Specific destinations and topics include:
Fossil collecting at Beverly Beach (OR)
Geology of Crater Lake (OR)
Faulting and mountain building in the Great
Basin: Steens Mountain (OR)
Glacial geology and the Ice Ages: Steens
Mountain (OR)
Hell’s Canyon: The Deepest Canyon in North
America (deeper than the Grand Canyon!)
(OR)
The Science of Hydrology: a day of river rafting on the Middle Fork of the Salmon
River (ID)
Collecting 15 million year old fossil leaves,
Clarkia (ID)
Garnet collecting, Clarkia (ID)
The Ancient Rocks (1.5 billion years old) of the Belt Formations (ID)
The Missoula Glacial Floods and the
Eastern Washington Channeled Scablands
(WA)
Cost:
TCC Tuition (resident)
Special Course Expenses
$830.10
$750.00
(includes campground costs, food, transportation, one day of river rafting on Salmon River—total expenses subject to change prior to course)
Dates:
Reservations begin (space is limited) January 2008
Registration begins May 20, 2008
Non-refundable deposit of $200 due May 20, 2008
(this deposit will be applied towards special course expenses)
Tuition and remaining expenses due June 11, 2008
Last day for 100% refund of tuition and remaining course expenses June 20, 2008
($550)
Course Duration:
Classroom
Fieldtrip
Post-trip meeting
June 23—July 22, 2008
June 23—July 3, 2008
July 6—July 20, 2008
July 22, 2008
Use the outdoors as your classroom with
Tacoma Community
College’s
Summer quarter 2008
Contact Ralph Hitz
at 566-5299 or rhitz@tacomacc.edu for reservations or further information

Geology in the Field is worth 12 credits. Students receive five credits of Geology 208 and seven credits of Geology 125. A maximum of ten of the science credits may be applied to the
Natural Science Distribution requirement for the AAS degree.
The remaining science credits may be applied to the distribution elective requirement. If distribution requirements have already been met by a student then the credits for this class can be used as electives.
Geology in the Field is an introductory geology course (no prerequisites necessary) that combines the fundamentals of physical geology with the geologic history of the Pacific Northwest. The course consists of two weeks of intensive classroom work followed by two weeks of camping, studying, river rafting, and fossil collecting throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Learn about amazing geologic topics such as the explosive volcanism of
Crater Lake, the origin of Hell’s
Canyon, the deepest canyon in North
America, and the enormous ice age floods that swept across eastern
Washington. Collect fossil molluscs from Beverly Beach, Oregon, and fossil leaves and insects from western Idaho. Visit the remote and beautiful Steen’s Mountain in eastern Oregon where you won’t see many people but you will see an alpine ecosystem in the middle of a desert, a fault one mile high and a dry lake bed– a vestige from the last ice age. Learn about the science of hydrology as you raft down the Salmon River in
Idaho. The classroom segment of the course covers basic geologic concepts such as rock types, earth structure and plate tectonics, and geologic time. The field segment touches on a wide variety of topics related directly to trip localities and the geologic history of the
Pacific Northwest. The trip completes a circuit from
Washington to coastal
Oregon, to Crater Lake, through southeastern Oregon, to western Idaho, and then back to western Washington via the Columbia Plateau.