A list of courses taught can also be viewed here.

Courses

​Sedimentary Basins and Tectonics: 
GS251, graduate level, Fall quarter, odd years

​This course covers analysis of the sedimentary fill and tectonic evolution of sedimentary basins. Topics: tectonic and environmental controls on depositional systems, detrital composition, burial history, and stratigraphic architecture; synthesis of basin development through time. One weekend field trip required.

One of the cornerstones of this course is a final project where students get to visit some of the spectacular coastal California geology to make a series of observations in the field. These field observations are combined with laboratory data to reconstruct the tectonic and depositional history of a sedimentary basin. The photos to the right include visits to a few of these exposures.

​Sedimentary Geology and Depositional Systems:
GS106, undergraduate level, now listed as "Sediments: The Book of Earth's History"

​Co-instructed with Prof. Don Lowe, this course covers topics of weathering, erosion and transportation, deposition, origins of sedimentary structures and textures, sediment composition, diagenesis, sedimentary facies, tectonics and sedimentation, and the characteristics of the major siliciclastic and carbonate depositional environments

Students in GS106 taking paleocurrent measurements from deep-water stratigraphy of the Pigeon Point Formation along coastal California.

​Reflection Seismology Interpretation:
GS 223, graduate level, Spring quarter, even years

​Co-instructed with Prof. Simon Klemperer, this course covers topics on the structural and stratigraphic interpretation of seismic reflection data, emphasizing seismic geomorphology, hazard assessment, and hydrocarbon traps in two and three dimensions on industry data; includes workstation-based interpretation.

Seismic reflection profile from the Aleutian Basin in the Bering Sea highlighting the complexities of interpreting the subsurface especially in gas-rich regions, like the Aleutian Basin. Many basins like this one are filled with fine-grained deposits (diatomite) that are subject to significant diagenetic effects and acoustically produce bottom-simulating reflectors (BSR's) in the subsurface. We discuss these topics and many more in this course.

​Petroleum Geology and Exploration:
GS 253, graduate level, Spring quarter, odd years
​
Co-instructed with Prof. Steve Graham, this course covers the origin and occurrence of hydrocarbons. Topics: thermal maturation history in hydrocarbon generation, significance of sedimentary, structural and tectonic setting, trapping geometries and principles of accumulation, and exploration techniques.

FIELD TRIP: Photos to the right from our course field trip to the Salinas Basin, central CA to see all the elements of an active petroleum system including:
UL: mature source rock in the lower Monterey Fm.
UR: siliceous (and brittle) upper Monterey Fm. (overburden)
ML: Reliz-Rinconada fault (migration pathway)
MR: concentric folding of the upper Monterey Fm. (trap)
LL: oil-charged fluvial conglomerate and sandstone
LR: San Ardo oil field which produces from this system

Photo of an ancient submarine gully fill in the Miocene Monterey Formation in southern California. Regional dip is approximatetely 50 degrees to the West (to the right in photo). The dark colored units represent the coarse-grained fill of the submarine gully complex encased in fine-grained Monterey siltstone. The dark color is because the coarse-grained, porous nature of these strata allowed them to become tar-filled from oil expelled out of the encasing fine-grained Monterey units. The source rock, reservoir, and trap are all present here. In essence, this is an exhumed petroleum system!

---

​Field Trips

Crossing the Cordillera
Co instructed with Prof. Elizabeth Miller: 10-Day field trip from Salt Lake City, UT to San Francisco, CA that transects western U.S. Cordilleran system from the Cretaceous foreland basin, through the extended hinterland in the Basin and Range province, to the convergent margin system of California (Sierra Nevada Arc/batholith, the Great Valley forearc basin, and the Franciscan accretionary prism).

Part 1: 3 days in the foreland fold and thrust belt, Utah

Part 2: 4 days in the hinterland and basin and range province, Nevada

Part 3: 3 days in the convergent margin system, California

Looking at exposures of marginal marine channel architecture in Cretaceous stratigraphy of the Book Cliffs, UT (photo: E. Miller)

Jurassic–Cretaceous Evolution of the Patagonian Andes and Magallanes–Austral Foreland Basin, Southern Patagonia
This 7 day field trip covers spatial and temporal transect of the Magallanes–Austral Foreland Basin exposed in the Patagonian Andes of Argentina. On this trip, we explore the stratigraphic record that records both the Jurassic back-arc basin phase of the orogen and the successor retroarc foreland basin phase.