FIELD TRIPS
For additional information, please contact the Field Trip co-chairs, Susan
Stover and Rex Buchanan.
All field trips depart from the Manhattan Hilton Garden Inn unless otherwise noted.
- FT1. Looking Beneath the Plains: Geology of the Ogallala Formation and the Central High Plains of
Kansas.
Jon Smith, Kansas Geological Survey; Tony Layzell, Kansas Geological Survey.
Sat.–Sun, 23–24 March, 7 a.m.-5 p.m. (overnight in Scott City, Kansas). (Canceled)
- FT3. Late-Quaternary Landscape Evolution and Geoarchaeology in the Flint Hills of Northeastern Kansas:
A Tale of Two Sites.
Rolfe Mandel, Kansas Geological Survey.
Sunday, 24 March, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
Cost: US$57 (includes lunch and snack)
- Visit two archaeological sites near Manhattan, Kansas: the Coffey site in the Big Blue River valley and the
Claussen site on Mill Creek. Learn about Holocene and late Pleistocene alluvial and soil stratigraphy,
landscape evolution in the stream valleys, and the context of deeply buried archaeological components dating
back at least 12,000 years. Multi-proxy data provide a detailed history of environmental change at both sites.
That history is crucial to understanding human adaptations in the Flint Hills during the Pleistocene-Holocene
transition and the warm, dry Altithermal climatic episode.
- FT5. The Science and the Industry of the Permian Hutchinson Salt.
Marcia Schulmeister, Emporia State University; Kathleen Counter Bennison, West Virginia University; Anna Sofia
Andeskie, West Virgina University.
Sunday, 24 March, 6:30 a.m.-9 p.m.
Cost: US$87 (includes lunch, snack, and entrance fee to underground salt caverns)
- The 120-meter-thick Permian Hutchison Salt Member of the Wellington Formation of central Kansas supports
multiple industries. Composed of bedded halite, gypsum/anhydrite, and minor siliciclastic mudstone, it was
deposited by shallow saline waters in a warm, dry climate. Underground salt mines access the purest horizon,
producing salt that is distributed through the U.S. and Canada. The vast space left by mining supports a
prosperous commercial storage enterprise and a popular underground tourist attraction. Additional vertical
solution caverns host the nation’s primary midcontinent liquid petroleum gas (LPG) storage industry. This field
trip will explore the origin and use of Hutchinson Salt in core samples and subsurface outcrops while meeting
in an underground salt cavern, and topside, at a solution storage cavern.
- FT6. Trails West, Kansas City Vicinity, Missouri and Kansas.
James S. Aber, Emporia State University; Susan W. Aber, Emporia State University.
Sunday, 24 March, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. (Canceled)
- FT7. Windows into the Cretaceous Mantle of the North American Mid-Continent—Kimberlites of Riley
County.
Pamela Kempton, Kansas State University; Matt Brueseke, Kansas State University; Kayleigh Rogers, Kansas State
University.
Sunday, 24 March, 12:30-5 p.m.
Cost: US$40
- Cretaceous-age kimberlites in Riley County, Kansas, are unusual in that they erupted through Proterozoic rather
than Archean crust. Their occurrence, along with other localities in Wyoming and North Canada, has been linked
to a lithosphere-scale structure called the “kimberlite corridor.” The Riley County kimberlites represent the
southernmost kimberlite locality along the corridor. Participants on this field trip will have the opportunity
to visit three different localities and will be provided with the latest information on their structure,
composition, and petrogenesis.
- FT9. Kansas River Alluvial Aquifer: Water Use and Real-Time Water-Level Monitoring.
Don Whittemore, Kansas Geological Survey.
Wednesday, 27 March, 1-5:30 p.m.
Cost: US$33
- The alluvial aquifer in the Kansas River valley is an important aquifer for municipal, industrial, and
agricultural uses. This field trip will provide participants with an overview of how the aquifer is being used
and a new water-level monitoring program to enhance understanding of the impact of that use.
- FT11. Geology of the Flint Hills, Kansas: Sea-Level and Climate Changes in the Permian.
Karin Goldberg, Kansas State University; Keith Miller, Kansas State University (retired).
Thursday, 28 March, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Cost: US$56 (includes lunch and snack)
- This field trip focuses on the lower Permian (Wolfcampian) succession exposed in the Manhattan area, Riley
County, Kansas. Nearly continuous exposures display numerous cycles of sea-level change (“cyclothems”). Stacked
paleosol horizons that are part of the Wolfcampian cyclothems also record climate changes, from arid/semi-arid
to sub-humid/seasonal climates.