This Environmental Geology Lab Manual is intended to be used as a complement to an introductory college-level course in Environmental Geology.
It is designed to help a student acquire the “hands-on” skills in working with geologic materials and data. The exercises in this Environmental Geology Lab Manual will teach a student how to:
• Identify rock-forming minerals and resource minerals
• Identify igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks
• Identify soils
• Investigate the hazards and benefits of geologic processes and their impacts on people
• Execute geologic data acquisition techniques from online geospatial technology
• Interpret geologic data acquired from online geospatial technology
To introduce the student to the process of science, this Environmental Geology Lab Manual requires the student to do some research which will be presented as a scientific poster.
These chapters of this lab manual will teach the student stand-alone “hands-on” techniques:
• Chapter 3: Earth Imagery
• Chapter 6: Mineral Identification
• Chapter 7: Rock Identification
• Chapter 9: Soil Classification
• Chapter 10: Drainage Basins and Stream Processes
These chapters of this lab manual will teach the student research techniques for a scientific poster:
• Chapter 4: Topographic Maps
• Chapter 5: Historical Land Use and LIDAR Interpretation
• Chapter 8: Geologic Maps
• Chapter 10: Soil Maps and Web Soil Survey
• Chapter 12: Site Reconnaissance
• Chapter 13: Surface and Groundwater Databases
• Chapter 14: Poster Session
What has changed in the 2nd Edition:
1- Correction of broken hyperlinks
2- Addition of language in Chapter 1 to mention coastal processes
3- Correction of missing information in the Mineral Hardness table.
