Minerals

On-line Mineral Resources:

• Regents Prep Mineral & Rock Review
• Mineral Information Insstitute guide to all minerals
  

Earthquake resources

Great new animations and video lesson on earthquake faulting.

How Do I Locate That Earthquake's Epicenter?

• UPSeis
• eHow
• sciencebuddies.org
• USGS 1906 earthquake
• Virtual Earthquake
• Maryland Virtual High School Earthquake Simulation
  

USGS Earthquake Preparedness Handbook

Homework: Index Fossils

This assignment will help you become familiar with one of the 26 fossils listed on the bottom of the "centerfold" of the Regents reference tables.

(IMPORTANT: if you have misplaced your copy of the reference tables, you need to print out a new copy from the NY State Regents website)

Your Assignment: Choose one of the fossils from the bottom of pages 8-9 of the reference table booklet and provide it's history, when it lived and when it died.

Submit your answer on this blog as a comment to this post that includes your name and class (or no credit will be given) by clicking on the comment link below.

Directions - For the fossil you have chosen:

1. Describe the fossil - what is its complete genus and species and what does its name mean? (click on the link for definitions)
2. Where in the world has this fossil been found?
3. What kind of environment did it live in?
4. In which Geologic Period(s) did it live?
5. How many years ago did this fossil first appear?
6. How many years ago did this fossil disappear from the fossil record (go extinct)?

Take a peek at the website (blog) entry for Eurypterus remipes for an example of what your assignment should look like - the second paragraph contains all the information you would need to provide.

Your response MUST also include a link to the source of your information (wikipedia is not an acceptable source) if you found it on-line or the printed source (book, magazine,etc), cited in the format you learned in Mr. Brown's class.

This assignment is due by 9:00 am, Eastern Standard Time on Friday, November 13th.
You have more than a week to complete this assignment. No late posts will be accepted.

Eurypterus remipes

Eurypterus remipes is the New York State Fossil

According to the New York State Library website, "Eurypterus Remipes, an extinct relative of the modern king crab and sea scorpion, was adopted as the State fossil in 1984. During the Silurian Period (over 400 million years ago), Eurypterus Remipes crawled along the bottom of the shallow, brackish sea that covered much of New York, extending from Buffalo to Schenectady and south to Poughkeepsie, roughly along the route of the New York Thruway."

Eurypterus (the name means "broad wings") fossils have been determined to have first appeared approximately 450 million years ago (the Late Ordovician period) and went extinct about 260 million years ago, just before the Permian extinction (in which 90% of life on Earth went extinct). Eurypterus remipes lived mostly in shallow water, and may have been on e of the first creatures to crawl up onto land. Eurypterus fossils have been found all over the world.

• Prehistoric Pittsford (NY): How did Eurypterus get it's name?
• Find more information at www.eurypterid.net
  

Orogeny - Aint no mountain high enough...

Several colleges offer excellent resources for understanding Plate Tecctonics, subduction and how mountains are formed (Orogeny):

• An excellent page with descriptions of Orogeny and Plate tectonics can be found here
• Here's a page with links to animations of the mountain-building processes
• An Illustration of Tectonic Cycles and Mountain Building
  
• A diagram showing the Alleghenian Orogeny
  

Continental Drift Lab - Wegener's Plate Tectonics

If you need a fresh copy of the Wegener's Plate Tectonics lab (lab #4) you can find it here at Discovery Education

To finish the lab, you'll need a map of Antarctica that inlcudes all the fossil locations mentioned:

• Prince Harald Coast
• Oates Coast
• Wilhelm II Coast (Kaiser Wilhelm Land)

Other maps that might be helpful can be found here, here and here.

Homework: Geocentric vs. Heliocentric

Our view of the Solar System (and the universe) has changed over time.

This assignment will help you understand how identical observations can lead to different inferences.

Your assignment includes brief answers to each of the following:

1. What is the difference between the Geocentric and Heliocentric models of our solar system?
   
2. How were the observed orbits of the planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) explained in the Geocentric model?
3. How were the observed orbits of the planets explained in the Heliocentric model?
4. Explain one of the following terms and how it is related to this assignment:
   Celestial Sphere, Elliptical orbit, parallax, Almagest, Aristotle's Ether, equant, epicycles, Occam's razor, superior planets, inferior planets, transit, clockwork universe, cosmology
   

You will submit your answer on this blog as a comment to this post that includes your name (or no credit will be given) by clicking on the comment link below.

Your response MUST also include a link to the source of your information (wikipedia is not an acceptable source) if you found it on-line or the printed source (book, magazine,etc), cited in the format you learned in Mr. Brown's class.

