Field Camp
Field camp is an important component of the education and training of geologists, and many alumni indicate the skills they gained at our field camp were crucial in starting their careers as geotechnical engineers, staff geologists, or environmental geologists. Our capstone course for the Geology BS degree is a four-week summer field mapping class, GEOL 475.
Over the past several years, students have mapped and described the geology, stratigraphy, petrology, structural geology, and glacial geology of field camp locations in eastern California, central Nevada, and southwestern Montana. Our Field Camp is fully mobile and solar-powered – with kitchen and work tents and computers. Unlike many universities that use permanent facilities, we have the flexibility to move to different locations from year to year, thus providing a broader range of geologic problems for our students.
2018–2019, 2021-present: Inyo/White Mountains & Sierra Nevada
The rocks exposed in eastern California record much of the geologic evolution of western North America over the past ~1 billion years. The combination of this long geologic record and outstanding exposure make eastern California an exceptional location for our month-long summer geology field camp course. We usually camp at Westgard Pass in the White Mountains for the first two weeks of the course. From here, we spend our days describing, measuring, and mapping some of California's oldest rocks that were deposited during the Precambrian and Paleozoic eras. Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks and geologic structures like faults and folds in the White and Inyo Mountains also record an important shift in the tectonic setting of western North America from a passive margin to a convergent margin as well as more recent faulting, uplift, and erosion. We then move camp to near Toms Place on the east flanks of the Sierra Nevada for the second two weeks. From here, we investigate and map intrusive rocks of the Sierra Nevada batholith and surficial deposits formed by glaciers and volcanoes along with active and recently active faults to better understand California's Mesozoic and Cenozoic geologic history.
2020: Remote mapping of Western Montana, Planet Mars, and northern California
In summer 2020, just a few months after the Covid-19 global pandemic was announced, we were not able to hold an in person field camp. Instead, we held a four week remote camp. Students were mailed maps, cross section paper, and various other tools (Brunton compasses, protractor-rulers, drafting compasses, etc.) to learn as best we could in the absence of field work. We were able to do a couple of unique things, such as mapping the geomorphology of Mars using Google Mars, and map some bedrock geology using photographs and Google Earth. Students also learned how to use lidar to map detailed surface features.
2017: Southwest Montana
Our 2017 summer geology field camp was located near Dillon, Montana and included mapping projects in the Boulder Batholith, the Ruby Range, and the McCarthy Mountains. Projects focused on folded and faulted Paleozoic rocks, intrusive contacts between Cretaceous plutons and Paleozoic sediments, Quaternary glacial and surficial deposits underlain by Paleozoic and pre Cambrian rocks, folded and faulted Archean gneisses, and faulted Tertiary sediments and volcanic rocks overlying pre Cambrian metamorphic rocks.
