Assessed Field Techniques 1

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 4
• Convenor: Professor Hilary Downes
• Prerequisite: Introduction to Geology
• Assessment: fieldwork done in field and subsequent write-ups; notebooks, maps, logs and sundry field exercises (100%)

This module will give you experience of techniques involved in geological fieldwork. It is compulsory for single honours geology students. It consists of the work done in each of the four Easter field classes of a normal degree course. Performance in the field (accuracy of observations and records) and quality of interpretation are assessed during and immediately following each 10-14-day Easter field class by the field class leader in consultation with demonstrators (if any).

You will need a hard hat, hand lens, field notebooks, compass, clinometer, pencils, mapping pens, tape measure and geological hammers.

Indicative module syllabus

• Navigation and locating oneself in the field using map and compass work and GPS
• Recording information by making field notes and annotated sketches, organising a field notebook
• Identification and familiarity with rocks, minerals and fossils in the field, understanding the effects of weathering on the appearance of rocks, understanding fundamentals of stratigraphy, sedimentology, and structural geology
• Understanding different types of geological contact and relationships between rock units and the interpretation and recording of three dimensional rock structures; specific skills will include recording planar and linear features in the field, making basic geological maps, constructing cross sections in the field and constructing sedimentary logs

By the end of this module, you will have basic and widely transferable field skills and first hand experience of a wide variety of geological phenomena.