Virginia Peninsula Community College students participated in a geology field research trip in eastern California alongside peers from Piedmont Virginia Community College. The 17-member group explored the Basin and Range geologic province, mainly focusing on Death Valley and Owens Valley.
Students were guided by VPCC’s Geology Department Head Peter Berquist, PVCC Geology Professor Callan Bentley and PVCC adjunct faculty Stephanie Sparks. They traveled more than a thousand miles, making three dozen stops, hiking six trails and visiting a hot spring to witness the geological process that shape the Earth.
The educators described the globally recognized region as one of Earth’s most extraordinary places, highlighting its features including lowest point below sea level, highest recorded temperatures and “exquisite” geology. A living textbook, of sorts, the region showcases tectonic extension, faulting, volcanism, diverse sedimentation and the ever-changing evolution of desert landscapes, the faculty experts noted.
Four VPCC students participated including Jewel Bartels, Hailey Bauer, Anthony “Daniel” Burruss and Noah Zando Sloan. Bauer, Burruss and Sloan shared their insights about the March 8-15 experience.
Hailey Bauer
A Liberal Arts major set to graduate this spring, Bauer is a Warhill High School graduate, planning to transfer to James Madison University to pursue a degree in geology.
How did you become interested in geology, and how did you end up going on the trip? I took a physical geology class from Pete Berquist and I liked it a lot. I’ve always been really into Earth sciences as opposed to chemistry and that kind of stuff. He noticed that I really liked it, and he’s been really good about trying to keep me in geology… giving me a lot of opportunities to do different things. In January, told me he was going to be co-teaching this class and asked if I’d be interested in going.
What was your first impression on the first day in the field? It was so different than any place I’ve ever been. It was so big and so empty. The mountains out there are what was the most interesting to me. You can see the rock out here…It was just so different, so vastly different from what we have here.
Describe a typical day, briefly discussing unexpected discoveries or moments you had. We would get up every day at about 8 a.m., and we would usually drive for a little bit to our first site. Every site was a little bit different. We would kind of talk about what was going on there, and then we get back in the car and drive somewhere else. Some of the places we would get out, and we’d get to explore a little bit and kind of make our own observations and then come back together as a group to discuss what we saw. And then some of the spots we would get out, and we would hike a little bit. The biggest thing I was surprised by was how old everything out there is. Some of the things that we were touching and looking at were millions and millions of years old.
What challenges did you experience? I think the hardest part for me was being in a group of people all day, every single day … A lot of these people I had never really met before. We met on Zoom once a week, but we didn’t really get to talk or anything. And then all of a sudden, we’re sharing rooms and spending every single minute of the day in the field together. That was definitely a big challenge for me. I’ve never really done anything like that before. Learning outside of the classroom was also different in a good way. That’s also something that I’ve never experienced.
You mentioned participants met via Zoom in advance. What was that like, when did it start and how did the sessions prepare you for the trip? We had weekly one-day-a-week (sessions) on Zoom for an hour starting in January. I think it was the end of January. We would have a lecture for the first half hour about some of the different topics in the class, and then the second half of the class was a discussion. We would have readings every week, and we would have a discussion about what we read. So that kind of gave us a chance to hear from the people in the class. It definitely helped. We got introduced to some of those topics beforehand. So, we did have a little bit of background knowledge. But it’s so much different when you get to actually see it and kind of figure it out for yourself in person.
How did working in this trip deepen your understanding of geological processes? You learn a whole bunch of stuff in the textbook, but when you get to actually go to a site and you can see it for yourself, you get a different kind of understanding than you would if you were just talking about it. You can see everything else around it that helps to form it. You get to critically think about what’s happening different, you know, trial and error. That thinking process really helps to comprehend a lot of this stuff.
What kind of research did you conduct in the field? It was a lot of observation based. We weren’t necessarily collecting samples or doing any real tests or anything, partially because we were in the national park for a lot of it. Bu our main goal was to kind of figure out what had happened in the past by looking at the different features and the different things that we were seeing, and to kind of piece together all of the different places we went and figure out how they fit into the geologic history of the area.
