Structural Geology & Tectonics @ ETHZ

Instructors: Prof. Drs. Whitney Behr and Sean Willett

Course Information: Lecture and practical exercises, taught annually in Fall semester.

Course Objectives: Develop a comprehensive understanding of the evolution, mechanics, and rheology of divergent, convergent and strike-slip tectonic systems from the lithospheric scale to local shallow crustal and outcrop-scales. Assessment of mechanisms responsible for plate movements (the Earth as a heat transfer machine, dynamics of earth mantle, plate driving forces) and subsequent large-scale structures (oceanic basins and cycle of the oceanic lithosphere, convergence and mountain systems and continental growth, etc) through theoretical and experimental information. Evaluation of plate tectonic and other orogenic processes through the study of reference examples of taken from the western North America, Aegean, and Taiwan orogenic systems.

Instructors: Dr. Silvia Volante

Course Information: Lecture and practical exercises, taught annually in Spring semester.

Course Objectives: Acquire a large knowledge of deformation structures and acquire some insight into the processes that control the development of these deformation structures. This course focuses on brittle structures (faults, joints, cracks, and veins), ductile structures (folds, foliations, lineations, shear zones, and diapirs), and finite strain.

Instructors: Prof. Dr. Whitney Behr

Course Information: Dominantly field-based exercises, taught annually in Spring semester.

Course Objectives: This course introduces students to digital structural analysis tools, how to recognize and measure structural elements (compositional layering, foliations, lineations, cleavages, fold elements), how to distinguish deformation phases and modes/mechanisms through fabric analysis, how to recognize rheological contrasts in the field and basic relationships between deformation & metamorphism. Students also get practice synthesizing a wide range of field observations into a written report.

Instructors: Prof. Dr. Whitney Behr and Dr. Luiz Morales

Course Information: Lecture and practical exercises, taught annually in Spring semester.

Course Objectives: This course introduces students to analyzing rock deformation and rheology through small scale deformation structures. Students learn about microstructures through lecture examples and apply their knowledge in hands-on labs where they characterize microstructures from natural samples.

Instructors: Drs. Claudio Madonna and Alba Zaponne

Course Information: Lecture and lab-based exercises, taught annually in Fall semester.

Course Objectives: This course introduces rock physics and rock deformation as a laboratory and interpretive tool. Rock Physics provides the understanding to connect geomechanical and geophysical data to the intrinsic properties of rocks and is a key component in geo-resources exploration and in geo-hazard assessment. We will illustrate how to determine rock flow laws from experiments and will compare to the microstructure of natural rocks. For this purpose, the fundamental techniques of experimental rock deformation will be both illustrated and tested on natural rock samples in the plastic deformation regime (high temperature) as well in the brittle regime (room temperature).