Register for the Fall Meeting of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers! Oct. 10-12 at CSU Sacramento

The 2003 meeting sponsored by CSU Sacramento: Exploring the Malakoff Diggings

The fall meeting of the Far Western Section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers is taking place on Oct 10th-12th in Sacramento at California State University Sacramento. Trip opportunities include the Sierras, Delta and local Sacramento geology.  Professors, K-12 teachers, and students (official and unofficial) of the earth sciences or geology are encouraged to join us. You do not have to be a member of the NAGT to attend, although we would love to have you join our organization. We encourage and support the teaching of the earth sciences in California, Nevada and Hawaii, and try to sponsor meetings that are not a great stress on teachers and students on limited budgets. You do not have to live in these three states either. These meetings are a great way to become acquainted with the geology of this fascinating region!

Here is a sampling of some of the exciting field trips that are planned:

1.    A Traverse of the Sierra Nevada from Sacramento to Donner Summit-Eldridge Moores, Emeritus Professor, Geology Department, UC, Davis  

2.    Bay Delta Hydrology and Geology-Rob Barry, Chief Project Geology Section, California Department of Water Resources; John Suen, Professor Emeritus, California State Univ., Fresno; Mark Pagenkopp, Geologist, Calif. Dept. of Water Resources

3.    Gold, Aggregates, and the Yuba Dredge Fields, California Mineral Education Foundation, Cynthia Pridmore, Engineering Geologist, California Geologic Survey

4.    Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene Stratigraphy near Sacramento, CA. Tim Horner, Chair CSU, Sacramento, Geology Department, CSU, Sacramento

5.    The Legacy and Effects of Mercury in California Gold Rush Streams -Mike Hunerlach, Regional Mining Geologist and Liaison US Forest Service, Charlie Alpers, Research Chemist, United States Geologic Survey. 

Speakers:
Stephen Testa, California State Mining Board-Oil, Gold, Earthquakes and Higher Education in the latter half of the 19^th Century.

Sue McClurg, Deputy Executive Director, Water Education Foundation The Bay Delta Conservation Plan: How did we get here, and where are we going? 

Lots of other activities and field trips are scheduled!

Register now! Information can be found at the links below:
    Register Online, using credit card or PayPal! http://nagt-farwestern2014.bpt.me/ 
    Registration form: http://nagt-fws.org/New_Registration_Form-1.pdf
    Conference Information: http://nagt-fws.org/NAGT_fall_conference_info.docx.pdf
    Conference Agenda: http://nagt-fws.org/NAGT_FWS_2014_Conference_Agenda.pdf
    Accommodation Options: hhttp://nagt-fws.org/Accommodation_Options_Fall_2014.pdf

Hydraulic mine in the California goldfields.

Registration Deadline Extended: Far Western Section NAGT Meeting

(Cross-posted from Teaching the Earth Sciences)

The registration deadline for the Spring 2011 NAGT conference (see previous post), to be held at Caltech in Pasadena, CA, on March 25 - 27, has been extended to March 11. The registration fee is $95 for all payment postmarked by March 11. For payment postmarked after March 11, the fee will be $125. Go to the conference web site at

http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/meetings/nagt/index.html

Students of the geological sciences are invited and encouraged to attend Far Western Section events at greatly reduced rates. See the conference website for details. Hope to see you there!

Far Western Section, National Association of Geoscience Teachers Spring Meeting: Caltech Tectonics Observatory, March 25-27, 2011

(Cross-posted from Teaching the Earth Sciences)
Have you ever wanted to know more about the geology of southern California, the San Andreas fault, and some of the incredibly strange rocks that crop out around the San Gabriel Mountains, like Vasquez Rocks or Devil's Punchbowl? The Far Western Section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers invites you to join us on March 25-27, 2011 for our spring meeting, hosted by the Caltech Tectonics Observatory in Pasadena, California. These meetings are a great way to learn some fascinating geology, meet some fascinating people, and as much as I would like to say "have a scholarly time", I'm going to instead say "have a fun time".

Complete details of the meeting can be found on the Caltech Tectonics Observatory website at http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/meetings/nagt/. You do not need to be a member of NAGT to attend (but we will gladly welcome you into membership if you wish to!), and the cost of the event is modest (less than $100 if you register before Feb. 25, plus a bit more for the Saturday banquet).

Check out the wonderful slate of activities and field trips below!

