With a $450,000 grant from the Washington Department of Ecology, an Eastern Washington University professor and his team of student researchers are leading a project to measure the spread of potentially harmful polyfluoroalkyl substances — the “forever chemicals” more commonly known as PFAS — to sources of drinking water on the West Plains.

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EWU geosciences faculty and students will continue its 30-year-long relationship with the U.S. Geological Survey thanks to the recent renewal of a 5-year contract with the federal agency.

The contract allows USGS scientists to share geosciences laboratory space in the university’s Science Building, providing the agency with facilities and tools not available in their downtown Spokane facility. In return, Eastern students gain invaluable experience collaborating on research publications and participating in fieldwork with USGS scientists.

Each year Eastern hires at least two students to work with USGS, typically a freshman and a senior.  The senior, program administrators say, will have taken more classes and have the background knowledge to be able to jump right in, while the freshman student can work full time over the summer and lean into the position.

EWU is one of just a handful of select American universities with this type of collaborative relationship with USGS, among them Stanford University and the Colorado School of Mines.

Over the years, the collaboration has steered important financial resources to the university while providing priceless professional experiences for Eastern students, says Chad Pritchard, an associate professor at EWU and Geosciences Department chair.

“There are only a few schools that do this,” Pritchard says. “For the students, it’s very rare to get this sort of [collaborative] publication history, research history and work history on a resume — so it definitely takes our students to another level.”

Among the hundreds of students who have benefitted over the years, Pritchard cites two recent EWU undergraduates as examples: Chels Howard, whose collaborative work with USGS resulted in a graduate school position with funding at Utah State University, and Alexander Navara, who found employment at Budinger and Associates, a local geotechnical engineering and environmental science firm, the first day after graduation.

For their part, the USGS geologists love teaching and working with Eastern students. “I think that when you have a PhD, you have this desire to teach,” Pritchard says. “They don’t normally get to do that, so they’re always trying to get a project with a student. It’s a win-win relationship for USGS and EWU.”

EWU’s Geology Field Camp, a capstone requirement that allows budding geologists to demonstrate what they’ve learned in the real world, was reinvented this summer in order to keep students healthy and safe.

Because the typical field camp requires interstate travel and shared lodging, universities across the nation cancelled their camps due to COVID concerns. Chad Pritchard, chair of EWU’s geosciences, wasn’t ready to pull the plug on Eastern’s annual event. Pritchard and his team put in long hours to create a 4-week camp that eliminated risky travel and adhered to best-practices for social distancing, all while providing 22 students with invaluable experiences in surveying, mapping, sample collection, analysis, reporting and more.

While previous EWU camps involved a trip to Dillon, Montana, this year’s camp was held closer to home. Instead of mapping bedrock in Dillion, students mountain biked, hiked and climbed to reach remote and less-accessible locations around the region, Pritchard says. Staying local also had the benefit of allowing other EWU organizations to pitch in to help. For a mapping project on Bonnie Lake, a lovely lowland body of water just south of the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, EWU’s EPIC Adventures provided canoes to help. EPIC also provided transportation to Tower Mountain on the Cascade Crest and Spokane County’s historic Silver Hill Mine.

Additional projects included students using drones and legwork to map 200 acres of land recently acquired by the City of Cheney for wastewater treatment lagoons. They afterwards presented a submitted report for faculty feedback.

“It was a professional-level report and they presented it really well,” Pritchard says.

Because EWU was among “only a handful of colleges” offering a camp, Pritchard allowed for eight seniors from Central Washington University and two additional students from universities in New York and Kentucky to be included along with the EWU students.

Other 2021 EWU Geology Field Camp highlights included:

• Mapping the Saltese Uplands Conservation Area and Beacon Hill Trail for an ongoing project in cooperation with Spokane County Parks and the Bureau of Land Management. The project is slated for completion in 2024.

• Mapping the Fish Lake Trail, and using the findings to create brochures and 3D models to track groundwater flow and hypothetical contamination.

• Collecting and analyzing soil samples for EWU’s Prairie Restoration Project (with the Cheney Fire Department generously providing water to help with the infiltration testing). The work established baselines that will be crucial to the success of future plantings.

Lauren Stachowiak, an assistant professor of Geosciences at EWU, is an expert on wildfire activity and how climate change has impacted fire behavior.

Appearing on “Experts @ EWU” on Spokane Talks, she points out how recent fires in the region are prime examples of Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) and how we all need to be ‘fire-wise.’  And she says, you’d be surprised what the trees are telling us.

