Physical Geology Goes to Blanchard Springs Caverns

 {Group shot of the students at Blanchard Springs with Morgan}

I took the Physical Geology summer students to Blanchard Springs Caverns for their extra credit field trip at the end of the semester.  I was surprised that about 75% of the students had never been inside a cave before, and thrilled that I was able to show them the beauty held within.  Many of the students walked around totally in awe of what they were seeing.  Our guide was great and answered a lot of the students questions.   Many of the students told me on the way home that they want to take their family back and show them the things that they have learned.  That made me very, very happy!!!

{Morgan (geodaughter) and Rene (geomom) in front of the spelothems}

Teachers are Lifelong Learners

 {Dr. McMillan and Dr. Shroat-Lewis during the poster session}

Do you know the reason that teachers teach?  Because we are lifelong learners and really like going to school every day.  Dr. McMillan and I were so excited to be able to attend a week-long workshop entitled "Innovative Approaches to Teaching Sedimentary Geology, Geomorphology, and Paleontology" in St. Paul, Minnesota in June (sponsored by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers).  We both walked away with a plethora of new ideas for teaching our courses.  Not only that, but the opportunity to interact with other faculty members from across the United States opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for research and teaching collaborations. It was definitely time well spent.

{Dr. McMillan and Dr. Shroat-Lewis in class}

Physical Geology Students Visit the State Capitol

The summer 2 semester has been off to a great start!  I took the students to see the Arkansas State Capitol building where they learned about the different building stones used in its construction.  The students received a fabulous lecture from Dr. Ware, the State Capitol Historian.  We learned that the outside is composed of three types of limestone, two of which are mined from Arkansas and the other from Indiana.  We went inside the building and looked at the beautiful marble, some of which is flecked with gold!  All in all, a pretty interesting field trip!

Summer Update from Dr. McMillan

In late May-early June, I joined the faculty and students of James Madison University's Geology Field Camp in County Galway, Ireland. They were kind enough to invite me to visit and participate in their field camp for two weeks. Turns out their field camp is a lot like ours - tons of beautiful scenery, great rocks and lots of rain, lots of bugs (midges instead of biting flies) and a perpetual lack of drinking containers come dinner time. They have incorporated digital mapping using iPads and GIS apps in the field. Look out!! Digital mapping will be coming to UALR very soon!

Our last day at Gerace...

Today is our last full day at Gerace.  We will get on the plane tomorrow morning and head home.  Sad to go but glad to be going home.  I miss my dog and my bed.

I wanted to send a big "Well Done!" to the students that participated in this class.  To those back home that have been following this blog so far, I'd like to tell you that they have worked their buns off during this week here.  They have met every single challenge that we gave them even though they have had very little down time.  Parents, friends, and colleagues - you, too, should be so very proud of what they have accomplished.  I would bet that 100% of the students could tell you all about the geology of this island, which they have learned in less than one week.  Amazing, amazing group - they made our job easy.

We have an exceptionally long layover in Nassau tomorrow (~ 6 hours) so expect a lot of blogging from the airport.  I'll sign off for now to try to get some sleep.

Dr. Rene

Dixon Hill Lighthouse and Lighthouse Cave

Dixon Hill Lighthouse. Photo by Rachel

 Take a look at dat shadow! The person in the bottom right corner is on the first balcony level and I'm standing on the second (super illegal, oops). If you look closely, you can see eensy-teensy Ashley in the shadow of the lighthouse. Photo by Maryevalyn

 Little lighthouse windows DAWHH. Photo by Maryevalyn 

 Prism arcs and the lightbulb that lights up the skyy!! Photo by Maryevalyn

View from inside the prism lenses. Photo by Rachel

Anna, Matt, Morgan and everyone inside the cave. Photo by Maryevalyn

Payne, Dr. Ruhl, and Amanda -- inside the Cave! Photo by Rachel

Hello all! This is a joint post from Amanda Anthony and Maryevalyn Wren. We are going to use a dialogue format to tell you readers about the places we explored this morning. I (Maryevs) will be typing in bold and Amanda will be in normal type face. This is an experiment and our professors don't know about it, but we figured we'd give it a shot. Try to keep up, okay? Okay.

