Students can learn how an earth scientist studies volcanic rocks by first visiting volcanoes to get a closer look and to collect rock samples, and by recreating the conditions of a magma chamber in the lab. The gas in a bottle of soda is used as an analogy to explain why some eruptions are explosive. The scientist starts by collecting pumice, a light rock filled with holes like a sponge, because it ... Full description.

This site provides a virtual tour of Antarctica and the Amundsen-Scott research station at the South Pole. The tour begins in New Zealand and goes to the station at McMurdo on the coast of Antarctica and finally to the center of the continent and the South Pole. Photos accompanied by brief captions are provided of scenes along the tour route. Users can also go directly to McMurdo or the South Pole, ... Full description.

This field trip guide provides an introduction to the geology of Yosemite Valley, emphasizing the changes that have been made by a series of geological events and natural disasters in the 1990's. The field trip moves from Arch Rock Entrance station, via Bridalveil Meadow and Inspiration Point. It features background notes on glaciation, granitic and plutonic rock, and rockfall events. Users can also ... Full description.

This virtual field trip explores the geologic setting of the Colorado Front Range and some of its features and issues. Users can choose from a set of links or click on symbols on an interactive map to visit "stops" that feature photos, maps, or diagrams accompanied by brief written descriptions of geologic structures, economic resources (oil and gas, aggregate), historic landmarks, environmental issues, ... Full description.

This virtual field trip provides an overview of the landforms, geologic processes, and rock types seen in Monument Valley, located in land of the Navajo Nation of Arizona and Utah. Photos, diagrams, and aerial imagery of various features accompanied by written narrative and thought questions for students help explain how these unusual landforms were created. Full description.

This virtual field trip provides an overview of the morphology and geology of a landslide located along U.S. Highway 50 near Cimarron, Colorado. Photos, maps and diagrams, and aerial imagery, accompanied by written narrative and thought questions for students, explain how these features form and how their appearance provides clues to their origins. Full description.

This virtual field trip provides an overview of the eastern margin of the Front Range, the eastern boundary of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, including the well-known 'hogbacks', ridges of upturned sedimentary rock. Photos, maps and diagrams, and aerial imagery of various features, accompanied by written narrative and thought questions for students, help explain the rock types, geologic structures, ... Full description.

This virtual field trip takes students to view an unconformity (nonconformity) exposed in a roadcut along U.S. Business 24 west of Manitou Springs, Colorado. Photos and diagrams, accompanied by written narrative and thought questions for students, help them reason their way through several hypotheses proposed to account for the feature seen in the roadcut. Full description.

This virtual field trip takes students to view an anticline, a large fold in the rocks, near the Virgin River in southwestern Utah. Photos, diagrams, and aerial imagery of the feature, accompanied by written narrative and thought questions for students, explain how anticlines form and how they can be detected by investigating the surface geology. There is also a brief description of how they can act ... Full description.

This virtual field trip provides an overview of the regional geology of the Lake Baikal area of southern Russia. Satellite imagery and diagrams accompanied by written narrative and thought questions guide students through the process of inferring how geologic movements (faulting) in the area might have been responsible for the formation of the lake. The field trip also provides reinforcement for the ... Full description.