Sedimentology staff is involved in the teaching of several courses in the Earth Sciences Ba and MSc programs.
Bachelor's programme
Field course Spain (GEO2-1118)
Joris Eggenhuisen is responsible for teaching the first year’s field module of physical field geology together with Herman van Roermund, Wout Krijgsman & Bas van Schootbrugge. The course is taught around the town of Aliaga in the Teruel province in Spain, and it introduces the first students to a broad range of field techniques. The course demonstrates interdependency of the different geological disciplines in the field, by reconstructing the geological history of the study area from the Triassic to the Pleistocene with a combination of stratigraphy, sedimentology, field mapping, and structural analyses of faults and folds.
Sedimentary Systems (GEO2-1208)
This is an undergraduate introductory course in Sedimentology and Stratrigraphy, taught together with Frits Hilgen.
Field course 2 Pyrenees (GEO3–1210)
João is responsible for the second part of this field trip, in the vicinity of Tremp, which focuses on the study of the stratigraphy of a sedimentary basin that was filled during mountain building. Students work in groups and make a sedimentological and stratigraphic analysis of one of several Upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene stratigraphic units. This part of the field trip is closed with an excursion through the Tremp–Graus–Àger Basin during which the results of the fieldwork are placed in the context of tectonics, sea-level fluctuations, and climate.
Sedimentation, fauna, and climate (GEO3–1319)
This course covers four interrelated themes as follows:
- Allogenic controls on sedimentation. Tectonics, eustasy, and climate. Sedimentary basins and sedimentary basin fill.
- Sediment routing system. Composition of the hinterland. Weathering and erosion. Biogenic sediment production. Sediment transport and deposition. Rates of exogenic processes and changes in those rates. Accommodation space, sediment input, and relative sea level. Transgressions and regressions.
- Basin stratigraphy. Process stratigraphy, time stratigraphy, and sequence stratigraphy. Stratigraphic cycles and sequence-generating mechanisms (tectonic, eustatic, and astronomical). Nonforced autocyclicity. Time in sequence stratigraphy. Stratigraphic completeness. Translation of sedimentary processes into record.
- Evaluation of petroleum plays. Petroleum system and play. Source rocks, reservoirs, seals, and traps in the context of basin stratigraphy.
Master's programme
Dynamics of Sedimentary Systems (GEO4-1419)
The course shows how observations lead to questions that attempt to relate cause and effect in the formation of sedimentary deposits in the rock record. It shows how simple quantification of sedimentary processes can put constraints on solutions. The lectures are used to demonstrate how observations on outrcrops and surface processes lead to conceptual models of dynamics within the sedimentary system, and how we can develop physical, numerical, and physics-based mathematical models that capture these dynamics. The students will apply and test the developed models in computer and laboratory practicals.