01:460:476:01 (Geological Sciences-Undergrad.)
11:628:476:01 (Marine and Coastal Sciences – Undergrad.)
16:712:560:01 (Oceanography-Grad.)
Waller Hall (WAL),
Room 203, Cook Campus
Class Time: TTh 2:15 - 3:35 PM
Instructor: Dr. Paul Falkowski
Email: falko@imcs.rutgers.edu
Office hours: by appt. – call 732-932-6555 ext. 244
Office location: Institute of Marine and Coastal Science bldg. Rm. 318D
Syllabus for Fall 2010 (word document)
Class
Lecture Slides and Assigned Reading - Fall 2010
(Adobe Acrobat Required to View Files)
Week
1 - Sept 2
Description of course structure/goals. Introduction to planetary
origins/accretion origin elements & their distribution, the origin of the ocean.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Reading list
2)
Lineweaver, Science 1999
4) Drake & Righter, Nature 2002
5) Bhattacharjee, Science 2010
Week 2 - Sept 7
Early Earth, theories of the origin of organic matter in the
universe & on Earth.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Cowan & Thielemann, Physics Today 2004
2) Drake & Righter, Nature 2002
7) Figure 1.4
8) Nance, Worsely, Moody, Scientific American 1988
9) Lunine, Philosophical
Transactions: Biological Sciences 2006
Week 2 - Sept 9
Katye Altieri's Lecture Slides (powerpoint)
Introduction to Earth’s early atmosphere, radiation budget and the “faint Sun” paradox (part I).
Week 3 - Sept 14
Introduction to Earth’s early atmosphere, radiation budget and the
“faint Sun” paradox (part II).
Introduction to origins of life concepts:
definition of life, the initial conditions redox chemistry and early metabolic
sequences, the formation of organic polymers & cells.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Anbar & Knoll, Science 2002
2) Bada & Lazcano, Science 2002
3) Benner et al., Science 2002
5) Mojzsis, Harrison & Pidgeon, Nature 2001
7) Watson & Harrison, Science 2005
8) Williams & da Silva, J. Chem. Ed. 2004
9) Martin & Russell, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B., 2002
Additional Lecture Slides (powerpoint) (source: Tracy Quan)
Fossils and geochemical biomarkers from the Archea & Proterozoic epochs - the
geological record.
Molecular clocks and the biological inference of origins of life.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Canfield et al., Roy. Soc. B. 2006
2) Farquhar et al., Science 2000
3) Zahnle et al., Geobiology 2006
4) Knoll et al., Ch.8 (available here) (published in The Evolution of Aquatic Photoautotrophs. 2007. Academic Press)
5)
Summons
et al., Nature 1999
Week
4 - September 21
The evolution of
the carbon cycle/ modes of Nutrition I. The evolution of the N2
cycle
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
2) Falkowski et al., Science 2008
3) Graur & Martin, TRENDS in Genetics 2004
4) Hayes et al., Chem. Geology 1999
Week 4 - September
23
Modes of Nutrition II / the Redfield ratios Introduction to bioinorganic
chemistry.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Fennel et al., Am. J. Sci. 2005
2) James Farquhar, et al., Science 2000
4)
Pavlov & Kasting, Astrobiology 2002
Week 5 - September 28
The role of trace
elements in regulating biogeochemical cycles.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1)
Falkowksi & Godfrey, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2008
3) Quan et al., Global Biogeochem. Cycles 2008
4)
Falkowski, PowerPoint
28Sept2010
Week
5 - Supplement
Week 5 - September 30
Dr. Silke Severmann's
lecture handout (pdf)
Concepts of
biological limiting processes in geochemistry.
Molecular phylogeny & origin of eukaryotes / lateral gene transfer and the
origins of plastids and mitochondria.
The organization of metabolic sequences.
1) Williams, The Royal Society 1981
2) Falkowski & Isozaki, Science 2008
3) Arnold, Anbar, Barling, Lyons, Sciencexpress 2004
4) Falkowski et al., Science 2008
5) Falkowski, PowerPoint-A 2009
6) Falkowski, PowerPoint-B 2009
7)
McDaniel et al., Science 2010
Week 6 - October 5
TERM PAPER Discussed
Oxygen & the evolution of photosynthesis – signs of life on the planet.
The impact of oxygen evolution on trace element distributions.
The Cambrian “explosion” / role of oxygen in the evolution of macrofauna.
