A good geology research paper topic?

Question

sophomore in college, but its an introductory class... needs to be 8 pages

Answer 1

This is something interesting to think about...  Many deposits of high quality ore on the Earth are associated with "Earth Activity."  Iron is as a result of oxygen in the atmosphere.  Black smokers (Earth's heat engine) deposit other minerals around then.  

Question:  do all concentrated mineral deposits have "Earth Activity" associated with them?  In other words -would we be fooling ourselves to think we can "mine" any minerals on the moon.

Answer 2

Look around at your local geology. Base your paper around some feature or set of features you can easily visit. As I don't know where you are I have a but of a problem but you could survey and describe a section you can examine locally and perhaps relate it to other features in the area. If you are in an urban area, perhaps describe the geology of some local buildings - perhaps describe a geological walk around your town, or even the geology of your local graveyard.

Check with your tutor first, that someting like any of the above will be suitable - For your first year a full seismic survey might be a bit ambitious :-) :-) :-) but microfossils are fun, and take up very little space.

Answer 3

I did mine on accreted terrain. Described the process then showed a few examples.

Answer 4

An overview of regional geology is usually interesting... either for your own region, or for one that you're especially interested in.  Might I suggest the effects of ancient glaciation on the midwestern U.S.?  Or, if you're looking for something a little more cliche but still fascinating, an overview of the geologic processes past and present of Yellowstone (believe me, it would not be hard at all to get 8 pages out of that)?

Answer 5

If you really want to wow your teacher I would do one on the KT boundary mass extinction....65 mya, the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

This would should your teacher that you are encompassing everything you learned:

stratigraphy - you can talk about the layers of evidence around the world from both the flood basalts in india and the Chixculub crater in the Yucatan

biostratigraphy- you can talk about how the fossil records show the dinosaurs decline is directly related to the rise of mammals (also how the birds of today are the dinosaurs of yesterday)

Other cool Geology stuff you could cover:

Iridium spikes in layers from 65 mya

Shocked quartz

Tsunami Deposits

Evidence of flood basalt layers

Possibility of flood basalt layers being caused by the asteroid impact

Other cool topics:

Yellowstone super volcano

Possibility for east coast tsunami from landslide off the coast of canary island