Field Based Summer Research
08/17/2009
EGS major Kate Lawrence got an early jump on her Research In Geology project with Dr. Rayburn by spending a few days doing field work this summer. Kate and Dr. Rayburn investigated the site of a large landslide that occurred in May along a Lake Champlain shoreline bluff in the town of Westport, NY.
Kate used hammer seismic refraction to investigate the geology of the landslide. By hitting the ground with a hammer along a 72 meter transect across the top of the bluff and recording the resulting ground waves Kate determined that there was over 25 meters (82 feet) of soil and clay above bedrock.
In September Kate and Dr. Rayburn will return to Westport to use a drill supplied by the United States Geological Survey to sample the entire sediment sequence. During the fall semester Kate will analyze both the sediments in the core, and the fossils preserved in those sediments as part of a larger Paleo-climate study of the Lake Champlain Valley.
