Field Geoscience
Judson Mead Geologic Field Station
The Judson Mead Geologic Field Station continues to thrive
with increasing diversity of students, faculty involvement and
national recognition.

COURSES AND FACULTY
The past year has seen a number of small but important changes
in the curriculum offered at the Judson Mead Geologic Field
Station. In efforts to keep the G429 program at the leading
edge of field programs, a number of additions and revisions
to the different exercises that comprise the curriculum have
taken place. The concentration options have been expanded
to include crystalline rocks and economic geology, geophysics
and neotectonics, hydrology and environmental geology, and
sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy. Each concentra-
tion has been augmented with new data sets and equipment,
including chemical and isotopic analyses, use of petrographic
taught by Jess King and a former G429 student
who returns to the IUGFS to co-teach this course.

In 2017 we had Andy Barth from IUPUI, following
his alternate-year scheduling pattern of teaching a
small group of students from the IUPUI program.

The Field Station also hosted an advanced graduate
seminar for the second time. Students were brought
in from across the country to take part in the The
Paleontologial Society Field Course on Stratigraphic
Paleobiology led by Dr. Mark Patzkowsky (Penn
State University) and Dr. Steve Holland (Univer-
sity of Georgia). They returned to continue their
studies of the Mississippian carbonate sequences
found in Miligan Canyon, the same location that
the G429s concentration has been working. The
two efforts have been complementary and are
producing exciting results.

observations, and paleontologic data. The subsurface correla-
tion exercise was extensively revised based on the feedback
we received after its introduction in 2016; in 2017 the exercise
went smoothly, and successfully allowed the students to rec-
ognize patterns in the subsurface that matched those they
had observed in their field observations with respect to the
history of Belt Island. A new graduate field seminar was offered
in summer 2017, G700 3-D Structural Analysis. The seminar
is open to students from across the country and combines
field work with the development of a digital 3-D model of the
J-Fold, a long-standing field area for G429.

A stable and highly functional faculty has emerged that includes
Drs. Bruce Douglas (IU), Erika Elswick (IU), Jim Handschy (IU),
Candace Karies-Beaty (Winona State), Page Quinton (SUNY
Potsdam), and Mike Rygel (SUNY Potsdam). We have also had
the good fortune to have Dr. Jess King (Hong Kong University)
join the crystaline concentration to provide her expertise to
the teaching efforts.

OTHER ACADEMIC USERS
Other academic users of the Field Station include Hong Kong
University who returned for a third year and agreed to con-
tinue the arrangement for the indefinite future. The course is
42 | hgr
Watch a video “Extraordinary Moments: From
Bloomington to Big Sky Country,” filmed at the
IU Geologic Field Station this summer by Ven-
ture Production Group for the College of Arts
+ Sciences Magazine.

https://magazine.college.indiana.edu/issues/ fall-2017/articles/stone-fixed-moment.html




RESEARCH
In addition to serving as a base for teaching, the Field
Station continues to act as a base and logistical hub
for research. One M.S. thesis has been completed, and
three other projects are ongoing all within the past
three years. Field work was undertaken by Kirstyn
Cataldo (M.S., adv. B. Douglas) and Matt Wanker
(M.S., adv. D. Edmonds) during the summer of 2017.

IU faculty member Dr. Brian Yanites also made a
visit to the Field Station to conduct a preliminary
assessment of the South Boulder River as a potential
site for future research.

SCHOLARSHIPS It is exciting to be able to report that we have contin-
ued to add to our scholarship base with the addition
of three new scholarships over the past three years.

These generous donations from alumni are making it
possible for the Field Station to award scholarships
to 70 % of the students enrolled in G429 with the
average amount of funding awarding during this time
being $52,000.

FACILITIES Efforts have been underway for several years to sys-
tematically upgrade the student dormitories. The
goal is to have all of the dorms on the upper cam-
pus renovated over the next 5 years. A less obvious
change but of high importance was the replacement
of a number of kitchen appliances, the most im-
portant of which may have been the replacement
of the coffee maker which was the same one that
existed when Bruce Douglas started teaching over
30 years ago. Progress has also been made on the
design and plans for a new student bathhouse to be
constructed on the upper campus. The project is in
the final stages of design and cost analysis. We are
cautiously optimistic that construction will begin in
the not too distant future.

IUGFS Website:
http://www.indiana.edu/~iugfs/ hgr | 43