Summer science class uses technology to study 10,000-year-old glacial landforms in Canada
Matt Tomlinson
Issue date: 9/10/01 Section: Campus News
Two professors and three students completed their second of five summers working on a field research project conducted in Canada.
The team is looking at the last 10,000 years as the glaciers withdrew from that area, said Karen Havholm, geography professor and researcher.
The team worked to reconstruct some of the elements people had to deal with at that time.
The group of five from UW-Eau Claire spent four weeks researching.
Garry Running, geography professor and researcher teamed up with Dion Wiseman, a geography professor at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada to offer directed study credits in advanced geographic field methods.
Junior Ryan DeChaine and senior Corinne Orzech were two UW-Eau Claire geography majors taking the course over the summer along with two geography graduate students from UW-Madison.
Havholm and senior Nicole Bergstrom, a senior comprehensive geology major also joined the vast team of geographers, geologists, archaeologists and other specialists from across western Canada and the upper Midwest of the United States.
“The students in this project are really getting a broad, hands-on opportunity,” Havholm said.
“Because the project is archaeologically based, (the students) are getting more exposure to archaeological methods as well as to the relationship between geomorphology and archaeology.”
Bergstrom said that the experience of working in the field easily surpassed anything she could have learned in the classroom.
“Last year I just got my feet wet,” Bergstrom said. “This year was more hands on.
It was exciting to work and interact with people from other geo-science professions.”
Bergstrom said she spent much of her time on the trip documenting changes in the environment through time by taking measurements on sedimentary structures in sand dunes.
The researchers spent much of their time using a hydraulic truck-mounted geoprobe coring device to investigate alluvial fans in the Pembina Trench, Running said.
The probe was used to gather samples and reveal what stratographic sequences are present beneath the ground, he said.
“It’s on the cutting edge of that kind of hydraulic device,” Running said. “We were able to core alluvial fans which are of the thickest and least understood landforms in the northern great plains.”
Three students from last year’s project presented their results last spring at the American Association of Geographers in New York City.
Running, Havholm, Bergstrom, and Harry M. Jol, associate professor of geography, traveled to London in August and presented a paper on their results from last summer.
The students who worked on this summer’s interdisciplinary research project will be presenting their results at the tenth annual student research day, April 22 to 23, on campus.
The team is looking at the last 10,000 years as the glaciers withdrew from that area, said Karen Havholm, geography professor and researcher.
The team worked to reconstruct some of the elements people had to deal with at that time.
The group of five from UW-Eau Claire spent four weeks researching.
Garry Running, geography professor and researcher teamed up with Dion Wiseman, a geography professor at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada to offer directed study credits in advanced geographic field methods.
Junior Ryan DeChaine and senior Corinne Orzech were two UW-Eau Claire geography majors taking the course over the summer along with two geography graduate students from UW-Madison.
Havholm and senior Nicole Bergstrom, a senior comprehensive geology major also joined the vast team of geographers, geologists, archaeologists and other specialists from across western Canada and the upper Midwest of the United States.
“The students in this project are really getting a broad, hands-on opportunity,” Havholm said.
“Because the project is archaeologically based, (the students) are getting more exposure to archaeological methods as well as to the relationship between geomorphology and archaeology.”
Bergstrom said that the experience of working in the field easily surpassed anything she could have learned in the classroom.
“Last year I just got my feet wet,” Bergstrom said. “This year was more hands on.
It was exciting to work and interact with people from other geo-science professions.”
Bergstrom said she spent much of her time on the trip documenting changes in the environment through time by taking measurements on sedimentary structures in sand dunes.
The researchers spent much of their time using a hydraulic truck-mounted geoprobe coring device to investigate alluvial fans in the Pembina Trench, Running said.
The probe was used to gather samples and reveal what stratographic sequences are present beneath the ground, he said.
“It’s on the cutting edge of that kind of hydraulic device,” Running said. “We were able to core alluvial fans which are of the thickest and least understood landforms in the northern great plains.”
Three students from last year’s project presented their results last spring at the American Association of Geographers in New York City.
Running, Havholm, Bergstrom, and Harry M. Jol, associate professor of geography, traveled to London in August and presented a paper on their results from last summer.
The students who worked on this summer’s interdisciplinary research project will be presenting their results at the tenth annual student research day, April 22 to 23, on campus.