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Down to earth
Despite retiring, Carl Vondra will continue his work with ISU's
geology field station.
For more than 40 years, the geological and atmospheric sciences department
has operated a permanent field station on the western flank of the Big
Horn Mountains in Wyoming.
And for all but for five of those years, Carl Vondra has directed the
field station. This spring he plans to retire from his teaching position
at ISU, a post he has held since 1965. However his love affair with the
Wyoming field station will continue for at least three more years and
maybe for many years to come.
"I've agreed to stay on for a while until the new faculty member
(field station director) is familiarized with the geology of the field
station and until they feel comfortable to take over all logistics of
the camp," Vondra said. "It will probably take a couple of years
for that to happen."
Not that Vondra is anxious to leave this part of his life behind. "It's
like a vacation for me," he says. "Although it is quite a bit
of work, it's a welcome change from the normal routine of campus."
Geology majors are required to participate in order to meet their graduation
requirements. Vondra says typically 30 students attend the field camp
each summer and well over 1000 students have journeyed to Wyoming over
the past 40 years. Originally a two-month program, the course is now offered
over a six-week period.
Some of the activities students are involved in include learning standard
field techniques, participating in lectures, discussions and field problems,
excursions throughout the area and short one- or two-day projects.
It's a course that Vondra says is essential to a major.
"It's real world geology," he said. "It's such a different
perspective for the students from what they get from a textbook, lecture
or photographs."
Vondra describes the camp as a "new experience" for students.
"It's roughing it but not really," he said. "There's no
running water in the cabins, but there is water in the shower house and
kitchen."
The field camp is one of Vondra's favorite places in the world. It has
also become a gathering point for the Vondra family.
"My four children all grew up at the field station," he said,
"and even after finishing high school they continue to come back
during the summer.
"I'll hate to give this up when the time comes. I'm willing to continue
to work up there forever. It's really been the high point of my life here
at Iowa State."
His work will continue after retirement not only in Wyoming but Africa
as well. A frequent visitor to that continent (he has gone every year
since the early '70s and as many as four times a year), Vondra conducts
his research on ancient fluvial (stream) systems as they apply to the
stratigraphic documentation and relative age determination of the fossil
remains of early man in East Africa.
In 1996, he was one of two ISU researchers who were part of an international
team that discovered a 2.33 million-year-old fossil with primitive stone
tools. That find in Ethiopia was the oldest firmly dated association of
stone tools with a fossil human ancestor.
"There have been older stone tools found, some dating as far back
as perhaps 2.5 million years, but these are the oldest tools found in
association with an ancient fossil hominid," he said. "The fossil,
an ancestor to humans, may have made these tools."
That research team was led in part by Donald Johanson of the Institute
of Human Origins in Berkeley, Calif. Johanson also discovered the Lucy
site in Ethiopia and Vondra plans to continue his association with that
group.
"My focus in this research has been the interruption of the environment
of early man," Vondra said. "There's a lot of work that still
needs to be done in this area."
Around
LAS
April 24-30, 2000
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