Geology Camp 1

In the summer of 2010 I was chosen to join about 30 teachers on a two-week trip to geologic sites throughout Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. It was coordinated and led by geology professors from Texas A&M University, in the interest of giving teachers experiences to use in inspiring their students about the geologic world. I was already a fan of geology, but this trip did expand my knowledge and passion for the subject considerably!

We traveled in a large tour bus, and stayed in a different town/hotel virtually every night. Here are some of the highlights of our studies, in the order we experienced them:

Mt. Capulin, an extinct cindercone volcano rising up from the flat plains of New Mexico. The first photo is from afar, the second photo peering down into the remains of the crater.

This cliff is where I got the coolest rock samples of the whole trip. The bottom half is sandstone left behind when that area was covered in seaside sand dunes. Younger sandstone extends to the top of the cliff face, but between the two sandstone layers is a large band of coal. Coal is formed when ancient vegetation dies and goes through a process similar to fossilization. The really cool part is that this particular vegetation died because of the asteroid/comet impact 65 million years ago that caused the extinction of 75% of all life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. We were looking at the border between the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic (called the "K-T Boundary"), showing the catastrophic event that caused the change in eras. Amazing!

On the left is a "hogback", a wall-like formation where fault-block uplift caused a sedimentary layer of rock to stand on end, then the surrounding layers eroded away. On the right is the Great Sand Dunes, Colorado, where wind patterns over and around a nearby lake caused sand to pile up next to a mountain range.

On the left is Black Canyon of the Gunnison's massive Painted Wall (almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building), where molten rock pushed up into cracks and cooled. The photo on the right shows us using dye markers to test stream flow rates and patterns just outside of Telluride, Colorado.

Box Canyon, at Ouray, Colorado, and alpine flowers atop the nearby mountains.

Native American cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument, and the igneous rocks strewn about at Valley of the Fires, both in New Mexico.

Exploring the Caverns of Sonora, and a talk mine outside of Van Horn, Texas. They were scooping the talc out from that cliff, and as a size comparison can you see me at the bottom of the photo? (you might need to click on the photo to enlarge)

Canyon Lake Gorge, Texas, where a flood in 2002 caused the equivalent of many years' erosion, exposing marine fossils and dinosaur tracks.

To read an article about me that appeared in the Bay Area Citizen after I returned from my trip, click here.