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Global Tectonics (Level 6)

Overview

  • Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6
  • Convenor: Professor Gerald Roberts
  • Assessment: two interpretative exercises (15% and 25%) and a 2.5-hour examination (60%)

Module description

In this module you will gain a global understanding of causes and consequences of present and past plate tectonic and associated geodynamic processes.

Indicative syllabus

  • Earth’s internal structure and and lithosphere
  • Recognition of plates and forces that drive plate motion
  • Evolution of rifts to ocean spreading and development of rifted (passive) margins
  • Orogenesis: mountain building associated with ocean-continent and continent-continent collision
  • How plate tectonics effect environmental change

Lectures will be reinforced by case studies that include Antarctica and the Scotia Sea, the Andes, Himalaya-Tibet and SE Asia, together with interpretative exercises based on field evidence.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • work with information from a diverse range of sources
  • interpret field observations and analytical data
  • organise and display such data in graphical and tabular form according to professional standards
  • generate interpretations derived from research activity and report these in a professional style.