LONG-TERM INTEGRATION OF A HYDROGEOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRAM, UNDERGRADUATE GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION, AND OUTREACH WITH A GROUND-WATER MONITORING LABORATORY

DOSS, Paul K. and BORDELON, Laura, Geology and Physics, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Blvd, Evansville, IN 47712, pdoss@usi.edu

A relatively low-cost ground-water monitoring laboratory at the University of Southern Indiana has proven successful in several aspects of an undergraduate geoscience program. The laboratory consists of a deep-shallow piezometer nest installed in the Pennsylvanian Inglefield Sandstone, and is housed within an equipped laboratory in the USI Science Center. While this laboratory is a primary component of the hydrogeology and environmental geology curriculum, it also has helped to synthesize stratigraphic, structural, geochemical, and quantitative skills for a large number of our students. The lab has been the centerpiece for generating nine complete research projects for eleven undergraduate geology students over just the past four years, resulting in eight published abstracts and two peer-reviewed manuscripts. For this integrated program, undergraduate geology students have generated over $4000 in internal and external funds, and research has been recognized with two college wide awards and an external (GSA) award. As a result of presentations and publications, academic and state and federal government researchers from the USA, Australia, and Canada, and private sector scientists and consultants have contacted our “research team” for data and interpretations of our findings. These inquiries provide remarkable “teachable moments” for the value of science, the dissemination of research results, and relevance to society. Current work in the laboratory includes continued monitoring, a stable isotope study, and the development of a ground-water monitoring system that will stream real-time graphical data displays to the web. Two pressure transducers, a barometric pressure sensor, and a datalogger are being configured with a real-time monitoring control web server. With current efforts in this new laboratory, our “real-time” audience will expand from geology students at the university to the local population and the larger scientific community. Outreach efforts have resulted in on-camera interviews with the local news media networks about the ground-water resource. The information generated and displayed on the internet will aid in understanding the dynamic behavior of the local domestic aquifer, and potentially provide relevant data for water-quality protection and land-use planning.

THE MENARD FORMATION IN WESTERN KENTUCKY: A DETAILED RECORD OF HIGH FREQUENCY EUSTATIC FLUCTUATIONS DURING THE EARLY CARBONIFEROUS IN THE SOUTHEASTERN ILLINOIS BASIN

GREER, Penny and KING, Norman R., Department of Geology & Physics, Univ of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN 47712, nking@usi.edu

The Lower Carboniferous (Serpukhovian; Chesterian) Menard Formation was deposited on a ramp along the southeastern margin of the Illinois basin. Forty-five feet of fossiliferous Menard strata exposed at a road cut in Hancock County, Kentucky include gray shales interbedded with gray micritic limestones and orange-weathering micritic limestone to dolomicrite. The shales contain mostly fenestrate bryozoans and articulate brachiopods, with various other marine fossils; a few thin intervals of shale contain only pelecypods. The gray limestones contain a diverse marine fauna also dominated by bryozoans and articulate brachiopods. Scattered stromatolitic mounds occur in a narrow zone of laminated, orange-weathering limestone. These lithologies and faunas indicate deposition in aquatic environments ranging from fully marine to brackish, and from subtidal to intertidal.

At least seven levels in the lower 18 feet of this outcrop display one or more subaerial exposure features, including mud cracks (several horizons), fenestral porosity in peloidal limestone, mats of small horizontal rhizomorphs, rubbly-surfaced dolomitic limestone containing small vertical rhizomorphs, microkarsted limestone, and pedoturbated paleosol developed on dolomitic limestone. Although some of these exposure horizons may simply represent the filling of accommodation space, others (identified by rhizomorphs, pedogenesis, and microkarstification) more clearly indicate changes in relative sea level, and suggest minor high-frequency eustatic fluctuations.

Except at the top, the upper 27 feet of the Menard here lacks subaerial exposure features, suggesting a prolonged major highstand during which no indications of minor high-frequency eustasy were left behind. Deep carbonaceous rhizomorphs in shale at the top of the Menard reveal a significant fall in sea level that brought Menard deposition to an end. The overlying fluvial Palestine Sandstone channeled into the top of the Menard during the ensuing lowstand.

EARLY WISCONSINAN (?) EOLIAN ACTIVITY ALONG THE OHIO RIVER IN SOUTHWESTERN INDIANA

WANINGER, Scott and DURBIN, James M., Geology and Physics, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Blvd, Evansville, IN 47712, scottwaninger@hotmail.com

The strata and sediments of morphologically distinct features exposed in a sand quarry in Spencer County, Indiana support earlier interpretations that the ridges along the eastern valley wall of Little Pigeon Creek (a part of the Ohio River valley) are silt capped sand dunes (Ray, 1965) and indicate multiple episodes of deposition. Five informal units were identified in the highwall of the quarry and in the subsurface using sediment cores and Ground Penetrating Radar. The five units are interpreted as (from the oldest to youngest): Unit 0- Lacustrine silt; Unit 1- Eolian interbedded yellow and brown silt (loess) capped by a weak paleosol; Unit 2- Eolian cross bedded fine sand interbedded with coarse eolian silt (loess); Unit 3- Eolian silt (loess) with a weakly developed paleosol; Unit 4- Interbedded eolian sand and silt with modern surface soil. Changes in lithology, sediment, and bedding structures indicate five episodes of deposition. Sharp contacts between the units with limited pedogenic influence indicate relatively short-lived unconformities. The development of incipient paleosols at the tops of Units 1 and 3 indicates multiple relatively short-lived depositional hiatuses where weathering rates outpaced deposition. An AMS Radiocarbon age date (Beta-217287) on organic material collected from the lower 20 cm of Unit 2 was older than 46,000 years BP (dead). SEM images of the dated material show there is no ancient fossil material (coal). Thus, the sample's age indicates an episode of eolian activity sometime before the onset of MIS 3, or reworking of older material (pre-Wisconsinan) into discrete beds during the terminal Pleistocene.