Geology Field camps in South West Montana

Geology for the most part is an applied science. All of the classroom time, textbooks, modeling and lectures comes to life when you can actually see what you are looking at. Physical examples and field studies makes the theoretical real. It is one thing for you to look at a drawing or photograph of synclines, dykes, or faults. It is another thing to straddle a rock structure where half of it is moved meters and sometimes kilometers apart - or where you can see a structure disappear into the sky and find the continuity of it reappearing on the other side of a valley.

Field geology makes the science real. It makes it believable. For the most part as you travel you can begin to recognize what you have learned. Sometimes it appears in everyday road cuts, or even as you are flying over a landscape.

The following are some of the field camps that bring their students to South West Montana to observe geology.

N.B. Check with your college - you may be able to participate or attend these if even if you are not enrolled at the specific institution!

Institution	Description	Link to more information
	The Judson Mead Geologic Field Station of Indiana University is in the Tobacco Root Mountains, 40 miles southeast of Butte, Montana, and 65 miles west of Bozeman. Less than 50 miles west of the Field Station, the overthrust belt, characterized by thin-skinned tectonics, bends sharply to the east and also extends through the north end of the Tobacco Root Mountains, where the northernmost zone of basement-cored ("thick-skinned") upthrusts of the Wyoming Province is found. The Field Station is located within a few miles of the intersection of these two major structural styles. Consequently, a remarkable array of both small- and large-scale structures associated with the two major tectonic styles is available for study, together with a sampling of basin-and-range or block faulted structures.	Indiana University Judson Mead Geological Field Station
University of Washington Earth and Space Sciences	ESS Summer field camp is a six week course that is held at the Western Montana College in Dillon, Montana, early in the Summer quarter. The class is 12 credits and is usually taken after the junior year. It consists of geological field work, and projects are done both in groups and individually under the supervision of faculty and TA's. There are also field trips to other locations such as Yellowstone Park. Students stay in a dormitory and take their meals there. The costs include tuition, room & board. In 1999 the cost of field camp was around $2150, not including incidental expenses	University of Washington Earth and Space Sciences
YBRA -	Welcome to the Yellowstone-Bighorn Research Association (YBRA), a unique organization dedicated to promoting and supporting geology and other field sciences in the northern Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming. The core feature of the YBRA is the Geology Field Station (Camp) located a few miles south of Red Lodge, Montana. The Camp features a full-service dining facility, library, two study halls, washhouses, improved faculty cabins, many student cabins, and other amenities to support field educational programs and research projects. Users include university undergraduate field geology courses, environmental and natural history education courses, paleontological research programs, and alumni reunion colleges. The user season typically runs from early June to late August. Interested new users are encouraged to contact us regarding potential availability of Camp facilities. We are pleased to provide our members and alumni with this Web resource, and hope they will enjoy exploring...and keep in touch!	Yellowstone Bighorn Reasearch Association