VIRTUAL EXPANSION OF UNDERGRADUATE FIELD RESEARCH EXPERIENCES – SHEEP MOUNTAIN ANTICLINE, WYOMING

Field experience and research opportunities are a vital, yet sparse commodity for undergraduate geoscience students. Through the use of GigaPans, Photo Spheres, and Virtual Specimens, up-and-coming geoscientists can learn about Earth processes in far-away places. One such place is the Sheep Mountain Anticline, a well-exposed, “textbook” example of a doubly-plunging inclined anticline located along the eastern margin of Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin. The anticline trends NW-SE and verges to the NE, a product of the high angle Laramide basement thrusting that uplifted the Bighorn Mountains. Bighorn River incised the mountain, exposing a comprehensive cross-section of the stratigraphy and fold geometry.

Sheep Mountain Anticline is a perfect locale for digital geoeducation exercises, prompting the need for ground-truth data and digital imaging to create a truly immersive learning experience. Our summer 2015 field work in the Bighorn Basin focused on procuring such data, however; in our attempt to bridge the gap between virtual and onsite field experiences we were surprised by the disparity between our pre-trip research and the field experience. For example: we found layers of heavily deformed gypsum near the nose of the anticline, not present in our pre-trip research. They are folded into structures verging differently from the overall structure.

The ground-based fieldwork became an authentic undergraduate experience for the first two authors, an experience that can now add to the online resource. Future undergraduate students will have the opportunity to conduct genuine research regarding the structure of the Sheep Mountain Anticline using the close-up imagery obtained around the mountain. We predict that many other virtual field experiences could benefit from a combination of distance and onsite research.