This courseware is designed for undergraduate practical classes in microscopy of rocks. The aim is to enhance comprehensive understanding and deep learning by providing the student with a rich variety of relevant teaching material in addition to the thin sections, and by requiring input and decisions from the student.
The microscope image is the principal interface. Menues along the top and bottom of the image provide immediate access to a wealth of information: photographs of sampled outcrops and hand specimens; maps; structures of the sampled area; chemical compositions of studied minerals; PTt-paths; isochrons and other diagrams etc. of dated minerals or rocks; abstracts of relevant papers, etc. Pointing at a particular feature, i. e. the rim of a garnet crystal, or a fabric, activates a pop-up window with names, explanations, Mg/Fe ratios etc.. Students are encouraged to combine observations and data in order to evaluate, make decisions and reach conclusions.
The courseware is, of course, not intended to replace, but to supplement and support practical classes. An advantage is that groups of students can study and discuss a sample together; used in this way, the courseware is excellent also for introductions. Students can work at their own pace and have access to the courseware (if stored in a departmental server) at any hour of the day. Although designed for undergraduate teaching, doctoral students who want to refresh their knowledge, or study special aspects, are likely to welcome this tool.
The collection of thin sections of this particular programme covers traverses across the Scandinavian Caledonides and will, when completed, include rocks and processes of an almost complete mountain belt formed by plate collision. A homepage provides links to the following principal environments: foreland cratonic rocks and sedimentary cover; rift basin fill and magmatism; the continent-ocean transition; high-P rocks of the subducted continental margin; ophiolites; magmatic, volcanic and sedimentary rocks of various arc systems; ocean floor; hydrothermal mineralizations; metamorphic core complexes; exhumed eclogites and granulites; mylonites and fabrics of various thrusts and extensional faults; molasse basins.
Much of the material required for a programme like this is already available at your department, like, for instance, the excellent diaslides, diagrams, tables, references etc. which you have prepared for EUG 10! For this particular programme, a Nikon diascanner was used to transfer to the computer selected diaslides from many field campaigns and excursions. Pictures of hand specimens, diagrams etc. were taken with an Olympus C-1400L digital camera; microvideo films with a Sony video camera (440 TV lines resolution) mounted on a not too expensive microscope. For trimming of scanned pictures, adding text etc., Adobe Photoshop was used; authoring software is Macromedia Director.
The multiformity of contemporary - extinct or extant - animals of the same general shape, such as dolphins sensu lato (:small toothed whales, Odontoceti), is characterized by fixed principle. This ancient observation, recorded from many hunting and collecting peoples, roused early scientific, as well as common, curiosity. With the organismic species concept widely acknowledged in 18th century natural science, debate began or intensified of the origin, stability and relationships of species. Linné "made order" by grouping similar species in higher taxonomic units (genera, families etc.). Philosophical approaches were initiated by Buffon and pursued by Lamarck, who noted in "Philosophie zoologique" (1809) that some forms (such as duckbills and echidnas) seem to indicate the existence of intermediary animals between major groups (such as birds and mammals); and that the natural connections between organisms are sought by way of identifying their more important parts and recognizing the non-arbitrary characters shared among them. The latter procedure is basic to all modern phylogenetic analysis, including that of fossils. In its extreme form, so-called cladistic analysis, the procedure consists of identifying multiple apomorphic characters by employing a number of outgroups; then subjecting the character states to computerized comparisons; and subsequently choosing the most parsimonious interpretation of the phylogeny, which is depicted in a cladogram. Even if "the most parsimonious interpretation" be in all cases the best interpretation based on observations, it may not reproduce conditions in nature, not only because the employed character states are subjectively identified, but because characters and character states often represent organisms that are widely separated in time and space. Do features (character states) which superficially look alike and adequate for the cladistic analysis always have identic "content" (genetic, functional, others), and do features of some dissimilarity always represent different things? The questions are relevant for comparative work in makro as well as in molecular scale. In, e.g., vertebrate fossils cladistic analysis tends to overexploit available data, among other things because of lack of information on character variability due to age, sex, function, nutrition, preservation etc.. A scientific quest for detailed knowledge of the interrelationship of known organisms, thus of evolution, is indeed of philosophical value, depending on its closeness to reality and lived events. Ideas of evolutionary modification and descent connected with conditions on Earth are of utmost relevance to man and woman in society, who as stated by, inter alia, Michel Claessens in "La technique contre la démocratie" (1998) feel themselves excluded from responsibility, influence and control face to face with modern technique sensu lato, including such undertakings as genetic engineering and chemical manipulation of nature.
