the midterm:
Geology (a rock) is at the heart of the Academy Award-winning film, Parasite. February 11, 2020: Some of you have asked about aurora display possibilities. We are now in a “Quiet Sun” period and should not expect much auroral activity. In exploring the cause of aurora, the Solar Orbiter has been launched. It will explore activity in the Sun's polar regions. We hope to learn more about solar-storm outbursts. February 6, 2020: On Thursday evenings, in my course Terrestrial Planets, we have a discussion session in FD Adams 232 that runs from 5:45PM to 7:15PM. While most of these discussions centre aroung the topic of that course, next week (February 13) we will be discussing materials, mineral and metals sustainability. You might be interested. You are welcome to attend. Some background: Are we running out? Two references: Critical Metals in Society, 35 Critical Minerals February 4, 2020: The Earth is still accumulating materials from space as micro-meteoroids, dust particles and, from time-to-time, larger meteoroidal, asteroidal or cometary impacts. For the past 30 years, we have been monitoring the orbits of many objects that might, one day, collide with Earth. You might explore the SENTRY website. January 30, 2020: Yesterday, a major earthquake struck just north of Jamaica. M 7.7 - 125km NNW of Lucea, Jamaica The Berkeley seismic lab provides a website that allows you to “make your own seismogram” as recorded by many of their digital seismic stations. Tentatively, our final exam is scheduled: EPSC 201 Understanding Planet Earth 24-Apr 14:00 January 28, 2020: Some of you have asked if we might be able to see auroral displays in the next few days. I refer you to the University of Alaska's Auroral Forecast. January 23, 2020: Participants are required for Social Psychology Research. January 22, 2020: Yesterday, I believe, Steve Oni was told by someone in the Redpath Museum that our TA-guided tours with more than 7 students would be charged at $3/student. I am now in contact with Redpath to make sure that there is no charge. I have not yet resolved this issue. Your student fees have always included access to the Museum; you shouldn't be charged anything. It would seem that individual students just following the self-guided tour would not be charged. But, if you are doing this, when/if asked to pay a fee, just show you student ID to the person asking for $3 . Last term, for students who, for some reason, forgot to do or chose not to do the tour, we re-weighted the midterm to 40% rather than 30% so that no marks were lost in the determination of the final grade. January 21, 2020: Some large, bright stars explode as supernova. Betelgeuse is ready (in the next few thousand years but maybe tomorrow). January 17, 2020: In death of dinosaurs, it was all about the asteroid—not volcanoes January 13, 2020: A small earthquake with epicentre south of Ormstown, Quebec occurred this morning at 05h39. You can find information about this event and others on the Earthquakes Canada site: http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/ and/or on the USGS Earthquakes Hazard Program site: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/ For interest, you might view the on-line record of the last 2 hours of seismic motions as recorded by the Montreal MNTQ station: http://www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/stndon/wf-fo/index-en.php?channel=MNTQ January 12, 2020: Volcanoes have not yet come up in this class but for your interest and concern, a very large eruption is now underway in the Philippines: Taal Volcano Field walkabouts count for 10% of your overall grade: A directed “walkabout” will be available during the month of January and through the first week of February. Online quizzes relating to the tour, counting for 10% of grade, will be posted for February 7 to be completed by February 10. Documents that relate to this term's walkabout: TA-guided Tours, or Self-guided Redpath Museum Tour January 8, 2020: There is a possibility of a TA strike this term. I have been asked to inform you of it with this statement: ``In the event of extraordinary circumstances beyond the University’s control, the evaluation scheme in a Course is subject to change, provided that there be timely communications to the students regarding the change.” In this course, as unsatisfactory as it may be, we may have to move to Multiple-choice with machine grading for the midterm and final. January 7, 2020: Our first lecture begins today at 2:30PM in McConnell Engineering building, Room 304. On another note, the Faculty of Science invites you to the Soup and Science series. On geological time as measured through the rock record of the evolution of life: First Animals narrated by Professor Maydianne Andrade.
