Conococha Plain

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DAY 1-
We loaded a bus and several trucks with students and gear and headed for the Juellash Valley. We set camp up which was composed of a dinning tent, chefs tent, two bathroom tents, and ten sleeping tents. As soon as we set up camp we went down the Juellash Creek to study the creek bank stratigraphy. We looked at two different cut banks where glacial till and fluvial deposits had been deposited. In the first outcrop studied a grey diamicton with a mud-fine sand matrix was observed. This was formed during a glacial advance took place down the M2 moraine. The top unit of the outcrop contained flood plain deposits and some larger clasts resulting from a possible outwash event caused be erosion of a end moraine. The next outcrop studied had remnants of a lake. There were interbedded layers with fine sediment and more coarse gravels to small cobbles. The lake likely formed when the creek was dammed by mass wasting or an earthquake. The upper part unit of the outcrop contains flood plain deposits much like the first outcrop studied. After our creek bed studies, we returned to camp for a wonderful chicken dinner and flawn desert prepared by our chef Freddy, what a guy!!!
-Joe






DAY 2--
On Day 2 in the field, we continued profiling stratographic columns. We did seven this day, and it became much easier as we moved down stream. In our field notebooks, we would draw the columns and write out observations on what we saw. We began to distinguish between two types of till, which we labeled as grey and olive till. The olive till was clearly younger, seeing as how it sat on top of the grey till. It was particularly interesting to contrast the two tills. The grey till lacked any granite, whereas the olive till had an abundance of the rock. This indicates that the glacial action associated with the grey till predates the unroofing of the basolith, but the olive till must have occurred after. Even so, both tills are very, very old, predating the moraines we would study later in the week. Also, in the first outcrop we studied, there were very obvious signs of a lake or pond. Just by analyzing the different types of sediment, we were able to determine the existence of lakes and glaciers.

Although this was just the beginning of our Conococha field work, we had already learned a lot. Nathan was sick this day, and thus began the illnesses that almost all of us would eventually get. I had a small stomach bug later in the week. Nevertheless, studying the outcrops furthered my understanding of glacial geology and facilitated my comprehension of later work.
-ERIN








DAY 3
Today we began measuring weathering posts on the Right lateral of moraine M3 and on the left lateral of moraine M1. We learned that weathering posts are only seen on granodiorite boulders. The posts are formed through chemical and physical weathering and exist possibly due to slight mineralogical differences between the weathering posts themselves and the rest of the boulder. In measuring these we hope to be able to correlate the ages of the moraines based on the size of the posts present on the granodiorite boulders at each moraine. The M3 moraine (circa 15-16Ka) provided us with lots of posts to measure, yet the M1 moraine (circa 60Ka) had no granite likely because it is from the pre-unroofing of the batholith.
The game of dice has become infectious in our camp. Damon seems to be unstoppable with his more rolls, and I´m realizing that my "go-for-broke" strategy does not pay off. I´m sure more epic games lay ahead and I´ll be waiting for Damon´s luck to run out and mine to start kicking in...
-Nick
















DAY 4
On the fourth day of our field stay Conococha we hiked up the left side of the M3 moraine which is about 15,000 years old.  As we hiked up its spine we measured weathering post heights on granite boulders.  These posts were really strange, some reached almost 40cm.  As we walked even higher up we got a great view into the cirque which has little ice now but was the source of the glaciers that created most of the moraines in the valley near where we camped.  There we could also see a very recent moraine, created during the little ice age around the year 1800.  Another very cool thing that was visible from this elevation (about 4,900 meters) was the fault scarp runing right along the edge of the mountain. 
-Eric







Day 5--
During our 5th day in Conococha we divided into two groups. My group, which was Kait, Erin, Joe, Nathan, and Proffesor Rodbell, did the first coring of Lake Yanacocha. We drove about an hour away from camp, and when we arrived at the lake, having to take full advantage of our trucks 4-wheel drive, we began unloading equipment, pumping up the boats, and constructing the PVC piping that we would be using. We attached the two boats together with wooden beams and tied a smaller raft to the back of the boats that tailed behind us as we paddled out to the center of the lake. Kait used a sonar depth meter to determine the depth of the lake, and we were surprised to find the the deepest part was only about 5.8 meters. When deciding on a good sampling spot, we anchored ourselves with bags of rocks. We used a hydrolab to record the water chemistry of the lake, took a 50 cm surface core in plastic tubing, and then returned to shore. Kait, Erin, and I stayed on shore and sampled the surface core in 0.5 cm increments... a task which took us the remainder of the day, through sunny skies and snow flurries. The men went back out on the boats and took six more 1 meter cores from the center of the lake, which they enclosed in plastic piping. Sarah Conner and I are planning to duke it out over claim for these cores when we begin our thesis work back at Union. This was our longest work day yet and we did not make it home before dark.I would not say that we actually got lost on the way back to camp, but we were all a little relieved when Joe spotted the tents up on the moraine. We called to Freddie on the walkie-talkie to help us home, and within a second Jackie had emerged from the dinner tent flashing her head lamp as a beakon on the horizon. Although we missed afternoon snack, it was a great day in the field and a very new experience for us.
-Sarah Tonry

We split into two groups. My group hiked to the fault scarp and back, while the other group went coring. On the way to the scarp, we noticed small hills between the laterals of some of the moraines (M4, I think), and identified them as being recessional moraines. We continued the hike up a moraine of unknown age, which we called moraine M10. We thought that M10 must have been younger than the adjacent M4 and M5 moraines, but many of the weathering posts were much larger than expected. We eventually got to the fault scarp, and if I remember correctly (which I probably don´t), we measured 16 meters of vertical offset. At the top of the scarp we took the only cosmogenic sample of the trip.

