All is well. We have much progress and many activities to report since our arrival here in the Moab area a week ago. After moving and setting up camp in the canyon lands of southeastern Utah on Monday, field campers completed a new project on Tuesday wherein we cut them loose on a complicated succession of intercalated Jurassic strata, asking them to identify and describe the geologic units within the project area — without first informing them of the units or their nature — and then asking them to map them. Talk about Phenomenon First! (a constructivist pedagogical technique formalized for me by the great Prof. Christine Lotter of USC College of Education). This project mimics the challenges that geoscientists face when they do exploratory geology where little or no previous work has been done, but more importantly empowers the students to gain first-hand experience into the subdivision, description and interpretation of stratigraphy, as opposed just to application thereof. Judging from their end products and confidence, I am very happy with this new project — and relieved: it is always a bit nerve-wracking to undertake a new project for the first time.
Wednesday marked an annual field camp highlight — a jaunt up the Colorado River canyon to Professor Valley and Fisher Towers for some observational geology. At the latter, students examined the Pennsylanian-Permian Cutler Formation derived from the ancestral Rocky Mountains’ Uncompahgre uplift, which coincides with their first map project in Fruita Canyon, albeit also involving geology more than 200 million years younger. Then we proceeded up Onion Creek to examine rare surface exposures of the heavily deformed Paradox Formation and its impacts on the surrounding stratigraphy — a harbinger of map projects to come (don’t tell the students). After re-upping on groceries in Moab, we headed back to our (perennially windy and silty) Salt Valley camp for the first of many suppers (and deformed tailgate tents, and silt-filled personal tents).
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning saw the students mapping the northern part of Salt Valley. Although hot and windy, the proximity of the map area to camp (which resides within it), makes it a bit more convenient than other map projects, enabling students to easily refill water and enjoy some shade during the day. With a complete map project under their belts, the students’ improved confidence and mapping skills lifted spirits across camp — vital in the face of mid-day heat and afternoon windstorms that are the norm in summertime Salt Valley. Students got some office work done on Saturday afternoon before a guest lecture and Q&A from USC Geology and field camp alum Sophie Luna ('22) who spoke to the students about her work in the geotechnical industry in Denver where she is employed.
Sunday constituted the first full day-off for students, which many took advantage of with creature comforts like (indoor) showers and (actual) laundry in Moab. Others used the time to get research or other work completed. I joined Magellan Scholars Jordan Jeffreys and Laura Doughton in the morning for some sampling of interbedded eolian and fluvial beds of the medial Cutler Formation, which they are using to understand sediment provenance changes between warm and cold periods of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age. In the afternoon, incoming MS student (and Clempson alum) JD Ross and I examined paleoclimatically anomalous middle Triassic strata that happen to coincide with periods of the greatest degrees of salt tectonic deformation in the Paradox basin, which he will document and date for his thesis. Meredith Love-Gawai got some work done on her thesis, which she will defend in late June, and Lance Tully graded student products from the first part of his hydrology short course that opened field camp back in Columbia.
Today students are wrapping up their Salt Valley project in the morning and completing the second of four parts of Lance’s hydrology short course. Tomorrow the students have a map exam, before we depart on Wednesday for parts west in the Henry Mountains — the most isolated part of field camp, and the last surveyed mountain range in the lower 48.
Onward.
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