This summer, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology will host more than 130 students participating in earth sciences and engineering field camps in not only the United States, but also in Turkey and India.
The students, up from 101 in 2008, come from more than 40 universities, including the School of Mines, Harvard, Texas A&M, Notre Dame, and more. These camps are offered through the Black Hills Natural Sciences Field Station (BHNSFS), a cooperative program formed by a consortium of colleges and universities from several states that offers variety of field courses in geology, geological engineering, paleontology, ecology, and environmental sciences programs. In addition to these advanced camps, BHNSFS offers week-long basic geology camps, which includes youth grades 9-12 and college freshmen. Participants are taught to read a compass and topographic and geologic maps and to understand water, volcanoes, landslides, and earthquakes.
In the United States, camps are offered from Ranch A, a historic log mansion located in the northern Black Hills near Beulah, Wyoming, and from the School of Mines campus in Rapid City.
Camps are attended by college juniors and seniors studying geology and geological engineering. There are also opportunities for students to study paleontology at Fossil Lake, Oregon, Sundance, Wyoming, and on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, which extends from North Dakota to South Dakota.
In Turkey, the field camps are based at the Taskesti field station, located on the North Anatolian Fault Zone, about 150 miles east of Istanbul. Participants study the spectacular geology and culture of the Tethys realm in three different locations in Anatolia. Cultural experiences include invitations to local weddings and festivals and Sunday trips to museums and shopping centers in Ankara and Istanbul and to beaches on the Black Sea.
In India, an environmental geology field camp, exploring coastal environmental issues, is held in the Andaman Islands and the port city of Chennai. It is sponsored by the Black Hills Natural Science Field Station and the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences at the School of Mines in cooperation with Anna University in Chennai. This camp is an intense three-week training in coastal ecological issues including groundwater studies, mangrove ecology, and coastal and ocean biogeochemistry.
A petroleum engineering field camp in Turkey and an ecology/field biology camp in the Black Hills are also scheduled for Summer 2009, and plans are in the works for a mining engineering field camp in Peru and a geology field camp in the Himalayas in Summer 2010. These field camps provide students the opportunities to not only learn more about geology, but about culture and collaboration.
"This type of experience is life-changing," Dr. Nuri Uzunlar, director of the Black Hills Natural Sciences Field Station, said. "In these compounds, they are living with faculty and students day and night. They come away with a different perspective in both science and life, and a huge leap in personal and professional growth."
For additional information, visit http://geologyfieldcamp.sdsmt.edu/ or contact Uzunlar at nuri.uzunlar@sdsmt.edu.
