Explore spectacular scenery and a geologic overview of Iceland in a virtual field trip on April 7 led by volcanologist Kirt Kempter, who has led more than 30 tours to the country for the Smithsonian since his first visit in 1995. Geologic highlights include the boundary between North American and Eurasian plates; unusual volcanoes that form beneath vast glaciers; famous volcanic eruptions including those of the small island of Heimaey in 1973 and ice-capped Eyjafjallajökul in 2010; and older historic eruptions that affected global climate and human populations. Kempter employs maps, photographs, diagrams, and Google Earth images to spotlight the key features that make Iceland a bucket-list destination for all geologists. This Smithsonian Associates program is $25 for Smithsonian members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org. Below: Kvernufoss waterfall in Iceland (Photo: Kirt Kempter)
The geologic time scale is one of the most difficult concepts in geology to grasp, yet is fundamental to our understanding of how Earth and life processes have changed the face of our planet over the past 4.6 billion years. In a Smithsonian Associates program geared to the layperson, world traveler, or aspiring geology student in awe of deep time and the geologic record, geologist Kirt Kempter offers a unique approach to making the topic approachable: He condenses the last three geologic eras into a humanly comfortable time frame of a single calendar year.
Within those 365 days, Kempter explores the evolution of life and land from the perspective of North America, beginning 541 million years ago at the start of the Paleozoic Era. He covers the formation of significant mountains, including the Appalachians and the Rockies, and the first appearance of major animal groups, such as amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Not surprisingly, the human story in North America takes place in just the last hour of this geologic year. Kempter’s approach to geologic time provides a simplified strategy to perceive and digest temporal connections among important events in the Earth’s history.
The program on February 12 at 7 pm Eastern is presented on Zoom and is $25 for Smithsonian Associates members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org
Join geologist Kirt Kempter as he explores the geology of Western National Parks over the course of 2023, with an in-depth look at one location every month. Each Smithsonian Associates’ program’s content is enhanced by geologic maps, photos, and Google Earth imagery.
Please Note: Individual sessions are available for purchase. Separate Zoom link information will be emailed closer to the date of each session.
Kempter explores the volcanic underpinnings of this stunning national park in West Texas. Volcanic rocks and landforms reveal the park’s explosive past, and are superimposed on deposits from the Cretaceous Sea, which once connected the Gulf of Mexico with the Arctic Ocean for more than 30 million years. The park includes the largest protected area of Chihuahuan desert ecology in the United States, protecting 1,200 plant species and 450 species of birds. The Rio Grande, which defines the park’s southern border, has carved impressive canyons through these Cretaceous Sea limestone deposits.
Southern New Mexico is home to these two iconic national parks, which oddly share a connection from the deep geologic past. Shimmering white dunes of gypsum sand define White Sands—the largest deposit of its kind on Earth—which hosts 45 endemic species living only in the park. The gypsum’s origin comes from limestone deposits preserved in the surrounding mountains, originally laid down by inland seas during the Late Paleozoic era. Approximately 260 million years ago, the seas’ coastlines were ringed by an extensive reef composed predominantly of sponges, bryozoans, and other microorganisms. Today at Carlsbad Caverns, this once deeply buried reef hosts a vast network of caves, passages, and spectacular speleothems, including the Big Room, the largest chamber in the United States.
A mile-thick package of sedimentary rocks from the Paleozoic Era is spectacularly exposed from the Grand Canyon’s rim to bottom. Each layer has a story to tell, revealing ancient oceans, rivers, and sand dunes that reflect drastically changing environments through geologic time. Kempter explores and interprets ancient Precambrian rocks now exposed in the inner gorge, along with a boundary known as the Great Unconformity, where more than a billion years of rock information is missing. When and how did the Colorado River carve the Grand Canyon? These questions, which are still being debated by geologists, are addressed in the program.
The package of three is $60 for Smithsonian Associates members, $75 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org
Join Smithsonian Associates and geologist Kirt Kempter online on April 11 at 7 pm for a fascinating survey of the African continent that covers a distinctive geologic history that extends from billions of years ago to today.
Enhanced by numerous maps, photos, diagrams, and Google Earth imagery, Kempter explores the big-picture geology of the continent of Africa before looking more closely at the Great Rift Valley, which traverses Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. The rift is actively tearing the continent apart, fostering grand volcanic landforms such as Kilimanjaro and the Ngorongoro caldera. In addition to rift-related volcanic activity, he examines sedimentary deposits within the rift, such as those at Olduvai gorge, that have preserved countless vertebrate fossils, including a variety of important hominin fossil discoveries over the past five decades. $25 for Smithsonian Associates members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org
The landscape of the Pacific Northwest has been significantly shaped by massive floods in the geologic past. Beginning approximately 17 million years ago, the broad lava flows of the Columbia River Flood Basalts poured forth from widespread fissures near the borders of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. An estimated 160,000 km3 of basalt was emplaced, mostly within a million-year span centered around 16 million years ago. Anyone traveling the Columbia River Gorge by ship or car can appreciate the voluminous nature of these flows, representing over 300 individual eruptions. In a March 21 Zoom presentation brought to us by Smithsonian Associates, geologist Kirt Kempter explores the likely connection of these eruptions with the Yellowstone hot spot, along with a trail of supervolcano eruptions across southern Idaho.
