Out There

Samples of CWU Geology Field Work, Research and Outreach

In addition to teaching classes, CWU Geology faculty maintain research and outreach programs that include field work, mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, providing training for Washington state K-12 science teachers and various other programs.

Below are some current and recent efforts that have been highlighted on our home page. For more information about the research and outreach of our faculty, you can browse the faculty and staff pages.

  • Field Work on the Elwha River Before and After Dam Removal: CWU Geology graduate student Bryon Free and Geology Professor Lisa Ely are investigating the impacts of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history: The removal of two large dams on the Elwha River in the Olympic National Park in western Washington.

  • Field Work on the South Island of New Zealand: Professor Jeff Lee and a New Zealand colleague spent parts of February and March, 2013 conducting field studies to examine and document evidence for ductile and brittle extensional exhumation of the Otago Schist in the central part of the South Island.

  • Field Work Along the Central Chilean Coast: Professor Lisa Ely and former CWU student Tina Dura returned to Chile over the month of January, 2012 to conduct field studies to document and examine the impacts of large earthquakes and tsunamis along the central coast of Chile.

  • Field Work in the Greater Himalayan Range, India: During August 2011, Jeff Lee and undergraduate student Jon Stordahl traveled to India to undertake field research along the Zanskar normal fault and on ductilely deformed, middle crustal rocks exposed in its footwall. The research area is located in the Greater Himalayan Range, Ladakh Province.

  • Field Work in the North Qaidam, Western China: During August and September 2009, Chris Mattinson and new graduate student Ben Christensen travelled to western China to conduct collaborative field work in the North Qaidam terrane, western China. The goals of this National Science Foundation supported research are to constrain exhumation rates and processes of ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) rocks and associated granulites in order to better understand the processes of continental subduction and collision at convergent margins. Following the field work, the International Eclogite Conference (and field trips) was held in western China.

  • CWU Geology Co-Organizes Rocky Mountain/Cordilleran GSA Meeting in Logan Utah, May 18-20. Central Washington University and Utah State University Geology Departments are co-organizing the sectional Rocky Mountain/Cordilleran GSA meeting this year.
    The meeting will held in Logan, Utah, home to USU, between May 18 and 20. Please go to http://www.geosociety.org/Sections/rm/2011mtg/ for information.

  • South-Central Coast of Chile - Winter 2011: Having done field work in the spring of 2009 on the geologic and historic evidence of tsunamis in Chile, Lisa Ely was particularly primed to look at the effects of the February 2007, 2010 great (M=8.8) Chilean quake. In January 2011, Lisa and CWU alumnus Tina Dura conducted field work re-examining the study sites from 2009.

  • The Gianbul Valley, India - Summer 2010: During August and September, Jeff Lee and new graduate student Meilani Bowman-Kamahaho’a traveled to India to undertake field research of the Gianbul Dome, in the northwest Himalaya. The goals of the nearly 6-week long trip were to collect mesoscopic structural and kinematic data from middle crustal rocks, and document the relative timing of deformation recorded in these rocks and intrusive events.

  • CWU Geological Sciences Hits the Beach in Chile: During spring quarter, 2009 Dr. Lisa Ely and graduate student Caitlin Orem traveled to Chile on a National Geographic Society Research Grant to study the geologic and historic evidence of tsunamis.

  • Teachers on the Leading Edge: Funded by NSF's EarthScope project and co-directed by CWU's Dr Beth Pratt-Sitaula, this program teaches middle school Earth science teachers about the Pacific Northwest's active tectonics and geologic hazards.

  • POLENET in Antarctica: The Polar Earth Observing Network is a consortium involving people from 28 nations that aims to dramatically improve the coverage of many different kinds of geophysical data across the polar regions of the Earth. CWU's Drs. Audrey Huerta and Paul Winberry participated in the 2008/2009 field season in Antarctica.

  • WATERS in Nepal - Summer 2008: In August 2008 seventeen people participated in an interdisciplinary watershed science program in Nepal that is an international extension to CWU's WATERS Program (Watershed Science To Enhance Research in Schools; see also http://www.cwu.edu/~waters).