vargas island, summer, 2010

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Geology Unit - an introduction


We looked at the layers of the earth today and you ought to know these layers for next day.  Your real life experiences at Squamish and Garibaldi Provincial Park creates an excellent context for this unit.  You have slept on a live volcano, in the path of a former lava flow.  the black tusk is all basalt rock!













and we examined different rock samples including:   
   BASALT
   GRANITE
   PUMICE
   
   HALITE
   SNOWFLAKE OBSIDIAN

Our resources for this unit includes the following:
-the provincial exam study packagedo chapter 12 section only.  chapter 10 and 11 are no longer on the provincial. answer key at the end of the package. 

-two case studies: 
     Earthquakes: the Japanese Tsunami and composite volcanoes: Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Vesuvisus
   -the following summary notes I've created (these will only make sense at the end of the chapter!)  a  geology study package 
   -any of the older exams I have posted in the past, including those from old grade 12 provincials . Note that from those gr. 12 tests, the following kinds of questions only:  plate tectonics, Continental drift theory, volcanos, earthquakes, including the kinds of earthquake questions practiced in class.
   -any of the old grade 10 exam questions on geology.  A few of the more challenging questions would be questions from some of these old  provincials -  gr. 10 and 12 so you would gain a great advantage by poring through them.

you must be very familiar with key examples of geological features found at the correct places.  for example, Hawaii is an island system which has shield volcanos, is associated with hot spots.  African Rift Valley is a divergent boundary,  pacific north west is a subduction zone and nearby there is a trench, volcanos, earthquakes.  Japan is a volcanic island arc, etc.

We will follow up with a visit to the Museum of the Earth at UBC in June