Field Trips

Earth History Field Trip

Each semester, an optional, extra credit field trip is offered for lecture and laboratory students in Earth History. The trip typically visits Virginia Kendall Park within the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. In addition to being beautiful, the site offers the opportunity for students to examine and interpret modern stream processes and the nature of deposits developed in a meandering stream as well as to contrast those sedimentary deposits with the sediments deposited by a Pennsylvanian age braided stream complex preserved in the Sharon Sandstone. Students will also have the opportunity to squeeze through huge joints in the formation that have opened up as a resulting from mass movements of blocks of the sandstone downslope. The trip is fun as well as instructional.

Invertebrate Paleontology Field Trip

LOCATION: Caesar Creek State Park, OH; Oakes Quarry Park, Fairborn, OH; Kelleys Island, OH
DATES: Spring
COURSE AND CREDITS: GEOL 34061 - Invertebrate Paleontology - 4 credits
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS: Carrie Schweitzer, Stark
PURPOSE OF FIELD TRIP: Students examine fossiliferous carbonate rocks of three different ages. Ordovician rocks are exposed at Caesar Creek State Park; Silurian rocks are seen at Oakes Quarry Park; and the Devonian series is well exposed on Kelleys Island. Students measure one-half meter quadrats at each locality, identifying the various fossils in the quadrat and plotting the location of each fossil in the quadrat. They then compose a report comparing the diversity of species at each locality as well as the distribution of fossils in time and space. Examination of the occurrence of fossils over the Ordovician through the Devonian gives students the opportunity to see how marine communities changed through the early to middle Paleozoic in the epicontinental sea in Ohio. Students also get the chance to collect fossils for their personal collection at each locality, and the world famous glacial grooves are viewed at Kelleys Island.
ESTIMATED FEES AND COSTS: Personal expenses (food and lodging while traveling)

Invertebrate Paleontology Field Trip

LOCATION: Caesar Creek State Park, OH
DATES: Fall
COURSE AND CREDITS: GEOL 34061 - Invertebrate Paleontology - 4 credits
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS: Alison Smith, Kent
PURPOSE OF FIELD TRIP: Caesar Creek State Park is well known for its classic exposures of the Upper Ordovician strata of North America: it is in fact the type area for some of the exposed formations. Formations that outcrop at Caesar Creek include the Waynesville, Liberty and Whitewater Formations. The inter-bedded shales and limestones are highly fossiliferous, providing world-class collecting for the students. Fossils that are collected on the trip are taken back to the laboratory to be cleaned and identified during the lab associated with the class. Kent State is lucky to be located within easy driving distance to this world class fossil collecting locality.
ESTIMATED FEES AND COSTS: Personal expenses (food and lodging while traveling)

Structural Geology Field Trip

LOCATION: Northern West Virginia
DATES: Spring
COURSE AND CREDITS: GEOL 31080 - Structural Geology - 4 credits
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS: Daniel Holm, Kent
PURPOSE OF FIELD TRIP: Dr. Daniel Holm takes the undergraduate Structural Geology class on a three-day field trip to northern West Virginia to map in the Valley and Ridge Province. Students are oriented to the large scale first and second order features of the province on the first day and then spend one or two days doing a detailed mapping project.
ESTIMATED FEES AND COSTS: Personal expenses (food and lodging while traveling)

Engineering Geology Field Trip

LOCATION: Pittsburgh, PA and surrounding areas
DATES: Fall
COURSE AND CREDITS:GEOL 4/52078 - Engineering Geology - 4 credits
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS: Abdul Shakoor, Kent
PURPOSE OF FIELD TRIP: Engineering geology students travel with Dr. Abdul Shakoor to learn about landslide activity and mine subsidence problems. They visit various places in Pennsylvania to see dam construction and other engineering geology features including construction or mitigation methods. Those who take the Rock Slope Stability course get to visit Radford University during a joint field trip dealing with stability of rock slopes in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina.
ESTIMATED FEES AND COSTS: Personal expenses (food and lodging while traveling)

Sedimentology and Stratigraphy Field Trip

LOCATION: Virgina Coastal Plain and vicinity, Virgina and Maryland
DATES: Spring
COURSE AND CREDITS: GEOL 4/54070 - Sedimentology and Stratigraphy - 4 credits
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS: Joseph Ortiz, Kent
PURPOSE OF FIELD TRIP: Field sites in the coastal plain provide an unprecedented view of Paleocene, Eocene, and Miocene formations of the Chesapeake-Delaware Basin. Observations at a series of outcrops provide students with the opportunity to improve their critical thinking skills and to develop an understanding of the stratigraphic sequences and paleoenvironments of the field areas. Many of the units contain spectacular molluscan assemblages which provide biostratigraphic control and information useful for paleoecological reconstruction. The trip is conducted in association with Dr. Alton Dooley of the Virgina Museum of Natural History, an expert on the local stratigraphy.
ESTIMATED FEES AND COSTS: Personal expenses (food and lodging while traveling)

Precambrian Geology Field Trip

LOCATION: Southern Canada
DATES: When offered
COURSE AND CREDITS: Geol 6/71050 - Precambrian Geology - 3 credits
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS: Daniel Holm, Kent
PURPOSE OF FIELD TRIP: Dr. Daniel Holm leads a five-day traverse of southern Canada to examine the Kapuskasing crustal section and the Sudbury meteorite impact structure. The trip starts on the eastern shore of Lake Superior in the Late Archean low-grade granite-greenstone belts. Students traverse down the crust toward the west, observing how a nearly-complete section of crust changes with depth - structures, metamorphism, composition, etc. The Kapuskasing section ends with investigating high grade granulites and deeply emplaced anorthosites. Another day is spent looking at rocks formed and deformed by the 1850 Ma meteorite impact in Sudbury, Ontario. World-class shatter cones, impact breccia, pseudotachylite, fallback breccia, and Cu-Ni deposits - all are investigated on this part of the trip.
ESTIMATED FEES AND COSTS: Personal expenses (food and lodging while traveling)

Tectonics & Orogeny Field Trip

LOCATION: New England area or Upper Great Lakes area
DATES: Alternate Spring semesters
COURSE AND CREDITS: GEOL 4/51080 - Tectonics & Orogeny - 3 credits
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS: Daniel Holm, Kent
PURPOSE OF FIELD TRIP: Dr. Daniel Holm leads a five-day "odyssey through orogeny" - a field trip to a major orogenic belt. For instance, one trip goes to the New England area to look at the tectonic development of the northern Appalachians. The field trip starts in the Catskills of New York, heads north to Lake George, cuts eastward across central Vermont into New Hampshire and ends in central Massachusetts. The students investigate features of the Taconic and Acadian orogenies, moving from the foredeep Catskill delta deposits in the west to the strongly deformed and metamorphosed hinterland region in the east. Another trip is in the Upper Great Lakes region., visiting classic metamorphic and structural sites of Paleoproterozoic orogens.
ESTIMATED FEES AND COSTS: Personal expenses (food and lodging while traveling)