Google Earth Pro imagery was used by graduate students for a course project to identify, describe, and interpret lineament patterns on two oil-producing anticlines in Wyoming, one in the northwest Wind River Basin and the other in the southern Bighorn Basin (Maverick Springs and Thermopolis anticlines, respectively). These anticlines lie on opposite sides of the east-west–trending Owl Creek arch, which is a sinistral, transpressive array of en echelon, basement-involved thrust blocks. Both anticlines are well-exposed and display extensive near-surface fracturing and faulting, making them ideal candidates for a study of fold-related lineament patterns. Google Earth Pro was used to map and measure the orientation of lineaments and faults in a digital format. The lineaments identified include a set parallel to dip (A–C), a set parallel to strike (B–C), and two sets oblique to strike. Lineament orientation data were analyzed using length-weighted rose diagrams, whereas fold geometry and plunge were evaluated using equal-area (lower hemisphere) stereonets. Although the study was limited in scope to a computer-based geometric analysis and did not include outcrop-based kinematic data, the lineament/fracture data derived from Google Earth mapping are nevertheless compatible with published studies that demonstrate regional NE-SW shortening along the western Owl Creek transpressive zone during the Laramide orogeny. Google Earth Pro proved to be a highly effective tool for gathering lineament orientation and spatial distribution data across these well-exposed anticlines.

The incorporation of increasingly multidisciplinary aspects of geoscience curricula into a traditional geology field camp requires compromises. Among these, decisions about projects to reduce or eliminate and course prerequisites are two of the most challenging. Over the past 10 yr, the University of Missouri’s geology field camp has completed a two-stage plan to expand our projects in hydrology and geophysics while maintaining traditional aspects of our course and our standard prerequisites. The first stage added projects in surface and groundwater hydrology, seismic refraction, and surficial mapping during the fifth week of our six-week course, replacing an existing mapping project. The second stage added advanced project options that students can select to complete during the last week of the course. Advanced projects in hydrology and geophysics were added as alternatives to the existing hard-rock structural analysis project that had been the sixth-week project for all students. This staged addition has allowed us to: (1) integrate these projects into a curriculum that maintains a strong emphasis on historical bedrock geology, geologic mapping, and three-dimensional visualization; and (2) accommodate differences in the coursework that students have completed prior to beginning the field camp. Rather than requiring students to have prerequisite courses in hydrogeology or geophysics in order to select these advanced project options, we include sufficient instruction during the fifth and sixth weeks that builds upon previous projects to provide the required background. To set up the context for our expanded hydrology and geophysics projects, this paper briefly describes our traditional field projects and our instructional philosophies. We describe the expanded projects that have been implemented during the fifth and sixth weeks of our course, project objectives, and the ways that these projects reinforce lessons learned during traditional field projects. We present the results of student surveys that have been used to evaluate the success of these efforts, and we discuss the personnel and equipment expenses required.

Continental crust subjected to horizontal contraction in convergent settings deforms in a variety of styles. In many instances, it is useful to consider the deforming crustal sections in terms of crystalline basement rocks underlying incipiently undeformed sedimentary strata. Three deformation styles are commonly found in such settings. The structural style referred to as thin-skinned tectonics encompasses a stack of thrust sheets composed of non- or weakly metamorphic sedimentary rocks. The associated thrust faults usually level off in a mechanically weak décollement horizon along which a substantial amount of displacement occurs in the course of the formation of the fold-and-thrust belt. Thrust faults may also cut down into the crystalline basement and level off a few kilometers beneath the basement-cover interface. The term basement-involved thin-skinned tectonics is proposed to describe this style of continental contraction. This style, too, is characterized by stacks of thrust sheets. In many cases however, such nappe stacks are overprinted by pervasive folding of a crust thermally weakened by magmatic activity or regional burial metamorphism. Thick-skinned tectonics seems less common. This style implies that thrust faults cut across the entire upper crust (and possibly the lower crust). The associated continental contraction is smaller, and the ensuing deformation is characterized by warping of the basement-cover interface. Displacements accumulated in a major basal detachment horizon may connect into mantle by means of a subduction zone. However, under elevated temperatures, pervasive deformation of the hanging wall and footwall rocks may compensate large displacements over relatively short distances. Thin-skinned fold-and-thrust belts are common on both sides of collisional orogens. Noncollisional orogens tend to be more asymmetric.