Glacial Geology Field Trip February 1999


The Glacial Geology class, under the direction of Carrie Patterson, took a sampling expedition to Big Stone Lake on the western border of Minnesota during winter term. They sampled the lake sediment on the bottom of the lake by drilling through the ice and lowering coring tubes down to the bottom. In this picture, Herb Wright from the University of Minnesota is showing the group how to use the coring tubes; more tubes are lying on the ground at the left. It sounds cold and cruel to go out on the lake in the winter, but it's much better than trying to lower the coring tubes from a rocking boat in the summer!

The sampling goal of this trip was to obtain a record of Holocene climate change recorded in the sediments. The coring bottomed out in alluvial sand and the group hopes to date the organic material in the core immediately above the sand layer to provide an idea of when the Glacial River Warren last occupied the valley. There is currently a controversy over whether the southern outlet for Lake Agassiz was occupied twice, as has been formerly proposed, or just once, as Tim Fisher of the University of Indiana believes.


Carrie heads for the ice with her son Parker making sure the supplies don't jump out of the taboggan.

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