Research Facilities
Courses & Programs Courses Graduate
| Graduate Courses |
GEOLOGY
Properties of reservoir rocks; origin, migration and accumulation of petroleum; geologic interpretation of borehole logs and fluid-pressure measurements and the role of hydrostatic and hydrodynamic pressures in oil accumulation. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor. Recognition and description of hydrocarbon reservoirs in carbonate rocks; classification of carbonate porosity; capillary pressure curves and pore types; pore characteristics as proxies for permeability in reservoir modeling; techniques for mapping flow units. Prerequisites: Graduate classification and approval of instructor. Regional geology of North America, examining the accumulation and deformation of the rock units involved; structural form and style emphasized; entire geologic history investigated. Prerequisite: Graduate classification or approval of instructor. Active surface processes as they influence engineering construction; erosion, rivers and floods, slope processes, subsidence, coastal processes, ice, weathering and ground water. Prerequisites: Graduate classification in engineering or geosciences; GEOG 331 or approval of instructor. Geological principles applied to the investigation design, construction and maintenance of engineering projects; history, development and role of engineering geologic practice as applied to dams, waste disposal, surface and ground water, tunneling, quarrying and construction materials. History and cause of global change in the earth system, Archean to Holocene; Impact of biotic change on the earth system; influence of tectonics on paleochemistry and climate change; influence of climate on tectonics; methods and models for evaluating global change. Prerequisite: Graduate classification. Mechanical analysis of geological problems based on concepts of stress, strain, strength, elasticity, viscosity and plasticity; folding, faulting, dike formation, hydraulic fracturing, magma and glacial flow, and cooling of magmatic bodies. Prerequisites: MATH 253; approval of instructor. Mechanisms of rock deformation from single crystal to mountain range; techniques for mapping stresses and strains and for inferring physical conditions and mechanical behavior at time of deformation; laboratory assignments on descriptive techniques include petrographic microscope-universal stage methods, field procedures and data analysis. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor. Application of theoretical and experimental results to problems in natural rock deformation; structural mechanisms on the phenomenological, laboratory and natural scales with emphasis on the genesis of structural features in layered rocks. Prerequisites: GEOL 665, GEOP 611, 615. Detailed analyses of clastic sedimentary rocks: relationships of facies and depositional environments with emphasis on continental, coastal and shallow shelf clastic sediments; petrography and diagenesis of modern and ancient clastic sediments. Prerequisites: Optical mineralogy course and sedimentology (undergraduate); graduate classification. Reports and discussions of current research and selected topics from geologic literature. Prerequisite: Graduate classification. Enables graduate students to undertake limited investigations not within their thesis or dissertation research and not covered in established curricula. Prerequisites: Graduate classification and approval of instructor. Selected topics in an identified area of geology. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor. Original research on problems in various phases of geology. Research for thesis or dissertation. GEOPHYSICS
Development of continuum mechanics and its application to rock deformation; stress, strain, stress equilibrium, constitutive relations; governing equations for elastic solids and viscous fluids formulated and used to solve elementary boundary-value problems which have application to structural geology and solid-state geophysics. Prerequisite: MATH 221 or equivalent. Inferences about Earth structure from geophysical data; explicit treatment of sparse and noisy observations; construction of smooth Earth models; linear inversion of marine magnetic anomalies from seafloor magnetization; smooth inversion of DC sounding data from electrical structure; seismic tomography and geodetic fault-plane reconstructions; advanced methods for nonlinear deterministic inversion. Prerequisite: Graduate classification. Tectonic classification of basins; tectonic mechanisms responsible for basin formation: mechanical behavior of the lithosphere; subsidence; geophysical signatures of sedimentary basins; tectonic controls on sedimentation and basin filling; petroleum systems and basin-scale hydrologic systems. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor. Introduces propagation of acoustic waves in boreholes, with applications to petroleum exploration and comparisons to other waveguide phenomena in the earth sciences; survey of full waveform acoustic logging and influence of borehole modes for crosswell and vertical seismic profile experiments; exercised in data analysis with industry software. Prerequisite: GEOP 421 or 652 or approval of instructor. Poroelasticity and electrodynamics of porous media; Biot Theory, Gassman fluid substitution and advanced rock physics models; relationships between seismic/electromagnetic properties and multiphase reservoir properties such as porosity, saturation, permeability, wettability, connectivity and other pore-structure parameters; computer-based rock physics modeling; application to reservoir characterization; time-lapse reservoir monitoring. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor. (Spring, alternate years.) Geological and geophysical methods and phenomena pertinent to geodynamics; plate tectonics; seismicity and seismology; magnetics; gravity; heat flow; igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary petrology; paleontology; and rock mechanics. Prerequisite: Approval of instructor. Discussion of subjects of current importance. Prerequisite: Graduate classification. For graduate students to undertake limited investigations not within their thesis or dissertation research and not covered in established curricula. Prerequisites: Graduate classification and approval of department head. Research toward thesis or dissertation. |
