ANDEAN TECTONICS AND VOLCANISM: A STUDENT-CENTERED TEACHING-LEARNING EXPERIENCE IN NORTHERN CHILE

The University of Missouri’s geology study abroad program is a six-credit, two-part course that exposes upper-level undergraduate and graduate students to world-class field experiences not readily available in the United States. The first part includes a semester-long overview of the field region; the second part is a two- to three-week field experience. Both parts combine student class and field presentations and written reports.

Our most recent offering of the course, in fall 2013-winter 2014, focused on the tectonic and volcanic history of the Chilean continental subduction margin. The first half of the semester was devoted to lectures that reviewed the spatial and historical progression of structural features and plutonic-magmatic events, including both arc volcanism and superimposed caldera-ignimbrite events. During the second half of the semester students gave class presentations on specific tectonic or volcanic processes or locales that we would later visit during our trip. Students also wrote short, outcrop-based descriptive research papers that constituted the basis for our field trip guide, and would serve as the backbone for each student’s individual field presentations while in Chile.

Our field experience in Chile included stops between Santiago and San Pedro de Atacama. We visited the Jurassic, and Cenozoic-to-present volcanic arcs, and associated fore-arc and back-arc basins. We traveled through the Chilean mineral-ore belt, which included a visit to Chuquicamata, the largest open-pit Cu-mine in the world. We explored caldera-forming silicic volcanism in the Altiplano-Puna Volcanic Zone, and learned about the indigenous populations in Chile and some of the issues that affect them, past and present.

Our study abroad program was run in coordination with the International Student and Scholar Center at the University of Missouri, which allowed us to use 100% of the tuition revenue from the course (6-credit hours per student, 18 undergraduates, 6 graduate students) to finance our field trip to Chile. Airfare was not included in the program, but almost all of our students received scholarships from alumni-endowed accounts from our Geology Department, which allowed many to participate in this class for a maximum of $1,000 after tuition and fees, and some to take the class with no extra costs at all.