Course Catalogue

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An advanced integrated course focusing on landscape and environmental evolution, surface processes and environmental hazards through field studies and data analysis. Students will develop advanced field skills and integrate datasets to address geoscience problems.

Field class in orientation week followed by independent work in Semester 1.

Normally completion of Level 3 Environmental Geoscience courses at a mean of D3.

EARTH4077 - Quaternary Geoscience

None

Portfolio of field-based activities and data synthesis (66.67%).

Group oral and poster presentation (33.33%)

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. Where, exceptionally, reassessment on Honours courses is required to satisfy professional/accreditation requirements, only the overall course grade achieved at the first attempt will contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

Through the combination of field observations and analytical datasets, the course aims to equip the students with advanced skills in understanding complex landscape dynamics and environments, and synthesising and critically evaluating these data.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Describe and interpret a range of landforms and deposits within an active orogenic setting and determine their mode and environment of formation.

■ Identify a range of active environmental hazards operating in the landscape and explain controls upon them.

■ Explain how surface processes reflect the history of orogen and basin development and critically analyse the timescales of surface processes and their interaction with active tectonics

■ Integrate a range of field evidence and datasets to construct surface process and environmental models and independently address a geoscience question.

■ Critically assess and justify the statistical methods used to solve a particular environmental geoscience problem

■ Synthesise and critically evaluate data and present to an academic and professional audience

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.