Six Earth and Environmental Science (E&ES) majors presented their findings on Monday afternoon in Exley Science Center, summarizing research they conducted in Death Valley, CA during winter break. Students discussed their investigations of fault line angles, distribution of “bombs” from explosive craters, and “booming sound,” a rare phenomenon in which dunes exhibit low-frequency vibrations.
As an extension of a senior seminar that students take in the fall, the “Death Valley Field Trip Course” offers E&ES majors an intensive six-day experience in geological fieldwork, followed by an oral and written report. For the past three years, professors Phillip Resor and Johan Varekamp have led groups of 11 or 12 students through various areas in Death Valley to collect new data and advance findings from previous years.
Professor Varekamp introduced the presentations by reflecting on his students’ diligent work and noting the abnormally frigid conditions in Death Valley during the trip.
“We were all freezing our buttocks off,” Varekamp said.
In the first presentation, Beck Straley ’07 and Gabriel Isaacman ’07 discussed their explorations into low angle faulting at Copper Canyon. Faults—spots where two parts of the earth are moving in different directions—are usually somewhat steep, at about a 60-degree incline. Since the fault at Copper Canyon was at a mere 30 degrees, the students attempted to discover whether the fault was active and the pieces were moving away from each other, or rather it underwent activity 10 million years ago at 60 degrees and has slowly rotated to become less steep.
While Straley and Isaacman were studying numerous smaller faults in the earth on top of the major low angle fault, they encountered harsh hiking and climbing conditions. Through their research and fortitude, they concluded that the fault was indeed active at its present low angle.
Averill Wickland ’07 and Charlie Congleton ’07 elaborated on their research concerning the Ubehebe Crater field, a site with more than 12 volcanic craters of different ages. The craters were formed from the fusion of hot magma and groundwater and have erupted ash or rock fragments upon the vaporization of the groundwater.
Wickland and Congleton focused specifically on the Ubehebe crater, using the size and distribution of the erupted “bombs” within a kilometer radius to calculate the initial energy of the eruption. Addressing the discrepancy between their findings and those previously obtained by geologists, the students concluded that they had calculated energy differently. They explained that the deficiencies in their experiment included studying bombs within just a kilometer of the eruption site and afterward placing the samples in different locations.
The noisy Kelso sand dunes were the topic of the final presentation. Omar Davis ’07 and Chris Washburn ’07 explained how the “booming sound” of the dunes results from dry, free-flowing grains sliding down steep slopes in the region.
“You feel a ringing in your ears, a quaking in your boots, and an overall sensory overload,” Davis said.
Through calculations of the dunes’ weights and velocities, the students showed how the dunes exhibit various frequencies. They also showed videos of an exhilarated group of students sledding down one slope, with the low whirring sound heard distinctly in the background.
Six more students will present their findings on Monday at noon in Exley 405.
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