Thirteen students from the Department of Geosciences traveled with Tod Frolking and Kate Tierney to see the geologic sites around the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the New Madrid Seismic Zone and into the Paleoproterozic terrane in the St. Francois Mountains.

Our group met with Major John Korneliussen from the Army Corps of Engineers to talk about flood control on the Mississippi River and were given a tour of the flood control district that was used to control record flooding in April and May 2011. We were given a tour of the PB-Zn mine along the Viburnum trend at the Brushy Creek Mine and got to see the processing facilities. We spent a day seeing the 1.5 Ga granites, rhyolites and ignimbrites at Elephant Rocks State Park and Johnson¡¯s Shut-ins State Park.

We also got to take a ferry across the Mississippi River! In spite of some rainy weather, we saw great rocks and met some enthusiastic and interesting people.