Field Camp in Utah – A Woo Reunion

Hello from Ephraim, Utah!! I just finished teaching my three week portion of Ohio State’s field camp with David Elliot (OSU, igneous petrology). To my surprise this year, field camp became a mini Wooster reunion, because Elyssa Krivicich (’09) was enrolled in field camp as a student. Elyssa moved on from Woo to OSU’s School of Earth Sciences, where she is focusing on paleontology under Bill Ausich, a colleague of Mark Wilson from their Estonia days (and a good friend of mine from my time at OSU).

Field camp this year has been just as great as usual. What possibly could be bad about spending each day in the Utah sun mapping? Yes, the days can be long and sometimes tiring (especially when you are grading), but the time mapping makes up for everything. Most of the mapping thus far was in Paleogene strata of the Sanpete Valley, but we did venture off for a camping trip to Marysvale, one of Utah’s volcanic provinces.

Because field camp is over, I can now turn my attention to field work with my I.S. students. Elizabeth Deering arrived in Utah on Saturday and is working with me here in Utah on the Green River Formation stromatolite lithofacies. I’m looking forward to days of fossil collecting in carbonates with Elizabeth. My other I.S. student, Jesse Davenport, is also here with us in Ephraim, assisting with field work. However, he will leave near the end of July to work in the Tobacco Root Mountain region of Montana on a Keck project. So, he’ll have to switch gears from Paleogene lacustrine strata to Archean metamorphics. Please stay tuned for more on our adventures in Utah, as we just completed our first day in the field!!

Elyssa Krivicich ('09) is hard at work during field camp, studying the packstone intervals in the Green River Formation on White Hill (Ephraim, Utah).