Mapping rock formations

The Virgin River cuts through ancient sandstones and red limestone in southern Utah’s Hurricane Valley, a rigid, rock-scarped landscape, home to rattlesnakes and an active fault that resulted in an earthquake in 1992.

The destination — a 16-hour drive from Moscow — is part of a mandatory three-week field school, half of the total six weeks of field training required to earn a Bachelor of Science in geology at University of Idaho.

If you’re not a geology major, you can go for fun.

“We don’t require a lot of geology background for Field Camp One,” Professor Jerry Fairley, who teaches the field course, said. “You can get three credits, camp out, learn what geologists do, hike the canyons in one of the most spectacular places in the U.S., and just generally do fun stuff.”

For serious students of geology, the field camp teaches how to identify and gather rock samples and how to tie together the surface geology — the stuff seen, walked upon and chipped with a rock hammer — with formations lying underground.

The outdoor knowledge helps students build geological maps, which are the focus of both field camps. Drawing accurate geological maps is one of the important skills needed to obtain licensing as a Professional Geologist (PG), a certification that is required by most states to work in industry as a geologist.

In the summer of ’24, both field camps were combined and southern Utah’s Hurricane Valley served as the classroom. Bailee Zinzer, a doctoral candidate from Idaho Falls, accompanied as a teaching assistant.

“Both field camps usually require a lot of driving and they both have distinct geological features that provide good learning experiences for students,” said Zinzer, who studies volcanology under U of I Professor Erika Rader, also a field school instructor who was away on leave in Summer 2024.

Zinzer, who started her U of I journey as a physics major, switched after taking a geology course from Rader, who specializes in volcanoes and the igneous rocks formed by high temperature geochemistry.

“Growing up near Yellowstone, I was kind of predisposed to volcanoes, so it wasn’t a hard turn,” Zinzer said.

In Field Camp One, Zinzer helps students see the geological landscape. She also plays tour guide in the rich classroom of southern Utah, once home to ancient reptiles that left their footprints behind.

“We went looking for dinosaur tracks one day and accidentally ended up in Arizona,” Zinzer said.

One of the most important lessons of field camp is teaching future geologists to see the earth and its features, to draw conclusions, to hypothesize and analyze.

“The biggest compliment you can give a geologist is to say they are observant,” Fairley said.

Students in both field camps spend their days outdoors, hiking trails, climbing and descending through momentous rock formations, chipping pieces of stone, identifying and building an inventory that, like puzzle pieces, will be used to compose a big picture of the above and below-ground landscape.

The Hurricane Valley formations were formed by lava flows and sinkholes, and the earth’s crust has been smooshed and stretched and crunched, all of which make for a great learning environment.

“I’ve been going to that area of Utah for 10 years now, and every year I find a little more, and understand a little better,” Fairley said. “It’s not just a one off; you develop an eye for it over time. It takes a long time to unravel all these things.”