Beloit College and Keck Geology Consortium Project on Quaternary Geology of the Turgen Uul Area, Northern Altay, Western Mongolia
The very idea of going to Mongolia, much less spending a month living and working with Mongolians, had never crossed my mind until the fall of 2002, when I read about the research trip to Mongolia being led by the Keck Geology Consortium. Made up of twelve small liberal arts colleges in the U.S. the goal of Keck is to provide high quality, fieldbased summer research experiences for undergraduate students. The fieldwork led by faculty from within and outside the consortium, serves as the first step in a year long independent study project, which culminates for many students in a senior undergraduate thesis. Although Keck has taken many students abroad to do research in the past, this was their first international research expedition to include a multinational group of participants and to use geology fieldwork as a basis for cross cultural exchange. American and Mongolian students conducted fieldwork together, and co authored 4 page abstracts, as research summaries, for the Consortium. As a student intensely interested in studying both environmental geology and international relations, I saw this project as an opportunity to apply my multidisciplinary education to a foreign experience. I departed for Mongolia with many questions: What will be the logistics of doing fieldwork in a remote desert? How will I decide on and complete a project given a limited amount of time in a place I have never been? How will we all work together, when many of the Americans have not met before, and only two of the participants are conversant in both Mongolian and English? The field season lasted one month, from July 14 to August 14, 2003. After two days of travel, the 16 Americans met with the 20 Mongolian project participants in Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia. A. In addition, there were five drivers, two cooks, a doctor and several field assistants. The research conditions are welldescribed on the Keck website: "Students must be able to work