Fall 2001
The Annual Newsletter of the Department of Geography and Geology at Western
Kentucky University.
Click on New GEOGRAM to view the 2002 issue!
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inside...
Welcome to the New Faculty..........................
Announcing the new Geographic Information Systems Laboratory..............................
Adventures in Geography and Geology ..............................
Faculty Activities..............................
Alumni News ..............................
Electronic Alumni News Form (SEND IT IN TODAY!)
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A Letter from the Department Chair
Dear Friends,
2000-2001 proved to be a very busy and productive year for the Department of Geography and Geology and the achievements of our majors and minors continue to impress everyone inside and outside the Department. Thirtyfive majors graduated from the program during the academic year, along with twentyeight students with a minor in the Department. The Department also graduated eight Masters in Geoscience students during the year, a testament to the efforts of the faculty and to the students who completed the program. Four of these students chose the thesis-track and produced outstanding research theses. The Department continues to build on these successes and is extremely proud of the quality of its students and their achievements.
Technology continues to play a significant role in the student learning process for virtually all of the courses offered by the Department. During the past year, the Department rebuilt its computer-based meteorology laboratory, added significant internet instructional components to several courses, and began the process of designing and constructing a state-of-the-art instructional Geographic Information Science (GIS) laboratory in partnership with the Departments of Agriculture and Architectural and Manufacturing Sciences. The Department continues to seek funds to update equipment and software, and to provide students with access to the latest methodologies and technologies.
Excelling in student research and publications is one of the hallmarks of the teaching and learning effectiveness of the Department's programs. During the past year, over thirty students presented papers at regional, national and international professional meetings and authored or
co-authored research articles for publication. Many of the Department’s majors are involved directly in applied research through the Center for Cave and Karst Studies, the Kentucky Climate Center, and the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute. These research centers provide unparalleled research opportunities and experiences for students.
The Department’s Master's in Geoscience program continues to grow, with 18 students in residence during the year and at least 21 students projected to be enrolled for the Fall 2001 semester. A new program directed by Dr Groves involves a partnership with the National Park Service to train geoscientists, and three students are now enrolled in this program. Curriculum redevelopment to provide relevant courses for the geoscience program is underway, and the Department will have a revamped suite of courses ready for the 2002-2003 academic year. This is in addition to the new 12-hour GIS certificate program for undergraduates and professionals, and a complete revamping of the undergraduate curriculum to provide cutting-edge instruction for the 21st century student.
Over the past few years, the structure of the Department has changed dramatically with the retirement of many of the faculty who built the programs to such a high level of excellence over the past two decades. The Department is grateful for the contributions of Drs Wayne Hoffman, Jim Davis, Mark Lowry, Reza Ahsan, Albert Petersen, Conrad Moore, Noland Fields, Debbie Kuehn and, of course, the Kentucky State Climatologist Emeritus, Glen Conner. A new crop of eager and talented young geoscientists has joined the faculty and each one is committed to continuing and building on the level of excellence established over the past two decades. As you read through the faculty activity reports contained in this GEOGRAM, you will see that the Department has assembled a team of geoscientists dedicated to providing excellence in student learning, excellence in research, and excellence in public service. There is no better place in the Commonwealth for students to earn a degree than in the Department of Geography and Geology!
In addition to their outstanding teaching contributions, the faculty continue to be highly productive in their research activities, external grant writing, and service. Faculty members continue to publish high-quality, peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, as well as myriad technical reports, book reviews, and professional editorials. Collectively, the faculty have achieved a very high level of research productivity over the past few years compared to previous periods. In addition, faculty members presented numerous papers at regional, national and international professional meetings--a testament to the professional engagement of the faculty.
External grant funding for Department research activities continues to be a high priority in 2000-2001, with grants awarded by federal agencies (Environmental Protection Agency, National Park Service, National Science Foundation, Fish and Wildlife Service), as well as by many state and regional agencies. Other grants were derived from local sources and private corporations.
The students and faculty of the Department of Geography and Geology again have done exceedingly well during the past year. We have each and every one of you to thank for helping to build the Department into what it has become--the best in the state and one of the very best in the nation.
