Hydroclimate controls on seasonal sediment delivery on the Kenai Peninsula, South Central Alaska - Kara Gillivan
Hometown: Albany, New York
Class Year: 2008
Major: Geology
Research Advisor: Professor Jaclyn Cockburn
Project Description:
This summer I was given the opportunity of spending 2 and half weeks at Skilak Lake in Alaska. Not only was the setting beautiful, but being able to do research in the field was a great experience. I felt like a true geologist out in the field collecting samples and learned so much more in the field and from the people I was working with than I would have learned back home from a textbook. Getting dirty in the sediments and actually getting the samples ourselves made them seem even more important. This was also my first time camping. I learned that living in a tent and sleeping on the ground is not as bad as I had imagined, it was actually pretty fun. On one of the last nights in Alaska as we were driving back to our campsite we saw a baby black bear with its mom and I realized how much I had become to appreciate nature just in the short 2 and ½ weeks spent there.