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Seven Strategies for Success at Field Camp

Kurtis Burmeister

Prepare Your Mind & Body
Yes, you should spend some time reviewing rock-forming min-
erals, the components of good rock descriptions, and types of
faults, but do make sure you are eating healthy, staying hydrated,
and getting enough sleep. You will likely soon find yourself hik-
ing five or six days a week at elevation. Try to add some more
aerobic activity to your daily life between now and then. You will
be happy that you did.

Avoid Careless Injuries
As most of you cross the threshold from indestructible teenager
into vulnerable adult, be intentional in caring for your body. Protect
feet and ankles with the best hiking boots you can afford and make
sure they are broken in before you arrive at camp. Protect your Paige Voss, 2019 J. David Lowell Field Camp Scholarship Awardee.
knees and back by using three points of contact when moving
through the field. Shield your eyes when breaking rocks. Avoiding
careless injuries is an easy way to prevent premature departures Baby Steps
from camp and to ensure your body lasts your entire career. Let your map evolve contact by contact and measurement by
measurement. Fast mapping generally yields poor results. Keep
Always Know Where North Is moving at a reasonable pace and avoid sitting down and taking
Give your brain a break by orienting your map to north before off your backpack. Use hip pouches or field vests to keep pencils,
you look at it. A properly oriented map minimizes the work your hammers, and water bottles easily accessible. If you ever find
brain must do when translating between your map and the real yourself feeling lost or overwhelmed, take a deep breath and
world. Use your compass to identify a landmark on a distant hori- remember that all you need to do is go back to the last place things
zon that corresponds to a cardinal direction and use it to keep your made sense and try again.
map oriented.
Keep Your Cool
Data Placement is Key There is often only one degree of separation among folks in geol-
Avoid wandering aimlessly in units. Follow geologic contacts ogy. Everyone knows everyone else. Field camp is where you truly
and mark them on your map as you go. Stay honest with your work begin to build the professional network you will rely upon for the
and avoid the temptation to map what you cannot see. Buy several rest of your career. Make sure the reputation you begin building is a
Westcott W-8 protractors (you will lose them) and learn how to good one. Smile and be kind. Handle stress with grace, be a team
use them to plot strike & dips in a single step. Always carefully player, and treat everyone with respect, empathy, and compassion.
plot your measurements before leaving an outcrop.

Don’t Let Your Interpretations Drive Your Mapping Kurtis Burmeister, a professor of geology at the University of
Few applications of the scientific method are as pure as geologic the Pacific, has been on the faculty of the Wasatch-Uinta Field
mapping. Remembering this simple truth will help you more than Camp since 2003 and has served as the program’s co-director
you can imagine. Always have more than one working hypothesis. since 2007. Burmeister is the executive secretary of the National
Keeping observations separate from interpretations will help ensure Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT)–U.S. Geological
that the relationships you observe guide your mapping, and not the Survey Cooperative Field Training Program and is an advocate
other way around. for field safety.

56 GSA Today | May 2020