Fourteen CU Petrology students (GEOL 3300) went on a spring break field trip to the Anza Borrego Desert of southern California, which lies just north of the Mexican border. Dr. Steve Austin spent three days with us showing us some spectacular and little known sites in the desert. The students studied sand dunes, igneous dikes, metamorphic rocks, a variety of amazing sedimentary rocks, folds and faults. During our time we were able to “camp” at the facilities of the Christian Center church in Borrego Springs where we were inducted into the “mudstone revolution” by Dr. Austin. We were also able to study the lake deposits of the Ice Age era Lake Cahuilla (a much larger and fresh water version of the Salton Sea) and some tufa deposits that had accumulated on the granite of its shoreline. On our last day, we toured the facilities of the Loma Linda’s Earth and Biological Sciences department.
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