GEOL 890: "Advanced Seismology" Syllabus
Instructor: Dr. Steve Gao, Associate Professor
Office: Thompson Hall 207; Phone: 532--2243; email: sgao@mst.edu
Course website:
http://www.mst.edu/~sgao/g890
Goals
The two major goals of the courses are
1). obtaining basic knowledge about most of the
important topics in modern seismology;
2). acquiring skills in conducting real-world research
in a number of selected areas in modern seismology.
Approaches
The goals will be met by a combination of
lectures by the instructor and presentations
by the students, reading of the textbook
and papers, computer exercises,
home work assignments, in-class quizzes,
and a research paper.
Format
A specific topic will be covered each week.
The class usually starts with a short quiz
on the reading assignment of previous week
(to make sure that you have indeed read and
understood the topics),
followed by a presentation of the instructor
and/or a student, who was chosen during the previous
week to prepare for a presentation on the
topic. During the semester each person will
be assigned to make three 30-minutes presentations
(PowerPoint preferred!).
Grading
A total of 400 points will be available:
* Participation: 30 points in total
Two points will be subtracted for each missed class,
and one point will be subtracted if you are late for
5 or minutes or more.
* In-class quizzes: 50 points
* Home work assignments: 120 points
Formula for late works: P/P0 = exp(-0.1*t), where P is
the actual number of points that you receive, P0 is the
number of points that you could have received if
the work were turned in before the deadline,
and t is the nubmer of hours passed the deadline.
Some bench marks: your score will be reduced to
the 60% level if your work is late by 5 hours,
to 30% if late by 12 hours, and to 9% by 24 hours!
* Presentations: 60 points
* Research paper: 140 points