Some* GEOL 1122 students in Railsback's lecture sections can boost their course grades by 3.00% by satisfactory completion of the following exercise prior to the last regularly scheduled meeting of this GEOL 1122 section (not the final exam)**.   Satisfactory completion requires submission on paper of a typewritten essay in double-spaced Times New Roman 11 font that fills a page space no more than six inches wide and no more than nine inches long (i.e., an 8.5 x11 page with margins of 1 inch at top and bottom and 1.25 inches on each side).   Essays that do not meet the requirements of the assignment, or that have more than four grammatical, spelling, or other errors, or that are incomprehensible in whole or in part, will be deemed unsatisfactory and will be be returned marked with a "U", and no credit will be given.   Revision of essays is not an option.

The exercise:

Following the recent human contact with Planet Thera, multiple Terran scientific organizations (the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the European Space Agency, the Russian Academy of Sciences, China's National Natural Science Foundation) have joined to obtain permission from the planet’s inhabitants for a paleo-environmental study of the planet.   A linked document, Figure 14 of the Terrran Joint Survey of Planet Thera, shows the data obtained in this project.

        Your task is to write a report on the environmental history of Planet Thera.   Your report should include your interpretation of the environmental history of Planet Thera and the evidence on which that interpretation is based.   You should assume that your audience consists of readers who are familiar with paleoenvironmental data in general but who have not seen the data from Planet Thera.

* This exercise is open only to students who have at least one GEOL 1122 exam grade more than 90.1. It is not open to students who have grades of less than 90.1 on both exams. The latter students are referred to the other extra-credit opportunity. No student may use both opportunities.

** For CRN 35645, the last regularly scheduled meeting of this 9:30-10:45 Tu-Th class in Fall 2019 will be or was Tuesday, December 3, 2019, so the period "prior to the last regularly scheduled meeting" will end or ended at 9:29:59 am Tuesday, December 3, 2019.

** For CRN 13799, the last regularly scheduled meeting of this 11:00-12:15 Tu-Th class in Fall 2019 will be or was Tuesday, December 3, 2019, so the period "prior to the last regularly scheduled meeting" will end or ended at 10:59:59 am Tuesday, December 3, 2019.

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