Field Trip - Friday, October 2nd, 2009

“Landscapes of the Ridge & Valley, Blue Ridge, and Piedmont.”

This excursion will introduce participants to the regional landscapes and geomorphic history of Southwestern Virginia’s New River Valley, neighboring Blue Ridge Uplands, Blue Ridge Escarpment, and Western Piedmont. The first portion of the route will take participants through Ridge and Valley landscapes, onto the Blue Ridge uplands, and then to the Blue Ridge Escarpment overlooking Virginia’s western Piedmont. The second portion of the trip will include discussions of the geologic history, geomorphology, and land use history of the New River Valley.

The trip is lead by three Virginia Tech faculty:

-W. Lee Daniels, Department of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences, has worked for over 25 years on the analysis of soil geomorphic relationships, with particular focus on the interactions among surficial geology, hydrology, soil patterns, and long-term landscape evolution processes. He also has extensive experience in mined land reclamation and wetlands restoration.

-Jim Spotila, Department of Geosciences, has conducted research to investigate Neotectonics (structural geology of recently-active, continental structures, particularly strike-slip faults and orogenic belts), geomorphology (landform evolution, erosion of active and extinct mountains, impact of tectonics on surficial processes), thermochronometry (radiogenic helium dating), and seismic hazards (paleoseismology, geology of intraplate earthquakes). Jim has extensive experience studying the origins of the Blue Ridge Escarpment of the southern Appalachians.

-Jim Campbell, Department of Geography, has studied soil and landscape variability, land use / land cover change, and the history of coastal reclamation.