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Course-based scientific research is publishable!?


A typical graduate course involves lectures and laboratory activities covering a wide range of high-level scientific topics. We’ve changed the script this semester! Carbonate Petrology (GEOS 6650) is being taught as a research methods course with the goal of conducting an authentic research study. Students are gaining “in-the-lab” training in theory and application for a series of common analytical tools used in materials characterization. Ultimately, the students are conducting a detailed petrological investigation of the Byron Formation in the Michigan Basin. The unit is characterized by a series of alternating limestones and dolomites formed in a shallow marine setting during the Silurian. Why only some of the layers are dolomitized and others are not remains unknown.


By collecting data from core description, thin section petrographic analysis, x-ray diffraction mineralogy, scanning electron microscope imaging and micro-chemical analyses, and conventional stable C and O isotope analyses, we hope to answer fundamental questions about the timing, conditions, and mechanisms of dolomitization. Our preliminary results will be presented as a poster at the upcoming regional North-Central Geological Society of America meeting, which will be held at the L.V. Eberhard Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The poster is one of ten CPCL presentations at the two-day conference.


Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 55, No. 3, 2023 doi: 10.1130/abs/2023NC-386530

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