Geology (GEOL)
Prerequisites: Credit toward the degree may be earned in only one of GEOL 100 or GEOL 101 or GEOL 101H
Credit toward the degree may be earned in only one of GEOL 100 or GEOL 101 or GEOL 101H. Does not fulfill the prerequisite requirement for any course in geology.
Description: Background in physical geology for non-majors. Topics include rocks and minerals, surficial processes, plate tectonics, and applied geology.
Prerequisites: Credit toward the degree may be earned in only one of GEOL 100 or GEOL 101 or GEOL 101H
Lab includes field trips. Credit toward the degree may be earned in only one of GEOL 100 or GEOL 101 or GEOL 101H.
Description: Minerals, rocks, and ores; the surface features and internal character of the earth and the forces that are constantly changing it. Examination of minerals and rocks and investigation of geological processes and their products.
Prerequisites: Good standing in the University Honors Program or by invitation; GEOL major. Credit toward the degree may be earned in only one of GEOL 100 or GEOL 101 or GEOL 101H
Credit toward the degree may be earned in only one of: GEOL 100 or 101 or 101H.One afternoon field trip and one overnight field trip required.
Description: Processes that formed the earth and continue to alter it today, from interior forces driving plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building, to surface processes driving the atmosphere, oceans, rivers, glaciers, and landscape formation. Natural resources and their origin.
Prerequisites: GEOL 101
Description: An examination of the evolution of life on earth through time in the context of changing continents, oceans, and climate. Lab work includes the study of earth processes affecting the sedimentary rock record and provides an overview of common fossils.
Description: Introduction to the history of life based on the fossil record, evolutionary patterns, and processes.
Description: Survey of geologic materials and processes with emphasis on those that influence modern societies' adjustment to our environment.
This course is a prerequisite for: GEOL 372
Description: Introduction to physical oceanography, the geologic aspects of biologic oceanography, and human impact on the oceans.
Description: Major geological natural hazards that affect human society and the geological processes that are responsible for them, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides, floods, and meteorite impacts.
Description: Physical and historical geology of selected United States parklands. Geological and geophysical processes that produced the unique features of the parks. Interpretation of fossils, archaeology and geologic history. Environmental park policy issues involving geosciences.
Description: Scientific exploration of the modern environment and geological and climate history of the Antarctic continent and Southern Ocean.
GEOL 197 requires a field trip
Description: Scientific principles and practices illustrated through geological field work in Nebraska and Wyoming.
Description: Crystallography and mineral optics, mineral classes, crystal chemistry, and mineral identification methods. Includes microscope techniques and field methods.
This course is a prerequisite for: GEOL 201
Prerequisites: GEOL 101
Description: Learn to identify rock types and sedimentary and structural features in the field in the Western United States. Build crucial field skills including the ability to tell a geologic story from a landscape or outcrop.
Description: Topics vary.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent study under direction of a faculty member.
Prerequisites: GEOL 201
Description: Sedimentary rocks and processes, their descriptive parameters, occurrence, origin, and significance in earth history. Stratified rocks in time and space, and methods of correlating geologic units from different localities.
Biogeography is a highly interdisciplinary science, relying heavily on ecology, geological science, and climatology. It is global in scope and offers the latest knowledge in understanding organism distributions, and the factors that determine those distributions.
Description: Introduction to the basic concepts of biogeography, the study of distributions of plants and animals, both past and present.
Prerequisites: PLAS/SOIL 153; MATH 102 or 103; two semesters chemistry (CHEM 105A and 105L, CHEM 106A and 106L, CHEM 109A and 109L, CHEM 110A and 110L) and WATS/GEOG/NRES 281
Description: Chemical and physical processes that influence the fate and transport of contaminants (inorganic, organic, microbial) in soil-water environments. Extent, fate, mitigation and impact of various sources of pollution. Remedial technologies used for environmental restoration of contaminated environments.
Description: Folding and faulting of rocks, types of texture and rock structure, cleavage, joints, dikes, and unconformaties; structural interpretation of geologic maps; plate tectonics, mountain belts, and regional structures.
This course is a prerequisite for: GEOL 460
Description: Exploration of the fundamentals of geochemistry from thermodynamics, including the laws of thermodynamics, multicomponent analysis, extrapolation to temperatures and pressures of interest, nonideal solution behavior, phase diagrams, volatile fugacities, and redox reactions.
