Structure Field Trip

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2016 Structural Geology Field Trip – Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, & W. Virginia
WE SURVIVED! .. and we had FUN! 
Our first field experience was to take place in the Blue Ridge Province in early April.  You would expect it to be perfect camping weather…WRONG!  Mother nature really wanted us to struggle during our first taste of field work, but we didn’t let it beat us!  We all brought tons of layers of clothes, warm sleeping bags, hand & toe warmers, and even packed our heavy duty winter gear.  Hats and gloves were our heroes of the trip.  Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to make accurate measurements or take notes.

The first day was spent driving to Kingsport, Tennessee.   It was a long, beautiful drive and allowed us time to connect and bond with our classmates.  We had lots of laughs, but in the back of our minds we were all dreading the cold.  Thankfully, the first night in Kingsport we got to sleep indoors.  We soaked up the warmth as much as we could!

The second day, we spent most of our time at a road-cut on the west shoulder of I-181 near Kingsport to examine folds and slaty cleavage of the Sevier Shale that was part of the Appalachian foreland fold-thrust belt.  I was a little nervous, because this was where we would be taking most of our measurements of cleavage and bedding planes with our Brunton compasses.  I wasn’t sure I would be able to use it correctly and I worried that my measurements would be inaccurate.  We were all so lucky to have the greatest teachers with us.  Dr. Terry Wilson and Dr. Cristina Milan were so patient with some of us who were a little slow at getting the hang of the compasses, like me.  They took the time to show us how to use them and were always available to help.  Towards the end of the day, I felt very comfortable with taking measurements; and a week later when we would do our next Structural Geology lab in class, I was very pleased that all our measurements were close to the class measurements.  I call that success!

IMG_2621When we got to our campsite that evening in North Carolina, we had to hurry and get all of our tents up before the storm hit.  We could hear the wind, feel the cold, and see the dark clouds rolling in.  I was the one in charge of bringing the tent for our group, so I grabbed my tent and we picked out a good spot for the night.  We took the tent out of the bag and quickly realized that there are no poles!  I left ALL of the tent poles at home!!!  My heart sank!  I couldn’t believe it!  I was going to make my group freeze to death tonight!  Thankfully, there was an extra tent that we used.  Looking back though, it was pretty funny.  That night was brutally cold.  The low was 26 degrees Fahrenheit with wind gusts and freezing rain all night long.  The wind was relentless.  I did not sleep more than an hour or two that night because the wind was so loud.  You could hear it coming down the mountain and it sounded like it was just going to blow us apart.  The wind did blow another group’s tent apart while they were sleeping, but luckily ours stayed up and dry even if it was covered in a layer of ice when we got up.

IMG_6149The third day felt the longest.  Maybe because it was definitely the coldest.  I think we could all agree though that Linnville Falls was our favorite stop, mainly because the sun was actually out and we felt a little bit of warmth in our bodies again after that brutal night.  The Linville Falls fault frames the Grandfather Mountain window and is the largest window in the Blue Ridge.  The thrust sheet was moved tens of kilometers and mylonites were present with distinct crenelation cleavage and mineral lineation.  It was amazing to see all the things we learned in class and actually be able to identify and understand the processes that took place.  We felt like geologists!  We stopped a few more times that day, but it just kept getting colder and colder.  It got to the point that I couldn’t even take notes anymore because my fingers were so frozen.  We saw a lot of cool structures though!  The most beautiful though was probably the “Tweetsie Outcrop” of the Blowing Rock Gneiss intruded by felsic and mafic dikes and full of quartz veins and ductile shear zones.  When we finally got to our campsite that evening in Virginia, our bodies were almost defeated.  We had been in the cold all day and the reality of not being able to escape it for another night was sinking in.  The low was 21 degrees Fahrenheit, but it felts colder.  A lot of us went to bed early and tried to force ourselves to sleep so we wouldn’t have to feel the sting of the cold anymore.  I was finally able to sleep more than an hour or two that night, since the wind was calmer.  We woke up to frost inside our tent.  That morning was brutal.  We all couldn’t wait to pack up and get inside the heated vans.

The fourth day was a happier day.  We knew we were going home to our nice warm beds and controlled temperature environments, so I was in better spirits.  We had a few more stops and took more measurements of cleavage and bedding planes at another location before making our way back to Columbus.  We all survived!  And everyone got along!  I feel like we all became great friends!  I think we are going to have a blast at field camp this summer in Utah!  I couldn’t have asked for a better group!  Our Structural Geology Field Trip rocked!

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