| Susie P. Gonzalez | 210-999-8406 | susie.gonzalez@trinity.edu |
| Tenino Resident Graduates
with Honors from Trinity University |
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While at Trinity, Ms. Rowland, the daughter of Thomas and Jane Rowland of Tenino, was a member of the Sigma Gamma Epsilon Geosciences Honor Society, Lambda Alpha Anthropology Honor Society, Golden Key National Honor Society, and was on the Dean's List. In addition, she participated in varsity cross country and varsity track and field competitions. She also volunteered with the Animal Defense League in San Antonio. One reason for her academic honors is the way she launched her senior year. In the summer of 2000, Ms. Rowland spent a month in Alaska studying the movement of a glacier — something no scientists had done since the 1950s. She collaborated with students and professors from 11 other colleges who belong to the Keck Geology Consortium and who wanted to determine how global warming had shifted the Herbert Glacier, which is part of the Juneau Ice Field. Her days of fieldwork began at 6 a.m. with a 15-mile drive from the campus of the University of Alaska Southeast to the spot closest to the glacier where vehicles could park. Then, she and her fellow researchers packed saws, shovels and plastic sample bags before setting off on a five-mile hike. At the glacier site, the team concentrated on an outcrop of soil that was exposed when the glacier melted. Left behind was a forest floor covered with small trees, peat, soil, and minerals. As the ice receded, it smashed trees and other vegetation, thus offering an explanation for weather patterns and reflecting when temperatures rose, causing the ice to melt, and when subzero temperatures resumed, Ms. Rowland says. Her preliminary research indicates that the peat on the upper layer of ice is older than peat on the lower layer of the glacier. “This means the glacier overrode the floor,” she says. To help prove her theory, she brought samples of the soil and rock back to Trinity for further study in the geology laboratories. “It was pretty rigorous,” she says of the research time in Alaska, but she feels the experience was worth it. While in Alaska, she and other team members visited with soil scientists from the Juneau office of the U.S. Geological Survey, who pledged to incorporate their findings into future literature about the ice field. Edward C. Roy, the Pyron distinguished professor of geology, did not accompany Ms. Rowland on the trip but lauds the research environment. “It's one of our selling points at Trinity — our strong undergraduate research — and Jessica performed well,” Professor Roy says. Trinity University, founded in 1869, is a highly selective, professionally oriented liberal arts and sciences institution. This residential, primarily undergraduate coeducational university is noted for its superb facilities and undergraduate research.
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Last updated on May 18, 2001 by the Office of Public Relations |
May
17, 2001 —