HONORS Earth Science Web page

Welcome! Glad you could drop by for a visit. I hope you find the information on this page to be useful and perhaps even mildly interesting (as compared to say, washing your hair or picking your teeth). This site is always under construction and any suggestions you have will be greatly appreciated.

It ain't pretty but who says it has to be?

This page will be updated regularly (I hope) and new class information may be added at any time. Check below to see what is available.

I will post many different types of useful information here, as well as adding any contributions you may make, including your research topic web pages. If you have access to anything that you think would benefit other students let me know and I will either reproduce it here or provide a link. Thanks!

P.S. If you want to send mail to ALL the other members of the class (myself included), use this link:

- Important Info. -

Class news - FYI, The latest breaking news; get it while it's hot! (NOTE: you should visit this page frequently, i.e. a minimum of two or three times a week.)

Study and Review Materials

Class notes - As promised this page contains links to material presented in class.
Course reserves - The library has made the reserve material for this class available through the Internet (ah, the wonders of modern technology.) However, you must have a current copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader (WARNING: big file; slow download) to read the files.
Caribbean region maps - I've created a series of simple maps for locating individual islands, island groups, and select geologic features.
Features list - This page has embedded links to a location map for every feature that will be tested on the map quiz. This should be an excellent study aid for you.
Rock and Mineral identification - Need help with mineral id? rock id? Have you already read everything on the subject in your textbook? If so, and you still want help, try these links.

Class Assignments & Projects

Assignment - Locating Crusoe's island

This page describes and/or illustrates the required format and contents for this assignment. I suggest that you begin reading this fun book ASAP. You might be able to find a copy in a used bookstore (cheap!), or you could buy a new one -- but of course, it is also available free of charge on-line.

Assignment - The Weather Journal
These pages describe the weather journal assignment. They are still under development, but should be ready soon. I will keep you posted.

Assignment - Web-based research project

Be sure to read this thoroughly before you begin your research for your project. Likewise, don't submit a topic proposal without doing some research on the topic (see links below).

Supporting material for Projects

Example web-based research topics A few of these are actual research topics of former Honors Earth Science students, a few were concocted by me.

Preparing an annotated bibliography - General instructions, web-links for citation formats, and a sample annotation.

Web-based research project: Topic Proposal Form

NOTE: This has not yet been updated for this semester.

Citation examples for on-line references

You will need to prepare bibliographic citations for any Internet sources you used in preparing your research web-page. This link provides examples of just that. A simpler example is also available in the document concerning annotated bibliographies.

Citation examples for print references
You will also need to prepare bibliographic citations for any print sources you used in preparing your research web-page. This link provides examples of just that.

Pages with web links

Earth Science Web sites
(Please e-mail me with a description & the URL if you find any good earth science web sites or if you find that any of these sites are now "dead". Thanks.)

Caribbean-related Web sites
(Please e-mail me with a description & the URL if you find any good Caribbean-related web sites or if you find that any of these sites are now "dead". Thanks.

Other stuff

You may not have much use for the following links, but I'm including them just in case.
Research resources: local & remote links
Term paper guide

Essential reading -- in fact, you'll probably want to print it out!

Sample citations

Essential reading. This is a collection of citation formats provided courtesy of GSA. There is an example of nearly every simple or problematic reference source you might happen to come across (except web addresses -- see my paper on doing web research for information on how to cite those.)

Instructions to Contributors to GSA publications

"Huh?" you say! Well this page contains the original source of the citation formats you will be using for your bibliography and in-text citations. It is not required reading, but it would be a good idea. It contains all kinds of material that may be of interest to you when you write your paper. You can either read this or carefully peruse issues of the GSA Bulletin, Geology, or the like.