Loading...
Rocks Up Close: The Story of the University of Kansas Geology Field Camp
Merriam, Daniel F.
Merriam, Daniel F.
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
The University of Kansas geology program is a strong and viable one, partly because of the emphasis on seeing and working with rocks in the field. For more than a century now, fieldwork has been a mainstay of the program, along with specialized class field trips. Much of the fieldwork has been in the Midcontinent in the vicinity of Kansas, but enrollment in classes at a permanent field camp in Colorado has been required of all geology majors for decades. The field camp near Cañon City, Colorado and the field program in the Garden Park area and vicinity north of Cañon City and the associated field excursions are the subjects of this book.
All geology majors are required to take the summer field geology course (Geology 49 or 155, later renumbered 560 or 561), which is taught at the KU field camp. The geology of the Cañon City Embayment is spectacular, fairly straightforward, and well exposed. For many students taking the course, it is their first real exposure to Rocky Mountain geology at its best. The course includes mapping, stratigraphic and sedimentological studies, as well as an introduction to classic Colorado geologic sites within easy reach, for example: Garden of the Gods, Spanish Peaks, and the Royal Gorge. The course is typically taught by one or two faculty members, accompanied by graduate students as teaching assistants.
Field camp is not the only field experience KU geology students partake in. Since 1998, Tony Walton has taught an undergraduate course to allow students the opportunity to examine rocks across a wide area and in a diversity of environments; the traveling field course covers several states in two weeks. There are also field excursions included in several courses taught at KU: Robert Goldstein’s stratigraphy class travels to the Ozarks, and his carbonates class travels to the Bahamas, Randy van Schmus has a graduate class that examines the Precambrian in the Great Lakes area, and Diane Kamola goes to the Book Cliffs in Utah for her sequence stratigraphy class.
Description
Xiii + 124 p., 72 fig., references and appendices
Date
2012
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Kansas Department of Geology and Paleontological Institute
Collections
Archive Status
This item contains archived web content.
Files
Loading...
SP9 Rocks Up Close.pdf
Adobe PDF, 43.44 MB
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Geology