Dr. Karen Bartels  Office: Main Campus, Science Building Room 142  Phone: (773) 442-6052  E-mail: K-Bartels@neiu.edu Web page: http://www.neiu.edu/~kbartels/bartels.htm

Office Hours:  Mon. 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.  Tues. 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.  Thurs. 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. Or by appointment

Course Description	Objectives	Outline of Topics
Textbook	Structure of the Course	Requirements
Grading Policy	Handouts & Study Guides	Links

Course Description:  This course will cover the geochemical principles governing the distribution of radioactive and stable isotopes in earth materials (primarily solid earth).  Students will learn how to use the distribution of radioactive isotopes and their decay products to date geologic materials and to trace the chemical differentiation of the crust and mantle through time.  Students will learn how stable isotopes are fractionated between earth materials, and how this phenomenon enables earth scientists to interpret geologic and hydrologic processes.

Recommended text:  Isotopes: Principles and Applications, Third Edition, Gunter Faure and Teresa M. Mensing (John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2005).

Please visit the "Companion Website" for this text at http://bcs.wiley.com/he-bcs/Books?action=index&itemId=0471384372&bcsId=2182

SUPPLEMENTAL TEXTS (On Reserve):
Radiogenic Isotope Geology, Alan P. Dickin (Cambridge University Press, London, 1995).
Earth Processes: Reading the Isotopic Code, Geophysical Monograph 95, A. Basu and S. Hart, editors (American Geophysical Union, 1996).
Stable Isotope Geochemistry, Jochen Hoefs (Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1997).

USGS page on isotope resources
Link to Professor Scott Wood's notes on basics of geochronology
Nuclear Wall Chart

Course Objectives:  By the end of this course you should be able to do the following:
•    Describe the origin of nuclides and explain reasons behind their pattern of abundances. 
•    Describe decay mechanisms (and illustrate them on chart of nuclides).
•    Derive the basic equation used in geochronometry from the Law of Radioactivity.
•    Explain the processes and assumptions involved in geochronometry.
•    Describe the pros and cons of various radiogenic isotope geochronometers. 
•    Explain what types of geologic materials work best with which geochronometers. 
•    Calculate a date of a rock or mineral given isotopic data. 
•    Describe the isotopic signatures of various mantle sources.
•    Interpret the origin of igneous rocks using isotope diagrams.
•    Explain how the mantle and crust came to have different isotope signatures.
•    Describe several phenomena that lead to fractionation of light stable isotopes.
•    Explain how earth scientists use stable isotope signatures in diverse fields such as economic geology, igneous petrology and paleoclimatology.

Week 1 :  Jan. 9 & 11	Review of basic concepts.  Origin and abundance of nuclides.  Decay modes.  Law of Radioactivity.	Ch. 1-4
Week 2:  MLK & Jan. 18	Part 1:  Geochronometers:  Rb-Sr method     (link to Dickin's chapter online)	Ch. 5
Week 3:  Jan. 23 & 25	K-Ar and Ar-Ar methods	Ch. 6-7
Week 4:  Jan. 30 & Feb. 1	Sm-Nd method and U-Pb methods	Ch. 9-11
Week 5:  Feb. 6 & 8	Continuation of geochronometery (new topics or catch-up)
Week 6:  LBD & Feb. 15	Part 2:  Using radiogenic isotope ratios to trace earth processes: Introduction	Ch. 16
Week 7:  Feb. 20 & 22	Feb. 20 Midterm Exam;  Feb. 22 Origin of Igneous Rocks	Ch. 17
Week 8:  Feb. 27 & Mar. 1	Origin of Igneous Rocks, continued	other readings
Week 9:  Mar. 6 & 8	Oceans	Ch. 19
Week 10:  Mar. 13 & 15	Part 3: Stable Isotopes;  Hydrogen and Oxygen	Ch. 26
Spring Break
Week 11:  Mar. 27 & 29	Hydrogen and Oxygen, continued;  Begin chapter on Carbon	Ch. 27
Week 12:  April 3 & 5	Take-home exam due April 3 ;  Carbon isotopes, continued
Week 13:  April 10 & 12	Sulfur isotopes	Ch. 29
Week 14:  Apr. 17 & 19	Other topics:  Cosmogenic radionuclides	Ch. 23
Week 15:  Apr. 24 & 26	Thermonuclear radionuclides	Ch. 25
Last Class is during Finals Week:  May 1	Review
FINAL EXAM May 3 6:00-7:50 p.m.

COURSE STRUCTURE:  Class sessions will typically be a combination of individual and group problem-solving, discussions, and lecture.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

Attendance.  Regular attendance is expected.  

Email and Web access.  Announcements about the class will be sent via email and posted on the course website.  

Assessments.  At the end of each class session, you will be asked to participate in a brief assessment exercise.  This will be an anonymous and non-graded survey, quiz, or comment form designed to help the instructor determine how the class is coming along in terms of understanding the important concepts.

Assignments.   Weekly assignments are due on Mondays by 8 p.m.  I will evaluate your assignments and return them to you on Wednesdays.  If you have major errors or misconceptions, you will have the opportunity to correct some of your work and turn it in attached to the next week’s assignment.

Exams.  There are three exams, two mid-terms (one in-class and one take-home) and a final.

Individual Project.   The individual project will involve reading an assigned journal article, answering some questions about it (How does it relate to what we learned in class?  What research question is it addressing, and how?), and then “teaching” the article to your classmates. 

GRADING POLICIES: All course requirements must be completed to pass the course.

Exam I  (100 points)
Exam II (100 pts)
Final Exam (100 pts)
Weekly Assignments (15 at 10 points each for total of 150 pts)
Project (150 pts)
Total of 600 points possible

The grading scale is as follows:
A 100-90%; B 89-80%; C 79-70%; D 69-60%; F 59% and lower.

No make-up exams will be given.  If you miss an exam, you will not be able to take it at a later time.  Instead, you must take a comprehensive substitute exam on April 24.

Incompletes will be given only in accordance with University policies as published in the catalog.

Important information useful for all of your courses:

Drop Date:  The last date to drop a course in the Spring 2006 session is Friday,  March 17.

Student Responsibilities and Academic Integrity:

“Each student is responsible for knowledge of, and adherence to, all University requirements and regulations.”[From NEIU 2002-2003 catalog, p.30]

“NortheasternIllinoisUniversity students are expected to exhibit the highest standards of academic integrity.Academic misconduct such as plagiarism or cheating is unacceptable and will be investigated in accordance with University policy on academic misconduct. (See Student Survival Kit)”[From NEIU 2002-2003 catalog, p. 31]

EXPECTATIONS OF CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR
My expectations for students in my classes are pretty standard.  Basically they are the same as outlined in this list of guidelines copied from the Sociology Home Page at NEIU (http://orion.neiu.edu/~sociolgy/guidelines.html)

FORMAT FOR PROBLEM SET SOLUTIONS
http://www.neiu.edu/%7Ellsander/337/2005/solvingproblems.html
Dr. Sanders has written a list of “Hints for Solving Quantitative Problems,” available at the website listed above.  These are also my expectations for how you should complete homework problems you are assigned.