The Earth and Its Resources

This course aims to raise awareness among first-year students about issues related to the use, exploitation, and management of the Earth’s natural resources.

As an introduction, an overview identifying the different types of these resources (energy, mineral, and water) and the major issues associated with them (economic and environmental) will be presented.

Various types of resources will then be presented in three stages:

- The concept of mineral resources will be explored in depth by tracing the journey of chemical elements, from their formation in the universe to their storage in the minerals that make up rocks and their applications in everyday technologies. This will serve as an introduction to basic concepts in solid-state chemistry and mineralogy, illustrated through mineralogy tutorials and lab sessions.

- The challenges and operation of geological reservoirs that store natural resources will be discussed, with a focus on conventional energy resources (hydrocarbons) and future resources (underground storage of resources, geothermal energy).

- Finally, the major global challenges related to water resources will be explored in depth. The global water cycle on Earth will be presented, and the key concepts necessary for understanding today’s major challenges will be identified (definitions of an aquifer and a hydrosystem, along with the main types encountered; chemical interactions between water and rocks; and illustrations of processes focused on the chemistry of mineral and thermal waters).

Hourly volumes:

CM: 18

TD: 12

TP: 6

The primary goal of this course unit is to raise students’ awareness of the challenges associated with managing the Earth’s resources. It aims to demonstrate how the fields of geosciences, water sciences, and chemistry have a vital role to play as disciplines capable of addressing these major challenges in the coming decades.

To better understand these issues, students must acquire a basic understanding of the geological environments that contain these resources: from the solid medium that contains the chemical elements to the geological formation that contains the fluid resources.

Open to students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering (TEE), as well as to students in the bachelor’s program in chemistry, this course unit will aim, among other things, to show students the important role that chemistry and Earth and Water Sciences play in the field of natural resources.

None.

Ongoing Assessment

• Brief description of the concepts covered in fourth grade:

-4th and 5th Grades: Introduction: What is a resource (natural, renewable, fossil)? What are the major challenges and issues associated with the use, exploitation, and management of natural resources?

-3rd Grade: Chemical Elements: Origins and Distribution in the Earth

-4th and 5th grades: Minerals, entities that store mineral resources: definitions, structure, and formation. Examples of simple minerals and regional resources (galena, halite, etc.).

-CM6: Presentation on an example of issues related to a strategic resource (rare earth elements, hydrogen, etc.).

-CM7, CM8: Geological reservoirs: structures that store fluid resources. Conventional reservoirs will be used to illustrate conventional resources (hydrocarbons) and unconventional resources. Geothermal energy and storage reservoirs (heat, gas, air) will be presented as future solutions that harness the “sustainable” potential of geological reservoirs.

-CM9: Water Resources and the Water Cycle on Earth

-CM10: Global Water Resource Issues. Definition of a hydrosystem and major types of aquifers.

-CM11: Issues Related to Water Quality: Water Chemistry and Some Examples of Interactions Between Fluids and Rocks.

CM12: Conclusion in the form of an integrative lecture summarizing the concepts covered in the course unit, which may prompt broader reflection on political, economic, environmental, and other aspects…

• Summary description of the tutorial sessions and the number of hours associated with each session

-TD1: Fundamentals of Mineralogy and Crystallography, as an introduction to the two lab sessions.

-TD2: Composition of Mineral and Thermal Waters

-TD3: Rock texture, concepts of porosity and hydraulic conductivity.

-TD4: Integrative TD on an object involving a hydrosystem and various types of associated resources (drinking water, hot water, minerals, gas (He), energy (geothermal)). Example: the Thuès hydrothermal system in the Pyrenees.

• Summary description of the lab sessions and the number of hours associated with each session

-Lab 1, Lab 2: Mineralogy labs: fundamentals of crystallography, illustrated through the observation of naturally occurring crystalline solids (minerals). Study of several minerals with clearly visible and educational characteristics (sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, silica) and of atomic structures. Relationship between atomic structures and properties in several very simple minerals.