Welcome to the Rocks and Minerals course. This is going to be an exciting and fun course for all of us. For those who missed class today, we went over the syllabus and course policies, and started some discussion about why rocks and minerals are important. You can download the syllabus from the main course page.

I will post today's PowerPoint presentation here by tomorrow at the latest. You will also have a short on-line quiz on those topics.

I'm looking forward to an exciting semester.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

As promised, here is the PowerPoint presentation for September 8. This is meant to be a review presentation for you... most of the slides are taken directly from my Intro Geology lecture PowerPoints.

And here is the quiz #1 for Geolgy 310. This is due on Tuesday, September 13, by 11:45 AM in D2L dropbox.

On Tuesday I will go over the periodic table, chemistry as it relates to Rocks and Minerals, and how plate tectonics can and does influence where you can find certain type of rocks. Here is the PowerPoint presentation for September 13 for your reference.
Before next class I would like you to be familiar with the terms "cation", "anion", "valence", "ionic bonding" "covalent bonding." These are pretty basic chemistry concepts and you just need to brush up on those a bit.

That's it for today. As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Have a nice weekend.

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Here is the Igneous Rock Composition and Plate Tectonics web site that we will be using for next week's quiz/Homework. You can download the assignment here. I will go over the assignment in class so you know what you are expected to do. This is due in the D2L dropbox by 12:45 PM on Tuesday, September 27.

I will start on a new PowerPoint today. On Tuesday we talked about the structures of different silicate minerals (nesosilicate, sorosilicate...etc.) and today we are going to follow that up with the six crystal systems that ALL minerals belong to. You need to be familiar with this before we get into asbestos and other minerals where their crystal structure and symmetry makes them unique.
Here is the PowerPoint presentation for September 22.
Escher Web Sketch for making crazy lattice structures.

That's it for today. As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Monday, September 26, 2011

I'm going to change gear a bit and talk about crystal symmetry and crystal classes during class tomorrow before coming back to whole rock geochemistry and the homework you are working on.

here is a web site about crystallography with some really nice applets.

Your quiz next week is going to be on common silicate minerals (nesosilicate, sorosilicate...etc.) and their crystallographic structures. your textbook is finally going to be useful.

That's it for today. As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Your quiz for next Tuesday will be on the oxygen-sharing characteristics of the different silicate minerals (nesosilicate, ionosilicate... etc.) with examples, and on the six crystal systems and symmetry elements. We will work on the symmetry elements some more today.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation for September 29. My friend and colleague Dr. Dyanna Czeck created this presentation. I simply added a couple a slides from the geological and geophysical maps created by the Northern Interior Continental Evolution (NICE) group.

Here is a PowerPoint presentation on the Proterozoic Plate Tectonic Model of North America by Whitmeyer and Karlstorm (Geosphere, 2007). Here is the entire paper for you if you are interested.

That's it for today. As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

There will be NO CLASS ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6 AND TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11 because of GSA Annual meeting. Your Take-Home Assignment for next week is here.

• Here are the USGS Fact sheet on REE and the CRS Report for Congress you will need for part of question #1
• Here is the article The Evolution of Continental Crust that you will need for question #2

That's it for today. As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Monday, October 17, 2011

I totally forgot to talk about your weekly quiz last week, so instead of tomorrow, you will have your weekly quiz on Thursday, October 20. It will be on the Proterozoic Plate Tectonic Model of North America by Whitmeyer and Karlstorm (Geosphere, 2007). Here is the entire paper for you if you are interested.

We are going back to igneous rocks and sulfide minerals/hydrothermal mineral deposits.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation on igneous rocks. Some of these slides are repeats from a previous presentation... but I want them here as a review. we will briefly go over melting/magma formation mechanisms, igneous rock chemistry and texture. Most of these are my intro geology slides, so the material should not be too unfamiliar to you.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation on hydrothermal mineral deposits.

I would like to spend as much time as possible looking at igneous rock and sulfide mineral samples during class.

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

As promised, here is the link to the site Iron Mining in Wisconsin maintained by the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. All the documents I want you to access are there for you to download. You don't have to read every page of all the documents, though.

• Download the document titled Iron Mining in Wisconsin. This is where we will start next week. Please print out these two pages and bring them to class.
• Click on the document link titled Mineral and Water Resources of Wisconsin. I want you to print out the part on "Precambrian Geology of Wisconsin" (pages 9-22 on the report) and bring those to class as well. Instead of a quiz next week, we will go over the rock types of of the areas of the proposed iron mines and when/how they formed and color them in on the map.
• Finally, click on the document link titled Overview of Metallic Mineral Regulation in wisconsin. I want you to read section 1:7: What Aspects of Metallic Mineral Development are Regulated? (pages 8-19 on the report).

Please make sure you have the appropriate pages when you print them out... the page numbers refer to the actual documents as given on the footer of each page, NOT the pages of the overall PDF file.

it may seem like a lot of pages, but there are LOTS of figures and stuff on the pages.

Finally, here is a nice link for Geology of Wisconsin by Professor Steve Dutch of UW- Green Bay. Scroll down to the bottom for Atlas of Wisconsin Geologic History.

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Just wanted to post the quiz/homework for next week due on Thursday, November 10 in D2L dropbox. This is basically on acid rock drainage and other environmental impacts of mining. The homework is based on the booklet Metal Mining and the Environment published by the American Geological Institute.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation for week of November 7. We are moving on to sedimentary rocks now.