David J. Keeling (david.keeling@wku.edu)
Department Head
http://www.wku.edu/~keelidj/index.htm
Home Page
FAREWELL TO COLLEAGUES
Jamie Strickland and Ron Schott say Goodbye
The Department bid farewell to two faculty this year with an informal get-together and dinner at 440 Main in June. Dr Ron Schott did a yeoman’s job filling in for Beth McClellan, who was on a leave of absence. Beth resigned this past year to stay with her spouse at the University of Kansas. Ron came to the Department with a Ph.D. from the University of Madison-Wisconsin and specialized in tectonics, geochemistry, and igneous petrology. Ron has accepted a tenure-track position at Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, beginning Fall 2001.
Jamie Strickland also moved on after two years of Departmental service. Jamie came to us from the University of Georgia to be part of our cultural geography program. Her willingness to help and enthusiasm for cultural geography made her very popular among students and faculty. Jamie has moved on to accept a tenure-track position at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. All the faculty and students in the Department wish them both every success in their future careers.
Photos of the farewell gathering are available on the Departmental website.
Welcome New Faculty!
Introducing Dr Rezaul Mahmood
Dr Rezaul Mahmood is our new Assistant Professor in Climatology/Meteorology. He will teach graduate and upper- and lower-level undergraduate classes in climatology and meteorology. Rezaul received his Bsc. (Hons.) and Msc. in Geography from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He received his second master’s degree also in Geography from the State University of New York at Albany and completed his Ph.D. degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1999. Rezaul brings quite a bit of teaching experience with him. In the US, he has successfully taught introductory weather and climate, introductory physical geography, and statistics.
During his graduate work Rezaul specialized in hydroclimatology and agricultural climatology. He focused particularly on monsoonal precipitation, soil moisture availability, and the modeling of their impacts on rainfed rice productivity. In addition, Rezaul investigated scale issues in soil moisture measurement and modeling as it relates to global climate and weather. He also conducted research on climate change, temperature variability, and the modeling of their impacts on crop productivity, irrigation water requirements, and cropping pattern. He has published his research in a number of peer-reviewed journals including Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Ecological Modelling, Physical Geography, and Progress in Physical Geography.
Since 1999 Rezaul has been working as a research associate at the High Plains Regional Climate Center and School of Natural Resource Sciences of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). He continued to pursue and expand his research interests during his stay at UNL. Rezaul primarily looked into soil moisture climatology and its relationship with long-term climate conditions, impacts of land use on near surface hydrologic cycle components including soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and temperature, drought, surface solar radiation modeling and dew-point temperature modeling. Based on these research, he submitted papers in peer-reviewed journals including Climate Research, Agronomy Journal, Journal of Climate, and Professional Geographer. These manuscripts are at various stages of revision and review. Rezaul is currently busy writing several manuscripts and developing a proposal for a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grant. If he gets funded he will be working on developing a soil-moisture climatology for the Northern Great Plains and analyzing its variability at different spatio-temporal scales.
Introducing Dr Katie Algeo
Dr Katie Algeo joins the faculty of WKU as an assistant professor of geography. Her teaching and research interests are in cultural geography, agricultural geography, and geographic information systems. Katie received a B.S. in computer science from Duke University and worked as a software engineer in the Research Triangle Park before taking a position at a Dutch Research Institute, Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica. Under the influence of foreign lands, she realized that her compelling interest was not distributed operating systems, but geography. Back in the States, she pursued graduate studies at Louisiana State University, leading to a Ph.D. with a dissertation on the cultural ecology of Western North Carolina's tobacco sector. Part of this research was published in Southeastern Geographer in 1997. Katie is active in the Contemporary Agriculture and Rural Land Use specialty group of the Association of American Geographers, and has served as a director of that specialty group for three years. Before coming to WKU she taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Katie enjoys exploring local landscapes and history and invites students who share this enthusiasm to come talk with her.
Introducing Dr Richard Deal
Richard was born in Hauppauge, New York, on, what David Keeling is fond of saying, a small island off the continent called Long Island. He received his B.A. in 1993 from Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then attended the London School of Economics and Political Science. He received his M.S. in 1995 and Ph.D. in 2000, both from the University of South Carolina.
Dr Deal's research is in political geography. His dissertation examined efforts to establish elected regional governments in England. While most research in the United Kingdom studies the newly created governments in Scotland and Wales, Richard prefers to study largely ignored England, particularly Yorkshire and the Humber. He will continue this research for the foreseeable future. He is also interested in local government issues, having written a thesis on local government fragmentation in New York. Richard is currently searching for a research topic dealing with local government in Kentucky, or possibly Tennessee.
