Structural geology

Course goals

Content

Course skills

• Data skills: use Earth surface and subsurface data. Students will be able to understand how to get, read and use Earth surface and subsurface data to analyze deformation and quantify this deformation in tectonic processes. The students will analyze the datasets by the means of simple graphs or stereographic projections and will present the results in the form of short reports.
• Field skills: Identification and classification of deformation features. Students will be able to identify meso-scale to large scale deformation features and to integrate them to derive patterns of local to regional scale tectonic deformation. These patterns will be illustrated by diagrams, graphs and cross-sections that will be discussed in short reports.
• Lab skills: students will be able to integrate microscopy observations into large scale deformation processes. Students will learn how to integrate mineral parageneses and deformation features into the definition of large scale kinematic and tectonic processes. The integration will be realized by diagrams and cross-sections that will be integrated in short reports.
• Thinking skills: interpretation of structures, kinematics and deformation towards tectonic and geodynamic processes. Students will learn how to combine multiscale deformation features in large scale evolutionary models. We will use kinematic reconstruction modelling approaches to derive evolutionary models at the scale of entire sedimentary basins or orogenic processes, described in short reports.
• Earth Sciences and society skills: a view towards the sustainable use of the subsurface, developed more extensively in other courses. Students will learn how to use deformation features to focus the research on the sustainable use of the subsurface, for instance the location of suitable reservoirs in sedimentary basins or potential for carbon storage of ophiolitic suture zones. These notions contribute to a better understanding of the societal usage developed more extensively in other courses. The skills with be developed by qualitative analyses of evolutionary models in the course short reports.

Development of transferable skills:

• Written communication skills: results of the practical assignments have to be presented in the form of written reports or poster presentations;
• Ability to work in a team: all practical assignments are carried out in a team of two, both members having the same responsibility towards the final product;
• Initiative: In working on the practical assignments, the students cannot wait until supervision arrives, they have to take initiatives themselves;
• Problem-solving skills: most of the practical assignments have multiple possible answers and require good analysis of how to solve the questions at hand;
• Analytical/quantitative skills: application of the knowledge obtained during lectures and self-study to solve problems and answer research-like questions;
• Technical skills: optical microscopy.