GEOMORPHIC RESEARCH INVOLVING UNDERGRADUATES: FIELD, FLUME, LABORATORY, AND GIS

In recent years, undergraduate students have been involved in a number of geomorphic research projects at Lafayette College that include: field studies, research that combines field observations with laboratory analyses of samples, Geographical Information Systems, and flume modeling of fine-grained sediment transport. Student research has focused primarily on two geographic areas, the Bushkill Creek Watershed in eastern Pennsylvania and small upland drainage basins in central Nevada. Research in the Bushkill Creek watershed focused on water quality studies using ion chromatography (Hawk) and suspended sediment transport (Schubert). The effects of algae on fine-grained sediment entrainment has been studied in a laboratory flume (Schubert). Research in Nevada is multifaceted and includes the effects of natural forest fire and controlled burns on channel and hillslope instability (Hawk, Latham) groundwater/surface water interactions in wet meadow ecosystems, Late Holocene to contemporary channel instability, and use of GIS to catalog and develop an understanding of the factors that control the distribution of wet meadows in several mountain Ranges in central Nevada (Kortz, Latham, Mott, Ryder, Wilson). Students have also characterized drainage basin morphometry for the Great Basin Ecosystem Management Project in Nevada (Hawk, Kortz, Latham, Ryder) and as part of a study on heavy metal transport in the Rio Pilcomayo, Bolivia (Latham). These research projects have been funded by the Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, The National Science Foundation, and the WM Keck Foundation.