The Keck Geology Consortium is an 18-college collaboration focused on enriching undergraduate education through development of high-quality geoscience research experiences for undergraduate students and faculty participants. The consortium projects are year-long research experiences that extend from summer project design and fieldwork, through collection of laboratory data and analysis during the academic year, to the culminating presentation of research results at the annual spring symposium. The Keck experience incorporates all the characteristics of high-quality undergraduate research. Students are involved in original research, are stakeholders and retain intellectual ownership of their research, experience the excitement of working in group and independent contexts, discuss and publish their findings, and engage in the scientific process from conception to completion. Since 1987, 1094 students (1175 slots, 81 repeats) and over 121 faculty (410 slots, multiple repeats) have participated in 137 projects, providing a substantial data set for studying the impact of undergraduate research and field experiences on geoscience students. Over 56% of the students have been women, and since 1996, 34% of the project faculty have been women. There are now 45 Keck alumni in academic teaching and research positions, a matriculation rate three times the average of U.S. geoscience undergraduates. Twenty-two of these new faculty are women, indicating remarkable success in attracting women to and retaining women in academic geoscience careers.

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Precambrian supracrustal rocks of the Cimarron Canyon area consist of quartzite, amphibolite, and a previously undescribed bimodal metavolcanic assemblage with associated metasedimentary rocks. These layered rocks, and the plutons that intrude them, differ on opposite sides of the Fowler Pass fault, a northwest-trending reverse fault of presumed Laramide age. The rocks east of the fault consist of a weakly metamorphosed sequence of felsic and mafic volcanic rocks and interlayered volcaniclastic sediments (now phyllite, chlorite schist and metasiltstone). The felsic rocks, which locally contain well-preserved eutaxitic fabric and bipyramidal quartz phenocrysts, are anomalously low in K 2 O and may represent highly altered tuffs. The metabasalts are tholeiitic and locally show amygdular texture. The metavolcanic rocks were intruded sequentially by small plutons that range in composition from gabbro to granodiorite and granite but do not appear to be comagmatic with granitic rocks west of the fault, the former being appreciably lower in potash and higher in lime and soda. West of the fault, the weakly to strongly foliated granitic rocks contain elongate roof pendants of quartzite (feldspathic and muscovitic near contacts) and smaller pendants of amphibolite of uncertain origin. Stratigraphic relations between the quartzites and the metavolcanic rocks, which lie on opposite sides of the Fowler Pass fault, are not determinable in this area. Lithologic similarity of these rocks to radiometrically dated supracrustal rocks in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Tusas Mountains to the west suggests a late early Proterozoic age for the deposition and metamorphism of the Precambrian framework of the Cimarron Mountains.