UIC - EaES 350

EaES 350
Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy

Teaching assistant: Zenon Mateo

Welcome to the EaES 350 homepage! This website provides the syllabus of EaES 350, as well as links to all lecture notes, including illustration materials. In order to properly access all this information, you need to have Microsoft PowerPoint 97 or higher (available in the department computer lab, 2462 SES), as well as Adobe Acrobat (freeware that can be downloaded from the web). In order to run animations, some additional software (e.g., RealPlayer, also freeware) is needed.

Although not extremely difficult, this course is relatively labor-intensive, and you should be prepared to spend a substantial amount of time on it. It includes lectures, labs, a poster presentation, and two short field trips. Our experience is that students who take a high course load easily run into trouble in this course. Make sure you give this some serious thought during the first two weeks of the semester, while you are still able to make adjustments.

Lectures

This website provides all the lecture notes, featuring both text and graphics. For convenient modem downloading and printing, the text slides are provided in black and white. When you use the print option, make sure you select the option "handouts" (rather than "slides"); you can easily fit 6 slides on one page. This will save ink and trees!

Introduction
Unconsolidated clastic sediments
Sedimentary rocks
Diagenesis
Sediment transport and deposition
Sedimentary structures
Facies and depositional environments
Glacial/eolian/lacustrine environments
Fluvial/deltaic/coastal environments
Shallow/deep marine environments
Stratigraphic principles
Sequence stratigraphy
Sedimentary basins
Models in sedimentary geology
Applied sedimentary geology
Reflection

All text slides in black and white

Literature

This course uses the following textbook, available at the UIC Bookstore:

Nichols, G., 1999. Sedimentology and Stratigraphy. Blackwell, Oxford, 355 pp. ISBN 0-632-03578-1.

Labs

Labs take place on Fridays, 2:00-4:00, 1282 SEL. Lab excercises must be turned in within one week after the date of the lab - this is a very firm deadline! The labs will be posted on this website; print them out and bring them to your lab session. After a lab has been turned in, it will be discussed by the teaching assistant. Make sure you pay thorough attention to the feedback you receive with respect to the labs - it will help you to prepare more efficiently for the written exams.

Lab 1 (Jan 21): Grain-size analysis - data set - key (key spreadsheet)
Lab 2 (Jan 28): Unconsolidated sediments - key
Lab 3 (Feb 4): Sedimentary rocks - key
Lab 4 (Feb 11): Sandstones and carbonates - key
Lab 5 (Feb 18): Fluid and sediment dynamics - key (key spreadsheet)
Lab 6 (Feb 25): Sedimentary structures I - key
Lab 7 (Mar 4): Sedimentary structures II - key
Lab 8 (Mar 18): Sedimentary logs - key
Lab 9 (Apr 1): Cross section - key
Lab 10 (Apr 8): Seismic and sequence stratigraphy - key

Poster

Every participant is expected to prepare a poster about a topic of choice within the broad field of sedimentary geology. The topic must be approved by the instructor. The deadline for selection of a topic is March 4; the deadline for approval of the list of references to be used is March 29. The poster presentations will take place on April 15 and April 29 (2:00-4:00, 1282 SEL). We will divide the class into two groups according to alphabet, and contrary to what usually happens, the second half (Marinas - Zulaski) will present their posters first (April 15), followed by the others (Andjelic - Grayson) on April 29. Make sure you strictly follow the general instructions about how to put together a poster. Your teaching assistant will be available to give you advice along the way.

Field trips

Indiana Dunes (April 9): modern lakeshore, eolian, and fluvial processes. We leave at 9 AM sharp from 845 West Taylor Street!
SW Wisconsin (April 16-17, 8 AM): Ordovician carbonate-dominated rocks. We leave on Saturday at 8 AM sharp from 845 West Taylor Street!

Midterm exam

March 11, 2:00-4:00, 1282 SEL (first 10 sections - Sedimentology). Textbook chapters 1-5, 7-15, 17. To obtain an idea of the style of questioning, check out this example test.

Final exam

May 3, 10:30-12:30, 214 DH (all sections - Sedimentology and Stratigraphy). Textbook chapters 1-5, 7-15, 17-23.

Animations

Sediment transport and deposition
Dune migration, Wave, Debris flow, Turbidity current

Sedimentary structures
Planar cross stratification, Trough cross stratification

Fluvial/deltaic/coastal environments
Fluvial processes, Point-bar formation

Shallow/deep marine environments
Submarine fan

Models in sedimentary geology
Experiment, Basin filling

Miscellaneous

So who really came up with uniformitarianism? Should all the credit go to Charles Lyell? Here is Mike Leeder's point of view (as of January 17, 2003):

"First thing about Hutton and Lyell is that they were both Scottish. Despite this handicap they both attained genius. I reckon Hutton the more revolutionary, I mean actually working out what unconformities meant was so profound an advance, but really Lyell developed the 'present causes' argument almost to the point of obsession.......... I would go 50:50 on attribution."