MEnvSci Environmental Science

The Earth is a tectonically dynamic planet and is unique in our solar system in being able to support life, but has this always been the case? This lecture-based course unit takes students on an incredible journey through the Earth’s past. The story is continued in EART11102 where we focus on the present and future Earth. The underlying ethos of the course unit is to engage students with current ideas at the forefront of Earth, planetary and environmental science research and to communicate the excitement of our science. The story, which is grounded in the fundamental sciences of geology, chemistry, physics and biology, is told in two interrelated chapters: How to Build a Planet and How to Grow a Planet.

How to Build a Planet: We travel through time and explore the physical evolution of the known Universe from the earliest moments of the Big Bang, through the formation of the first stars, to the creation of the planets in our solar system. We study the physical evolution of the Earth and its changing climatic, tectonic and geodynamic systems over its 4567 Ma year history.

How to Grow a Planet: We trace the history of life on Earth, from the appearance of first simple life forms and how they evolved to more complex ones towards the present day, and the key biological and ecological events that punctuate the evolution of the Earth.

Workshops: The workshops provide students with the opportunity for group discussion. The focus of the workshops is on the geological time scale and the fundamental ideas that underpin our understanding of the Earth. Through the workshops students gain an appreciation of the immensity of geological time, how Earth history is subdivided on the geological timescale, when key events happened, how we can determine the age of rocks in the field and from maps, and an intuition for the scale of processes that happen at geological time scales

The aim of this course unit is to convey a multidisciplinary understanding of the Earth as a system of interacting components.  The unit emphasises the importance of studying how the Earth has evolved through time, in order to understand the processes we see happening today, and so that we can plan for and influence the future. Together with EART11101, this unit provides a unifying narrative for the first year of the undergraduate degrees in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES), and is supported by EART11200 The Natural Scientists Toolkit and EART11300 Practical, Professional and Fieldwork Skills. 

1. Describe the basic structure and composition of the modern, solid Earth (geosphere) and its hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere
2. Outline the fundamental stages in the evolution of Universe, stars and planetary bodies 
3. Identify key geological, climatic, biological and ecological events in Earth history, when they occurred and their causes
4. Describe the physical, chemical and biological processes that operate within and on the Earth and other Planetary bodies, and how they have combined to shape the evolution of the Earth and planetary system through geologic time
5. Describe the formation, extraction and generation of mineral, energy, water and food resources, and discuss the environmental consequences of how these resources are utilised and managed for the Earth
6. List, in order, the principle divisions of geologic time and their defining biological, climatic and geological basis 
7. Identify the central paradigms of our science that shape our perspective of how the Earth and planets operate today, such as plate tectonics, evolution theory and uniformitarianism, and describe how these ideas developed historically
8. Apply appropriate nomenclature to describe and classify modern and ancient organisms, and Earth materials such as rocks and minerals
9. Synthesise a large body of factual and contextual knowledge by taking good lecture notes, through directed reading and independent study
10. Engage with current ideas at the forefront of Earth, planetary and environmental science research, from a multidisciplinary perspective