Field trips:
•Erosion and Sediment Transport in steep Mountain Terrain, San Gabriel Mountains - Mike Lamb (Caltech)

•San Gabriel Anorthosite and the San Andreas Fault - Bruce Carter (Pasadena Community College)

•Vasquez Rocks - Elisabeth Nadin (UA, Fairbanks) and Rebecca Walker (Mt San Antonio College)

•Devil's Punchbowl and Red Rock Canyon - Donald Prothero (Caltech/Occidental College)

Evening Speakers:
•Good Vibrations Inside the Earth - Jennifer Jackson (Caltech)

•TBD -Jess Adkins (Caltech)

Exhibits and tours:
•Tour of Seismo Lab - Margaret Vinci (Caltech)

•Southern CA Earthquake Center (SCEC) display

Workshops:
•Low-T Thermometry and Thermochronometry and Applications (including dating the formation of the Grand Canyon) - Ken Farley, John Eiler, and Brian Wernicke (Caltech)

•Earthquake Magnitude, Energy, and Focal Mechanisms (beach balls) - Joann Stock (Caltech)

•Plate Tectonic Rotation of the Transverse Ranges: what happened, how we know it happened, and how it created Southern California’s unique geography, climate, ocean currents and biological richness - Tanya Atwater (UCSB)

•Historical Earthquakes and Uplift/Subsidence of Sumatra from Coral Growth Rings - Elizabeth Nadin (UA, Fairbanks) and Belle Philibosian (Caltech)

•Operations of Community Seismometer Network (How your laptop can help scientists better understand earthquakes) - Tom Heaton and Ming-Hei Cheng (Caltech)

The registration form is here: http://www.tectonics.caltech.edu/meetings/nagt/register.pdf. Join us!

Learn more about the activities and opportunities at the Far Western Section! Check out our website, the Far Western Section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers here, the FWS blog here, and our Facebook page here.

At the Creepy Winery: A Field Trip Along the San Andreas Fault System III

A busy week prevented me from finishing a narrative on our field studies adventure along the San Andreas fault last weekend. Part I discussed active creeping in the town of Hollister, California, while Part II revealed some landscape features along the San Andreas fault south of Hollister near the Gabilan Range. Another stop was to have a look at the DeRose Winery in the hills south of Hollister (a disclosure: we always stop here, but we had a schedule problem last week, so these pictures are from a previous trip. Students: this is what we would have seen!).

The DeRose, under one name or another, is one of the oldest wineries in California, dating back to 1854. It was once called the Cienega Winery because of the nearby marsh that turned out to be a sag pond along the active trace of the San Andreas fault. The foundations on the original building failed for (then) unknown reasons, and the winery was rebuilt in the same location. That building came apart as well, and was again rebuilt in 1948. When the present building began cracking up, investigations by geologists showed that the winery had been constructed on top of an actively creeping section of the San Andreas fault! It has been a field trip destination for generations of geology students since the 1960's.

As can be seen above, the building is being offset, ripping apart along the foundations. The adjacent driveway has been patched numerous times. The most striking feature on the property is a drainage culvert that was apparently built in the late 1800's or early 1900's. It has been offset by around 3 feet in that time.

The USGS has posted an excellent field guide for the Hollister region that has maps and pictures of the winery, and the Hollister neighborhood discussed in part I. The guide is part of the conference publication of a meeting of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers in 2001 concentrating on the Geology and Natural History of the San Francisco Bay Region. The guide is available from the USGS online only, although the Far West Section of the NAGT has paper copies for sale (proceeds support student scholarships).

New Geoblog Debuts: Teaching the Earth Sciences

As you may have seen from my biography, I am the past-president of the Far West Section of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT). The section includes California, Nevada and Hawaii. When they put you out to pasture, it turns out you still get to do things...I am now the webmaster (for better or worse), and someone thought the section should have a blog for rapid dissemination of announcements and deadlines and that sort of thing. So I get to do that too! It debuts today, as the Teaching the Earth Sciences blog. I only have a few posts up so far, but it should be growing in time. You'll be able to check on award and scholarship deadlines, academic openings, publications, and conference announcements, as well as anything we find of interest to teachers of the earth sciences. I would be grateful for ideas and polite critiques!

NAGT is a great organization, especially the Far West Section. They have one or two conferences each year somewhere in the three-state region, and the conferences including field trips and teaching seminars, and attending these events has been some of the geologic highlights of my life. I've been able to tour Death Valley, the Mojave Desert, Anza Borrego, Hawaiian Volcanoes, the Klamath Mountains, Mount Shasta, the eastern Sierra Nevada and the Long Valley Caldera, the Black Mountains near Lake Mead, Sequoia, Yosemite, the Mother Lode, the Marin Headlands, Cambria and Big Sur, and Lake Tahoe. I've been in gold mines, tourmaline mines, caves, coal pits, and I've found all manner of minerals, fossils and rocks that have enriched my teaching career. All of these tours include geologic guidebooks, which are for sale to anyone, and they are a great resource (check out the publications list here). They also provide scholarship support for students in our region, and recognize an Outstanding Earth Science Teacher of the Year as part of a national program.

The national NAGT also has many resources available on the web for teachers, and there are nine more sections around the United States and Canada in addition to our Far West Section. Check it out, if you are a teacher now or are thinking of becoming one. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the earth sciences.