Overall Schedule

Friday, September 26  
    6:00-9:00 PM
    Registration and Welcoming Party at Hamilton College
Saturday, September 27  
    7:30-8:00 AM
    8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
    7:00-9:30 PM
 

Keynote speaker: Dr. Cathryn Newton, Syracuse University
The Great Extinctions: Comparing Mechanisms

Sunday, September 28  
    7:30-8:00 AM
    8:00 AM to 3:00 PM

For more information, contact:

Meeting Chair-
David Bailey		 Field Trip & Workshop Coordinator-
Todd Rayne

Saturday Trips/Workshops (Sept. 27)

A1- Madison County Landfill & Environmental/Engineering Drilling
Participants will spend the morning at Green Lakes State Park, where they will be met by a Parratt Wolff drilling crew, observe the drilling of a well, and discuss drilling and sampling methods for environmental engineering projects, description of geologic samples, preparing well logs, and monitoring well installation. After lunch, the group will travel to the Madison County Landfill and tour a new, state-of-the-art landfill, observe and discuss the closure of an old landfill, and discuss landfill construction and monitoring requirements.

A2- Landform Evolution Along the Southeastern Shoreline of Lake Ontario
The trip presents field evidence for an evolutionary model of drumlin bluff retreat along a segment of rapidly-eroding shoreline (0.31-1.5 m/yr) of Lake Ontario. Participants will also review results of recent bottom sampling, and side-scan sonar and high-resolution subbottom-profiling surveys in the near-shore zone. The final stop at a shore sgment "stabalized" by a variety of engineering structures will examine human-induced effects on morphologic development.

A3- Timing of Intrusion, Antaxis, and Metamorphism in the Port Leyden Area of the Western Adirondacks
In contrast to high pressure metamorphic conditions realized throughout much of the Adirondacks, the Port Leyden area in the western Adirondack Highlands preserves evidence of moderate pressure (0.4-0.6 Gpa) metamorphism. Participants will visit a unique nelsonite dike, which demonstrates that anorthositic magmatism occurred in this area, although no anorthosite pluton is presently found there. Participants will examine the metasedimentary host rocks for evidence of contact heating and metamorphism associated with anorthosite intrusion.

A4- Environmental Indicators and Sedimentology - Seneca Lake, New York
This field trip will take place on Seneca Lake aboard the research vessel HWS Explorer. Participants will carry out the procedures used to examine major environmental indicators for Seneca Lake. These data, and subbottom profiles of lake sediment, will serve as the basis for discusssion of the environmental status of the lake and of sedimentary processes active in a large lake such as Seneca.

A5- Cambro-Ordovician Carbonate Facies of the Mohawk-Hudson Valleys
After Examining modern non-marine limestones, participants will study facies of Cambro-Ordovician age, which span a spectrum of paleoenvironments from peritidal (near-tidal), including microbial reef mounds, to basinal. Participants will hop from one environment to another, and study at each exposure the carbonate rocks in terms of lithology, geometry, sedimentary structures, and fossils, and concentrate on the pattern of deposition that created each facies.

A6- Underground Mine Tour, Balmat Zinc Mine
Participants will have the opportunity to study the structure and petrology of Grenville-age metasediments in the Northwest Adirondack Lowlands from a subsurface perspective. The field trip will go underground at the Balmat Zinc Mine, in the Balmat-Edwards Zinc District. This trip will depart before registration on Saturday morning.

A7- Morning Workshop on Holocene Climate Change and Afternoon Field Trip to Green Lakes State Park
In the morning, participants will attend a workshop on Holocene climate change. In the afternoon, participants will visit Green Lake, a density-stratified lake with permanently anoxic bottom waters. Participants will discuss the lake's general limnology, the origin of its reefs, summer "whiting" events, and controversies over its origin. The leaders wil share unpublished core data from the lake itself and adjacent wetlands and discuss its paleoenvironmental/climatic implications.

A8- Hydrogeology, Glacial Geology, and Mass Movement History of the Tully Valley (part 1)
Participants on this two-day trip will experience a very comprehensive study of the geology of the Tully Valley. On Saturday, Topics will include 1) the sediments and landforms related to the glacial, glaciolacustrine, and alluvial deposits, 2) the 1993 Tully landslide, 3) groundwater modelling in the landslide area, 4) a landslide suceptability map of southern Onondaga County, 5)the general hydrogeology of the Tully Valley, and 6) the effects of brine mining on hydrogeology of the valley.

W1- The Underlying Influence of Geology on Human Events
Geology and geologic processes are rarely recognized as underlying influences on human events. This all-day workshop and field trip will examine the influence of geology on human events in Egypt, South Africa, the Middle East, and New York State. Participants will leave the workshop with activities that can be integrated into courses at both the high school and college level.

W2- Exploring Oceanography Resources on CD-ROM and the World Wide Web
This half-day (afternoon) workshop for college faculty and secondary school Earth Science teachers, will be structured as a round-table discussion of oceanographic resources available on CD-ROM and the World Wide Web. The focus will be on classroom applications.

Sunday Trips (Sept. 28)

B1- Stratigraphic Incompleteness: Milankovitch in the Manlius at the Margin
Participants will study the stratigraphic incompleteness of Manlius sections near the western margin of the Helderberg Basin. Sections to the east are significantly more complete than those to the west, where cycles are missing at third-, fourth-, and fifth-order sequence boundaries. Analysis of three or four Manlius sections from east (Utica area) to west (Syracuse area) will discriminate the roles of eustasy and tectonism in producing this highly incomplete allocyclic fabric.

B2- Herkimer Diamond Mine
This half day trip is designed for anyone interested in exploring for Herkimer diamonds, the famous doubly-terminated quartz crystals found in central New York. Participants will travel to one of the commercial diamond mines near Herkimer.

B3- Eurypterids and Associated Fauna at Litchfield, a Classic Locality in Herkimer County
Historically, the study of eurypterids has generally been confined to the collection and description of new species and to the documentation of occurrences. Participants on this half-day field trip will visit a classic eurypterid locality and will have the opportunity to study one eurypterid community. Aspects of eurypterid paleoecology and paleobiology will be the main focus of the trip.

B4- Hydrogeology, Glacial Geology, and Mass Movement History of the Tully Valley (part 1)
Participants on this two-day trip will experience a very comprehensive study of the geology of the Tully Valley. On Sunday, participants will hike to the top of Bare Mountain to examine the heads of a proposed series of long, thin, relatively intact rock-block slides that sit on the side of the mountain in what may be a metastable condition.

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