Geology of National Parks

Catalog description

U.S. national parks highlight the geologic wonders of our country and provide us with some of the best examples of the many processes that initially formed our planet and those that continue to shape it. This course is an introduction to the geological setting of selected U.S. national parks. It provides an overview of geological concepts and relates the geology of each park to the processes that initially formed, and subsequently shaped, their characteristic landforms. Such processes include: plate tectonics, volcanic and plutonic activity, glaciation, cave formation, stream and coastal processes, and erosional processes. Consequently, students not only will understand how the physical geography of the U.S. varies from coast to coast, but also will connect these varied landscapes with the geologic processes that formed them and relate them to unique wildlife or vegetation in the parks studied.