GEOLOGY FIELD CAMP IN SOUTHERN UTAH'S NATIONAL PARKS

Southern Utah University’s field camp traditionally has utilized the diverse geological resources along the transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range. Recently, we have slightly shifted our focus to include exposures and field areas in and adjacent to southern Utah’s national parks. Because the national parks boast world-renowned geological resources, field exercises in the parks offer students the opportunity to connect their classroom lessons to textbook-quality field examples. The variety of geological resources in the parks facilitates a sensible educational progression from simple to more complex interpretations that span several different styles of deformation and metamorphic grade. We perform numerous exercises in the vicinity of national parks, including geologic mapping, stratigraphic analyses, and structural analyses of Zion’s exposures of Sevier-age folding and thrusting, Capitol Reef’s exposures of the Laramide-age Waterpocket Fold, Bryce Canyon’s Miocene-age Ruby’s Inn Thrust Fault, and Great Basin’s (Nevada) exposures of the Snake Range metamorphic core complex. In the future we plan to partner with National Park Service employees, and we plan to add exercises in the vicinity of other nearby park units such as Arches’ salt tectonics exposures and Grand Staircase Escalante’s paleontological resources. Southern Utah University’s proximity to these parks eases professors’ logistical challenges and students’ financial burdens. Our goal is to continue designing exercises that prepare students to enter graduate school and/or the job market, and we have found excellent educational resources in the national parks.