Hello guys, gals, and non-binary pals! For this week’s blog post, I wanted to talk about what my experience doing geology field camp with Frontiers Abroad in New Zealand was like this past summer (technically winter for me because I was in the Southern Hemisphere). You may be asking yourself, what in the world is field camp?
From my experience with it, it’s basically a geology-themed sleep-away summer camp for undergraduate students but more academically rigorous. Think of going on a geology class field trip except it’s the entire day, and then when the sun sets, you complete an assignment about what you experienced. At least, that was my experience of field camp, and each person’s experience and interpretation of it is unique based on where they're doing field camp and what program they’re doing it with. Field camp is often required to complete a geology major, although it is not required at Amherst. While I was there, I met quite a few people who needed to do a field camp to graduate but were still excited to be there.
For our field camp, we spent a week on the North Island in Rotorua and Tongariro National Park. We learned about volcanic systems, geothermal power, the chemistry of magma, and how volcanic activity and plate movements have shaped the landscape that we were looking at. We learned about the fundamentals of taking good field notes, practiced field sketching (aka drawing a lot of rocks and landscapes), and went on many hikes. While we were in Tongariro it heavily snowed, and my friend Haakon and I crafted a wonderful snowman that slightly looked like an albatross.
After this week we had a one-day break where we flew back to Christchurch, and moved into our housing assignments on campus. Following this, we drove to the West Coast and stayed at a house near Punakaiki (Pancake Rocks). This house was a less than 1-minute walk to the beach and everyone in the program shared a room with lots and lots of bunk beds in it. I liked to take walks along the beach as the sun set and journal about how I was feeling after all of the activities for the day were done with. Below are two photos of the beach right outside the house that I took while the sun was setting.
Most of our days involved waking up very early before sunrise so that we could be out in the field taking notes as soon as the sun was up and it was low tide. We’d usually stay out until about 3 or 4 PM, making observations about the landscape around us, having discussions, sharing ideas about what we thought was going on with the rocks, and taking notes on lectures taught on top of a rock face sitting criss-cross applesauce as our professor explained the dynamics at play with a portable whiteboard as the waves crashing against the shore in the background. After we returned to the house, we would take some time to ourselves, polish up our field notes, and then work together on an assignment that put together all of the different pieces of the puzzle that we saw while out in the field.
My favorite assignment was the stratigraphic column that we made from observations that we took of cliffs on the beach around us. At first nothing about what was going on made sense, and I found it frustrating to take notes because it felt like I wasn’t seeing the right thing or looking at what I was supposed to. Eventually, I talked to some of my friends, and we compared notes together. It turned out that we both had things that the other didn’t catch. It was amazing to see something that my eyes would typically gloss over and not notice come alive with each additional new detail helping indicate the history of the rock and sediment over millions of years. After completing our stratigraphic column back at the house, our professor walked us through the geologic history of the region that we were mapping. All of the observations that we had discussed, sketched, and written down lined up perfectly with the explanation she gave us. Everything just sort of clicked into place, all of the little details began to make sense, and I gained a better understanding of why things are the way they are. It was one of the most satisfying feelings I had ever received from an assignment. We were able to turn in everything before dinner time and then spend the rest of the night chatting, reading, and playing card games. Eventually, I fell asleep on the couch in front of the fireplace as I was the last one awake left reading my book.
I could not be more grateful to have had this experience. I learned so much during field camp, and I loved how collaborative it all was. We all worked together, shared knowledge, and had discussions about the rocks around us, what we knew from previous classes, and our ideas about what was going on geologically. We had the opportunity to ask as many questions as we wanted to, and it felt good to collaborate with everyone. The assignments were admittedly pretty difficult, and I was doing stuff that I had never done before. However, that feeling of satisfaction that you got at the end, made all of the hard work worth it. I also loved the little moments that came with field camp: all of us eating dinner together, the van ride conversations as we drove from spot to spot, the teaching and sharing of card games, and the fire crackling in the living room that only two of us knew how to actually build up and light properly. I loved how I was able to only focus on what was happening now and in front of me and not need to worry about what was going on in the future. I just felt like I could live in the moment and soak up all of the knowledge I was being given.
And if all of that doesn’t convince you to try out a geology course, I don’t know what will (this blog post is not sponsored by Amherst College's geology department, I'm just genuinely a nerd about rocks).
