THE X-RAY DIFFRACTION PROJECT IN THE PETROLOGY COURSE AT GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY

At Georgia Southern University, Petrology is taught as a lecture course with an accompanying laboratory section. Rather than writing term papers, the students create a “GSA-style” poster that represents both the research and writing component that is required of many upper division courses in a geoscience program.

In addition to the traditional laboratory exercises, each student or work group in the course is expected to investigate the petrography, mineralogy, geochemistry, and tectonic setting of a fine-grained igneous or metamorphic rock (not previously encountered during the laboratory portion of the course). Students make their own thin-sections for petrographic analysis and use a Rigaku MiniFlex XRD (funded by NSF DUE 0311730) to determine the mineralogy of the rock assigned to them. Two weeks out of the laboratory portion of the course are scheduled for sample preparation and analysis, and interpretation of the XRD data.

Each student or work group is ultimately responsible for a poster presentation. The students are given detailed guidelines on the various topics that must be addressed for each rock and general criteria for preparing a poster. Individual students become the experts on their specific topic area by researching fundamental information available on it using the standard computerized databases and by explaining the results of the XRD data acquired.

All students felt that the XRD analysis helped them understand the course material better and they enjoyed the hands-on experience. In summary, the XRD improved the instruction of the petrology course, and has enhanced the research experiences of students enrolled in the Geology program at Georgia Southern University.