|
Geology
‘lab’ is an exotic one
By Amy
Geiszler-Jones
If you ever find yourself wishing
you were in the tropics instead of Kansas, you can try to console yourself
with the thought that this windswept Plains state used to be in the tropics
— about 245 million years ago.
WSU geology professor Sal Mazzullo
still opts for the real deal at least twice a year.
For more than 20 years, Mazzullo
has been making research trips to Belize, a Central American country bordered
by Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea. For 12 years, WSU colleagues
Collette Burke and Bill Bischoff, along with geology students, have been
accompanying him. In 1992, he started offering a second class during spring
break to non-majors.
What Mazzullo is studying is
telling him things about Kansas’ landscape. And the students accompanying
him are discovering more about geology research and science in general.
Together, the faculty and students have published dozens of papers on
what the rocks and sediments of Belize reveal about age-old stones in
the Midwest.
“Kansas has got a lot of rocks
called limestone that are exposed just east of (Wichita), north into Nebraska,
south into Oklahoma,” he says. “ We study those rocks which are about
245 million years old. We try to understand their origin. In a science
like geology, you need to look at a modern analog so that you can understand
what these rocks are trying to tell you.
“There are several places in
the world where you can go look at modern limestone-type sands and muds
forming today that would be analogous to these ancient rocks, like Florida,
the Bahamas, Persian Gulf, Australia.” Belize, only two hours by plane
from Houston, offers more opportunities to study modern sediments, Mazzullo
says.
Interpreting ancient rocks
is important not only academically, but for the petroleum industry, as
well.
“They want to know about the
evolution of the different types of sands and muds and how some of those
sediments are replaced by minerals,” Mazzullo says.
But the WSU
geological research study area at the island of Ambergris Caye
(pronounced “key”), 10 miles offshore of Belize, had been in danger of
being wiped out in October by Hurricane Mitch.
Fortunately the storm, classified
as a powerful category five hurricane, veered from its original head-on
collision course with Belize.
“The storm didn’t actually
strike directly but it was close enough,” says Mazzullo, who traveled
to Belize in late November to survey the damage.
"Had that hurricane hit at a
force five undoubtedly we wouldn’t be able to go back to Belize again.
Belize was really fortunate. I’m glad (it) was because I’d hate to lose
such a productive area for us.”
Seventeen students and faculty
are scheduled to make the jaunt to the rustic village of San Pedro Town
on Ambergris Caye later this month. In the summer, graduate students will
travel to the island, which served as the film location for Harrison Ford’s
movie “Mosquito Coast.”
Among the things the groups
will study is a 125-mile-long coral reef, the second-largest barrier reef
in the world and the largest in the Western Hemisphere.
“We study the ecology of the
coral reef because coral reefs around the world are dying. They may be
on their evolutionary way out because of global warming,” says Mazzullo.
They also take in some Mayan
archaeological sites on the sparsely populated island, which is about
22 miles long and two miles wide. The sediments that buried Mayan buildings
have preserved artifacts, too.
For almost a week in March and
two weeks in the summer, students spend their days on boats or digging
in the mud and sediments.
“There’ve been times when ...
we spend the night on some other island, with no accommodations,” to save
on the next day’s journey time, Mazzullo says. “We sleep on the boat or
sleep on the beach, eat coconuts and crabs."
Corals, sponges and core samples
of sediments, filling up a second-floor display case and lab in McKinley
Hall, are brought back for study.
Research in Belize resulted
in an award-winning thesis for Chellie Teal, now an instructor in the
geology department. During a five-year study, “I discovered a mineral
that is very common in ancient rocks but relatively rare in modern environments.
It’s called dolomite and it’s something that has puzzled geologists and
geochemists for 200 years,” says Teal, who was recognized for her research
at the March 5 Honors Convocation.
This limestone from Belize
is about 125,000 years old.
|
For
the first time, a group from WSU’s anthropology department are headed
to southern Belize on a study trip during spring break.
WSU
anthropologists Clay and Carole Robarchek and eight students will
study Mayan archaeological sites and do ethnographic studies in
Mayan, Creole and Garifuna villages. The Garifuna are the descendants
of escaped slaves and Carib Indians.
Chellie
Teal, Geology instructor, and Sal Mazzullo, geology professor, study
some 125,000-year-old limestone samples gathered during several
trips to Belize. The Central American country is an ideal place
to study modern equivalents of ancient limestone rocks found in
Kansas and the Midwest.
|
