Learning how to use resistivity soundings for interpretation of subsurface stratigraphy
This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection
This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
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This activity has benefited from input from faculty educators beyond the author through a review and suggestion process. This review took place as a part of a faculty professional development workshop where groups of faculty reviewed each others' activities and offered feedback and ideas for improvements. To learn more about the process On the Cutting Edge uses for activity review, see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.
This page first made public: Jul 12, 2007
Designed for a geophysics course
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
How the activity is situated in the course
Content/concepts goals for this activity
- Learn to work with basic software for forward modeling and inversion of resistivity soundings.
- Plan a resistivity sounding based on available information from well logs, lab data and forward modeling exercise.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Other skills goals for this activity
Description of the activity/assignment
Students will be presented with a problem; that is to determine the general characteristics (stratigraphy, water table depth) of a heterogeneous deposit (glacial till south of the MSU campus or proglacial sediments south of Ludington, MI) using electrical resistivity methods. The project consists of three separate activities: 1) use laboratory experiments to measure the relationship between soil water content and electrical resistivity for different soil samples obtained from the sites (2-3 samples per group), 2) use simple modeling software to calculate the resistivity response for simple geological models, based on information from well logs and the results of the laboratory measurements, and 3) design (min-max a-spacing and stepsize, based on the forward modeling results), execute, and analyze a field sounding experiment. Results will be summarized in a report and presented in class.Uses geophysics to solve problems in other fields
Determining whether students have met the goals
Download teaching materials and tips
- Activity Description/Assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 259kB Jul20 07)
- Assignment handout (Excel 23kB Jul20 07)