Morgan Barkley, a senior in geosciences, is currently working on an undergraduate research fellowship project attempting to find the cause of certain geological trends in Norway.
She's working under the guidance of Geosciences Department Head and Professor Mark Steltenpohl.
“Throughout Norway, there seems to be a trend of a Northwest-Southeast linear trend of crossfolds, backfolds and sheer zones,” Barkley said. “Our research right now is trying to relate those to which tectonic event put them in place.”
The project was not Barkley’s initial plan even after receiving her scholarship grant.
“When the research project started, we were going to examine a fault-bounded block of gabbro, which is a type of igneous rock that is very, very mafic [rich in magnesium and iron], and comprises most of the ocean floor," Barkley said. "Dr. Steltenpohl went to Norway with a student a couple of years ago and noticed that this intrusive body was fault-bounded, which means that it was transported to that place, it wasn’t originally in that place.”
When Barkley made her proposal for the grant, the plan was to determine whether the gabbro was “old oceanic crust,” but the plan fell through after brief field research.
“Field mapping on the first day determined that was not the case -- it was not an ophiolite sequence,” Barkley said. “We continued to do field mapping and structural analysis…we took back samples and we’ve sent those off for geochemical data, we’re going to try and get age dates on the rocks, we’re going to try and get their relative as well as their actual age.”
Barkley said this setback helped her learn about her work process as well as how to adapt to difficult situations.
“You don’t get funding and then not produce results, so we had to take time, recoup, try to develop a new research plan, which is something I’d never experienced before,” Barkley said. “We did that, and persevered, and pursued. It kind of helps you learn who you are as a person and how you handle stress.”
This is the second installment of a four-part series on undergraduate research fellowships at Auburn.
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