GEOL 425 - Environmental Geochemistry

• Describe geochemical cycles of water and carbon in terms of their principle reservoirs, residence times in those reservoirs and fluxes between major reservoirs. They can differentiate between long-timescale processes (such as silicate weathering) an1 short-timescale processes (such as anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2).
• Have a basic knowledge of acids and bases, their properties and behavior. Students understand the relative strengths of acids and bases and related equilibria.
• Comprehend and can describe in their own words the laws of thermodynamics. They understand how the equilibrium constant of a reaction can be derived from expressions for chemical potential and Gibbs free energy.
• Understand the relationship between minerals and natural wate1 in terms of solubility equilibria, and know how factors such as temperature and pH will effect mineral solubility.
• Have basic laboratory skills necessary to carry out a supervised geochemical study (e.g. can perform Gram titration of waters in field, can collect water samples using clean methods, can measure water content, textures and LOI of soils, etc.)
• Have basic knowledge of water and soil chemistry, controls on pH, cation and anion concentrations.
• Understand the role of the oceans in geochemical cycles and as buffers for our environment. They know the controls on ocean chemistry.
• Given an environmental geochemical problem, students are aware of geochemical techniques (isotopes, trace elements, etc.) which might be used to address that problem.
• Be aware of current topics of research in environmental geochemistry and can read and critically discuss a research article.