Application of Game Mechanic to Geology?

My son is focusing on geology in school this year. I haven't spoken to the teacher, but I believe he will be using geology as the medium by which he introduces different aspects of culture, etc, in connection to the other disciplines.

My question is: how could this card game mechanic be adapted to examine properties of rock and soil? Factors of erosion? Uses in society? Hydrology? pH? Carbon/nitrogen content? etc.

Here's a link to a kid-friendly, US Department of Agriculture PDF looking at soils. ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov It's 4.5 mb. If that link doesn't work, you can download it here. Choose sellsoil.pdf. http://www.mmnt.net/db/0/0/ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/NSSC/Educational_Resources

In general, the project is open to any serious attempt at designing new game mechanics - even those that are completely different from the current rule set. Some things to consider.

The game currently is based around three main types of cards: species, events, and home cards

Species cards are the ones that adhere most closely to specific game play details, but the event cards are pretty much an open way to provide specialized instructions/mechanics.

In theory, it's more than possible to create a geology based game that essentially provides variants of the event card template. Bonus if species can come into the game as well, whereby the species cards can be produced using the same parameters as currently exist (therefor, any species card you create for your geology game would conceivably also be used with the other rules as well).

Hope this helps!