First stop of the day was on the northeast side of the island. *que theme music* DIXON HILL LIGHTHOUSE! 

Wait, what is our theme music? We need to YouTube "lighthouse theme music."

The lighthouse was built in 1886 on top of Dixon Hill. It is 172 feet tall, which puts it at an elevation of 253 feet above sea level. 

It's very high up in the air. Sometimes when you go out on to the balcony, you get scared. The wind is blowing and you WILL blow off if you're a skinny person. Luckily, that didn't happen to me, but I'd like to know how many times it has happened in the past. 

It was super duper windy, you guys. I went to the very top balcony and ---

Wait, it's only 172 feet tall?? It seemed more like a million.

--- and I almost died because HOLY MOSES the view was fantastic. Beautifully clear, blue-green water surrounds San Sal. It's hard to believe it's real, sometimes. Like, hashtag no filter. 

#island #realness #couture 

We quickly found out the top balcony is understandably off-limits. So we promptly climbed back down to pseudo-safety, aka 162 feet off the ground. One thing I didn't know about lighthouses is that each one has its own flash patterns. Dixon Hill Lighthouse beams a double flash every ten seconds. The arc prisms direct the light out to sea and can be seen up to nineteen miles away.

ALL THE WORLD CAN SEE THE LIGHT. What I thought was cool was that those lenses were so big and the lightbulb inside was so tiny! Like, all this light is from these prisms and this little lightbulb. They work together as a support group!

Lighthouse keeping is a profession that is passed down from generation to generation. The keeper must climb up the spiral staircase that winds along the inside wall of the structure and rotate the base of the light, which is rests on a bed of mercury and is powered by falling weights.

What's really sad is that the keepers would get mercury poisoning. They had to go up there every two hours and the exposure to the mercury over time was fatal. 

Okay, we should talk about the cave now. Let's not end on this somber note, though. 

Okay. The Lighthouse Cave was a flank-margin cave that was intersected by a solution pit. It was formed in the 5e highstand, about 125,000 years ago. There are bats in the cave, that's really cool. I didn't find out exactly what kind of bats we saw, but when I researched, I found that there are three species of bats here that are also found in Arkansas. I was pretty excited about that. But, I didn't actually see the bat close enough to be able to tell what it was. It just looked like a bat. But I don't think it was a red bat. It was brown.

Excellent ... Way to be a scientist. That explains the guano everywhere inside the cave. The cave has a large central chamber with radial horizontal passage ways that end abruptly.

We went during low-tide, but the water inside the cave was still kinda high. What was your experience in the cave?

I loved seeing all the speleothems and walking through the sea water! It was cool to find out how the cave was used in the past. Its location and high elevation provided shelter and protected locals during hurricanes. And I liked crawling through the tiny passage horizontal passage ways.

After walking through the jungle, the lush jungle of San Salvador, Bahamas, we finally found the cave. At first I thought, "What is THIS?! It just looks like a hole in the ground. Oh, wait, someone put a ladder here." We then used the ladder to *cave theme music* descend into the cave; it was very humid. That confused me because I thought caves were supposed to be cool, but whatever. I thought, "You just do your thing, cave. You're just doin' you, cave. Okay."

Yeah, the humidity surprised me, too. It should be noted here that some of our group was very uncomfortable with traversing through the watery region of the cave. It was very cold and at some points got up to four feet deep. We are all very proud of our classmates who conquered fears of bats, tight spaces, murky water, the cold, the dark, and overall discomfort today by braving the cave! Ooid awards for all of you. Such guano. Very water.

Much speleothem. Wow.

Thanks for reading you guys! Pay attention to the photos if the wordy part is too much to handle. Amanda and I are kind of out of it tonight (due to benadryl and general ADD probz). We are definitely 'on island time' now, and are glad to be here and never want to leave! 

Shout-out to lighthouse keepers all around the world, yo. Keepin' it real. And stalactites and stalagmites for just chillin' in caves for thousands of years.

