USE OF STRIP MALL EXCAVATIONS FOR GEOLOGY FIELD TRIPS

Although most building excavations are available for study for a short time, two for strip malls near the Penn State Schuylkill campus are more like road cuts and so have been exposed for years. The senior author has used these sites for field trips for his introductory geology classes. Soil and vegetation cover limit rock exposures near the Penn State Schuylkill campus. Therefore, these two sites are useful because of better exposures and for safety of the students. The first site has exposed a sequence in the Trimmers Rock Formation (Devonian)that extends from offshore mudstone to thin, laminated sandstones interbedded with shales at the shoreface transition. The second site has exposed sandstone, mudstone and coal of the Llewellyn Formation (Pennsylvanian). This site can be used to illustrate groundwater movement along a fracture zone, a cross-section of a fluvial channel, and the Pennsylvanian cyclothems. Other outcrops within a reasonable distance of campus do not provide similar detail. In addition to using the second site for my introductory geology field trip, I have used it for an independent research project to give a student some experience in detailed geological mapping.