A sunny October morning, a dozen BGS members and CSUN guests embarked to scale the highest peak in the towering San Gabriel Mountains, and learn about its incredible geologic past. When our heroes were carefully studying the schist off the side of the Devil’s backbone trail, Professor Ray Ingersoll (UCLA) announced the group was straddling the boundary between two plates: the North American and extinct Farallon. The opportunity to observe the boundary of a subducting plate was deservedly appreciated by all participants, who took a long break to identify the precise location the rock types changed. Then, they continued forth to the peak and got a fantastic vantage point of the entire valley, where they compared their observations to provided geologic maps of the area.
At UCLA's annual Exploring Your Universe, students come from schools all over Los Angeles and tour exhibits put together by UCLA faculty, staff, and students. At this year’s EYU, the Bruin Geologic Survey put together two unique exhibits: Exploring Your Earth, and Dinosaurs and Fossils. For Exploring Your Earth, Vice President Drew Levy, past President Kevin Coffey, and a few BGS volunteers set up a tour through the world of rocks.
Meanwhile, the Dinosaurs and Fossils exhibit made by BGS president Amanda Garcia and helpful volunteers took young geologists on a tour back in geologic time to witness the evolution of life on Earth. The BGS exhibits, along with the entirety of EYU 2014 were a huge success.
On Tuesday November 11, 2014, the Bruin Geological Survey set out on their second trip of the 2014-15 school year. Led by President Amanda Garcia, BGS travelled up to Topanga State Park, less than ten miles from UCLA as the crow flies. The state park is nestled atop the Santa Monica Mountain with great 360º views of the surrounding mountains, ocean, and city. Eagle rock was the highlight of the hike. Looming out of the mountainside, this sandstone (intermixed with conglomerate) eagle takes command over the park. After an unsuccessful attempt to see Temescal Peak before dark, they climbed to the top of a hill to get a beautiful panorama of Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley and named this newfound viewpoint BGS Peak, which is much better than Temescal Peak any day.
The BGS set off bright and early on a Saturday morning to head to a local favorite in southern California: Joshua Tree National Park. For the first time, we had a few avid rock climbers in our group who were excited to make the most of the world class climbing destination that is Joshua Tree. The BGS learned the geologic story of Joshua Tree National Park: a monzogranitic intrusion comprising the southern extent of the Sierra Nevada batholith, subsequently tilted and extended. On the second day, members explored Lost Horse Mountain where they admired its columnar basalts and filmed a few scenes for friend-of-BGS Lauri Holbrook's holiday film. It was an exciting end to a fun-filled camping trip.