What was it like working in such an extreme environment? It was hard. The first couple days we were there, it was hot, sunny, 80 degrees, and then by the end of the trip, we were in the snow. It really forces you to focus a lot harder when you’re trying to deal with the weather. It was definitely something I have not experienced before, but I think it was. It was really cool to kind of see how different it can be out there.
Can you describe the field trip in one word or phrase? I think a growth opportunity is how I would describe it. Not only did I get to grow my education and my knowledge on the topic, but I learned so much about myself when I went on that trip – how I interact with other people, knowing that this is something that I want to do in the future.
How does this experience further your academic and career aims? This trip actually is what convinced me finally to switch. Originally, I was planning on going into business. When I took that geology class last year, I was like, ‘Oh, maybe this is something I’m interested in doing.’ And then I went on this trip and I got to spend an entire week, actually out in the field doing it. When you get experience like that, you realize how much you enjoy it and like for weeks after it was all I could think about and all I wanted to do.
Anthony “Daniel” Burruss
He anticipates finishing his studies in VPCC’s Unmanned Systems (UMS) program next year. A Williamsburg resident, Burruss is a Richmond native and graduate of the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies who came to the region upon attending William & Mary and worked at Colonial Williamsburg. His connection with Berquist, who also heads the UMS program, along with a longtime interest in paleontology drew him to the field research opportunity.
What were your expectations heading into the experience? The only expectation I had was that this was going to be as close as I could get to what professional geologists do in the field. Funny enough, seeing professionals argue and debate in real time about the subject basically throwing out their different hypotheses, was surprising and interesting. What I was hoping to find were some fossils. That’s what I was really hoping. We went to a site called Nopah Range and we one person ended up finding some tracks of a small critter from way back when. So, some fossils were found … Apparently, in a national park, you are not allowed to take any fossils.
What physical or mental challenges did you experience? Being basically mentally on the entire time. I wasn’t nearly as fit as I would wish. We hiked so much. And I had too big of a backpack, so that made it really heavy for me when I was going up, 30-degree incline or 60-degree inclines. It was a lot of walking and a lot of hiking. So that was the big thing. So, the challenge basically was making sure I could actually pull that off.
How did this hands-on experience shape your understanding of geological processes? It deepened it a lot, because it’s right in front of you out there. Since there’s very little rain and very little water, there’s no erosion, or very little erosion. The rocks are still there. You could actually see the different processes not happen in front of you, but basically the results are right there. You could touch them. I was able to pick up rocks, test their hardness or even how breakable they were. It was so awesome to see the really weird types of rocks and just the results of these geological processes. For example, one of the last places we went to was a crater. I think it was from a very old volcano. A large section of the crater was obsidian. So, you could see the shiny black alongside the bright white, and the weird gray tones in between.
What was it like working on a team during the research experience? I felt safe. Another thing about being in the desert is there is nobody. I mean, it’s not like there’s no surfaces … everything out there is vast. On a team, I knew that we all had supplies. I knew there were good directions, and I knew if something went wrong, there’s plenty of people to help. Another thing about team is that sometimes you just don’t have a answers, but someone else does.
What memories or funny moments do you recall?
We went to this one site called Mono Lake. It’s an incredibly salty lake, five times saltier than the ocean. Logically, I knew that it was salty, but I just had to find out personally. And so, I tasted the water. No, I don’t regret it. But I immediately spat it out because it was loaded with salt and apparently baking soda, naturally occurring sodium bicarbonate. Yep, I tasted it like just to say, I tasted the super salty water. The thing about it being super salty is very little lives in it. So there wasn’t too much danger in (tasting) it.
If you could describe the trip in one phrase or word, what would that be and why? It was inspirational, phenomenal, satisfying and excellent. It gave me a really good perspective on what professional geology is. If any students are wondering about a trip like this, if they should take it or not, I would say, yes, absolutely… It felt so encompassing of what that career would be like. And granted, there’s a lot more paperwork involved in the actual career, at least according to the professors, and going on field study is kind of rare. But basically, this is the best part of such a career.
Noah Zando Sloan
A Social Sciences major and 2021 Tabb High School graduate, he discovered an interest in geology during a lab science class taught by Berquist. Sloan plans to transfer to William & Mary to study archaeology. He believes this field research experience gave him a hint about what to expect in archaeological field work in many ways.
