Assigned readings and composition of literature reviews will be an integral part of the course work. As a major capstone course for undergraduates, your work in this course will integrate all of the computational, critical thinking, writing, and geophysical skills you have gained during your Geology or Geophysics degree program.

The course has 4 elements: lectures, lab exercises, reading case-history literature, and a field project.
The description below is available to WWW browsers at the URL http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/492-syll.html.

Lectures

Lab Exercises

However, students are responsible for finding the computer resources needed to complete the exercises on their own time. Please inform the instructor immediately if you cannot locate a suitable computer, or if you feel additional class lab sessions need to be scheduled for an exercise. In general each lab exercise will be due one week after the lecture covering the included concepts. Students may work together to complete the exercises, but all must turn in only their own work. Late exercises will be accepted with a 10% penalty for a week or two after the due date, possibly later at the instructor's discretion.

Reading Case-History Literature

Field Project

Planning and mobilizing for each geophysical method will be assigned to a student group from the class. Everyone in the class must be willing to give up their entire spring break for the field project. The fieldwork may occupy all nine days of Spring Break, from 8 AM to 6 PM each field day. Additional details will be announced in February. There is a field project preparation web page from 2008 that will be updated with this class's objectives.

Each method's group will present their analysis with a 15-minute seminar during the class Final Period on Monday May 10, 9:45-11:45 AM in LMR353. While the class will collectively analyze the data obtained, students will be responsible for their own written reports. Each should describe the objectives, previous work, methods, results, and implications of the entire project in 5 to 10 pages of text, plus figures. For further guidance, see the page on elements of a professional report. The class may be able to publish its collected results. There will be no final exam, unless the field project becomes a complete failure.

Grades will be calculated as follows:

Lab Exercises	40%	Abstracts	30%
Oral Presentation	10%	Field Report	20%

Final grades will be curved separately for graduate and undergraduate students, and plus or minus grades may be assigned. Most years, the letter grade is determined from a scale such as this:

Letter Grade	% of 100% possible	Letter Grade	% of 100% possible	Letter Grade	% of 100% possible
A	90-100	B-	77-79	D+	63-66
A-	87-89	C+	73-76	D	60-62
B+	83-86	C	70-72	D-	57-59
B	80-82	C-	67-69	F	0-56

Academic Dishonesty
is defined as cheating, plagiarism or otherwise obtaining grades under false pretenses. I will return any work that contains plagiarism to you without grading it. If I do this, please meet with me ASAP so I can instruct you on how to avoid academic dishonesty, and encourage you to revise and re-submit the assignment for class credit. You are encouraged to work with your classmates on all assignments except your abstracts. However, you must turn in your own work for it to count toward your grade, free of any academic dishonesty.

Accommodating Disabilities

Syllabus and Schedule