Kick-off your second year by attending a 10-day field course in the dramatic Spanish Pyrenees. See the effects of plate tectonics and mountain building and learn about the effects of tectonics on basin formation. The field area is an outstanding area for developing an understanding of the subsurface, a critical skill unique to Earth Scientists, and you will spend much of the trip developing independent field mapping skills and complete your own geological map of part of the area.
Back in Plymouth, lectures and practicals will continue to develop themes introduced in the field course and you use data collected in Spain to develop your ability to interrogate spatial data through advanced stereonet analysis skills and cross-section construction. You will also start to learn about the application of geographic information systems to the Earth Sciences, through using an industry standard software package (ArcGIS Pro) to make a digital map of the area mapped. You’ll also get to look at a range of thin-sections from the field area allowing a field to lab investigation to be completed.
Topics covered:
- field geological mapping
- stereonet analyses
- GIS
- thin-section analyses (carbonates and silciclastics).