It´s also worth noting that I´m incredible at dice.
-Damon







Day 6--
On our 6th day in the field, Jeff McKenzie joined us to teach us of the hydrology of the Corillera Blanca. We hiked along the Jeullesh stream, attempting to understand the pro-glacial hydrology of the area. This is important as the Rio Santa provides water for day to day actuivities, irrigation systems and hydroelectric purposes. Locals say that "water is life," therefore this is beyond a scientific issue. There seems to be a love/hate relationship with the mining industry, as the locals need the jobs but this is countered by the contamination of drinking water. Not only is this a scientific problem, but also a sociological issue. We also talked about the origin of the water in the stream, questioning how much of each water source makes up the river. Using a flow meter, we were able to measure the volume of water passing at different points on the stream, indicating spots of groundwater infiltration. By using the flow meter and calculating different aspects of the water chemistry (temp, pH, dissolved oxygen percent, turbidity, etc.) our data can be used to determine stream discharge along with the sources of water in the stream.

More importantly we witnessed the miracle of life. At our last stop along the stream, we noticed a cow with what Joe declared to have a "prolapsed uterus"...Little did we know that this cow was actually begining to give birth. We sat in amazement for the next hour, cheering, hoping and pushing for this cow, all the while Jacquie documented it with an obcene (some might say unnatural) amount of pictures. It became humorous as we began to narrate the cows every move, becoming clear that we had all watched way too many Dicovery health birthing shows. Finally, the calf ungracefully "plopped" to the ground, which was followed by an immense amount of licking by its mother. We waited to see it stand, and then headed back off to camp, where we were excited to share the story with the rest of the group...Little did we know that on their way back from the lake, the other group witnessed a sheep being mauled by oncoming traffic...
-kait



On day 6 we stayed split up in our two groups, so I went with all of the guys (except Joe) to core Lake Yanacocha a second time. Nick and I went out onto the lake with Nathan and Professor Rodbell in two inflatable boats with all the equipment we needed. In order to continue the core that the other group had gotten, we cased the hole using PVC pipe. The casing ensured that we could use the same hole for each drive and also allowed us to core deeper. Since the other group had gotten 6 meters the day before, we threw out the first 6 meters of core that we got (and I got to hear some quality potty jokes in the process). After that we started wrapping up each meter or so of core that we got from each drive in saran wrap and more PVC tubes. As we got deeper into the core, there was a clear transition from the peaty sediments that are being deposited today to drive after drive of pure glacial silt. As the drives got deeper, it got harder and harder to pull them back out, and for the last two drives Nick, Nathan and Professor Rodbell were all standing precariously in the two boats yanking out the core while I tried to get cable out of their way and worried about how I was going to save them when they all fell in. After our fifth drive, it was obvious that it was getting too difficult to get the cores out so we stopped coring, pulled out the casing, and went back to shore. After lunch Damon, Tim, and Eric went back out with Nathan and Professor Rodbell to get an eight foot surface sediment core in clear tubing to complement the surface sediment sampling the other group had done. Then we packed the truck and set off back to camp. We were on the highway, almost to our turnoff, when a bunch of sheep decided to cross the road. Professor Rodbell slowed the truck down, but a white car headed the other direction didn't seem to think that was necessary and absolutely wrecked one of the sheep. Even after impact the car zoomed on past, leaving us to watch the sheep do somersaults across the road until it stopped and just lay there blinking at us... I was totally traumatized. We got back to camp and I opened my mouth to tell the girls about it but Kaitlin beat me with WE SAW A COW BEING BORN TODAYYYY!!!
-Sarah Conner

Happy belated 4th of July all you blog watchers! Yesterday we got back from our first outing to the Juellash Valley and to my surprise my luggage finally showed up! Unfortunately, a stomach bug has been going around and not all of us fell so great, so that put a damper on our 4th celebrations. Despite that our 4th was pretty interesting. We pestered Professor Rodbell to find us fireworks, but the store is on the other side of town and none of us had the ambition to follow through with it. We had dinner at Pizza Bruno, where they played Beatles music in the Peruvian style. The girls bathroom litterally has a throne, and the guys bathroom is themed like a gold mine, with pyrite sticking out of the walls and wooden supports to make you feel like you in the mineshaft. All in all it was a good day, but i wish i had some hot dogs and fireworks
-Tim

The week at Conococha was great – what a beautiful and geologically spectacular site. Every time we go there, we put more of the geologic puzzle together. This time the weathering post project helped us identify some “missing” moraines, which was very satisfying. We were lucky with the weather and saw a couple of incredible sunsets. Watching the birth of the calf was a memorable experience – never expected hydro day to include water breaking, so to speak. My trip to the Breque site took an unexpected turn with Erin’s sudden illness, so I’ve spent some leisure time in Huaraz instead. I’ll get to Chavin one day, I’m sure. Meanwhile, hooray for the California Café.
- Prof. Smith




What a great group of students we have! I especially enjoy showing them the magic of this place-- a magic that first captivated me 23 years ago, and continues to do so with every visit!
- Professor Rodbell