This assignment is due by 9:00 am, Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, November 4th.

Elementary, my dear Tierney

New York Times blogger John Tierney put out a challenge last week: match a list of chemical element to the products in which they are found.

The Times will award a prize to the reader who correctly makes all the matches and provides the best short essay on the hobby of element-collecting (see the blog entry for an explanation):

• The most misunderstood chemical element is . . . .
• The coolest element to be stranded on a desert island with would be . . .

Take the quiz and send me an email with proof that you submitted it for a 20% bonus on your next quiz.

Latitude and Longitude Lookup Links

You can look up any world city using an Atlas (the library has several) or even an almanac, but there are several sites that can help you quickly find the assigned latitude and longitude:

• Google Earth is about the best tool yo ucan use, since it will display the place you are looking up as well as show you where it is on the Earth.
  
• lat-long.com
  
• WorldAtlas.com
• Sat-Sig.net

HW: Tracking Earthquakes & Volcanoes

Visit the USGS World Earthquake Map and enter data for any three earthquakes
Then visit the USGS Volcano activity page and enter data for any three recent volcanic events.

Planets Project resources

Here are some links you may find helpful for your project - great resources for information and images.
Remember that you are required to properly cite any information or images you use):

• NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)'s Welcome to the Planets is one of the best source for images and information you can find
  


• The Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum has a site for Exploring the Planets
  


• Pluto is no longer a "planet", but it's not forgotten: The Planets and Dwarf Planets (from NASA)
  


• Solar System Exploration: The Planets (from NASA)
  


• Rochester for Kids, students resources: Astronomy for Kids
  


• nineplanets.com and nineplanets for kids
  


• World Book at NASA for Kids

Latitude & Longitude

Here's a site that overexplains Latitude, Longitude & Coordinate Systems

How well do you klnw Latitude & longitude?
Take the Lat & Long quiz!

Visit the Maps & Globes Home for more

Our next project will be to demonstrate how well we know Latitude & Longitude by tracking hurricanes.

Layers of the Earth explained

Spaceship Earth is a good resource that illustrates and explains the layers of the Earth:

| Structure
| The Core
| The Mantle
| The Crust
| The Atmosphere
| The Influence of the Sun and Moon
| Plate Tectonics
| Earthquakes
| Volcanoes

The Big Bang - Lets get this party started

Scientists tell us that our Universe began with an event known as the Big Bang.

All About Science has an excellent webpage that does a great job of explaining the Big Bang Theory.

The Solar Nebula Hypothesis

Here's a simple explanation of the formation of the solar system

Are you dense? Take a quiz and find out...

Did you read the assigned pages explaining density?

You will have questions about density (definitions and problem-solving) on the next couple of quizzes

Take a density quiz - print out the page, write in your answers (don't foget to put your name on it) and bring it in and you will get 10% extra credit on one of the quizzes with density questions.

Class Supplies shopping list for 2009-2010 Earth Science

2009-2010 Earth Science with Mr. Barkan

Supplies Needed every Day (Required):

3 "Quad-Ruled" or graph composition books - this will be your Earth Science journals & lab book.

Please leave the first three full pages blank.

Scientific or Graphing Calculator - bring the calculator you need for your math class.

Bring a sharpened Pencil, a working Pen and a highlighter every day.

Small Metric ruler (6", acrylic), and you can print an additional ruler from here

Earth Science Reference Table booklet (Mr. Barkan will provide this)

Supplies Needed at home for homework, lab reports and projects:

• Double-sided tape for attaching handouts to science journal (stapling handouts into notebooks is not recommended)
• Protractor, and you can print an additional protractor from here
• Compass
• A set of color pencils, pens or markers
• Glue Sticks
• Scissors

Additional Notes on Notebooks:

• Loose-leaf, spiral bound or other notebooks are not acceptable.
• Notebooks will be checked on a regular basis - keeping a current notebook in the required format is a percentage of their grade.
• Students will have a place to store lab notebooks in the classrooom, and are required to have them in class every day.
• All handouts should be attached into the notebooks via double-sided tape. Handouts should never be stapled into a notebook.
  

Fred

The school year is about to begin and we have already had one hurricane and a handful of tropical storms pass by.

The latest is Tropical Storm (TS) Fred, somewhere out in the South Atlantic Ocean. Fred is expected to become a hurricane over the next few days but

Updates about Fred and any other storms in the Atlantic can be found at The National Hurricane Center.

We will use TS Fred and other storms past and present to help us understand latitude and longitude.

How can you find your latitude and longitude?