Field Camp Summery

Here is an update of what I was doing at field camp. I will break it down by weeks. Now Scott will have something to read at work!

Week 1
Katie and I arrived in SD and got lost driving to Ranch A, the place we would spend the next five weeks.
I met my roomies Zoe and Emma and field work started right away. This weeks main project: a satratigraphic column of Ranch A Amphitheater and Thompson Gulch. This was tues and weds.
Here is the Ranch A Amphitheater. It took 9 hours to measure the section and collect data on the rock types.
Here are all of us Geo-nerds at Thompson Gulch. Another 9 hour day
Thursday was a driving field day. We drove around to various rock outcrops to become familiar with the diffrent units. The Pahasapa Limestone has the coolest name by far. Some how my name at field camp became Princess Pahasapa (Thanks Zoe, hehe).
Here's me touching the Great Unconformity. A quarter of earths time(~1.5-2 billion years) is missing in between these two rock types (the lower pink one is a metamorphic phyllite of the Precambrian and the upper brown one is the Deadwood Sandstone of the Cambrian).
Here is the Homestake Goldmine. The brown line things are a Rhyollite intrusion. The intrusion turns from a dike to a sill (would you call it a dill or a sike, hehe!!)
At the end of the day we hiked up Look out Mt. to see the view. Look at all the Geo nerds!!
Friday and Saturday are doom days. These are when projects are prepared. This week a Strat column and a 1 page paper about the Pahasapa Limestone. Doesn't sound to bad except the Strat column took ~24 hours to prepare and ink. Ahhhh

Week 2
This weeks project: Map the rock units of Green Mountain (more like Green Hill if you know what real moutains look like, lol). Green Mountain exists due to an igneous intrusion ~55 million years ago (recent in geologic time).

I spent 32 hours this week running up and down this thing to map it. I had tree stumps rock outcrops memorized by thurdays, I could give you a giuded tour of this mountain I knew it so well.
Here's me in my geologist get up.
The cows would follow us around. There was a lot of cool wildlife: deer, owls, different birds, green racers, rattlesnakes, elk, mountian lions (saw there poo and mauled deer so knwe they were around), antelope horny toads.

The reoprt this week was a field map a final map a cross section and an eight page paper!

Week 3
Project: Map the rock types of Crow Peak.
Me collecting data on that there rock outcrop


On weds we did the four mile hike up to the peak and it was raining like crazy and there was mist so you couldn't see a darn thing. Spend 5 hours with the hike up and then down and didn't even get field work done, that was a very cold, wet and annoying day.
The view on thurday was beautiful, here's me and Zoe.
Here's Emma, me and Zoe after we finished our project on thurday. Yes we lost our minds, geology 24/7 will do that to you.
I am pretty much ganster.

Week 4
The worst week because all it did was rain contsantly. Mapping in the rain sucks, so do metamorphic rocks which is what we were mapping. All the metemorphic rocks look the same in the rain so it was basically guess work.
Here we all are on monday getting an intro to metamorphic rocks. We are all lined up drawing a sketch opf the outcrops, we look like dorks, hehe.

I got sick of listening to the pofessors lecture so I caught a frog instead. No pics were taken the rest of the week due to the crappy weather of rain and hail. Not a fun week

Week 5
There is an end to hell!! I thought I would be stuck there forever!!! Only one more week. This week we went to Reva Gap and camped for two nights. My allergies killed me the while time, when I was wearing my sandles at the campfire I walked though some grass I was allergic to and me feet got little bumps all over them which the next day started pussing and then were itchiy and swollen and hurting until firday. Luckly the senery was pretty and the field area was a lot smaller then the past four weeks.
Beautiful, nothing more needs to be said.
Me and Zoe were parteners that week.
My geology glamor shot.


There is my summery. Hiking 32 hours a week with a huge prjoect every week, no cell phone reception, no internet, and little sleep it was good experiance. I learned a lot but would not want to repeat it. Now the next big step is graduation. December, whoot whoot as my minnesota roomates would say!!