THEMES OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSE IN SEDIMENTS AND SOILS

Scientists from many different disciplines study sediments and soils, and each group has its own perspective, terminology, and goal. This diversity of perspectives commonly leads to confusion in students and recent graduates who have had only one course in sedimentology or soils. An effective way to prevent this confusion is to provide undergraduate students with an interdisciplinary course in sediments and soils. Such a course not only gives them a general understanding of the various disciplines, it also provides them with a valuable interdisciplinary perspective. Such a perspective is necessary, especially for understanding soils. This course must cover a wide range of topics, so in order to provide a coherent sequence of ideas it should be organized around central themes that are common to all of the disciplines concerned with unconsolidated earth materials. These themes are related to the importance of water, and the importance of the composition and texture of sediments and soils. Water constitutes a central theme because its chemical and physical actions are responsible for the creation, transportation, and deposition of sediments; diagenesis; soil-forming processes; and nutrient availability to plants and soil microorganisms. The composition and texture of soils is fundamentally important because together these control physical and engineering properties, composition of pore waters, and permeability and porosity. The ultimate goal of the course is to give students the skills and understanding they need to identify sediments and soils and to interpret their history, significance, and potential uses and limitations. Incorporating these central themes helps achieve this goal and adds coherence to the course.