Also, a big thank you to Dr. Ruhl for leading us through the cave today!

Thanks Dr. Ruhl!

Goodnight readers, from Maryevalyn, Amanda, and this entire beautiful place.

Pigeon Creek!

PIGEON CREEK!

  

Today after lunch, we traveled south to Pigeon Creek for a snorkel expedition. There we acquired  ooids (sand) for research and to look at the natural environment of the area. Several of us traveled down the creek to look for animals and to acquire the sand. It was COLD!!! While we were there we saw a starfish, barracuda, a live conch, anemones, and plenty of seagrass. As you can see from the pictures it is a beautiful place, but it is something that you have to see for yourself. This is Geology at its best, to see everything in its natural habitat vs on the internet or in articles/journals.

Posted by Anna Jones

San Salvador Island

Privileged to wake up with these three every morning! 

We are blessed to be working under such great instructors. 

Dr. Rene & Dr. Ruhl

 

Dr. Rene

 YES we are learning.

 Dr. Ruhl

 Hiking to caves.

 Whatling's Quarry.

 Hiking to caves again.

 Bats.

 Crawling into the cave.

 French Bay..coral reef

The snack bar here at Gerace.

In "town"

Being here on San Salvador Island is magnificent.

 

We are learning so much each day. Breakfast at 7:30 and most days are not back to Gerace until 4 or 5 PM. Then usually in a classroom until 8.

This is truly a monument in my academics. I cannot wait for what lies ahead.

We definitely are not wasting time here. 

More to come!

yours truly, 

 

Joseph Payne Colton 

 

     Today we went to French Bay and enjoyed the scenic views that have continued to delight and amaze our group from the beginning of our stay here in the Bahamas. One of the best parts about visiting French Bay was getting to snorkel and look at all the amazing corals out on the reef. It has always been a dream of mine to see a reef in person, and today that dream came true! There were all sorts of corals that I have only seen in pictures and in YouTube videos. Some of the most impressive were the brain corals that lived on the open portion of the reef, but there were also some large sea fans and sponges that were fun to look at as well. Of course, the weather out on the reef was amazing, and an hour or two of swimming easily feels like only a few moments when said time is spent in such an ideal place and with such interesting people.

     Since this is the first time I have blogged I also wanted to give a shout out to my family back home! I hope when my mom and Steve read this they can see that I am having a blast, enjoying myself, and making new friends out here in the Bahamas. The only thing that would make this trip better would be sharing it with more people.

    Thanks for reading everybody!

    Phillip Smith

Caves Y'all!!!

  This is Matt and above are a few pics from some cave action we've had the past couple days.  So here we go!  First two pics, the ones with people coming out of them (myself and Mary "The Zombie" Evelyn, are from solution pits we found in the Owl's Hole Formation.  This formation is a younger limestone found on the island.  These pits are formed vertically.  Essentially, freshwater pools in pockets, which in turn, over time, wears through the rock.  Often where one solution pit is found, there will be many more to follow. 
  Next set of pics are from our jungle journey to Dripping Stone and Alter Cave.  Both are flank margin caves formed 125,000 years ago during highstand 5e.  Both caves have numerous speleothem formations: stalactites, stalagmites, 4-5 ft columns, and some impressive sawtooth drapery.  To the group's dismay, no presence of cave bacon.  Tomorrow we will be checking out the Lighthouse Cave on the upper part of the island.  More pics to come!!

Fossilized coral reef

 

It's Morgan again! Our first stop today was at a perfectly fossilized coral reef. The age of the reef has been dated at 125,000 years ago, during high stand 5e (according to oxygen isotopes). It's in the Cockburn Town member of the Grotto Beach formation. It was absolutely incredible! The reefs themselves, and as you can see, the amazingly beautiful backdrop. The reef was catastrophically killed and preserved during a hurricane, which brought a flood of sediment on top of the reef, and it wasn't able to escape. We saw elkhorn coral, brain coral, staghorn coral, and scleractinian. Another INCREDIBLE and AMAZING day on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. Stay tuned for more posts about other stops we made today!