Guia docente 2023_24 Facultade de Química

Contents

Topic	Sub-topic
The Earth as a Geochemical System: Rocks forming minerals	Geochemical evolution of the Earth. Plate Tectonic. The rocks cycle. Comparison of Earth with other planets in the solar system: The case of of Mars.
The crystallization process: thermodynamic and kinetic aspects.	Differences between nucleation and crystal growth.Crystal growth kinetics. Structural aspects.
Characterization of crystalline solids: structure vs. morphology.	Microscopic and macroscopic approaches to crystalline solids
Isotopes in Geology: Measuring the geological time with radiactive isotopes. Analyzing kinetic processes by fractionation of stable isotopes.	Radioactive isotopes and stable isotopes. Isotopic dating techniques. The Isochrone method. Kinetic tracking of processes using stable isotopic techniques. Notation and units. Rayleigh fractionation.
Geometric crystallography: Periodicity and symmetry in the crystals.	Two-dimensional lattices. Point symmetry. Schoenflies and Hermann-Mauguin notations of point symmetry elements and clases. Bravais lattices. Microscopic symmetry Space groups. Miller indices and zone axes. Fractional coordinates
X-ray crystallography: Bragg's Law and the Phase problem	The physical basis of diffraction. Diffraction by crystals lattices and radiation sources. The Bragg Law The reciprocal lattice. Diffraction Patterns. Indexing of diffraction diagrams. powder diagrams and monocrystal diagrams Quantitative Analysis. The Phase problem. Methods of resolution of structures from diffraction datasets.