It’s all over!

Six weeks of blood, sweat, and tears have brought us to our final day.  Okay, maybe not too much blood and maybe not a lot of tears, but they were definitely there!  We have successfully completed field camp!  The final week was a long chaotic one.  It started with our final mapping project and ended with our final mapping and written exams.

We were given our final mapping partners and spent four days out in the field mapping contacts and interpreting structure.  It was our largest mapping area.  The first day was spent walking around mostly confused trying to get comfortable and familiar with the area, but the second day was business as usual.  It is amazing how all the information we have learned so far is coming together.  We are all mapping robots now.  I think we all felt pretty comfortable after the fourth day and took our maps back to begin our cross sections and our first geologic field report.  I enjoyed writing the report, since we could tie the depositional and tectonic history of the region with what we actually observed in the field.  It felt like all the puzzle pieces were falling in place at just the right time.

Yesterday was our final mapping exam.  We were given only 6 hours in the field to map and then 3 and a half hours in a classroom at Snow College to complete our cross section and lithologic descriptions.  It was the most stressful thing I have done in geology so far and I am glad it is over and behind me.

Today was our final written exam, and I am also glad it is over.  Now all we have to do is pack, clean, and celebrate!  The best way to describe field camp was from previous field campers: “It is the best time that you never want to have again.”  I wasn’t entirely sure I believed them when they told me that, but I can now say that is a pretty accurate way to describe this whole experience.  However, I will miss the beautiful landscapes that we have been so lucky to map, camp, and study in.

We also want to give a special thanks to all of the instructors and teaching assistants that have helped us learn and survive this six week field camp.  Thank you to Dr. Tom Darrah, Dr. Dan Kelly, Dr. Cristina Millan, Dr. Terry Wilson, Will Blocher, Connor Gallagher, Tricia Hall, and Erica Maletic.  We literally could not have done this without you!  And thank you to everyone that cheered us on from at home!  Your faith and support in us kept us all going!  And that concludes OSU 2016 Geology Field Camp!

This week consisted of another field trip, another mapping exercise, and a climb to Mt. Nebo’s summit.  What a week it was!  Tuesday morning we had a lecture on petroleum geology and then hit the road for our field trip.  Our first stop was at Thistle to view the 1983 landslide.  The slide has a volume of about 28 million cubic yards and is on average 40 feet thick.  It was amazing to see and learn about these destructive hazards.  We went to Little Cottonwood Canyon where we were able to see the evidence of glaciation, isostatic rebound, Lake Bonneville, and the Wasatch Fault at the Gilbert Geological View Point and we even stopped to see a place where the Wasatch Fault was excavated.  We were able to put our hands on an active fault, which was pretty darn cool!  We camped that night in Little Cottonwood Canyon, which was beautiful.  The second day of our field trip we went up to Alta where we had some fantastic views and learned more about intrusive igneous rocks and contact metamorphism.  Overall the field trip was an amazing experience and we learned a lot.

On Thursday morning we said goodbye to the first half instructors and TAs.  It was Dr. Wilson’s last morning of field camp, and it was very sad to see her go.  She has been an incredible teacher and role model over my past year at OSU and she has made a huge impact on so many others throughout her amazing career.  We will miss her greatly and wish her nothing but the best!  We also began a new mapping exercise.  The first day at the new area was a little overwhelming, but we began to feel better the second day of mapping after we felt more comfortable with the structures we were observing.  I think we all got a lot better at time management since we finished our assignments before the 9:00pm deadline on Saturday night instead of rushing until the last minute.

Today a group of us went up to Mt. Nebo for a climb.  I almost didn’t go because I really wanted to catch up on sleep, but I am glad I went.  It was an unforgettable experience.  Climbing up to 11,929 feet in elevation was not easy!  I really enjoyed the challenge and was so happy when we finally got to the summit!  It is a moment I will never forget!  My body is sore already though and we now need to prepare ourselves for our final field trip tomorrow to Snake Range.  I can’t believe we only have 17 more days left of field camp!  We have all improved exponentially at field geology and are so close to the finish line, I can almost taste it!…oh wait, that’s just sweat.  It’s only uphill from here!

Mapping and igneous this week!

