Keith
Meldahl
Professor of Geology &
Oceanography
Physical Sciences Department
Mira Costa College
·
Ph.D. in Geosciences,
·
M.S. in Geosciences,
·
B.A. in Geology,
kmeldahl@miracosta.edu Office
phone: (760) 757-2121, ext. 6412
Consider making an Oceanography or Geology course part of your educational experience at Mira Costa
College. Here in coastal San Diego
County we are surrounded by a fascinating and readily accessible geologic and
oceanographic environment. Studying
oceanography and geology here is interesting, fun, and relevant
to all of our lives. Feel free to
contact me if you have questions about oceanography or geology classes,
including my ONLINE
sections of Oceanography and Environmental Geology
(see below).
I have taught college earth science for most of my
professional life, first at the University of Arizona in Tucson, then at Oberlin
College in Ohio, and now Mira Costa College, where I have been since 1997.
Hard Road West (my recently published
book)
In addition
to teaching, I do research on the geology of the American West and how it
influenced the route of the historic overland trails and the experiences of
mid-nineteenth century overland emigrants.
I recently completed a book about my explorations along the historic California
Trail—the overland route the forty-niners took during the California gold
rush.
Click here to see Hard
Road West: History and Geology along the Gold Rush Trail on Amazon.com.
Click here to view my Powerpoint
presentation on Hard Road West. NOTE: All educators are welcome to download
and view this presentation provided that they 1) use it for to educational
purposes only; 2) acknowledge the source; 3) mention that the presentation is
based on the book. Thank you!
Note: the above file is 15mb.
Frontier (my new book project)
I’m
currently working on a new book. Frontier:
a Geologic Trek across the American West from San Francisco to the Rocky Mountains takes the reader on an armchair “field trip” across the West and explains
the science behind the scenery. The book
begins at the California coast and travels 1200 miles to the Rocky Mountains of
Wyoming and Colorado.
The
fault scarp above formed when the Sierra Nevada lurched upward six feet during
a major earthquake in the Owens Valley in 1872.
Earthquakes represent the growing pains of mountains. Every quake adds a little bit to the uplift
to a mountain, and the rugged, spectacular topography of the American West is
the product of millions of quakes over millions of years.
MW OCEANOGRAPHY class: Module Quizzes
WorldPlates.jpg San
Diego Coast
MW OCEANOGRAPHY class: Extra Credit activities
Current
Research at WHOI and SIO
Science, Evolution and
Creationism
Information for ONLINE courses
OCEANOGRAPHY (OCEA101) ONLINE
Go to the OCEANOGRAPHY ONLINE HOME PAGE to
learn about the course.
First-time login to
ETUDES-NG: http://etudes.org/gateway/login-mcc.html
Use the link above the first time you log in. ETUDES-NG is the courseware program used to
run OCEA101 ONLINE. To participate, you need to be a registered
student with a SURF id and password. Your course section will not be available
for login until the course start date. OCEA101 section # 2393 starts
August 24, 2009; OCEA101 section # 2406 starts September 8, 2009.
Portal for ETUDES-NG:
https://etudes-ng.fhda.edu/portal
Use this link for all subsequent logins,
after you have established your user ID and password at the “First-time login”
link above.
ETUDES Student Help: http://etudes.org/gateway/etudes-student-help-mcc.html
ENVIRONMENTAL
GEOLOGY (GEOL120) ONLINE
Go
to the ENVIRONMENTAL
GEOLOGY ONLINE HOME PAGE to learn about the course. (Note: this course is currently being taught
by Phil Farquharson; please
contact him for course information.)
Virtual Geology Field Trip of
San Diego’s Backcountry
By
Michelle Mudge
TEXTBOOK WEB SITES:
OCEANOGRAPHY (OCEA101) textbook (Trujillo &
Thurman, 9th edition)
ENVIRONMENTAL GEOLOGY
(GEOL120) textbook (Pipkin and others, 5th edition)