Teaching geology in LMSU is conducted with its foundation in 1755 year. For this time the huge experience is accumulated. Especially large changes in systems of training, stipulated by changed requests of society have taken place for last years. At present on geological faculty are 16 departments, incorporated in six specialities: geology, geochemistry, geophysics, hydrogeology and engineering geology, geology and geochemistry of combustible minerals, ecological geology. Traditionally the term of education was 5 years, but the system of multilevel training is at present accepted. After 4 years of training students defend the graduation work and receive the degree "baccalaureate", - this is the base geological education. At desire and successful study bachelor can yet more training @ 1 year and defended the graduation work, to receive the diploma "specialist/expert" or @ 2 years and, after defense dissertation, to receive the degree magistr/master". For each level of education are elaborated programs according to chosen specialization. For further improvement of qualifications expert and magistr can, on competition, to enter in post-graduate course (3 years) and, after defense dissertation, to receive the degree Ph.D. Moreover at the faculty the preparation doctors of sciences (D.Sc.) is executed. During training the large significance is given to field educational practics. After 1 and 2 years for all specialities in Crimea - geological processes and geological mapping; after 3 year, in dependence on speciality, on Urals, Caucasus and other regions ) and industrial practice as well as scientific work in laboratories. One of new forms of practice - "the Floating university" - is carried out under aegis of UNESCO, - in it participate teachers and students from Russia, France, Belgium, Holland and other countries of Europe. For a number of years carried out exchange practices with universities of Czech, Slovak, Bulgaria. For last years on the faculty the new specialities were organized: ecogeology, gemology, economy of natural resources, geological disasters etc. Annual plan of admission on the faculty is 200 persons. The training charge-free, students get a grant. Persons, not pass on competition, have the opportunity to receive the education for payment. On contract base on the faculty is trained 45 students from 11 countries of Europe, Asia and Africa. Graduates of the faculty are in demand as in geological organizations of various departments, as in institutes of Academy of Sciences. The deep fundamental education, received on the faculty permits graduates to work also in economic and administrative sphere.
For the first time in the history of geologic research leading scientists and specialists in geology working at the institutes and organisations of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, State Committee on Geology and Utilization of Mineral Recourses of Ukraine and other national agencies created a unique Atlas "Geology and Economic Minerals of Ukraine" to a scale of 1 : 5 000 000, consisting of 67 different maps and published in Ukrainian and English. The Atlas features complex data on geologic constitution and mineral resources of the territory of Ukraine and consists of seven sections: maps with general geographic and remote sensing data, geophysical maps, maps of structural regionalization, lithologic and facial, ecological and hydrogeological maps and maps of minerals deposits. At the end of the Atlas there is a brief restatement of laws and regulations on entrails use.
Thus, the Atlas presents a complete picture of the geological structure, natural resources and environmental situation in the territory of Ukraine. On the whole, the Atlas is a summary of complex geological research that was conducted throughout the whole territory of Ukraine during the passing century. This is respect for the past, hope for the present and succession into the future.
The following new scientific concepts have been incorporated into this work: multyfactor model of the Earth's crust development, geological geoblock division, geodynamic system of through transregional megazones of activatuion, metalogenic zonality.
Ukraine is 3.5 Ga unique region with a various geotectonic structures and geodynamic conditions resulting in formation of a variety of mineral deposits. Among the major geo-structural regions within Ukraine there is the Precambrian Eastern European Platform, the younger Scythian platform, and the folded regions of the Donbas, Carpathians and Crimea.
With the area of 603.7 thousand square kilometers (0.4% of the world's dry land) Ukraine produces about 5% of the world's mineral raw materials and products of their processing, including 20% of manganese ore, 10% of iron ore and 3% of coal. About 8 thousand deposits have been researched within the bowles of the country yielding 90 kinds of mineral raw materials. In the recent years industrial deposits of gold, rare metals, uranium and saponite have been discovered.
Many deposits become objects of mutually profitable international cooperation and investment; basically, these are gold, rare and non-ferrous metals as well as iron, manganese and uranium ores, kaolins, garnets, mineral water, etc.
