Advanced Petrophysics

GEOL 4443/5343. Petrophysics (the study of fluids and their interaction with rocks) is fundamental to all aspects of groundwater and fossil fuel resources development. This course is to provide students with a foundational understanding of the physical, chemical, electrical, and mechanical principles involved in the acquisition of generic routine core analysis (RCA) and special core analysis (SCAL) data. Students will also gain practical experience using analytical and computational methods to infer petrophysical properties of rocks. RCA measurements include parameters such as grain size, porosity, bulk density, absolute permeability, and fluid saturation, whereas SCAL measurements include capillary pressure, relative permeability, NMR pore-size distributions, and wettability. Emphasis is put on the flow and transport properties of rocks for single phase and multiphase flow. This is not a petrophysical interpretation or log analysis course.

Environmental Data Analytics

GEOL 4433/5333. With the exponential growth of computing power and availability of “big data”, data analytics is emerging as a “must have skills” for today’s environmental practitioners, scientist, and students. This course is to provide students theoretical background and practical experience on data analytics to visualize data, make statistical inferences from data, predict the future from past data, identify patterns suggested by data, to detect correlations among data, and fill missing data. Theory on data analytic techniques will be taught through examples using MATLAB computing software, which has an interactive platform for data analysis and visualization, and allows to automate and capture your work in easy-to-write scripts.

Applied Geostatistics

GEOL 4433/5333. This course introduces basic geostatistical methods for geological data analysis and modeling of its spatial variability from the theoretical and practical viewpoints. An introductory section to provide elementary statistic theory necessary for almost all data analysis methods is followed by sections introducing the theoretical background needed to construct variograms and do kriging and stochastic simulations of spatial variability of geological data. Geological data used to show how statistical tools can be applied to solve geology problems include geochemical, hydrological, petrographic, and petrophysical variables. The theory of statistics is explained through the use of MATLAB software which possess graphical tools and many statistical functions. The applications of geostatistical methods to practical problems is explained through the use of the geostatistical software of Stanford University, GSLIB.

Groundwater Modeling

GEOL 5453. Groundwater simulations of flow and solute transport require the formulation of a conceptual model, representation of the conceptual model in terms of mathematical equations (usually differential equations), and solving of the system of mathematical equations using numerical computer methods. Successful groundwater modeling and simulation studies require of the understanding of these three general steps. To provide students with a fundamental understanding on each step, groundwater modeling principles is introduced using simple in-home simulation programs. Those simple simulation programs are aimed to make a descriptive introduction to the governing equations of groundwater flow and show how computer simulation programs work. Several groundwater flow and solute transport simulation programs are nowadays available. To gain an understanding on the application of groundwater modeling to real problems, PetraSim software is used as a platform to perform complex groundwater simulation examples.

Environmental Geology (Online)

GEOL 3503. This course introduces environmental geology and related earth sciences. The course explores how natural chemical, physical, and biological processes, along with human activities, shape and impact the environment. It offers insight into the science behind climate change and examines the extent to which current global environmental changes are driven by natural processes and human activities. You will study the processes by which energy and matter are transferred and transformed within Earth. An overview of Earth’s processes is used to provide the foundation for understanding global warming, groundwater and atmosphere contamination, resources availability, and the environmental impacts of resource development.

Contaminant Transport

GEOL 6553. Simulation of contaminant transport processes require of the formulation of a conceptual model, representation of the conceptual model in terms of mathematical equations, and solving of the system of mathematical equations using numerical computer methods. Successful simulation studies of contaminant transport processes in soils and groundwater require of the understanding of these three general steps. To provide students with a fundamental understanding on each step, contaminant transport and modeling principles are introduced in the context of groundwater resources management and remediation. Case studies of groundwater pollution and remediation are introduced to provide students with a practical view of the application of contaminant transport principles. Emphasis is put on the use of numerical modeling and simulation to assess the fate and transport of contaminants in fossil fuel and mineral resources development.

Geochemistry

GEOL 4443/5990. Geochemistry is an interdisciplinary science concerned with the chemistry in subsurface, surface, and atmospheric environments. This course provides the student the opportunity to integrate and synthetize knowledge learned in many different science courses. Geochemistry has many practical applications including groundwater quality studies, remediation studies of groundwater pollution, and preservation and remediation studies of waste storage sites. After introducing the general principles (thermodynamic and kinetic) that govern geochemical processes, the application of geochemistry to solve real-world groundwater problems will be explored by conducting geochemical reactive transport simulations using CrunchFlow program.

Geology and Human Affairs

GEOL 1014. This course provides an introduction to geology and related earth sciences and will investigate how chemical, physical, and biological processes affects the human environment. If you want to understand the science behind climate change or have been wondering to what extent current global environmental change is being forced by natural processes and human activities, this course is for you. This course is intended for non-science majors.

Exploring Earth: An Introduction to Geology

GEOL 1013. This course introduces how energy and matter are transferred around and into/out of the Earth system through the water, carbon, oxygen, nutrient, geologic and solar cycles.  A tour of global change through Earth history is used to provide context for understanding the modern Earth, including the scientific evidence for global warming, and for predicting the future path of global warming, ocean acidification and biodiversity loss.