THE PAHRANAGAT LAKES PROJECT: SUCCESSFULLY INCORPORATING ORIGINAL RESEARCH INTO AN UNDERGRADUATE FIELD GEOLOGY COURSE

We present an example of a successful effort to incorporate original research into an undergraduate field course offered each January in the southwestern U.S. Since 2012, students enrolled in the University of St. Thomas’ Regional Geology and Field Methods courses (Geology 260 and 460) have contributed to an ongoing investigation of the paleolimnology, carbonate sedimentology, and biogeochemistry of lakes in Southern Nevada’s Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. After an introduction to the project goals and methods, students spend several days doing collaborative field data collection which includes sediment coring, examination of living microbial communities and fossil microbialites, and water chemistry of the lakes and regional springs of the Pahranagat. Back on campus, students work in specialty groups to make detailed initial observations of data and sample materials (waypoint entry and mapping in GIS, core logging, smear slide analysis, XRF analysis of sediments, classification of modern and ancient microbial communities). The work of each group is shared in an oral presentation and written chapters and data contributed by each group are compiled into an initial results volume. This volume provides the foundation for more focused individual research projects that are later carried out by one or more motivated students and a faculty advisor.

Our work has focused on the exceptionally carbonate-rich, microbially laminated sediments of the Lower Pahranagat Lake, which through our efforts has been established as an excellent modern analogue for Miocene-aged lacustrine carbonates of the Horse Spring Formation found in the Lake Mead National Recreation area. Continuing work on the Holocene paleoclimatic and paleohydrologic signals in age-dated cores and detailed investigation of microbial samples is promising.