Description: Principles of water chemistry and their use in precipitation, surface water, and groundwater studies. Groundwater applications used to determine the time and source of groundwater recharge, estimate groundwater residence time, identify aquifer mineralogy, examine the degree of mixing between waters of various sources and evaluate what types of biological and chemical processes have occurred during the water's journey through the aquifer system.
Prerequisites: Junior standing
Description: Introduction to the basic methods and practical applications of remote sensing to map, monitor and assess agricultural and natural resources and other environmental changes
Prerequisites: GEOL 301.
Lab focuses on field, petrographic and geochemical methods.
Description: Depositional settings and processes, petrography, geochemistry, diagenesis and geological significance of modern and ancient carbonate rocks and sediments.
Prerequisites: 12 hrs GEOL or BIOS.
Description: Analysis and interpretation of the Quaternary period's paleoecological data. Patterns of long-term climate variation. Distribution patterns and responses of organisms and ecosystems to Quaternary environmental change.
Description: Chemical cycling at or near the earth's surface, emphasizing interactions among the atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere and hydrosphere. Modern processes, the geological record, and human impacts on elemental cycles.
Prerequisites: GEOL 301.
Description: Numerical and statistical analysis of paleontological data including biometry, syn-ecology, and quantitative biostratigraphy.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior Standing
Description: Survey of mammalian evolution with emphasis on the origin, radiation, and phylogenetic relationships of Cenozoic fossil mammals. Overview of climatic and ecological changes affecting mammalian adaptations and hands on experience with fossil specimens.
Prerequisites: GEOL 400.
Description: Theory of plate tectonics; tectonic controls on rock assemblages; interpretation of regional structure and tectonic history; origin and tectonic evolution of terrestrial planets.
Prerequisites: 3 hours of BIOS or 3 hours of LIFE; 3 hours of CHEM
Description: An introduction into the role that microorganisms play and have played in natural and man-made environments. Topics covered include microbial diversity and physiology in soil, sediment, and water; microbes in Earth history; biogeochemical cycling; mineral formation and dissolution; biodegradation and bioremediation; biotechnology.
Prerequisites: GEOL 441
Description: Integrative analysis of geophysical data (gravity, magnetics, seismic) with geological information (well logs, tectonic history, etc.)
Prerequisites: GEOL 485
Description: Geophysical methods used for petroleum exploration: potential fields, seismology, electrical and electromagnetic surveying.
Prerequisites: GEOL 301.
Description: Fluvial, glacial, eolian, and coastal processes and landforms. Roles of tectonics, climate, and climate change in landscape evolution. Lab stresses description and interpretation of landforms from remotely-sensed, cartographic, and field data.
Description: Overview of the key traits, relationships and evolutionary dynamics of invertebrate animals over Earth's history, particularly over the Phanerozoic (i.e., the last 540 million years). Emphasis on the use of invertebrate fossil record to test ideas about long term evolutionary patterns as well as learning the histories and basic anatomies of major invertebrate taxa.
Description: Processes controlling the cycling of energy and elements in ecosystems and how both plant and animal species influence them. Human-influenced global and local changes that alter these cycles and ecosystem functioning.
Students must sign up with the department during the Fall semester prior to the camp.
Description: Six weeks advanced study of selected field problems. Conducted in a geologically classic area where all major rock types are studied in a variety of geologic situations.
Prerequisites: GEOL 488/888.
Description: Basic techniques, field procedures, instruments, and software for data interpretation, and characterization of groundwater flow and contaminant transport.
Prerequisites: Senior standing.
Capstone course.
Description: Holistic approach to the selection and analysis of planning strategies for protecting water quality from nonpoint sources of contamination. Introduction to the use of methods of analyzing the impact of strategies on whole systems and subsystems; for selecting strategies; and for evaluating present strategies.
Prerequisites: Junior or above standing
Description: Seminar on current water resources research and issues in Nebraska and the region.
Prerequisites: GEOL 301.
Description: Geology of coal, oil and gas, and methods of exploration.
Description: Topics vary.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent study under direction of a faculty member.
Prerequisites: GEOL 301.
A required parallel course will be indicated by the instructor. Field trips which are required and supported by alumni endowment may be scheduled during semester breaks. Course content will vary on a 3-year rotational basis. Combined lectures, seminars, weekend short courses, and field trips.
Description: E.F. Schramm Course in Economic Geology. Aspects of fossil fuel geology and exploration.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent research leading to a thesis.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Description: Independent research leading to a thesis.