Kempter fast-forwards to the end of the last Ice Age cycle, in which flooding again sculpted the landscape of the Pacific Northwest—although this time it was water, not lava, that claimed responsibility. The vast Lake Missoula, formed by an ice dam from the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, catastrophically breached the dam and poured across the central and eastern Washington region, scouring the flood basalt province and carving much of the Columbia River Gorge. The scenario would then repeat, as there is evidence for more than 100 of these breached ice-dam floods.
Almost synchronously, another Ice Age lake in Utah, Lake Bonneville, produced a catastrophic flood that emptied into the Columbia River, creating its own scoured landscape along the Snake River in southern Idaho. Kempter uses maps, diagrams, and Google Earth images to help tell these amazing stories of flooding. $25 for Smithsonian Associates members, $30 for nonmembers. Register at www.smithsonianassociates.org
Rte 2 Geology beginning with the Great Wall of Erving through the Ancient Rift (Jurassic) Valley is the topic of an illustrated lecture at the Millers River Environmental Center, 100 Main Street in Athol, on Wednesday, October 11 beginning at 7 pm. Join Harry Sharbaugh for this free virtual geology tour focusing on the visible signs of the geologic forms at road cuts along Route 2. The talk will be supplemented with specimens collected along the way to give a hands on look at rock types including Gneiss, Schist, Shale and some interesting dinosaur tracks and fossils. Call 978-413-1772 for more information. Image from www.autourdumontblanc.com.
Delve deeper into the New England Flora in this New England Wild Flower Society online and field course. Learn how plants change as they grow; how they interact with other species; and how geology, soils, land-use history, hydrology, and climate shape the plant communities of the region. You’ll adopt a plant to observe throughout the course and enjoy interacting with the course instructor Dr. Elizabeth Farnsworth and your fellow students. This course includes five weeks of online instruction. You can elect to join an optional field trip led by an enthusiastic botanist in your state. Plants 101 is a complement to Plants 102 but is not a prerequisite.
Field Trip Note: One field trip will be held in each New England state and participation is optional. If you would like to attend the trip as part of the course, please register for both the course and the field trip. Field trip dates and specific locations will be announced six weeks before the course launches. $100 for NEWFS members, $125 for nonmembers. Course plus field trip $128 for NEWFS members, $160 for nonmembers. Register at http://newenglandwild.org/learn/our-programs/plants-102-deeper-into-the-green-world-1
Renowned Geologist Richard Little leads a Wild & Scenic Bus to Boat Tour along the Deerfield & Connecticut Rivers on Saturday, July 19, from 9 – 3, sponsored by the Franklin Land Trust. Participants will meet at 9 am for a one-hour informative slide presentation at the Franklin Land Trust office on 5 Mechanic Street in Shelburne Falls. Over the morning hours, participants will be transported back in time via a bus and short hikes to local sites, exploring what was learned in the presentation.
Bring a picnic lunch to enjoy at Barton’s Cove before embarking on a riverboat tour of the Connecticut River. The cruise will be filled with tales of drifting continents, earthquakes, dinosaurs, and Lake Hitchcock that are part of the creation of our idyllic valley.
Professor Emeritus at Greenfield Community College, Little has published three editions of Dinosaurs, Dunes and Drifting Continents: The Geology of the Connecticut Valley and created videos about the rise and fall of glacial Lake Hitchcock and the 500 million year history of the Connecticut Valley. Professor Little continues his passion for educating about geology through field trips to internationally significant geologic areas like the Canadian Rockies and Iceland. RSVP by July 11 to Linda at 413.625.9151 or lalvord@verizon.net. $20 per person.
The trails at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts traverse over 210 acres of forest, swamp and meadows plus thousands of years of history. There are many stories to uncover, such as: the location of a long ago beach, why there was a brick factory here, where to spot wildlife and how we know a certain area was used by Native peoples for over 10,000 years.
Join Fruitlands’ Curator, Mike Volmar, on this series of walks to discover these and other stories through the geology, ecology, wildlife habitat and archaeology of the Fruitlands’ landscape.
Visitors to our trails should wear appropriate footwear and be able to negotiate surfaces typical of woodland trails. Be aware that poison ivy, mosquitoes, deer flies and ticks may be encountered by people walking the trails, so we highly recommend the use of mosquito and tick repellent. Members Free, non-members $6 (included with regular free museum admission. Limited to 10, purchase tickets at Museum Shop. The tour repeats on August 8, September 5, October 3, and November 15. For more information log on to www.fruitlands.org.