Dr Deal also has considerable experience with Geographic Information Systems, and he will contribute to the GIS certificate program. He spent ten years working at the Suffolk County Water Authority in Oakdale, New York, in the GIS department. He worked on a number of GIS research projects while at South Carolina. Richard also taught at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York, for one year prior to coming to Western.
In addition to traveling, which is mandatory for geographers to enjoy, Richard also enjoys hiking. He has hiked 600 miles from Edinburgh to London in the UK. Next summer he will walk Hadrian's Wall, a relict boundary, if the trail is open. Closer to home, he has walked several pieces of the Appalachian trail, included the lowest elevation on the trail (next to the pool in Bear Mountain Park, NY). Richard invites all current and former students interested in political geography, Europe, and GIS to drop by and introduce themselves.
Introducing Ms Wendy Wrenn
Wendy Wrenn joined the Department on July 2, 2001. She previously worked in the Computer Science Department and brings with her a wealth of experience in office management, Banner processing, and good old-fashioned common sense! Stop by the main office, Room 304, and say hello to Wendy.
Introducing Ms Elizabeth "Elli" Goeke
Elli Goeke grew up in Winchester, MA, which is just outside of Boston. As an eighth grader, she was required to take geology and so began her career as a hard-rock scientist. At Middlebury College, Elli managed to double major in geology and music, despite countless numbers of “rock music” jokes. She worked on her Masters at Indiana University with Dr. Robert Wintsch and hopes to start her PhD in the fall of 2002.
As a metamorphic petrologist, Elli is interested in applying microstructural analysis, geochronology, and geothermobarometry to solve tectonic questions. Both Elli’s undergraduate and graduate research have been conducted in the Bronson Hill Terrane of New England. The Bronson Hill was the island arc that collided with the Laurentia during the Taconian (Ordovician) orogeny, which was further deformed during the Acadian (Devonian) and Alleghanian (Permian-Pennsylvanian) Orogenies. Though evidence for all three orogenies has been recognized in New England, the overprinting effects of the various orogenies are not well understood. Elli’s Masters research attempted to quantify the overprinting relationships to better understand the extent of both the Acadian and Alleghanian orogenies.
Elli’s teaching experience is as an assistant instructor at Indiana University from 1999-2001. While at IU, she taught labs for mineralogy, Earth materials, meteorites and planets, the geology of sculptor’s materials, and optical mineralogy.
A member of the Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG), Elli took over the position as the AWG liaison to the Girl Scouts of America in 2000. She hopes to use the link between AWG and the Girl Scouts to increase the awareness of geology in school-aged girls.
On a more random note, Elli is fluent in German, completed her Wilderness EMT training in the summer of 2000, and loves snow, hiking, and reading.
Introducing Ms Shana Restall
The Department also welcomes Shana Restall, a Geoscience graduate student, who will teach introductory geography courses during the coming academic year. Shana is also teaching some Freshman Seminar courses for the Community College and hopes also to teach a Women’s Studies course.
ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
A Very Spatial Place: Announcing the new GIS Facility
The Department of Geography and Geology received funding along with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Architectural and Manufacturing Services to develop an interdepartmental computer graphics and geographic information systems facility. Funding for the project approaches $300,000. Dr Stuart Foster is chairing the committee charged with designing and overseeing the project. Dr Fred Siewers and Alan Glennon are also represen-tatives on the interdepartmental committee.
After much discussion the Industrial Education Building was selected as the site for the new facility. The entire third floor will be dedicated to the project. Renovation work began in early August 2001 and includes installing new carpet, adding interior walls and doors, and performing electrical work. When completed, the facility will include two computer classrooms, each equipped with 20 workstations, a conference and seminar room, a research production room, and an office area and study lounge. The full complement of GIS software from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), including ArcView and ArcInfo, will be available for use by students and faculty.
The new facility will provide excellent opportunities for the Department. It will accommodate expanded course offerings in geographic information systems and will support instruction in other techniques courses. In addition, the facility will enable faculty and students to become more active in applied research. Work on the project is expected to be completed during the fall semester in time for Western’s Homecoming. Stop by and visit the facility the next time you are back home at Western.
