Earth and Planetary Surface Processes
GEOS 28600 / GEOS 38600
Instructor: Edwin Kite, kite@uchicago.edu
Class: Mondays and Wednesdays, 3pm-4:20pm. Hinds 180.
Office hours: Mondays, 10am-11am. Hinds 467. (note change from 9am)
Late homework policy: 10 percent reduction in maximum grade per day late.
Labs: There will be a total of 5 labs.
Lab 1 will be on Friday 20 Jan 10:30a-11:20a (Wieboldt 310C),
Lab 2 will be on Friday 27 Jan 10:30a-11:20a (Wieboldt 310C), and
Lab 3 will be on Friday 17 Feb 10:30a-11:20a (Hinds 440), and
Lab 4 will be on Friday 24 Feb 10:30a-11:20a (Wieboldt 310C), and
Lab 5 will be on Friday 3 Mar 10:30a-11:20a (Hinds 440).
No office hours on Friday 3 Feb. Extra office hours on Monday 6 Feb, 9am-10am.
Lecture 1: week 1, Wednesday lecture (4 Jan) - Introduction. Shape, geoid, True Polar Wander.
Lecture 1 slides.
Required reading for all:
Chapter 2 of Melosh.
Highly recommended reading for graduate students, optional for undergraduate students:
Part of Ch 5 of Turcotte and Schubert.
Optional reading:
Weiczorek 2015.
part of chapter 2 of Lambeck's "Geophysical Geodesy".
part of chapter 4 of Murray & Dermott's "Solar System Dynamics".
Lecture 2: week 2, Monday lecture (9 Jan) - Topography vs. gravity.
Lecture 2 slides.
Required reading:
Chapter 3 of Melosh. (pages 74-103 only; omit section 3.5.4)
Recommended reading for all:
McKenzie et al. 2002.
Chapter 3 of Turcotte and Schubert.
Optional reading for graduate students:
Turcotte et al. 1981.
Lecture 3: week 2, Wednesday lecture (11 Jan) - Topography and tectonics.
Lecture 3 slides.
Required reading:
Kohlstedt and Mackwell (chapter 9 from Watters & Schultz "Planetary Tectonics"). (sections 1 and 2 only)
Recommended reading:
Dahlen 1990.
Problem Set 1: [pdf].
No lecture on 16 Jan; Martin Luther King day
Lecture 4: week 3, Wednesday lecture (18 Jan) - Magma and lava.
Lecture 4 slides.
Required reading:
Chapter 5 of Melosh. (Only sections 5.1.3 and 5.3, plus Box 5.3).
Griffiths, Annual Reviews of Fluid Mechanics, 2000. (Everyone should read sections 1-4. Sections 5 and 6 are optional, but recommended for graduate students).
Optional reading:
Wilson and Head 1981.
Problem Set 2: [pdf].
Lab 1: week 3, Friday (18 Jan) - Lava on the Moon.
Lab 1 Instructions.
Montesi 2013.
Lecture 5: week 4, Monday lecture (23 Jan) - Lava, volcanic products, volcanic hot springs.
Lecture 5 slides.
Required reading:
Jamtveit and Hammer 2012 (sections 4.1-4.3 only).
Suggested reading:
Veysey and Goldenfeld 2008.
Hammer et al. 2010.
Lecture 6: week 4, Wednesday lecture (25 Jan) - Impact cratering: contact, compression, spallation, excavation.
Lecture 6 slides.
Required reading:
Melosh chapter 6. (part 6.3 only)
Derivation of the Hugoniot equations (Appendix I in Melosh's 1989 monograph) .
Lab 2: week 4, Friday (27 Jan) - "Shorelines" on Mars.
Lab 2 Instructions.
Lab 2 Files Directory.
NO LECTURE MON 31 JANUARY
Problem Set 3: [pdf].
Lecture 7: week 5, Wednesday lecture (1 Feb) - Guest lecture by Professor David Rowley - Dynamic Topography.
Required reading:
Rowley et al. Science 2013 .
Suggested reading:
Supplementary Infomation for Rowley et al. Science 2013 .
Lecture 8: week 6, Monday lecture (6 Feb) - Impact cratering: modification.
Lecture 8 slides.
Required reading:
Melosh and Ivanov, 1999 (pages 392-402 only).
Suggested reading:
Taylor's solution for blast waves.
Lecture 9: week 6, Wednesday lecture (8 Feb) - Aeolian processes: wind-blown sand.