Week two of field camp is when things start to click and you start getting used to the daily routine.  We have been given a little taste of mapping on our own and had our first mapping assignment due.  This week we spent three days mapping a formation.  We divided the formation into several members based on lithologies and mapped the contacts of each member, as well as distinct marker beds within the formation.  We had to define each contact and write complete lithological descriptions of each individual member of the formation.  It was amazing being out in the field on our own with only a mapping partner.  We are starting to feel like geologists more and more every day.  We are getting more comfortable using all of the tools and skills we have learned, and are enjoying interpreting structure.  This exercise really helped us see the relationship between different attitudes of beds and topography.  I really think this will benefit us greatly, especially when we start to get into more complicated areas to map.

After the three days of being out in the field mapping, we spent an evening feverishly working to finish our assignments.  We had to complete our final map with contacts, attitudes, and map symbols in ink.  Writing in pen on our maps makes it more stressful because you know you can’t just erase it once it’s done.  We also had to complete cross sections that show the unit boundaries and our marker beds below the surface of the Earth.  On a separate sheet of paper, we had to complete an explanation that included complete descriptions of each member along with legends for our map and cross section.  It took a lot longer than I think a lot of us anticipated, but we all finished just in time.

The next day after turning in all of our assignments, we packed up and headed out on another three day field trip.  We really enjoy field trips, but this one in particular was more enjoyable.  We finally were able to study igneous rocks!  We went to the Marysvale volcanic district, Fillmore, and Ice Springs Volcanic field.  We studied the stratigraphy of the Marysvale region and saw how the tectonic environments changed over time.  We saw some calc-alkaline eruptions from when there was subduction going on and we saw some bimodal eruptions with basalt and rhyolite that occurred when extension was happening.  My favorite part of the field trip was identifying and interpreting the destructive lahars and pyroclastic flows.  It was amazing to see these events preserved in history.

Overall, field camp has been awesome so far.  We have the best teachers in the world and we are learning a lot each and every day.  We are continuously building and using the new knowledge we gain and it is so rewarding when things start to make sense.  I have a feeling that field camp is going to change a lot of things in our lives for the better.

We packed all our gear, said good bye to our homes, friends, and family and left Columbus, Ohio behind for the majority of our summer.  The first day was spent cramped into a van driving all the way to Hays, Kansas.  The drive was brutally long, but thankfully we are all good friends and had tons of laughs along the way.  We drove through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and more than half of Kansas.  We crossed the Mississippi River and drove for hours through flat farmland.  Getting to the motel late that night came at just the right time.  We were all tired and ready to crash.

The second day we drove all the way to Moab, Utah.  We drove through the rest of Kansas (which looks the same as the first half) and Colorado.  The Rockies were absolutely amazing!!  I have never enjoyed a long drive as much as I did that day.  When we got to our campsite in Moab and saw the beautiful land that we were going to be camping at, I nearly lost my breath.  There are no words to describe how the stars looked at night there.  I had the best sleep that night.  Every time I would wake up in the middle of the night, I would open my eyes to all the stars above me and just stare at them until I peacefully fell back asleep again.  I didn’t think the world could get anymore beautiful than that…until the next day.

The third day we spent the entire time at Arches National Park.  You know all those pictures you see of Arches online?  Well it is 10 times better in person!!  It was magical!  It almost didn’t feel real!  Our first stop was Delicate Arch.  The hike up was more difficult than I thought it would be.  It was probably because we were not used to the altitude changes yet…and the heat.  Delicate Arch was majestic!!  Our second stop was Double Arch where we were able to relax at and eat lunch.  The third stop was Devil’s Garden Trail where our groups split up.  My group did the difficult hike to Double O Arch.  There were moments where I was not sure I was going to make it.  The trail was not marked well and I was scared we would get lost, but we made it!!  It was an amazing hike.  The views were out of this world!  I loved every minute of it!  While we were there we learned how the arches formed.  Salt was deposited across the Colorado Plateau 300 million years go when it was under an ocean.  Over the next few millions of years sediments were deposited on top and form a thick compressed rock bed.  Since the salt was under a lot of pressure, it became unstable and began shifting and moving upwards as domes.  Faults then made the surface more unstable and caused vertical cracks in the rock beds.  Erosion and chemical weathering over time created the amazing structures that we see today.

The fourth day we spent some time in Moab just shopping and then drove to Dead Horse Point.  The views there were incredible!  Afterwards, we made our way to Ephraim, Utah where our new life truly will begin.  We unpacked and went grocery shopping.  So far everything has been going well.  We are so excited and anxious to officially start Field Camp tomorrow!  Wish us luck!