WKU Homecoming 2001
October 19-20, 2001
Special Invitation to All Geography and Geology Alumni
Please join us on campus this year! The Department has some special Homecoming activities planned just for you! Please let us know by email or phone if you plan to attend. This year’s schedule of events includes:
Friday October 19, 2001
Event: Homecoming Parade & Big Red Street Fest
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Big Red Way/Practice Field
Event: Big Red Roar
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Colonnades
Saturday, October 20, 2001
Special Event: Geography and Geology
Departmental Tour (Including our new GIS lab and Centers for Applied Research)
Time: 1:00 - 2:00pm
Location: Meet on 3rd Floor EST Building
Special Event: Homecoming Tailgating
Time: 2 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: DUC South Lawn - Join us at the Geography and Geology Set-up.
Enjoy good food and old friends. Meet the departmental faculty and current students.
Event: Football vs. McNeese State
Homecoming Event
Time: 4:00 p.m., Location: L.T. Smith Stadium
Contact: WKU Sports Information (270- 745-4298)
M.Sc. in Geoscience Degree
With the 21st century upon us, the technologically driven world around us demands that students have the skills to compete and to succeed in the “new” economy. From globalization to local economic expansion, from the industrial revolution to the technological revolution, and from the blackboard to the electronic whiteboard, changing times mean that our educational mission must change if we are to provide students with the skills they need to be successful citizens and individuals. With that purpose in mind, this past academic year, the Department of Geography and Geology continued a long-term revamping of its graduate program. The faculty are redesigning the course structure to provide a more geoscience-oriented set of courses, as well as redesigning the more traditional geography tracks. A key reason for this action is to meet the demands of the communities we serve and to take advantage of all the talents and skills of a diverse group of faculty in the Department.
We are very excited about the possibilities that these changes are providing for our program and for our students. Although we retain a strong and important emphasis on traditional geography research tracks, such as city and regional planning. international studies, climatology, physical geography, and environmental management, we now are integrating more forcefully all aspects of the geographic and geologic sciences into the curriculum. The Geoscience program now offers more access to geotechnology courses such as GIS, Spatial Planning, Data Modelling, hydrology, etc., and offers interdisciplinary approaches to solving human-environment problems. The MS program now provides students with a much broader and more integrated set of study options than ever before imagined. The mission of the Geoscience program is to prepare students with the technical, critical thinking, communication, and research skills they need to be effective and successful in a variety of careers.
By the end of the Fall 2001 semester, the faculty will have redesigned all of the core courses in the program to provide a more interdisciplinary approach. The Department also pland to develop new and exciting courses that will challenge students and encourage them to expand their horizons.
As we continue to improve and expand the programs we offer to students, the Department would love to hear your opinions and suggestions about new courses, program content, and other critical issues related to the curriculum. Just drop us a line by email (david.keeling @wku.edu) or phone at 270-745-4555 with your ideas and suggestions.
Undergraduate Programs
The Department continues to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of its undergraduate curricula. We are pre-sently restructuring the Cartography and Geographic Information Systems track to incorporate the latest technology, and a new climatology laboratory has been established, using the latest generation computers, to enhance learning and research opportunities in the Meteorology/Climatology track. Both the Geology and physical Geography tracks are being enhanced by identifying undergraduate research opportunities under the umbrella of the College’s Programs of Distinction, the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute, and within the framework of the various faculty research projects underway. These enhancements are designed to provide students with practical experience in applied research.
Outstanding Geography Students, 2000-01
The Department of Geography and Geography takes pride every year in the quality of its graduating seniors. Students graduating from the various program tracks offered by the Department must pass rigorous course requirements, satisfy applied skills components, and maintain their overall GPAs. All this is often in addition to outside employment demands, public service, family duties, and service to the Department and College. Each year, the Department recognizes its outstanding seniors at a public presentation by presenting them with awards and certificates. The recipients of the Department's highest honors also receive recognition at the University Awards Ceremony.
For the 2000-01 academic year, Christopher K. Hall received the Outstanding Geology Senior Award, presented by Dr
Kenneth Kuehn.
For the 2000-01 academic year, Clint Franklin received the Outstanding Geography Senior/Ronald R. Dilamarter Award, presented by James Bingham.
Congratulations to ALL our Outstanding Students!
