1. Geology of the Great Southern Basin, NV-CA Spring Field Course, March 2009 Instructors: Dr. Mary Beth Gray, Dr. Carl Kirby, Dr. Kaustubh Patwardhan Students: Amy Jewett, Anne Strader, Cara Porteus, Cullen Kortyna, Erin Donaghy,, Emily Bitely, Eva Lipiec, Ed Bauer, Eric Lynch, Jeremy Byler, Kait Fleming, Kristi Grandy, Lauren Hall, Lily Pfeifer Enthusiast: Wesley Sigl

2. Pre-trip preparation at Bucknell: Viewing 3-D images of Death Valley

3. Loading the limo: 6 AM at Bucknell

4. All bright-eyed…..for a few minutes anyway….

5. Passing time at the Newark airport

6. Grand Canyon

7. Lake Mead

8. The Las Vegas “Strip”

9. Angular Unconformity at Furnace Creek

10. Dante’s View

11. Looking Northwest from Dante’s View bajada

12. Badwater Alluvial Fan Salt deposits

13. Salt deposits at Badwater

14. A doubting geologist testing for halite

15. Dr. Gray explaining desert pavement

16. 282 ft below sea level

17. Sea level sign

18. Old Lake Manly Shoreline deposit Funeral Mountains

19. Artists’ Drive – Funeral Mountains

20. Looking for the dip in the road…

22. Exploring a trench in an alluvial fan

23. Dr. Gray describes the development of a fanhead trench

24. Finding slickenlines in the alluvial fan

25. Corkscrew Mountain

26. The 27-mile one-way gravel road to Titus Canyon

27. A stop at Red Pass along the way

28. Still on the road to Titus Canyon

29. Leadfield mine workings

30. Finally there!

31. Taking care of Eric

32. Not a fold!

33. Figuring out that the rocks are overturned

34. Petroglyphs at Klare Spring

36. Unconformity?

37. No, it’s an overturned anticline.

38. see?

39. Dr. Gray describes the faulting in the Bonanza King Formation

40. Mystery breccia near the mouth of Titus Canyon

41. Mystery breccia near the mouth of Titus Canyon

42. still a mystery…

43. kangaroo rat – 1/10 life size!

44. provisioning at Beatty, Nevada

45. Lathrop Wells cinder cone - mined for scoria

46. Crater Flats cinder cones

47. Climbing Black Cone

48. Taking in the view at the summit of Black Cone

49. Dr. Patwardhan shows the group a volcanic bomb

50. Pyroclastic Eruption!

51. lava flow Yucca Mountain

52. Cinder cones in front of Yucca Mountain Red Cone Black Cone Little Cones

53. lunchtime rest

54. going down Split Cone in Death Valley

55. Shoshone roadcut: tuff and obsidian and faults, oh my!

56. Dissected alluvial fan coming from the Panamint Mountains

57. 6,000 year-old Ubehebe Crater

58. warning signs…

59. oops…..

60. Rapid descent into Ubehebe Crater

61. A slower ascent out of Ubehebe Crater

62. Eric explains the igneous rock composition/texture diagram

63. On the road to “The Racetrack”

64. “The Racetrack” granite playa lake granite

65. “The Racetrack”

67. When you’re at the Racetrack……

68. …you might as well race! (rock win) (geo student fail)

69. There are always members of the press at sporting events!

70. Holy polygons, Batman!

71. 1.5 ft long Chuckwalla at The Racetrack

72. Mosaic Canyon

74. Roadblock in Mosaic Canyon

75. Stovepipe Wells

76. Stovepipe Wells Dune field

77. Thirsty geologist

78. Nevada Test Site

79. Helicopter at the Nevada Test Site

80. Moving target!

81. The end to another great Bucknell Geology Spring Break Trip!