Paleoceanography
Paleoceanography course investigating Earth's ocean history over the last 65 million years, covering chemical/physical study methods and oceans' role in the climate system.
Summary
Past student reviews · Clay Kelly, Andrea Dutton
The material was consistently described as dense, difficult, and content-heavy, though some students noted it was rewarding to learn and others found it manageable with instructor support.
What you’ll be able to do
Explain the major climatic and oceanographic events and trends during the Cretaceous through the Cenozoic, spanning timescales from the last 150,000,000 years to the last 1,000 years. For this class emphasis is placed on the global climate and oceanographic systems, with some attention to regional changes.
Explain the physical processes controlling the behavior of the earth system and its related components (atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, biosphere, etc.), and to articulate how oceanic/climatic variability results from a combination of external forcings and internal dynamics within the earth system.
Understand how paleoceanographers collect, date, and analyze a staggering variety of deep-sea records, as well as other paleoclimate archives as they pertain to oceanic and climate processes including ocean and lake sediment cores, ice cores, and speleothems.
Develop skills in critical thinking and technical writing, with particular attention to critically reading the scientific literature and critically evaluating the climate proxies and model simulations used by paleoceanographers.
Both explain and critically evaluate the data on which the majority of our ocean/climate knowledge of the last 150,000,000 years is based.
Both explain and assess the external forcings and internal dynamics within the earth system and across the different earth spheres.
Critically evaluate the scientific literature and provide your own perspective on the literature discussion and conclusions.
Source: UW Guide
Grade history
↗All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors
Prerequisites
Course mapGEOSCI 100, 110,ATM OCN/GEOSCI 105,ENVIR ST/GEOSCI 106, or graduate/professional standing
- GEOSCI 100
- GEOSCI 110
- ATMOCN/GEOSCI 105
- ENVIRST/GEOSCI 106
- graduate/professional standing
This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.
Prerequisite text tree
- Any of
- GEOSCI 100
- GEOSCI 110
- ATMOCN/GEOSCI 105
- ENVIRST/GEOSCI 106
- graduate/professional standing
Professors
Spring 2027No instructors recorded for this selection.
Historical instructors & teaching patterns
ANDREA DUTTON is recorded teaching in Fall 2020, Fall 2023, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
CLAY KELLY is recorded teaching in Spring 2010, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2023, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.
Calendar & sections
Spring 2027Schedule loads here as you scroll.
| Section | Mode | Enrolled / capacity | Waitlist |
|---|
Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.
Meeting source records
Student experience
the class
Past student reviews · Andrea Dutton, Clay Kelly
Students found the lectures engaging and the content highly relevant to scientific fields, describing the course as difficult but rewarding and one of the most interesting they took.
Recent recorded grades — Fall 2020: 3.71 GPA, 85.7% A/AB (n=7 letter grades); Fall 2023: 2.95 GPA, 40.0% A/AB (n=10 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.17 GPA, 33.3% A/AB (n=9 letter grades).
difficulty & workload
Past student reviews · Clay Kelly, Andrea Dutton
The material was consistently described as dense, difficult, and content-heavy, though some students noted it was rewarding to learn and others found it manageable with instructor support.
Past student reviews · Andrea Dutton, Clay Kelly
Instructors provided good feedback and were accessible outside of class, with one student noting flexible late policies and another mentioning that grading was somewhat hard but fair.
Topics
- History of Earth's oceans over the last 65 million years
- Chemical and physical methods for studying oceans
- Role of oceans in the climate system
- Collection, dating, and analysis of deep-sea records and paleoclimate archives
Skills
- Explain major climatic and oceanographic events and trends during the Cretaceous through the Cenozoic.
- Understand collection, dating, and analysis of deep-sea records and paleoclimate archives.
- Develop critical thinking and technical writing skills for evaluating scientific literature and climate proxies.
- Explain physical processes controlling earth system behavior and oceanic/climatic variability.
Grades
Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.
Grade distribution · % of letter grades
Grades over time
Through Fall 2025
More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data
Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.
Sources & history
Catalog & offerings
Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.
Catalog observation history
Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.
Selected offering source records
No offering records for the selected term.
Raw records
[]
Student reviews
Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.
Read original reviews
Grade history
Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.
Explore recorded gradesRecorded 2026-10-14
Model outputs & technical records
LLM outputs across runs
Full model traces
Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.
Model & dataset provenance
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"model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
"task_version": "17",
"output_id": "85b965ea73d0c98af9d757d763a95d0c194d87b881b555949a6fde59f72ea656",
"requirements_status": "valid",
"dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
"observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}