Departmental Field Trip To Northern Minnesota
Fall Mid-Term Break, 2004

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Photos by Tim Vick

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Mike took pity on us and let us have lunch on his map table in the geology office
at the mine. It would have been a pretty miserable picnic outside.


Back out into the pit for some more stops after lunch. Mryon loved driving around the mine
with the huge mine trucks. The tires on the mine trucks were a foot taller than the top of
our bus! Usually the mining company has to water the roads to control dust, but not today.


The effect on the bus was predictable. It was brand spanking clean until now...


Wednesday on our way home we visited Thomson Dam, near Duluth, and did a little
mapping project there. Here Kate studies the metamorphosed sediments.


This looks like a bedding plane tipped up at a pretty good angle.

Clara making some notes.


Figuring out the orientation of the bedding and the cleavage can be a challenge.


And here's our whole group, taken at the monument marking the triple junction of three continental divides which
separate the Hudson Bay, Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds. The location, which is on the
Hibbing Taconite Mine property, is meaningful to Native American people as well as to
geologists, and the decorated sticks leaning on the front of the monument are their offerings.




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