EWU Geology rocks, but not nearly as much as the students do! Chels Howard, a geology major, presented research at the virtual 2020 National Geological Society of America Conference.

Howard, in collaboration with faculty members Chad Pritchard and Lindsay MacKenzie, showcased their topic on clastic dike formation in slack water deposits triggered by surging Pleistocene megafloods. The research involved synthesizing the formation of clastic dikes in a lab setting, analyzing field samples and creating three dimensional outcrops models with a drone.

As students are learning to adapt to an ever changing world, they are finding ways to be creative in their learning. Students also have to think strategically to present their research virtually.

“It was definitely different,” says Howard in regard to presenting at a virtual conference. “I had pre-recorded my talk, and then they played it live on the stream. I enjoyed the format overall! It was a little hard because I couldn’t engage with the attendees as well as I have at other presentations, but I think they enjoyed it!”

Howard also has advice to share with other students who might be interested in presenting right now.

“I think this experience, while different, was well worth it! The conference had a lot of helpful resources and it’s always fun to represent EWU Geology,” she says. “My best advice is if students are interested in working on undergraduate research, they should find a faculty that is equally as excited and ask if they have any current work or can brainstorm potential research topics. It takes some work, but it’s given me tons of opportunities that have set me up for success in the field.”

If you are interested in starting your applied undergraduate research project and kick starting your geoscience career, click on the link below for more information.

The record October snow event last Friday left many of us scrambling to get through the day. Snow tires on yet? Nope. Winter boots, coat, gloves and hat? Still buried in the hall closet, thank you. While many of us were slow to warm up to the early-season storm, Nigel Davies from the EWU Geology Department saw a great opportunity for a mini lecture as he watched the snow and ice pile up outside the science building.

Snow on campus!!! @EWUEagles @EWUalumni @EWUNews pic.twitter.com/82djIbHQMt

— EWU_Geology (@EwuGeology) October 23, 2020

The creative instructional technician handles most of the social media for the department. And he tells InsideEWU, it just so happens his “long love of de-snowing any railing I see” makes him naturally think of something like thrust faults or accretionary prisms.

Davies’ online lesson wasn’t done when the storm passed. Saturday’s freeze created the perfect storm for yet another lesson.

More snow – more geology – more fun!!! @EWUEagles @EWUalumni @EWUNews pic.twitter.com/I9sCPSCqAM

— EWU_Geology (@EwuGeology) October 24, 2020

Davies’ philosophy is simple—keep the videos brief, only present one scientific concept per post, and keep it local and timely while linking in something related to Cheney or Spokane if possible. He also tries to include EWU student or alumni work or research when he can. And with most classes online now, he strives to make the mini lessons useful.

The biggest key? “One take, and adlib,” says Davies. And most of all, “have fun with it.”

His virtual efforts didn’t go unnoticed. Among the many retweets and comments, he received this shout-out on twitter from EWU interim President David May.

Ethan Ducken, a junior majoring in geology at EWU, was awarded the Environmental Science–Geology Murdock Poster Prize for his presentation “sUAV Mapping of the Porcupine Bay Road Landslide Complex” at the 2019 Murdock College Science Research (MCSR) Conference.

For his project, Ducken used a drone to make a high-resolution, 3D map of the 2017 Lake Roosevelt landslide site—the scene of a major geological event that closed Lincoln County’s Porcupine Bay Road for two years—to be used for classification and measurements. Chad Pritchard, an associate professor of geology at EWU and Ducken’s faculty advisor, says Ducken also used a thermal camera to identify how shallow groundwater interacted with a thick clay layer in the middle of the landslide.

“I just really appreciate that Ethan works hard, asks questions, is very communicative and took the initiative of asking to do an independent study after he aced GEOL 120,” Pritchard says.

A panel of judges at the conference awarded Ducken the poster prize based on a combination of criteria including: communication, knowledge and careful analysis of the material, creativity of the project, organization and clarity of the presentation, and poise in answering questions. A letter from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust reads, “Ethan excelled in every way. In fact, he contributed significantly towards the theme of this year’s MCSR Conference, Collaboration–A Key to Success in Undergraduate.”

In addition to a ribbon, Ducken received a $50 Visa gift card. Pritchard was also recognized for his role as a research advisor. They’ve posted a video of their day drone-mapping at Porcupine Bay Road landslide on YouTube.