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
5) Kappler et al., Geology 2005
7) Smith & Peterson, Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2002
Additional
Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint) (source: Paul Falkowski)
TERM PAPER Discussed (Cont'd)
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Isozaki et al., Science 1997
2) Hoffman et al., Science 1998
4) Martin & Russell, The Royal Society 2002
5) S.L. Baldauf, et al., Science 2003
6) Canfield et al., Science 2010
Week 7 - October 12
International
Stratigraphic Chart
Earth’s
radiation budget II, greenhouse gases, clouds and ice (Earth’s albedo).
Steffan-Boltzmann equation, climate feedbacks, and energy balance.
Week 7 - October 14
The hydrological cycle, oceanic heat transport
and thermohaline circulation.
The role of the ocean in climate dynamics.
Review: Old midterm exam sample (word document)
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
Week
8 - October 19
Hardy-Weinberg
Law
Aeolian
fluxes, mineral transport, weathering and feedbacks on biogeochemical fluxes.
Time scales of element cycling.
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Baldauf et al., Science 2003
Week 8 - October 21, 2010 Mid-term Examination - no lecture
1) Examples of Mid-term Examination Questions
Week 9 - October 26
The
Big Five -- Bas van de Schootbrugge
Extinctions: The “big five”. The Permuian extinction & the resetting of the
ocean redox system.
Additional Lecture Slides (powerpoint) (source: Livia Montone)
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Baldauf, Trends in Genetics 2003
2) Felsenstein, Annu. Rev. Genet. 1988
3) Wray,
Genome Biology 2001
Week 9 - October 28
The
Triassic recovery – The “tempo” and “mode” of evolution – Theories of evolution.
The concepts of natural selection and introduction to population biology.
Additional Lecture Slides (powerpoint) (source: Debashish Bhattacharya)
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
3) Raup & Sepkowski, Science 1980
4) Alvarez et al., Science 1980
7) Van
Valen, Evol.Theory 1973
*
Natural Selection Notes
Introduction to plate tectonics and role
in genetic drift.
Week 10
- November 4
Rates of
evolution and selection mechanisms in the Cretaceous – Darwin, and neoDarwinism.
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Rasmussen et al., Nature 2008
2) Delwiche, The American Naturalist 1999
3) Heckman et al., Science 2001
5) Keeling & Palmer, Nature Reviews 2008
7) Kenrick & Crane, Nature 1997
Week 11 - November 9
The K/T boundary and the post impact world -
Evolution of mammals and the evolution of intelligence.
Assigned reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Van Valen, Evol. Theory, 1973
Week 11 - November 11
Glacial and interglacial cycles/ Milankovich
cycles.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Falkowski et al., Science 2005
Week
12 - November 16
Ken Miller's Presentation (pdf,
4.79 MB)
CO2
since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Charlson et al., Nature 1987
2) Falkowski et al., Science 1992
3) Falkowski et al., Science 2000
Week
12 - November 18
Primary production
and carbon sequestration in the contemporary world.
The solubility and biological pumps, higher plant sensitivity to CO2.
Guest lecture by Dr. Tracy Quan: Slides from lecture (pdf)
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Berger, Reviews of Geophysics 1988
3) Sigman & Boyle, Nature 2000
Week 13 -
November 23
Mapping biogeochemical cycles to the
evolution of functional proteins -
an introduction to structural biology and problems in contemporary evolutionary
theories -
the problems of predicting outcomes of climate change on biological systems.
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
1) Barton & Harvey, Nature 2000
3) Molnar, Irish J. Earth Sciences 1990
Week 13 - November 25 - NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Recess
Week 14 - November 30 (will have class
- Thursday Schedule)
Bio-diversity, ecological homogenization,
extinction / human interactions with the environment; The evolution of
intelligence
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
3) Kaas & Collins, Nature 2001
Week 14 - December
2 -Term Papers Due
Last Class Meeting before Final
more slides
Evolution of Speech
The
evolution of language and post-evolutionary theories of Earth System Science.
Additional Lecture Slides (powerpoint) (source: Falkowski)
Assigned Reading for next time (pdf files):
2) Norenzayan, et al., Science 2008
3) Falkowski & Tchernov, Chapter 11
4) http://blogs.sciencemag.org/origins/2009/11/on-the-origin-of-religion.html
Week 15 - December 7 - No Class
Last set of slides - from last 2 weeks lectures
** Final Exam - Dec. 9 (during class period)**
SAMPLE FINAL EXAM QUESTIONS
1. What appears to be the "pacemaker" for glacial/interglacial cycles for the past 2.5 million years of Earth's history?
2.
2.
What is one proxy for wind speed
that can be inferred from ice core records? What is the rationale for using it
as a proxy?
4.
What
is one difference between human induced changes to the Earth System compared
with natural changes?
5.
5.
How
has the evolution of language helped humans to escape the Red Queen constraint?