Located on the northern Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Audubon Pine Island Sanctuary will allow an investigation of the brackish marshes surrounding and encompassing the islands of the Audubon wetland preserve.  Ducks, geese, rabbits, deer, foxes and many other animals make this 5400-acre wildlife refuge their home.  An ecological tour of this area provides our students an opportunity to see firsthand a diverse ecological blend of marshland, maritime forests and dunes.  Twenty students and one faculty member will take this trip tentatively scheduled for October 6, 2001.
 

2.    Dixie Caverns and the Geology of the Salem-Roanoke Area, Virginia (tentative dates:  November 10 - 11)

     Dixie Caverns in Salem is the only cave system in southwestern Virginia.  The caverns formed millions of years ago as a series of subterranean chambers formed by the erosive power of groundwater flowing through limestone.  When the groundwater level dropped, the once water-filled cave drained creating the caverns we see today.  Over time, water percolating from the ground above has created magnificent cave formations called speleothems.  Students will be able to see the results of this secondary deposition in the form of stalagmites, stalactites, flowstone, and underground pools.  Near Salem are roadcuts which have exposed several miles of rock along VA Route 311 from Catawba Mountain to Hanging Rock.  These outcrops represent over 60 million years of Earth’s history.  Students will be able to examine several different sedimentary rock types allowing them to sharpen their skills in interpreting different environments of deposition and fossil identification.  Our students will also be able to practice their field mapping skills on the well-exposed dipping rock strata.  To get a better understanding of geological time, students will also be able to physically touch the Wallbridge discontinuity, a surface which represents a five-million year erosional gap in the rock record of the Appalachian Mountains.  Fifteen students/faculty will take this trip tentatively scheduled for November 10-11, 2001.

3.    United State Geological Survey and Museum of Natural History (tentative dates:  April 13 - 14)

    The United States Geological Survey (USGS) oversees the geological well-being of our nation, including earthquake studies, volcanic activity, streams, floods, groundwater resources, mineral resources, and mapping.  Their webpage is at www.usgs.gov. Our students will be given a guided tour of the USGS facilities at Reston, Virginia, where they will be able to see how the survey works and the different career opportunities available through the survey.  Near Reston is Washington, D.C. where our students will have the opportunity to visit the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) of the Smithsonian Institution.  The NMNH houses one of the country’s finest displays of geological samples, including minerals, rocks, meteorites, and fossils, as well as interactive displays demonstrating geologic principles.  This is an excellent opportunity for our students to see up close many of the concepts they have heard about in the classroom.   Fifteen students/faculty will take this trip tentatively scheduled for April 13-14, 2002.
 

    Medoc Mountain State Park is in Halifax County NC, approximately 18 miles southwest of Roanoke Rapids.  The park is located along the faff line, a narrow zone, which marks the boundary between the hard, resistant, rocks of the Piedmont and the softer rocks of the Coastal Plain.  The change in resistance is marked by numerous small waterfalls, hence the narne faU line.  Medoc Mountain is underlain by a 300 niihion year old granite which intruded the surrounding metarnorphic county rock.  Several younger igneous bodies such as quartz veins and diabase dikes subsequently cut across both the granite and the country rock.  Medoc Mountain is also significant for the occurrence of molybdenite (NlOS2), an ore mineral of the metal molybdenum.  Molybdenum is valued as an alloy in steel, adding high strength with low density.  Although never mined commercially at Medoc Mountain, the United States Bureau of Mnes conducted sampling and coring studies from 1936 through 1970.  Iron pyrite (Fe2S) also known as "fool's gold" is often found with the molybdenite.  The magnetic iron mineral magnetite (Fe3O4) can be found in the diabase intrusions that cut across the granite.  Our students will be able to observe several types of igneous intrusions and gain a better understanding of emplacement mechanisms.  In addition to the varied rock types, trafls along Little Fishing Creek provide the opportunity to observe modem river processes and fluvial landforms such as gravel bars.  Nine Students and two faculty members wM take this trip tentatively scheduled for October 7, 2000.
 