Materials of the Atlas would be our basis to enter the worldwide system of geological information, to consider regional environmental and large-scale technical projects, in particular, those of construction, water supply, agticultural production, health care, etc.
Bolu Tunnel, which is a double tube tunnel of Gümüsova-Gerede Motorway connecting the capital Ankara to metropolis Istanbul and passing through the famous North Anatolian Fault, is built by four portals in seriously bad geological conditions. Total length of the tunnel route is ca. 3250 m and the tunnel cross section changes between 176 m2 and 232 m2 depending on the rock mass types. At Asarsuyu (W) portal left tube 62+493 km, at right tube 52+398 km, at Elmalik (SE) portal left tube 63+784 and at the right tube 53+792 km has been excavated and preliminarily supported. Due to the high amount of deformations at some sections of the tunnel the applications in the project has been changed. In order to understand the difficulties and the interaction between geological conditions and tunneling methods, special investigations has been conducted at different sections.
In this paper; the major results are summarized from the estimated data collected from optical readings, single-point and multiple-point extensometers, measuring anchors and load cells located in five different monitoring sections at the Elmalik side. In this investigation, the extensometers are located at the top, shoulders, and both sides and under the invert. After the excavation of the upper half and invert sections, the load cells surrounding the tunnel are located in shotcrete, to measure tangential and radial stresses. The measured deformations definitely show the effects of excavation and supporting techniques. As a result, the development of time dependent loosening, on the rocks surrounding the tunnel at different depths showed the decreasing stability of the tunnel.
The experiments are suitable for undergraduate courses in mineralogy, optical crystallography and polarizing microscopy. The aim is to impart an intuitive understanding of basic crystal optics and of phenomena like double-refraction, interference colours, interference figures and orientation of vibrational directions.
Double refraction is introduced as the phenomenon, where "one ray goes in, two come out". This is easily demonstrated using a circularly polarized laser beam and a clear calcite rhomb with edge lengths of ca. 4 cm (Zimmermann, 1997). The beam enters the crystal normal to the rhombohedral face. Two parallel rays emerge: the ordinary and the extraordinary ray. Their polarisation state is examined by a rotatable polarizing filter: They prove linearly polarized with their planes of vibration mutually perpendicular. - Rotating the calcite crystal about the incident beam, it is shown that the vibrational directions are fixed with respect to the c-axis of the crystal.
Hands-on experiments with calcite rhombs in polarized light, and between crossed polars, allow the students to distinguish between the ordinary and the extraordinary planes of vibration, and to see macroscopically how these are oriented with respect to the c-axis. Similar experiments with quartz confirm the observation that light emerging from a crystal, generally, is polarized in two directions 90° apart. From both experiments it is obvious that one of these directions is parallel with the c-axis, and the other perpendicular to it.
Interference colours and their orders are explained by a hands-on experiment with a quartz wedge. On the long sides, the wedge is partly covered by a red and a green monochromatic filter leaving a gap between them. Placed between crossed polars, this assemblage is viewed against the light and permits to immediately observe a) that transmitted and extinguished parts of the spectrum are complimentary and b) how interference colours vary with path difference. - The same set-up is most suitable for showing the effect of accessory plates: a <lambda>-plate or a <lambda>/4-plate is placed on the wedge in different positions (addition, subtraction) and at different orders (low, high).
Commonly, interference figures of crystals are only viewed in polarizing microscopes under conoscopic illumination. In principle, interference figures can be oberserved without microscope (Zimmermann, 1989). All one needs is a) a thin and sufficiently large plate of a transparent mineral (e.g. a clear muscovite sheet) and b) two polarizing filters. The experiment is very simple and will be demonstrated at the meeting.
Zimmermann HD, Teaching Mineralogy (Brady JB et al., eds.), Mineralogical Society of America, 297-308, (1997).
Zimmermann HD, Polarisationsmikroskopi - En introduktion for geologer, Akademisk Forlag, 338 p, (1989).