VISIT THE DEPARTMENT'S WEBWORLD
The Department’s homepage continues to undergo significant updating each year. A new university server now hosts the website, so please update your bookmarks to the new address (www.wku.edu/geoweb/). In addition to accessing the outstanding Kentucky Climate Center site, developed by Glen Conner, our State Climatologist Emeritus, the homepage also provides access to complete program and course information, with links to myriad geography and geology related pages. For instance, pointing your browser to http://www.wku.edu/geoweb/ will take you to the index page. From here, you can link to all the different types of courses offered by the Department. Many of the course descriptions will have the current syllabus attached, along with links to the Professor’s personal homepage, to a variety of study guides, and eventually to interactive activities. From the homepage, you can also explore all of the different program tracks offered by the Department and link back and forth to the individual course descriptions within each track. There is much more construction yet to do, but we hope you find the material available so far informative and useful. Email us with your comments!! We’d love to hear from you.
KENTUCKY’S DIGITAL CLIMATE RECORD, 1825 TO 2001
By Glen Conner
A nine-year project to complete the digitization of all Kentucky’s daily temperature and precipitation data has been completed. Glen Conner delivered the last data to Dr. Karen Andsager of the Midwestern Climate Center in Champaign, Illinois, on 21 June 2001. Now, all available Kentucky temperature and precipitation data from the past 176 years are in a database.
The National Climatic Data Center began digitizing daily observations in 1948. Occasionally since then, research projects produced digitized data for a few selected stations for limited periods in earlier years. These additions were miniscule when compared to the post-1948 database. The nine states in the Midwestern Climate Center’s area (Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota) undertook a cooperative effort to digitize the pre-1948 data published in the Climatological Data publication. Because of the uncertainty of funding, the work was completed backward from 1948 as funds became available.
Glen Conner, the State Climatologist for Kentucky, submitted grant proposals to the Midwestern Climate Center on 28 January, 1992, to extend Kentucky’s digital climate record from 1948 back to 1930. The first grant was for $10,317 to support student workers who did the digitizing. A second grant for $2,780 allowed the purchase of a DEC VT-340 color graphics terminal in anticipation of linkage with the then new Internet system. As a result of these two grants, another $5,192 grant was obtained from Western Kentucky University's Unrestricted Development Program Fund. It allowed purchase of mapping software for the Macintosh microcomputers acquired the previous spring by the Department.
In 1993, a $2,254 grant from the Midwestern Climate Center funded the project to begin extending the digital record from 1929 back to 1896. The work was continued with grants of $1,161 in 1994 and $2,496 in 1995. The data entry of all the published temperature and precipitation data between 1896 and 1948 was completed and delivered to the Midwestern Climate Center on 5 June, 1995.
In 1996, a quality control continuation grant from the Midwestern Climate Center for $2,496 brought the total project grants to $26,696 over the previous four years. All daily weather records for all Kentucky stations from 1948 back through 1896 had been entered into the digital record. Quality control of these data was then completed. After the other Midwestern states completed their quality control, the entire database was made available to the public by the National Climatic Data Center as part of the official climate records of Kentucky. For the period 1896 through 1948, this project had increased the Kentucky’s digitized data for daily precipitation by 591% and the daily temperatures by 793%.
Several undergraduate students within the Department of Geography and Geology made a total of over three million data entries. Glen Conner analyzed the newly digitized database to ascertain the reliability of their work. Suspect temperature data were examined, and corrected where necessary, during the quality control phase. In Kentucky, only 0.003% of all temperature entries contained data entry errors. Only a handful of precipitation data entry errors were discovered. The undergraduates did an outstanding job of data entry. Their entry error rate was less than we found in the official published data!
Using newly digitized Kentucky climate data, an extensive effort was made to construct metadata as a surrogate for station history files. This included determination of the continuity and compatibility of stations that relocate, disestablish, or resurrect. This was one of the most tedious parts of the digitization project and the effort continued into 1997 with another $2,496 grant from the Midwestern Climate Center.
The project was described in an article titled "An Expanded Digital Daily Database for Climatic Resources Application in the Midwestern United States," by Kenneth Kunkel, Glen Conner, et al. It was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society , Volume 79, Number 7, July 1998, pages 1357-1366.
