"Time is what stops everything happening all at once"*

 

ESS 461 Labs

About half the lab periods will be devoted to extending lecture material with problem-solving exercises. Lab sessions will run like tutorials, giving us the chance to review fundamental concepts, go back over difficult material, and work through examples on the board. Most lab exercises will take more than a couple of hours, and should be finished off as homework. Due dates are shown in the table below. Be sure to finish the lab exercises and turn them in on time - they are worth 60% of your final grade.

Other lab periods will be taken up with visits to geochronology labs on campus - details to be advised.

This year, because the class is meeting three times per week for one-hour sessions, labs will be spread between lecture periods. Labs will normally be held in the lecture room 026 Johnson Hall, but we'll migrate to 021 or 366 Johnson Hall whenever the exercises require computer-based work. You may find it handy to set out and work through your lab calculations using Microsoft EXCEL spreadsheets. If so, it will pay to review working with formulae and graphs, or sit near someone who has this experience.

Lab schedule

Date Lab Materials Due date
6 Oct Probability, dice and the exponential law of radioactivity Dice lab (MS Word)

Dice lab (pdf copy)

13 Oct
6 Oct Dice lab results Results spreadsheet --------
11 Oct Field trip (voluntary) -------- --------
13-15 Oct Carbon-14 calibration C-14 lab (pdf) 22 Oct
mid October homework Radioactivity check-up/review Rad/chem lab (pdf) One week later
late Oct Cosmogenic nuclide chemistry Cosmo chem lab 1 (pdf)
late Oct Cosmogenic nuclide chemistry Cosmo chem lab 2 (pdf) TBD
early Nov Argon dating methods Ar-40/Ar-39 lab (pdf) TBD