Putting the dig in digital

Few things in life are as real—or as fun—as digging in the dirt. Ask a 2-year-old. Or a 20-year-old. When students in Liz Safran’s Spatial Problems in Geology class dig, they’re not just recalling a childhood pastime—they’re also resurrecting, and learning from, pieces of the past.

Safran, associate professor of geological science, combines elemental tools with sophisticated technology to teach her students about “forces that shape the landscape and the way those forces influence creatures that inhabit the land.” In the classroom, students use geographic information systems software to analyze spatial patterns of landslides and volcanic deposits. In places such as the Deschutes River in central Oregon, they use nine-foot-long augers to extract layers of sediment that build up within a landscape deposit—and then they chemically fingerprint the deposit’s volcanic ash to determine its age.

The earth evolves as natural forces collide and converge over millennia. To learn about these forces, Liz Safran’s students combine digging in the earth with digging through the data. “It’s research in action,” says Caitlin Sampson ’06. “We used the computer a lot, but the fun stuff is going out to the field. It makes the work come alive.”