In 1998, limited funding was made available to further extend the digital climate record. A $7,592 grant was received from the Midwestern Climate Center for "Development of New Electronic Data Sets" proposed by Glen Conner. The project was to digitize Kentucky's climate records from 1896 back to beginning of record in 1825. Other Midwestern states proposed to digitize data from only pre-1896 stations that had long records. Kentucky proposed to digitize all pre-1896 data from all available stations. The data for this project were digitized from the original handwritten observer forms. In 1999, the project was continued with a $5,713 grant that was completed during the fall of 2000. That brought the total for the entire project to $40,000 to develop an invaluable database.
The quality control of the data and the metadata continued during the spring of 2001. On 21 June 2001, the last metadata revisions were delivered to Dr. Karen Andsager. All of Kentucky’s daily temperature and precipitation data from July 1825 to the present are now in a digital database. When the other Midwestern states have completed their work, the entire database will become part of the National Climatic Data Center’s official climate records for Kentucky.
Many Departmental undergraduate students participated in the data entry during the entire project. Among them, a few played key roles. Kelly Whitcomb supervised the 1896 to 1948 data entry, Meridith Newton supervised the pre-1896 data entry, and Sarah Armes developed the station history file for the pre-1896 period. Emily Bush and Lindsey Barnett performed the quality control of the pre-1896 data. Each person involved contributed to a database that will be used throughout the years to come.
ADVENTURES IN GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY
Hoffman Environmental Research Institute
China Cave Research Program
by Chris Groves and Alan Glennon
Introduction
In June 2000, Chris and Deana Groves, along with Alan Glennon, traveled to Guilin, China, in a cooperative research project between the WKU's Hoffman Environmental Research Institute, the Cave Research Foundation, and the Karst Dynamics Laboratory (KDL) of the Institute of Karst Geology of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. With roughly 300 karst geologists, hydrologists, and graduate students in residence, the Institute is the primary karst research center in the China. It is an agency of China’s Ministry of Land and Resources, roughly equivalent to a combination of the US Geological Survey and the US Environmental Protection Agency.
The city of Guilin, on southern China's Li River, has a long-standing reputation as a setting of great beauty, and has developed as a significant domestic and international tourist destination. The economic benefits of tourism have led Guilin to become one of the more prosperous regions of southern China. An important aspect of this prosperity is that it has given the region the resources to begin to concentrate on solutions to environmental problems.
Project Background
There has been a significant history of karst research activities between WKU and Chinese cave scientists and, in particular, the Guilin KDL. In 1994, Chris and Deana Groves hosted Professor Zhang Shouyue, a leading karst scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, for a week at Mammoth Cave during a US lecture tour. Professor Zhang interacted with numerous students and scientists at WKU and Mammoth Cave National Park, and gave several lectures on research projects in China.
In 1995, Chris and Deana visited Guilin and the KDL for the first time, where he presented results of carbonate geochemistry research in the Mammoth Cave area. While in Guilin, he also discussed UNESCO’s International Geological Correlation Program (IGCP), Project 379: Karst Processes and the Global Carbon Cycle, with the project’s director and Karst Institute founder Professor Yuan Daoxian. This began a period of collaborative work in support of IGCP Project 379. During the trip, they also visited Beijing to meet with Professor Zhang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In 1998, a successful, international meeting of IGCP Project 379 was organized at WKU and Mammoth Cave National Park. Three members from the KDL attended the Kentucky meeting, along with another 110 scientists and students from a total of 17 countries. Many of those in attendance were among the top karst scientists in their respective countries, and the meeting was very successful in promoting the goals and results of the project.
Western Faculty Visit China in 2000
In June 2000, Chris and Deana, with graduate student Alan Glennon, again visited the KDL in Guilin. They presented a three-day workshop on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools for the study of karst geomorphology, hydrogeology, and resource management, led by Alan. Chris presented the results of Mammoth Cave carbon dioxide research, and the joint Chinese-US team also participated in field research into landscape evolution of the Li River Valley using newly developed methods of cave sediment dating by isotopic analysis being pioneered by Darryl Granger at Purdue University.
The GIS workshop was presented to a group of 15 karst scientists and graduate students at the KDL, some of whom had traveled from as far away as Beijing for the class. The workshop concentrated on developing tools for the three-dimensional import and analysis of cave and karst hydrogeological data. Several Chinese data sets were developed using combinations of GIS tools. The fabulous “peak cluster” tower karst areas of the KDL’s experimental field site east of Guilin were especially striking when rendered with these tools. Cave Research Foundation funding allowed us to donate copies of several of the most useful ArcView extensions to the KDL. An important goal was to go actually through the entire process of developing these data sets, and writing an instruction guide in Chinese. In this way, by the time we left China a small group at the KDL had enough familiarity with the details of the process that they could, in turn, teach others, and thus the skills were effectively transfered.