News for Autumn 2019 sessions
November 29, 2019: Good luck on your final exam. If you have left it all to the last minute, I suggest that you prepare for short-answer questions on topics listed in the November 8 posting here and do the Prep Quiz set. November 25, 2019:
November 22, 2019: The lecture series is now quickly coming to an end. Next week, the lectures will be dealing with the Pleistocene (Ice-house Earth) period and our influence on geology and environment. What might be a nice reference related to global warming since the dinosaurs, I post a link to the proxy temperature record for the last 65+ million years: Temperature record. During the next week, I shall be available to answer your questions, probably best by phone (office: 514 398 3587; home: 450 224 2721) or course e-mail . During the first week of December, I shall be away from Montreal and unavailable to you. You might look to the September 11 post on this webpage for the “expertise” of the TAs; they too can answer pressing questions. I should be available from December 9 forward. November 14, 2019: The Day the Mesozoic Died a short documentary on the K-T (K-Pg) extinction. Recall that I mentioned that the Earth was completely frozen over about 700 million years ago: The Snowball Earth I am now compiling the midterm grades. The November 1 exam's average was 2 marks higher than the October 30 exam and as I had promised that the grades between the two midterms would be balanced, the grade I will be reporting on myCourses includes a 2-mark addition for everyone who wrote the October 30 exam. I shall have the grades posted in the next couple of hours (now: 15h44). Each question on the midterm was graded by the same TA-grader for grading consistency and fairness among all students. A few students, and I am sure they know who they are, did very poorly on the midterm but I suggest that you don't worry about your final compiled grade yet. There is a final to come and then there is grade curving to be done; grade curving always most benefits the poorest grading students. Here are the midterm statistics: MidtermStats.png November 8, 2019: In preparation for the final exam (50 multiple-choice questions, 25 true-false questions and 10 of 15 short-answer questions), I post the topics for the short-answer part:
November 7, 2019: We haven't yet come to the origins of life in the course but, in preview, I offer you this story of the Burgess Shale and the Cambrian Explosion of animal life: First Animals narrated by Professor Maydianne Andrade. I watched this video from CBC's The Nature of Things yesterday afternoon. November 5, 2019: Most seismologists do not believe we can now or in the near future predict earthquakes but early warning systems might mitigate some damage and casualty: California Introduces an Earthquake Warning System. October 25, 2019: Nothing as complex and debatable as what is posted here (Starts With a Bang) is expected for your answer to the first question on the midterm. But, if you are intrigued by the question, you might read some of the articles posted on the blog by Ethan Siegal. He is a popularizing cosmologist/astrophysicist and philospher. October 20, 2019: I link you to a Preview of the Midterm. The first question on the midterm is shown as it will appear on your midterm. October 11, 2019: Nobel Prizes were announced during the week: Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Medicine, Peace. The prize in Economics will be announced on Monday. October 4, 2019: The midterms are essentially the same but the questions in detail are different. Each midterm asks you to answer 10 of the possible 15 questions – your choice. You will have the equivalent of 4 lines for your answer for each question. The topics for the questions follow:
September 27, 2019: For the Skolstrejk för klimatet demonstrations and march, I gave a lecture to students who chose to attend the lecture class. The PowerPoint used in that lecture is here: Skolstrejk för klimatet. It is also available on the recorded video lectures. September 20, 2019: Tentatively, our final exam is set for EPSC 201 001 Understanding Planet Earth 10-Dec 9:00 It will, almost certainly, be held in the Fieldhouse of the Gym/Sports complex. September 18, 2019: Are you interested in becoming an editor for a science journal? MSURJ September 15, 2019: In two weeks, Friday Sept. 27, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is coming to Montreal to participate in a day-long strike for climate. I don't expect to have to cancel my lecture that day but I encourage you to participate in the demonstrations while I attempt to lecture to an empty classroom and the online recordings. The problem I might expect is closure of Sherbrooke St. access to Campus 1 and to my parking in Burnside Hall. If I can't park, I can't come in to lecture. This, of course, paints me as one of the CO2 villains... September 14, 2019: You might note that I use an “age” of the Universe of 13.798 billion years. This is that obtained by the consortium who have used the Planck CMB (cosmic microwave background) imaging and incremented from that moment (it would be first “seen” about 380000 years after the Big Bang) to the present. Another approach is to look at how quickly the Universe has been expanding in the past few billion years and back up the clock (like my argument offered in class for backing up the expansion). This approach, and many groups have employed it, finds a much younger Universe, perhaps only about 11.8 billion years. You might read this popularized science article to try to make some sense of the puzzle: How Fast Is The Universe Expanding? Incompatible Answers Point To New Physics September 13, 2019: I shall try to keep the Walkabout Tours information up-to-date with respect to times and dates but you should contact the TA leader as listed in the September 11 news item just to be sure. September 12, 2019: What is the largest (by mass) individual thing that we know of in the Universe? A supermassive black hole in the centre of the quasar/blazar, S5 0014+81. It has a Schwarzschild radius greater than the 40 times the orbital distance of Pluto from our Sun; being a black hole of such dimension, it has a mass greater than 40 billion times the mass of our Sun. It “eats” the equivalent of 4000 solar masses every year and radiates as much energy as does our entire galaxy. It came to this “current” size and mass 12 billion years ago; it is 12 billion light-years distance from us; it is one of the most distant objects that we have “seen”. We have a smaller (4 million times the mass of our Sun) at the centre of the Milky Way. It is “getting hungrier”... Andrea Ghez discovered this black hole over 20 years ago. Her UCLA Galactic Center Group have been monitoring the orbit of stars near to this object ever since. September 11, 2019: I am beginning to arrange the TAs concerning Walkabout guided tours and their expertise in regards to questions you may have during the term: Erin : Redpath tour; questions expertise: mineralogy and the planetary system (Mon. Sept. 30 at 1:00PM – meet inside Redpath Museum, ground floor) Florentine : Mt-Royal tour; questions expertise: volcanology (Monday Oct. 7 at 9:00AM) Jake : Redpath tour; questions expertise: economic minerals (First tour: Thursday 19/09/2019, contact Jake) John : Urban Geology tour; questions expertise: tectonics, seismology (Monday Sept. 30 at 9:00AM – meet in FD Adams 230 at 1:00PM) Laura : Redpath Tour; questions expertise: water, hydrology (Thursday Sept. 26 at 9:30 AM and Thursday, Oct. 3 at 9:30 AM) Pierrick : Urban Geology tour; questions expertise: hydrology, water resources (Mon. Sept. 30 at 2:00PM, possible second tour Oct. 7 at 2:00PM) Teegan : Urban Geology tour; questions expertise: sedimentology (Friday October the 11th at 2:00PM) I ask each of you to contact a TA (by clicking on their name above to send an e-mail) to learn from them when they are offering guided tours. For those who cannot attach to a guided tour, you may do the Redpath Tour yourself, following this guide: Redpath Tour Guide As well, there is a guide that you may download for each of the other guided Walkabouts: Mt-Royal Guide , Urban Geology Guide . September 5, 2019: You might have discovered that our lecture recording didn't record the Wednesday PowerPoint presentations. I shall redo some of that lecture tomorrow and I shall learn how to make sure that the PowerPoints are projected onto the left-side screen. I am told that that is what is recorded. September 4, 2019: Note that from the myCourses site for the course, you can access three sets of quizzes. The Prep Quiz series is that that I ask you to follow as they are opened. This series is “like” the multiple-choice question set that will appear on the Final Exam in December. There are two other quiz sets that you might well follow as you prepare for the midterm and the final. Those titled CHXX-MC are provided by the textbook publisher; they are offered for those of you who might like to test understanding with references to the textbook. Those titled Self test: Chaper XX are intended to lead you through expectations during the course. All these quizzes provide good on-going study aids. For students who want a special experience in Geology: Prof. Bill Minarik offers a full day field trip next Friday, September 13. Contact Bill at William.Minarik@mcgill.ca . You will get a free lunch. September 2, 2019: Minerals are characterized by structure rather than chemical composition and may well form from different elements. What is the name of the most common mineral of Earth? Bridgemanite. What is the chemical composition of Bridgemanite on Earth? Approximately, (Mg0.9,Fe0.1)SiO3 ; that is with a 9:1 ratio of magnesium to iron. Most of Earth's deeper mantle is composed of this mineral mixed with some FeO and MgO. In the upper regions of the mantle, the most common mineral is Olivine which combines the Bridgemanite with the two metal oxides with approximate chemistry, (Mg1.8,Fe0.2)SiO4. On the Origin of the Moon: Erik Asphaug's online lecture.
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News and events |
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©
Olivia Jensen, McGill University |
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