THE OAKES QUARRY PARK: RESEARCH COLLABORATION FROM THE GROUND UP

The City of Fairborn, Ohio is currently developing an abandoned quarry into a park that will be used for recreation, education and research. A portion of the quarry has been set aside for preservation as a geology research site and geology park. This quarry provides an opportunity for researchers and educators to work hand in hand to develop the site from the “ground up”.

The Silurian Brassfield Limestone was quarried at this location for cement production. An 8 meter highwall as well as several large spoil piles are the focal point of the geology portion of the quarry park. A trail where the fossiliferous Brassfield Limestone and features of geologic interest can be viewed will be built and spoil piles will provide safe areas for fossil collecting. Because the site is an area of past and continuing geologic research, teachers in the Master of Science in Teaching (Earth Science) program at Wright State University had the opportunity to develop age-appropriate educational activities for teachers and their students who will visit the park in the future.

Sites of geologic interest have been mapped and include a small coral reef, a cephalopod-rich marker bed, burrowed and cross-bedded limestones, spoil piles, glacially polished rocks, and glacial striations and erratics. The map, GPS locations, and activities developed for each site will be provided to teachers using the park. Some important concepts covered in the activities include fossils as treasures, significance of glacial features, global climate change, and using composition and texture of rocks to determine stratigraphic relationships.

Research continues in the quarry and includes studies of echinoderms, coral, stromatoporoids, reef associated organisms, and the depositional and diagenetic history of the Brassfield Limestone. Local teachers and their students will work with researchers on a number of projects including a census of organisms preserved in the Brassfield Limestone and development of fossil identification brochures at a variety of age levels.