After the workshop, and a day to travel through the spectacular Li River Gorge between Guilin and Yangshou, we spent three days visiting caves to search for quartz sediments within abandoned stream passages in the higher elevations of the karst towers of the Li River Valley. Recently developed isotopic dating techniques developed by Darryl Granger measure the time when the sediments were washed into the cave, and thus when the stream passage was active. Since the caves in the towers tend to be rather horizontal and developed at the base of the towers, dating of a high, abandoned cave passage tells us when the base of the tower was at that elevation, and thus can give landscape evolution rates. This is an important first step in unraveling the geomorphic history of the area, since estimating the age of the landscape can tell us what range of tectonic and climatic events have left an imprint on the landforms.
Karst Landscape in Guilin, China
Six caves were visited and suitable gravels were located and collected from Tie Xing Cave, at an elevation of 290 m, and Shuinan Cave, at 180 m. Since the current land surface between the towers, formed by the floodplain of the Li River, is at an elevation of 150 m, these sediments should provide preliminary estimates for the time when the surface was 30 m and 140 m higher than today, and thus the lowering rate of the plain over this period. The highest date obtained previously was from 30 m above the Li River plain at Through Cave in the 1980s. The new samples were derived from several quartz sources, and will allow chemical determination of the purity of the quartz to determine which are the most chemically suitable for the method.
Two other projects included a visit to the Institute’s Experimental Field Site near Yaji Village, east of Guilin. The two km2 site was established in 1986 to study various aspects of hydrogeology and karst evolution in the semitropical tower karst of south China, and recently to look at carbon cycling and the impact of karst processes on the global carbon cycle. We also traveled 110 km south to the Shanhe Town area to visit Fengyu Cave, a large tourist cave that has been developed with the assistance of the KDL, and opened to tourists in 1994. This wonderful tour is 5.3 km long, with two kms of walking paths through several large and well-decorated chambers, including one with a floor area of 25,000 m2, and then a 3-km boat trip from which visitors eventually emerge from a large and beautiful spring entrance at the base of several large karst towers. After the cave trip we met with the directors of the cave, and discussed common aspects and problems of tourism development. The economic development, including hotels and other amenities, that has followed from the cave’s opening appears to have made a significant impact on the quality of life in the area, which formerly was relatively impoverished, as in many rural areas of south China.
In August 2000, David Keeling also visited the Karst Institute in Guilin. His week-long stay involved an introduction to the various research projects underway in the region, field trips to a number of research sites and, of course, a trip on the beautiful Li River. He also gave a talk to the Institute’s faculty and researchers on the theories and methodologies related to Heritage Corridor development. The visit ended with an agreement to continue developing methodologies to address socio-economic development in a sustainable manner and to continue the strong level of cooperation established between the Institute and the Department of Geography and Geology.
Chinese Colleagues Visit Western Kentucky
In November 2000, the Hoffman Institute hosted an eight-day visit by three Chinese scholars, including Professor Jiang Zhongcheng from the KDL and two tourism officials from the Guilin Tourism Corporation, Qi Xiang Dong and Yang Jin Hua. We hosted them for a week of field activities and meetings in spots that included Mammoth Cave National Park, Hidden River Cave, Diamond Caverns, the Bowling Green/Warren County Tourism Commission, and the Corvette Museum and Factory. The contingent was able to meet with many of the administrators and managers at Mammoth Cave National Park to discuss differing approaches to tourism and natural resource management.
The group especially enjoyed interacting with Dr. Rick Toomey to learn of his paleontology work in the cave. On one of Rick’s trips into the cave, they were joined by about 110 students from Chris’ introductory geography class and enjoyed hearing stories about Rick’s vampire bat fossil discoveries in the cave. Professor Jiang gave a lecture on environmental problems in south China to a group of about 60 faculty and students at WKU, and a radio interview with Dr. Jiang on WKU’s public radio station, along with a news article in the Bowling Green daily paper, brought community attention to the visit.
LOST RIVER CAVE ….no longer lost!
