We review the extensive record of plant fossils before, at, and after the Cretaceous-Paleogene event horizons, recognizing that key differences between plants and other organisms have important implications for understanding the patterns of environmental change associated with the Cretaceous-Paleogene event. Examples are given of the breadth of prior environmental conditions and ecosystem states to place Cretaceous-Paleogene events in context. Floral change data across the Cretaceous-Paleogene are reviewed with new data from North America and New Zealand. Latest Cretaceous global terrestrial ecology was fire prone and likely to have been adapted to fire. Environmental stress was exacerbated by frequent climate variations, and near-polar vegetation tolerated cold dark winters. Numerous floristic studies across Cretaceous-Paleogene event horizons in North America attest to continent-wide ecological trauma, but elsewhere greater floral turnover is sometimes seen well before the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary rather than at it. Data from the Teapot Dome site (Wyoming) indicate continued photosynthesis, but during or immediately after the Cretaceous-Paleogene event, growth was restricted sufficiently to curtail normal plant reproductive cycles. After the Cretaceous-Paleogene transition in New Zealand, leaf form appears to have been filtered for leaves adapted to extreme cold, but at other high-southern-latitude sites, as in the Arctic, little change in floral composition is observed. Although lacking high-resolution (millimeter level) stratigraphy and Cretaceous-Paleogene event horizons, gradual floral turnover in India, and survival there of normally environmentally sensitive taxa, suggests that Deccan volcanism was unlikely to have caused the short-term trauma so characteristic elsewhere but may have played a role in driving global environmental change and ecosystem sensitivity prior to and after the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.

As part of a course objective to improve the geographic literacy of students in higher education, Penn State's Amazing Race , a modified version of Google Earth's application programming interface (API) demo game, Geo Whiz , engages students in learning physical geography within a Google Earth browser plug-in. Students navigate around the Earth to identify on the globe the locations of various countries, major cities, United States national parks, and locations with features of geological significance. To better achieve the learning goal, several game elements were incorporated into the game interface: a timer to encourage concentration, a ranking board with scores of all players to motivate students to improve and to assess learning results, and a replay function for instructors to review students' performance and specific difficulties. Google Earth API is used to control the Earth movements and map display, while custom JavaScript code adds the function of a timer, recording/playback, and score keeping. Google Earth's browser plug-in does not provide a layer that contains political boundaries without state and country labels, so one additional feature added to The Amazing Race is Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)–published boundary data without the names of world countries and U.S. states converted to a zipped Keyhole Markup Language (KMZ) file. The framework of this game can be easily exported for application to other disciplines for various student levels and ages.

Abstract Production from tight-gas sands has been a growing and indispensable component of U.S. gas production. This chapter discusses three dimensions of the contribution from tight-gas sands to national gas production from 1990 to 2005: (1) within the context of total U.S. gas production, (2) by comparison to other unconventional sources of domestic gas production, and (3) the geographical distribution and geological composition of tight-gas sands production. It concludes with a forecast of future tight-sandstone gas production. For this analysis, tight-sandstone reservoirs are defined as those commonly considered to be tight, that is, low-permeability sandstone reservoirs that require massive hydraulic fracturing to produce in commercial quantities. Thirty-four plays were identified in the contiguous 48 states as tight-sandstone gas plays. From 1990 to 2005, gas production in the contiguous 48 states grew from 16.9 to 18.0 tcf. This overall growth was possible only because of growth in unconventional gas production from 2.8 to 8.9 tcf (16.6% in 1990 to 49.5% of national production in 2005). Tight sandstones were the most important source of this unconventional production, reaching 4.34 tcf in 2005 (24.1% of national production and 48.8% of unconventional production). Three geographic areas have provided most tight-sandstone gas production over the past 15 yr: the western Rocky Mountain basins, east Texas and north Louisiana, and south Texas. The western Rocky Mountain basins (42% of tight-sandstone production in 2005) and east Texas and north Louisiana (27% of 2005 production) are the main centers of tight-sandstone production. Tight-sandstone gas production is concentrated in several crucial (producing at least 500 mmcf/day) and major (200–500 mmcf/day daily production) plays. The 10 crucial plays produced 3.02 tcf in 2005, 69.5% of tight-sandstone gas production. The 11 major plays produced 1.08 tcf in 2005, 25% of production. Tight-sandstone gas production should continue to increase to 2010 primarily because of continued increases in production in half of the crucial plays. Production is likely to stabilize in the 5.0–5.5 tcf/yr range from 2010 to 2015. By 2020, tight-sandstone gas production is likely to decline because of the size of the technically and economically recoverable tight-sandstone gas resource.

In this chapter, we consider the design of learning experiences in the geosciences. Recognizing that too often, educational experiences do not lead to understanding that the learner can draw on when it is relevant, we focus on learning that leads to usable understanding. We use the analogy of engineering research and development to describe the way we have applied findings from cognitive science research to the design of geosciences curricula. We present a design framework based on research in cognitive science that offers guidelines for the design of learning activities that motivate learning and provide learners with opportunities to apply what they are learning. We illustrate the design framework with an example of a middle school curriculum that focuses on the relationship between physical geography and climate. We also present strategies for conducting formative evaluations of curriculum and describe how we use them to iteratively refine a design.