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Just a couple documents for you... the Status of Mining in WI document gives a brief overview of frac sand mining(among others) with diagrams for how frac sand is used for fracking. The author is a member of the AIPG and is currently involved in WI mining legislation changes... I just wish he would list where he got the diagrams from. Those look like they have been taken from some web site, but no URL is given.

here is an article published in Journal Sentinel on November 5, 2011. I copied and pasted the article on a word document.

More later

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Here is the lab for this week. You'll work on it for part of next Tuesday. Please turn in a typed copy.

Here is the quiz/homework for this week. This is due next Thursday, Nov. 17 via D2L.

I'm posting two Powerpoint presentations here:

• My Intro Geology metamorphism lecture. This is for you as a review/background material... I'll probably not go over this one in class
• The "real" lecture on metamorphism. I will follow this presentation for the next couple class periods.

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Lots of material for metamorphic rocks.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation for metamorphic intensity. I will go over this in class perhaps next week.

Here is the combined labs for this week and next 12 midnight, Thursday, December 1, by D2L. You need to print out this worksheet and work on it during class/lab time. You MUST be present in class tomorrow to recveive full credit for this assignment.

Finally, here are some identification keys I downloaded from the metamorphic rock id page maintained by Lynn S. Fichter of James madison University. Here goes:

• Table summarizing shale metamorphism
• Foliated metamorphic rock id key
• Granular/non-foliated metamorphic rock id key
• Common metamorphic rock classification
• Metamorphic mineral id key

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Here is the quiz and lab 12 for this week. I already printed out the assignment for you, this is for you to download and type up your answers for submission to D2L.

Next week we will have a review session for the final exam.

Here is a brief overview of the types of questions you can expect for the final:

• For igneous rocks:
  • You will be asked to identify given rock samples. For those rocks with visible/identifiable minerals, you will be asked to identify the constituent minerals as well.
  • You will be asked to determine the overall chemistry (ultramafic, mafic, intermediate, silicic) of the rock sample(s) based on their mineralogy
  • You will be asked to determine their cooling/crystallization history (slow cooling, fast cooling, cooling in stages) based on the rock texture
  • You will be asked to identify/determine the common tectonic setting(s) for samples... I might give you a sketch of a tectonic setting, like a divergent boundary, and ask you to pick out the rock(s) out of a tray that you might expect to find in that setting.
• For sulfide and other economic ore mineals:
  • Again, you need to be able to identify the samples provided.
  • You will need to know which metal (for example, copper, zinc, mercury... etc.) is economically extracted from which mineral. You will also need to know any other use for those minerals (like pyrite being the source for sulfuric acid, even though it is NOT an economically viable ore for iron). I will not ask you how the extracted metals are used, however (meaning, I might ask you what metal is extracted from galena, but I will not ask you how lead is used).
  • You will need to know how particluar metal sulfide(s) (you need to know which one) can cause acid rock drainage, and how it can be addressed.
• For sedimentary rocks:
  • You will be asked to identify the rock samples.
  • You will be asked to determine the environment of deposition /energy conditions/tectonic setting for the samples provided. I might give you a sketch of a tectonic setting and ask you to select samples that might be associated with that particular setting.
• For metamorphic rocks/minerals:
  • You will be asked to identify the rock/mineral samples.
  • For rocks with visible minerals, like eclogite, biotite-garnet schist... etc., you will be asked to identify the minerals
  • You will need to know the Pressure-Temperature conditions and/or metamorphic facies (blueschist, greenschist...etc.) for the samples. I might also ask for grade of metamorphism (high, medium, low... etc), but unless asked, I'll expect you to give me either the actual P-T range, or the name of the facies.
  • You will need to know the protolith (or original rock/mineral) for rocks in the Barrovian series (you need to know what the Barrovian series is), quartzite, marble, serpentinite/serpentine, chlorite schist, skarn... etc.
  • As with every other rocks and minerals, you need to know the tectonic setting for metamorphic rocks... I might give you a skecth of a tectonic setting and ask you to select the metamophic rocks that you might expect to find at that setting.

For ALL samples:
• I might put a bunch of samples in a tray and ask you to select the ones associated with a specific tectonic setting.
• I might ask you to explain WHY you thought the other samples are not be likely to be found in that specific tectonic setting
• I might give you two samples, ask you to identify each one and ask you to explain how you decided which one is which.

In every instance your logic and explanation for your answers will carry the maximum credit. Even if you identify a sample/answer a question correctly, points will be taken off if your explanation is lacking, vague, does not make sense, or missing.

Lastly, please make sure I can read your handwriting. I WILL take points off for illegible writing.

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

I received a new intro geology textbook today, and found a really good diagram about metamorphic facies. Here are the pages describing the relationship between metamorphism and plate tectonics.
Here are the enlarged figures from the text for your reference.

I also wanted to post some sample questions for the final exam so you might have an idea what you can expect. We will work on these questions during class tomorrow and next Tuesday.

As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Here is the Wisconsin Mining Bill released by Assembly Republicans on Thursday, Dec. 8. There was a suggestion to have an alternate option of writing a response paper to this bill instead of taking the final. If you want the option of reading the entire bill and writing a response paper (12-15 pages, 12 point font, no more than 1.5 spaced) by Tuesday, December 20, just let me know. You will have more time (seven days) to read and analyze the document than people planning to attend/participate in the Assembly public hearing on December 14.

Even if you don't take that option, I'd strongly suggest you go over this bill and the implications.

That's it for today. As always, e-mail me if you have any questions.