Professor of Geology
Emily Walsh and five geology majors are
using high-tech instruments at the
University of Iowa to study the
formation of the Scandinavian Caledonides
mountain belt. Their research could help
answer a lot of questions. It really
helps us figure out big tectonic
questions, mostly. So, how do mountain
belts form? What are all the processes
that happen when continents collide?
But it also helps us think about what is
at depth in the Earth. To figure out
the answers to these big questions,
they're studying the mountains at a
microscopic level.
Walsh collected rocks from Sweden last
summer for this research project. We are
analyzing thin sections of these rocks for
minerals.
Zoe Kane-Preissing, Jillian Shew and Morgan
Casarez are using a scanning electron
microscope to identify unknown minerals,
which will help the team prepare to date
the rocks. It's kind of neat because
they're these two pieces of ultrahigh-
pressure terrain that are supposed to
all be in the same rock unit, but the one
in the north is about 500 million years
and the one in the south is about 460
million years and the one in Norway is
400 million years. So this one unit of
rocks just kept being subducted and
brought back up over time or something
like that. So, we're trying to figure that
out. To solve this historic mystery,
They're examining the rocks that connect
the ultrahigh-pressure zones. We're
looking for zircons and rutiles that will
help us to figure out dates of when
things happened, when the mountains
formed. Garrett Wicker and Daniel Klever
are exploring another aspect of the
minerals in the rocks using an electron
microprobe. We are looking for different mineral reactions that show us how high the pressure was that these rocks were under and how hot it was.
Those mineral reactions explain the different events the rocks
experienced, so they get glimpses of the
timing of the rock's trajectory through
the earth. All five students will use
their data to better understand the
formation of the Scandinavian mountains
and how this information could explain
the geology of other mountains around
the world. It's an experience they know
will impact their future graduate
school applications and careers. I really
like coming here and getting to use the
electron microscope and the electron microprobe or using the optical
microscopes back at school, which is just
what we do with classes-but getting to
apply it to research. On most
applications, they are looking for experience
and without this I don't have the
experience. I'm a computer science and
geology major, so I'm looking towards
going into or like using these machines
a lot for future jobs. This is just one
of many projects going on for CSRI, for
others check out our website at CornellCollege.edu/research
