GEOL 5600 - Structural Geology

• Understand the mechanics of faulting, and the link between shear stress and brittle failure, fault orientation and the principal stresses, and faulting and earthquakes.
• Understand the mechanics of folding, the link between fold mechanisms and geometry, and the processes of buckling, shear folding, fold interference, kink bands, and the controls on fold mechanism.
• Graduate students are expected to take on a leadership role in the course by mentoring the undergraduates, and by being prepared to assist the undergraduates in the collection of structural data in the field.
• Graduate students will be assigned additional laboratory material that requires a greater depth of analysis than that undertaken by undergraduates.
• Graduate students will be expected to achieve a higher level of understanding of all of the course material than their younger colleagues and will be assessed accordingly.
• Graduate students will be expected to have a complete understanding of geologic maps and the use of stereographic projections.
• Graduate students will be expected to know those aspects of the course for which a broad familiarity is expected of the undergraduates.
• In addition to the outcomes expected of the undergraduate students, graduates will complete a 20-page term paper on a specific structural association involving primary literature research.
• Know how strain is measured using spherical objects, pebbles, fossils, folds and balanced cross sections.
• Know how to use minor structures to interpret flexural slip folds from structures associated with bedding plane slip, interpret shear folds from their axial planar cleavage, determining the sense of fault movement from structures associated with faul.
• Know the classification folds and fold systems, the terminology used to describe them and the means by which they are measured and analyzed.
• Know the classification of faults and fractures, the rock-types associated with them, and the nomenclature of fault associations and major fault systems.
• Know the types of foliation and lineation, their origin, and their relationship to folding and fabric.
• Learn how to read geologic maps and solve simple map problems using strike lines and cross sections for areas showing dipping strata, unconformities, faults and folds.
• Learn how to use the stereographic projection to plot planar and linear data, determine angular relationships, solve rotational problems, and analyze complex structural data in areas involving folding and faulting.
• Understand elastic and viscous strain in rock behavior, the effects of temperature, time, pressure, pore fluids and strain rate on rock strength, and the mechanisms of rock deformation.
• Understand the concept of strain, stain types and their measurement, the strain ellipse and its graphical representation, pure and simple shear, and progressive deformation.
• Understand the concepts of stress and force, normal and shear stresses, the principal stress axes, hydrostatic and deviatoric stresses, and stress fields.