GEOS 314
Analytical Historical Geology
Last Offered Spring 2020
Division III Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
This course is not offered in the current catalog

In this course you will learn to collect, interpret, and analyze deep time paleontological, stratigraphic, and sedimentological records through readings, labs, and projects all coordinated around a week long spring break trip to explore the House Range of Utah. The Cambrian and Ordovician successions of Utah’s West Desert offers an outstanding record of one of the most important periods in Earth history, tracking the rise of animal ecosystems and major increases in diversity. The first 6 weeks of class will be spent learning the fundamentals of quantitative methods in paleontology and stratigraphy. Labs will focus on skill building including learning basic coding in R, and learning how to interpret paleontological, sedimentological, and stratigraphic data. We will also read widely on the field locality and on the Cambrian and Ordovician Periods. During the field trip, we will explore the House Range. Students will learn skills including geological mapping, measuring stratigraphic section, finding and identifying fossils, and correlating rock units across basins. We will collect samples and data on the field trip and bring them back to Williams. The second 6 weeks of the course will be spent processing and analyzing the samples and data collected during the field trip, culminating in final projects to be done in small groups. Students will determine what data we will collect in the field. Examples might be trilobite taxonomy and phylogenetic analyses, quantitative biostratigraphic correlation using conodont fossils, reconstructing paleoenvironment based on sedimentological analyses of thin sections, or building a sequence stratigraphic framework for a subset of the field locality. This course is in the Sediments and Life group for the Geosciences major.