This work shows an application constituted by an hypermedial tool in support of a section of the course of Micropalaeontology. The hypertext tries to overcome some cognitive obstacles typical of the conceptual structures of Earth Sciences, here shown through an example connected with this discipline.The topic concerns the Miogypsinidae, a family of benthic larger Foraminifera developed in Oligo-Miocene. The study of such fossils is based on the characters of the embryonic and nepionic apparatus, observed on specifically sectioned tests: so in the hypertext large space is devoted to the problems of measurement of the various morphometric parameters. Every text is illustrated by diagrams, drawings and scanning electron microphotos that allow to compare costantly the theoretical bases with the practical aspects of the micropalaeontological analysis. Moreover, it has been inserted an interactive card that allows the user to reconstruct the stages of the work with the same sequence they take place in laboratory, on the real samples. An important element of the application is represented by the exercises, designed in such a way to allow the user an auto-check of the level of achieved learning. The hypertext has been used as teaching aid within the course of Micropalaeontology through some years. In this work some of the results achieved by testing the effectiveness of the hypertext in comparison with a traditional approach to the subject are discussed.
During the reign of the emperor Augustus Roman legions penetrate step-by-step to Illyricum and Pannonia and gradually stabilize the borders of the Roman Empire on the Danube. At the same time the German tribes of Markomanns and Quadi arrive to southwestern Slovakia in the 1st decennium of the 1st century A.D. In the effort to prevent the penetration of the barbarians to the province territories, the Romans started to build up a zone of military camps on the right side of the Danube. At first made of wood and earth, a basis for the later fortified line known as Limes Romanus. In Bratislava, in the area of todays Rusovce, an auxiliary camp arose for which the name of Gerulata was taken over by the conquerors from the original Celtic inhabitants. The first earth-wooden camp was built in the 2nd half of the 1st century A.D. In the 2nd century a stony castel was built on the place of the old camp. During the renovation of the limes in the 4th century the original camp was rebuilt to a smaller burgus. The Devín Castle, lying in the sight of the legion camp in Carnuntum, was an important military bridgehead for the Romans. There was found two stony constructed buildings. The bigger one with several rooms, by the well, from the end of the 2nd century A.D., rebuilt in the 4th century. The smaller one nearby the western castle gate, the supposed Christian sanctuary, dates back to the 3rd quarter of the 4th century A.D. The best preserved Roman construction in todays Bratislava is represented by the foundations of a spa (thermae) from the 3rd century on the Velká Lúka at Dúbravka. The territory of Bratislava is situated on the contact of the Záhorie and the Danube Lowlands with the southern foothills of the Malé Karpaty Mts. The town lies on the both banks of the Danube river, mainly on its left side. Stony raw materials from the mentioned Roman constructions is very varied. The rocks are represented by:
* Crystaline schists - amphibolites belong probably to Early Paleozoic. They are known to occur in the Malé Karpaty Mts. in the close vicinity of described Roman constructions.
* Biotite granodiorites and two-mica granites of Carboniferous age (316 - 334 Ma). Plutonites of this type are backbone of the mentioned mountain ridge.
* Quarzites of Lower Triassic (cca 245 Ma) sporadically pass into conglomerate with pebbles of vein quartz. They represented sediments of the ephemeral brooks coming from the NW.
* Sandstones and lithotamnium limestones from Neogene - Upper Badenian (15 - 13 Ma).
* From Neogene - Sarmatian (13 - 10 Ma) brakish-water deposits contain sandy and oolitic limestones and a curiosity is the occurance of the sessile foraminifers (Nubecularia) limestones and the bryozoan-serpulid limestones.
* A peculiar rock-type is represented by alkaline basalt. The nearest occurence of this rock-type is known to occur in the surrounding of the Balaton lake, e.g. 150 kilometres to the south. Stony raw materials used on the Roman constructions around Bratislava have their origin mainly in the Malé Karpaty Mts. on its southern and southwestern rim. However oolitic limestones occur also in the Hundsheim Hills nearby Hainburg in Austria, on the right side of the Danube river. Lithotamnium limestones in Gerulata used as a building material and as the material for the Roman tumbstones too come from the stone-cutting and sculptural works lying on the foot of Leitha Hills nearby todays Eisenstadt in Austria (St. Margarethen in the Burgenland), e.g. more than hundred kilometres from the place of their use. They worked during the 1st century A.D., but mainly in the Flavius - Traian period. The longest distance underwent the block of alkaline basalt (from the Balaton lake area) used for the wall construction in Gerulata.
Index of EUG 10 Volume
Further EUG 10 Information
Index of the Journal of Conference Abstracts
Cambridge Publications Home Page
Last Updated on Thursday, March 18, 1999.
© 1997 Cambridge Publications