Story written by Prof Yanlan Liu
Beginning May 30th, ten undergraduate students and two graduate teaching assistances from the School of Earth Sciences (SES) joined Instructors Ashley Griffith, Terry Wilson, Cristina Millan, and Shelley Judge for the summer geology Field Camp in Utah. The 6-week Field Geology course provided unique field-based experiences that help translate what students learned in the classroom to geological phenomena and challenges in the field. The field camp caravan traveled across diverse geological regions in and beyond Utah, from the National Parks of Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Great Basin to the east of Salt Lake City and Wasatch Plateau. While grasping the massive spatial and temporal scale of geological processes in the field, students practiced basic skills, including note-taking and making observations, and conducted planned research on their theses. On one off day excursion, the team climbed Mount Nebo—the summit is nearly 12,000 feet in altitude.
This year's Field Camp was special as the 75th anniversary since Dr. Edmund Spieker founded the Ohio State University Field Camp Station in Ephraim, UT, in 1947. In honor of the rich history and alumni who participated and made it happen, this year's Field Camp featured a 4-day Alumni Reunion event in June. SES Director Prof. Steven Lower, students, and 90 alumni—the earliest class goes back to 1955—joined the celebration by taking a field trip to Sanpete Valley, Marysvale Volcanic Province, and Marysvale Gravity Slide Complex. In front of a volcanic landslide dated 20 million years ago at Marysvale, SES graduate student Michael Braunagel presented his dissertation research, which made a highlight of the field trip according to the audience's feedback.
Looking forward, "we hope to continue our tradition of geology field camp focusing on structural geology, sedimentology, and petrology, while thinking of innovative approaches to make it more representative of disciplines across SES," Prof. Griffith said. "We hope to get more faculty and students involved to develop research ideas, apply survey techniques, and collect field measurements that could leverage the Field Camp platform."