By Nick Crawford
Entrance to Lost River Cave
Many Thanks
Lost River Cave has become a very respected historic and natural landmark in Bowling Green. Many of you, as students, have assisted Nick over the past 16 years with the Center for Cave and Karst Studies’ (CCKS) efforts to restore and make accessible to the public this beautiful cave and cave valley listed on the National Register of Historic Places. You should make a trip back to Bowling Green to look at the results of your hard work!
Your efforts to save this site are greatly appreciated by the local community and by the WKU administration.
Lost River Now
Lost River now has a rebuilt dance floor, globe lighting, a new entrance wall with a large arch over a turning twelve-foot water wheel, a lighted parking area, and two miles of trails. A 3,500 square foot reception and education building was donated to the CCKS by Bowling Green Mayor, Sandy Jones, and her husband, Martin Jones, who is Vice-President for Economic Development for the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, for the purpose of preserving the cave and expanding karst education. The valley boasts permanent restrooms (almost completed), Interstate I-65 boasts large, brown official Lost River Cave signs, and the cave now features the only cave boat tour in Kentucky, using boats donated by Mammoth Cave National Park. The cave is now open year-round, with tourism reaching a projected 30,000 this year. It is estimated that over the next five years, this historic site will result in over 1.5 million dollars being spent in Bowling Green by tourists. City and County officials are very pleased with the work that you and The Friends of Lost River have contributed toward the economic development of our community.
Many of you, as undergraduate and graduate student assistants, worked on building trails, rebuilding rock walls, lighting the cave for tours, building the small dam inside the cave for the boat tours, and many other activities necessary for restoration.. Because of your hard work, student assistants today are primarily involved in providing educational boat tours of the cave and walking tours of the cave valley. Although Lost River now has two full-time employees paid by the Friends of Lost River, about 14 part-time WKU student assistants working for the CCKS provide the interpretation for the educational tours. These students learn a great deal about karst hydrogeology and the environment while earning money for their education. They are paid through a matching grant between Friends of Lost River and WKU to the Center for Cave and Karst Studies.
Lost River …Looking Ahead
Although the Center has primarily been involved in Lost River’s restoration, it is now establishing the Lost River Education and Research Center. Several “Program of Distinction” Centers (POD Centers) including the Biodiversity Center, the Kentucky Climate Center, the Water Resources Center, and the Center for Cave and Karst Studies are working on this project. The project will include: a classroom building; an Outdoor Laboratory, consisting of several water wells with rock cores from the wells exhibited for study, and buried underground objects, such as drums and tanks, for geophysical research (in combination with the USEPA National Geophysics Training Course that now uses the Lost River site for their course each year – thanks go to Greg Powell, an alumnus of our MS program, and Dr Mike May for bringing this program to WKU); a weather station that will transmit data directly to the Kentucky Climate Center and College Heights Weather Station in our Department; a stream monitoring station in cooperation with the Water Resources Center; and a large wetland to treat urban storm water runoff before it flows into the karst aquifer, in cooperation with the Biodiversity Center, the Kentucky Department of Transportation, the City of Bowling Green, and the U.S. Corps of Engineers.
The Lost River Education and Research Center is not only being used by WKU faculty and students but by many school groups who are coming to Lost River to “Float the Lost River” while learning about karst hydrogeology and environmental issues. In the future we hope to attract high school science classes, even from surrounding states, to make “combined” educational field trips to Lost River and WKU including, we hope, a tour of the old Bowling Green Mall on Nashville Road. Yes, the old Bowling Green Mall! WKU is trying to purchase this 270,000 sq. ft. building for the Applied Research and Technology Program of Distinction (POD). It will be used by several POD centers, such as the Materials Science Center and the Applied Physics Centers, for their laboratories and as a new technology incubator facility for cooperative research programs between POD Centers and private, high-tech corporations. Besides providing an educational field trip for science students, we also hope to recruit some of them to attend WKU. Other educational opportunities that may be included in the tour include the Planetarium and the WKU Farm.
Supporting Lost River
The WKU Administration is now taking a broader role in Lost River’s development by adding it to its annual fund-raising campaign. Contributions to Western earmarked for the Lost River Education and Research Center would, of course, be greatly appreciated! Your donation would help ensure positive educational development at Lost River by Western faculty and students for the benefit of local, regional and national students, scientists, and visitors!
Boating in Lost River Cave