    Intrusions (a diabase dike and a quartz vein cuts across the country rock) in Medoc Mountain State Park

2.    Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology of Kates Mountain, West Virginia
 

The trip will examine in detail the several rock units that comprise Kates Mountain in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.  The students from the Sedimentology and Sedimentary Enviromnents class will have an opportunity to examine many different rock types representing several different depositional environments and put the interpretive skills they have acquired in class to good use.  The section is also very fossiliferous and will allow the paleontology students a chance for actual field collecting.  Both classes will be able to see the geologic record of the entire Devonian age Catskill delta, which at Kates Mountain is represented by a section of rock over a mile thick.  Both classes will benefit from practical field experience with rocks of age and type not found in North Carolina.  Material collected on this field trip will be incorporated into an ongoing research project on the stratigraphic ranges of Devonian age fossils in the Virginias.  This project is slated for presentation at the Southeastern Section Meeting of the Geological Society of America when in meets in Raleigh in March of 2001.  Nine Students and one faculty member will take this trip tentatively scheduled for November 10-12, 2000.

3.    Geology of Pilot Mountain and Mount Airy, North Carolina

    Pilot Mountain is one of the premier geologic features in the State of North Carolina.  The top of Pilot Mountain, known as the Big Pinnacle, is a layer of gleaming white quartzite 200-feet thick.  The quartzite represents a beach that existed in western North Carolina almost one billion years ago.  The sand that made up the beach was compressed into sandstone, which was later affected by heat and pressure into quartzite.  The base of the mountain is comprised of various highly metamorphosed gneisses and schists that were originally the deeper parts of the marine environment.  In certain locations the rocks have been extensively weathered, experiencing both chemical and mechanical weathering processes.  Pilot Mountain will provide our students both an opportunity examine high-grade metamorphic rocks not found in eastern North Carolina and a chance to see how weathering processes affect the disintegration and decomposition of rock material.

    The Mount Airy region is home to the Mount Airy granite, one of North Carolina's most important and valuable mineral resources.  The Mount Airy granite formed about 700 million years ago when igneous activity caused hot, molten rock from deep within the Earth to be forcibly injected into the surrounding county rock.  The material cooled to form the great granite outcrop that Mount Airy now sits upon.  The Mount Airy granite has been quarried for building stone and for industrial uses.  While we cannot enter the quarries, the granite is prominently exposed in several roadcuts.  Our geology students will be able to examine this valuable resource up close and will be able to map out its boundaries in relation to the surrounding country rock.  Nine Students and one faculty member will take this trip tentatively scheduled for April 7-8, 2001.
          The Mount Airy Granite                                                                Metamorphosed country rock (metamorphism due to
                                                                                                             the intrusion of the Mount Airy Granite
 
 

   The National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. houses on the the finest collections of geological specimens in the world.  The Hall of Minerals displays rate and beautiful natural crystals, as well as some of the largest cut and faceted gemstones, inlcuding the Hope Diamond, the largest cut blue diamond in the world.  Rock specimens from around the United States are on display as well as recovered meteorites.  Students will be able to examine some of the best displays of invertebrate and vertebrate fossils in the United States.

    Reston, Virginia is the headquarters of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).  the USGS conducts research in all aspects of the geological sciences, especially for mineral resources and groundwater resources.  the USGS is also the provider of topographic maps of the United States which are invaluable for any geologist conducting field research.  Students will be given a tour of the facilities at Reston and be able to ask questions about current geological investigations.
 

2.  Paleozoic Stratigraphy and Paleontology of the Virginias (November 12-14, 1999)

    This trip will examine several outcrops of rocks originally deposited between 505 million and 320 million years ago.  The field trip area will rlun between Salem, VA and White Sulfur Springs, WV.  Students from the Sedimentology/Sedimentary Environments and Paleontology classes will participate on the trip.  Additional interested students may participate depending on the availability of funds and van space.  The Sedimentology students will examine many different types of rocks using the information learned in the classroom to interpret the environmental conditions under which the sediments which comprise the rocks were laid down.  Rocks representing the deep ocean floor, a delta, a beach, a mudflat/swamp and a river will be seen.  the Paleontology students will collect fossils from these rocks for identification and paleoecological interpretation.  Samples will also be collected to add to the ECSU geology collection.

3.   Luray Caverns, Virginia (March 31- April 1, 2000)

    Luray Caverns presents one of the most spectacular examples of karst geology in the eastern United States.  Its many galleries and connecting pathways provide an up close look at how water slowly but surely dissolves away solid limestone leaving behind these world famous caverns.  Students will abe able to see the long term effects of such action in the form of underground rivers and pools, secondary deposition in the form of stalactites, stalagmites and flowstone, and get a sense of the enormity of geologic time required to form these features.