Walk through a typical day on this research trip. We were out the door by 8 a.m. and then it was usually a pretty long car ride to our destination. We had maybe 30 minutes to an hour to go around, research. And then we’d all reconvene and then spend a while talking about it. Everyone’s sort of bringing what they’ve got together and crafting the actual history of the formation we’re looking at and then going on to the next one. We’d do that three or four to five times, and then there’d usually be one stop in between. That’s just like a fun little thing we did at the end of the day – either going to the top of the mountain and looking out over the entire location. I think one time, we went down to a date farm and had milkshakes, and that was lovely. Then we’d go home, usually around 6 p.m. and then by around 7 p.m., we would start making dinner. I really liked the way he did dinner. It was a good team-building exercise. We had three people that would make dinner, three people that would like clean up afterward. So, everyone would end up kind of working together one way or another or at least working with someone they didn’t know. Afterward, it’s basically just winding down doing whatever you need to be ready by 8 a.m. the next day.
Where did you stay? Primarily, there was the Shoshone outpost. Then we stayed at the White Mountain Research Center in the Panama Valley … Then one of the nights we were driving from one to the other. And we stayed at a small, maybe stayed in Panamint Springs. We stayed at a small, little like campsite with tents, which was also the only day it rained, which was unfortunate. But then we ended up going to the White Mountain Research Center in the Panama Valley, which was next to Death Valley. And the second half of the course was more about that valley, or the Sierra Nevada or the Panama Mountains.
Describe the research you conducted. A lot of what we did was sort of structural geology. We would spend a lot of time looking at like the empirical data we could gather, like certain formations, and trying to see how it relates to the overall history of the region. There’s a lot of history in Death Valley. We would look at everything and you have, like, an hour or so to figure it out. By doing that, a lot of the times, we’d all go off on our own and find something to look at. But generally, by the end of the time period everyone had already gathered everything, from their different like structures, different formations, and come to the same rough conclusion.
How did you collect data in such a harsh environment? We were given these notebooks made with a certain paper that doesn’t really degrade when it gets wet. And so, you just needed a pencil or a pen, and you would end up usually sketching out what we saw and then writing what we could. There were a few times where it was just awful… you’d end up kind of having to write wearing big gloves. So, I have pages where I can’t really understand what it says. There were a few times like that, where it’s just too hot, or it was too windy, or it was like too wet, and actually getting good details down was a bit rough.
How do you think this experience improved your understanding of geology? I didn’t really have a great understanding of geology before the class. I always thought the geology was just about rocks, but it’s more about the Earth as a whole. Actually being there and seeing everything in person, seeing the ways that these processes have completely degraded the environment or built it up, and seeing how sediment is deposited and eroded from certain places, actually being able to pick up and touch stuff makes such a difference. You can read about it in a textbook, and you’ll always get the same strict, kind of cold conclusion about everything. But being able to see stuff really opens your eyes to how everything is constantly working together to create the world we live in.
What will you remember most about the trip, and can you summarize the experience in a word or phrase? I find it all very memorable. I remember being out in the field and being like, ‘I have so much nostalgia about this.’ I still look back on it really fondly. It gave me such a love of being out in the wilderness, and especially being out, working as a group with other classmates. And luckily, it seemed everyone else had a very similar mindset when it came to the trip. I made a lot of friends. When it comes to specific things, every place we went was picturesque, beautiful. I’ll quote a song from a Japanese fusion jazz band, ‘Tengo Suerte.’ That’s Spanish for, I am lucky. I feel like I was so on the fence about it before going and even up to the actual trip. I was kind of thinking I could just back out of it and do nothing for the rest of (spring break). But I’m just so happy that I did it and am more than willing to do it again.
You mentioned you aspire to a career in archaeology. How do you think this will forward your interest? I know archaeology requires a lot of field work, a lot of being out in the sun. My dream job right now is studying indigenous cultures on the West Coast. We did see hints that there were a few tribes that lived in Death Valley once upon a time. Understanding the world is very important to understanding the world’s cultures and definitely how the world has been shaped throughout history. There were times that we were looking at volcanos that erupted as recently as 600 years ago. There were definitely people (who) experienced that and probably had some stories to tell from it. So, I think that gaining an understanding of that kind of thing is really important for understanding the overall picture of a lot of cultures and just human stories.