Changelog
Changes for the 2nd Edition (Fall 2023)
All chapters have received edits to the text to improve clarity, grammar, and general mistakes. All links were verified as working.
- Chapter 0
- Added Exercise 0.6, which introduces more detail on geologic maps; based on Shiprock in New Mexico
- Chapter 1 (formerly Chapter 3)
- Updated the geologic timescale to the latest edition
- Added a second option for making a time scale in Exercise 1.1
- Removed two block diagrams from Exercise 1.3
- Updated Exercises 1.5, 1.6, and 1.7
- Chapter 2 (formerly Chapter 1)
- Updated imagery and questions in Excercise 1.3 and added a graph that can be filled out.
- Chapter 3 (formerly Chapter 2)
- Updated Moh’s hardness figure
- Updated all flowcharts for minerals, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock identification
- Added flowchart for igneous rocks
- Added Exercise 3.12 on mineral evolution
- Chapter 4
- Added root structures as a type of sedimentary structure
- Updated instructions for sketching in Exercise 4.2
- Updates to Exercise 4.3 questions and suggestions in the teaching guide
- Improved instructions for the questions in Exercise 4.5
- Chapter 5
- Exercise 5.2 was updated to use sand and pebbles; not all labs are equipped to wet sieve silt and clay from sediment.
- Exercise 5.6 has been updated and improved
- Exercises 5.10 and 5.11 were updated with a list of potential environments
- Chapter 6
- No significant changes
- Chapter 7
- Removed excessive fossil terminology
- Exercise 7.5 is just fossil identification now
- Chapter 8
- Removed tables of how organisms lived, fed, moved, etc.
- Added a short new exercise (8.3) on the Western Interior Seaway
- Added a new exercise (8.4) on using foraminifera for paleowater depth
- Chapter 9
- Re-arranged the order of exercises
- Chapter 10
- Clarified wording throughout Exercise 10.3
- Chapter 11
- Removed Exercise 11.1 as it is no longer the correct scientific understanding
- Refining of text and questions in remaining exercises