New Hydrogeophysics Course Takes Students into the Field

Eight undergraduate students from three different universities got their feet wet—literally—this summer as part of a new field course exploring how water moves and flows as it interacts with rocks and soil.

As part of the three-week Penn State Hydrogeophysics Field Experience, the students installed and pumped wells to estimate how water moves in the subsurface, injected low concentrations of salt into a stream to make predictions about how contaminants transport, and collected electrical resistivity data to explore subsurface heterogeneity.

Maurice Dukes (Fort Valley State) helps to survey in the location of the wells used for testing.resistivity data.

They also analyzed and interpreted data, which included creating numerical models of water flow and contaminant transport to extrapolate their field findings to other systems.

For some students, the course was their first opportunity to engage in research at a field site.

“I’d never done any field work, so this was a chance for me to get hands-on experience,” said Tamika Shannon, an upcoming senior majoring in earth sciences at Jackson State University in Mississippi. “Getting my hands on the science really helps tie the concepts together.”

Linking classroom concepts—and particularly mathematics concepts—with physical processes of societal importance was a priority for Kamini Singha,
assistant professor in geosciences, who designed and taught the course as part of her NSF Early Career grant.

“I wanted to get undergraduates out in an active research environment to see some of the fundamental problems that exist in hydrogeology and to realize that these are problems that they can do something about,” said Singha.

Another plus: While the course centered on hydrogeophysics, the exercises and investigations have relevance beyond water. Many of the technologies the students used,

Students from the field course assemble an electrical resistivity meter from hardware store parts.

for instance, are similar to instrumentation used in the petroleum industry, Singha said. Numerical modeling also is applicable to any field of physical science.

The opportunity to work with numerical modeling and new instrumentation such as optical televiewers and ground-penetrating radar were what drew Valentina Prado, also from Jackson State, to participate in the field course.

Valentina Prada (Jackson State) and Erica Folio (PSU) uncoil cable to collect electrical resistivity data.

“I really enjoyed working with the instruments and new technologies,” said Prado, who is majoring in civil engineering. “I find it interesting how the concepts become instruments.”

Most of the students’ field work took place at the NSF-supported Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory in Penn State’s Stone Valley Experiment Forest where Penn State researchers from three colleges are collaborating to better understand rates of soil formation, hillslope dynamics, water pathways and flow volume and vegetative responses to rain events. An investigator on the NSF grant,

Singha is collecting data on heterogeneity controls on solute transport within the watershed.

The first field course finished, Singha already is thinking about activities for next year’s course. Critical to motivating and training the next generation of environmental scientists, she said, is providing them with an integrated scientific experience that fosters a depth of understanding and helps them build a
network of colleagues for their future.

For at least one of this year’s participants, the field course may have been life changing.

“I’m rethinking what I’ll study in grad school and leaning toward geology now,” said Shannon of Jackson State.

Besides the two students from Jackson State, participants also included students from Penn State and Fort Valley State in Georgia.

Additional Photos:

Valentina Prado (Jackson State) installs a shallow in-stream well at Leading Ridge.	Ahmad Izzuddin Yusof (Penn State) mesures water levels in a borehold during a pumping test.
Mitchell Johnson (Jackson State) stands in front of his poster describing in-stream dead zones.
Erica Folio (Penn State) installs a shallow in-stream well with Nate Wysocki (Penn State) and Mitchell Johnson (Jackson State)	Kamani Singha (Penn State) and Tamika Shannon (Jackson State) set up an electrical resistivity line in the CZO.