Mineralogy Class / Geology Club Field Trip

Hot Springs, Arkansas
Nov 13 - Nov 16, 2008

From left to right: Jeremy Sell, TJ Brown, Aaron Snow, Dr. Sarah Hanson, Shawn Spilak, and Heather Piehl

You can click on the photos below to view them at a larger size.

Day 1. We left Adrian at 1:15 in the afternoon and drove to Lake Ouachita State Park where we camped - sort of - it was nearly 4 in the morning when we got there..
Day 2. We spent the day collecting minerals and learning about the geology of Magnet Cove, Arkansas
Our first stop was the Brady Mountain Dam. Here Sarah explains the Ouachita Orogeny Shawn, Aaron and Sarah in front of a spectacular fold

We went to the other side of the dam to check out the folding there too. And Sarah tortured the students with a discussion of axial planar cleavage
Our second stop was the novaculite quarry. In lieu of begging to get into the quarry, our discussion and collecting was done on just the other side of the fence.
A short time was spent collecting phlogopite out of a creek bed along the road.
Pyrite is weathering out of an outctrop on the far side of this little. So we ventured across the creek in search of pyrite.
With wet cold feet, we searched fruitlessly for pyrite (lt). Seems someone with a backhoe came in and removed the weathered soil to the side of the creek we started on (rt). So we got wet for nothing...

We had lunch at the pyrite outcrop, along with our distinguished guest who figured Jeremy for a sucker.
We collected tiny little brookite crystals and talked about how it formed.
Aaron collecting brookite Jeremy took the search very seriously!
Here we learned about the Magnet Cove ring dike complex..Assitionally, we discussed how carbonatite forms and why this is one of the coolest outcrops in the world - a rare chance to see igneous calcite!
Shawn is looking for aegering crystals that have weathered out of the syenite. Sarah is enjoying a break...

We headed back to camp where we met up with the University of New Orleans mineralogy class. TJ Brown, an AC alum and UNO grad student was happy to see his old friends.

During the night a cold front blew in and we awoke to a cold blustery morning. And a racoon found our cooler, and decided that our lunch for the next day would make a great midnight snack. Seems he got full though - notice the ham in the foreground....
Day 3. We spent the better part of the day at Fiddlers Ridge quarry where we collected some most excellent quartz crystals. These quartz crystals formed as fracture fills during the Ouachita Orogeny
AC alum TJ Brown and Heather Piehl collecting quartz from the quarry
Jeremy Sell looking through the humps for quartz crystals Sean doing the same
We then headed up to Mount Ida and collected wavellite from a quarry.
After a stop at a rock shop, where Sarah and Skip (UNO prof) spent a lot of money on yet more wavellite for a new research project, we had dinner at our favorite barbeque palace, Stubby's. Shawn seems to be really fond of the place - looks like he is eating so fast he is a blur!
Very full and happy, we returned to camp and had a campfire.
Day 4.We got up with the Sun, broke camp and suffered throught the LONG, 14 hour drive home arriving back in Adrian somewhere arounf 11:30 PM.