The Project: A field study in Southwestern Ohio to refine the history of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum. The project is underway with eight participants download the updated description here.

Dates: Beginning July 12, 2001 and ending 8 August, 2001.

Project Location: Our primary base will be at the University of Dayton campus in Dayton, Ohio. Field sites in the surrounding countryside will be the focus of the project and lab and computer work will be performed in the Department of Geology. Early in the project, a visit to Canadian Rockies (Saskatchewan Glacier) will provide a background in modern glacier systems.

Personnel:

Students: This project has openings for six students.

Project faculty:

Project Description: Southwestern Ohio is among the best regions in the world to examine landforms and sediments of the late Wisconsin Laurentide Ice Sheet. Field instruction at a modern glacier margin in the Canadian Rockies will provide the framework to launch student investigations of the ancient glacial landscape of Ohio.

The last continental - scale glaciation in Ohio has been extensively studied and mapped over the past 100 years as a classic record of interlobate moraines and associated landforms. More recently the exceptionally well dated buried forests preserved in a complex stratigraphy near Cincinnati has contributed to our understanding of the timing of global interhemispheric glaciation. Students will investigate the spatial arrangement and geochronology of associated sedimentary packages in the context of our emerging understanding of ice sheet dynamics and the changing climate.

Potential Student Projects: The primary study area extends from the classic interlobate region near Springfield, Ohio south to the last glacial maximum extent near Cincinnati. Student projects will be grounded in the existing stratigraphic and geochronologic framework for the region. Individual projects will focus on landform, stratigraphic, and sedimentologic analyses of glacial deposits and the use of Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) for 3-D modeling and managing field data. Projects will employ geochronologic techniques including tree-ring analysis of Pleistocene spruce forests, radiocarbon dating of organic materials, and environmental magnetism

Safety: Southwestern Ohio is often warm and humid during the summer months and students should be in good physical shape. The primary safety concerns in the Canadian Rockies will be the steep terrain and the variable weather.

Requirements: Interested students must have completed a course sedimentology and one in geomorphology, or Quaternary/glacial geology.