This course covers two important aspects of historical geology. The first half of the course will cover fundamental principles and concepts in geosciences needed to reconstruct and interpret Earth's history, including the nature of Earth materials and Earth structure, paleontology and the evolution of life, plate tectonics, major depositional environments and the sedimentary record, the role of sea level, the climate system and global climate change, relative dating and geologic time, and principles of stratigraphy and correlation.