625-313 Advanced Field Geology

Special Requirements: Geological hammer, hand lens and magnet. Students should consult the Earth Sciences web site for dates, charges for excursions, accommodation and food and other information including safety requirements.

Credit cannot be gained for both this subject and either 625-311 or 625-312 (prior to 2004).

Earth sciences 625-223 and 625-301 or equivalent.

Excursion sites that may be visited include:

• Broken Hill and regions within the Curnamona Craton of South Australia and New South Wales in which students will be introduced to skills that are relevant to the understanding of packages of deformed and metamorphosed rocks and their interpretation in a region where there is a world-class ore body;

• Central Australia in which students will be introduced to an intracontinental fold and thrust belt and its relationship to the adjacent metamorphic basement and sedimentary basin;

• Flinders Ranges of South Australia where students will be introduced to the style of sedimentation and nature of deformation and exhumation of portions of the Adelaide geosyncline;

• Gawler Craton of South Australia where students will be introduced to relationships between palaeoproterozoic metasedimentary, volcanic, granitoid and basic igneous complexes, mineral deposits and younger sequences.

If there is sufficient interest, some overseas excursions may be offered.

At the end of this subject, students will have skills in field geology that will enable them to identify unfamiliar minerals and rocks in the field, collate and interpret observations from stratigraphy and rock relationships and structural geology. They will appreciate how observable geological phenomena can be documented, analysed and interpreted to provide an understanding of Earth processes.

A written report of up to 2500 words due at the end of semester (75%); field notebooks (10%); field exercises (15%).