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Details of ES1201 (Spring 2014)

Level: 1 Type: Theory Credits: 3.0

Course CodeCourse NameInstructor(s)
ES1201 Earth System Processes Ravikant Vadlamani,
Tarun Kumar Dalai

Syllabus


  • Rationale: This course introduces issues of modern problems of global change with observational data and how the Earth responds under stress. The surface process section of the course would cover topics on how the Earth works as a system, and on global events in the history of the Earth that provide lessons for the future. The next section of the course would cover topics related to lithospheric process.

  • Global environmental issues: Past global change and response of Earths systems.

  • The Systems approach to understand Earth processes: Systems, couplings and feedback loops, perturbations and forcing. Example of a Daisyworld Climate System. Global Energy Balance, magnitude and causes of greenhouse effect. Climate feedbacks. Atmospheric circulation and global energy distribution, global distribution of temperature and rainfall. Ocean circulation and link to climate change.

  • Life on Earth: Ecosystems and biodiversity, Formation of atmosphere and the origin of life.

  • Effect of life on the atmosphere: The rise of Oxygen and Ozone, Long term climate regulation.

  • Pleistocene glaciations: Milankovitch Cycles.

  • Global warming: Recent and future climate. Impacts of global warming. Ozone depletion.

  • Isotopic reservoir: Introduction to evolution of isotopic reservoirs particularly relevant to core, mantle and crust formation (Hf-W, Nd and Sr isotopes).

  • Rocks and Minerals: Behaviour of minerals and rocks at pressure and temperatures encountered in the Earths interior and the stability of major rock-forming minerals and the connection between their crystal structure and their physical properties. Understanding heat flow and geotherms. Mantle melting and partitioning of elements between the melt and the residual mantle. Understanding basis of melting and crystallization models. Characterization of processes at constructive, destructive and continental collisional zones.


Prerequisite: None


References


  1. L.R. Kump, J.F. Kasting and R.G. Crane, The Earth system, Prentice Hall, (2012)

  2. B. Skinner and B. W. Murck, The Blue Planet, Wiley.

  3. C.M.R. Fowler, The Solid Earth: An Introduction to Global Geophysics, Cambridge Unoversity Press (2005).

  4. G. Davies, Dynamic Earth, Plates, Plumes and mantle Convection , Cambridge (2001).

  5. G. Schubert, D. Turcotte, and P. Olson, Theory of Mantle Convection and Plumes , Cambridge (2000)


Course Credit Options

Sl. No.ProgrammeSemester NoCourse Choice
1 IP 2 Not Allowed
2 IP 4 Not Allowed
3 MS ( Geological Sciences ) 2 Core
4 RS 1 Not Allowed

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