Alan in Illingas gorge
Wednesday saw the Students undertake the Illingas gorge project. In preparation sessions they had researched methodology of data capture and they had practised with the measurement devices that they would be taking.
The Illingas gorge was affected by a large flood on December 2000 and the students now had to work out the magnitude of the peak flow and whether there is any evidence of the flood sequence preserved in the deposits and if so does it show there was a single flood, multiple floods and/or a dam burst followed by lower flows.
The day started with the students navigating by GPS units to a map reference which was the beach at the mouth of the gorge. After a brief introduction to their day ahead Alan led the students en mass for one and a half kilometres up the gorge to an elevation of 250 metres. One student felt an asthma attack coming on, however after sitting in the shade and using an inhaler climbed up to rejoin the others who had found some shade and were eating their lunch. The students then split up in their respective groups in order to return down the gorge making observations, taking measurements and entering it into their field notebooks.
Treated casualties for the day were two insect bites with one untreated casualty of a student’s walking boot that had shed its heel on the descent. After the evening meal the students combined in their groups and updated the blogs that they had setup as part of their field trip preparation.