Lecture 9 slides.
Required reading:
Kok et al. Reports on Progress in Physics 2012 (sections 2 and 3 only).
Optional reading:
Melosh, chapter 9 (note that p.357-359 are probably incorrect and may be safely omitted).
Werner, Geology 1995.
Lapotre et al. Science 2016.
Lecture 10: week 7, Monday lecture (13 Feb) - Aeolian processes: dust and dust storms.
Lecture 10 slides.
Required reading:
Kok et al. Reports on Progress in Physics 2012 (section 4 only).
Optional reading:
Shao, 2008.
Problem Set 4: [pdf].
Lecture 11: week 7, Wednesday lecture (15 Feb) - The flow of ice.
Lecture 11 slides.
Required reading:
Schoof & Hewitt, Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Science, 2013.
Optional reading:
Cuffey & Patterson, chapter 6.
Cuffey & Patterson, chapter 9.
Kirchner et al. 2011.
Umurhan et al. 2017.
Melosh, chapter 11, (sections 11.2 and 11.3 only; note these contain ssome errors).
Lab 3: week 7, Friday (17 Feb) - Discrete dynamics of dunes. (Note change in location to Hinds 440)
Lab 3 Instructions.
Werner 1995.
Lecture 12: week 8, Monday lecture (20 Feb) - Fluvial sediment transport: introduction.
Lecture 12 slides. Thanks to Daniel Heins for noticing a typo on slide 9, now corrected.
Required reading:
Knighton, chapter 3 (sections on "Thresholds of erosion" and "Sediment transport" only).
Optional reading:
Gary Parker's 1D sediment transport morphodynamics e-book
Dietrich, "Fluvial gravels on Mars," in press (courtesy of W.E. Dietrich and M. Palucis)
Melosh, chapter 10. (pages 395-411 only)
Parker, 2008.
Parker et al. 2007.
Dingman, chapter 6.
Lecture 13: week 8, Wednesday lecture (22 Feb) - Fluvial sediment transport: what controls the profile of rivers?
Lecture 13 slides.
Required reading:
Whipple et al. 2013, Treatise on Geomorphology (sections on "Erosion Processes and Bedforms" and on "River Profiles and Landscape Relief" only).
Optional reading:
Seminara 2010, Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Science.
Whipple and Tucker, Journal of Geophysical Research 1999.
Howard 1998, ch. in "Rivers over Rock".
Problem Set 5: [pdf].
Lab 4: week 8, Friday (24 Feb) - River long profiles. (Back in Wieboldt 310C)
Lab 4 Instructions.
Willett et al. Science 2014 (optional: application of chi-profiles).
Lecture 14: week 9, Monday lecture (27 Feb) - Fluvial sediment transport vs. hillslope processes: what controls the spacing of rivers?
Lecture 14 slides.
Required reading:
Perron et al., Nature, 2009.
Optional reading:
Pelletier, 2013 (section on "Fundamental Processes and Equations" only).
Dietrich et al., ch. in "Prediction in geomorphology," 2003.
Lecture 15: week 9, Wednesday lecture (1 Mar) - Landscape evolution: sources of data.
Lecture 15 slides.
Required reading:
Allen, Nature, 2008.
Anderson_and_Anderson, ch. 6.
Optional reading, Late Pleistocene erosion rates:
Herman and Champagnac, 2016 (the case for an increase in erosion rates during the Pleistocene).
Willenbring and Jerolmack, 2016 (the case against an increase in erosion rates during the Pleistocene).
Optional reading, age of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado:
Flowers and Farley, 2012 (the case for an old age for the Grand Canyon).
Karlstrom et al., 2014 (the case for a young age for the Grand Canyon).
Problem Set 6: [pdf].
Lab 5: week 9, Friday (3 Mar) - Landscape evolution (Hinds 440)
Lab 5 Instructions.
Pelletier, Geol. Soc. Am. Bulletin, 2010.
Lecture 16: week 10, Monday lecture (6 Mar) - Landscape evolution: Earth example - Grand Canyon.
Lecture 16 slides.
No required reading for lecture 16.
Lecture 17: week 10, Wednesday lecture (8 Mar) - Landscape evolution: Planetary example - Titan's lake district.
Lecture 17 slides.
Optional reading:
Perron et al. 2006.
Lunine and Atreya, 2008.
Aharonson et al., 2013.
Hayes 2016.