Field trips to visit mines and mineral districts are a key part of the economic geology program at CSM. The trips extend students' knowledge of ore deposits, their regional and local geological settings, and their distribution, both nationally and internationally. Field trips also provide a means for students to get to know each other and the faculty in a relaxed setting as well as to meet a number of professionals in the minerals industry and discover individual mineral company styles.
Field trips to mines in Colorado and immediately surrounding areas, such as the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Precambrian of northern New Mexico, are commonly run by the CSM Student Chapter of the Society of Economic Geologists.
Every other year, Professor Romberger leads a fall semester field trip to the precious metals deposits in the Great Basin. In alternate years Professor Hitzman organizes a fall semester economic geology field trip to other areas in the United States. In 1999 a fall field trip to the east coast of the U.S. was undertaken to examine the Sterling Hill Zn (silicate) and Balmat-Edwards Zn-Pb deposits as well as iron, garnet, and wollastonite deposits in the Adirondacks. Mapping exercises were carried out at the Sterling Hill deposit. In 1998 the fall field trip visited the Viburnum Trend Pb-Zn district and the Proterozoic iron oxide district in southeast Missouri. The trip included a core logging exercise in conjunction with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in which students logged a fence of drill holes across the Viburnum Trend to examine facies changes in the Cambrian carbonate sequence and the distribution of hydrothermal dolomitization.
Economic geology field trips are also undertaken during or at the end of the spring semester. During 2001 a field trip was planned to Ireland to visit the carbonate-hosted Zn-Pb deposits. Due to the foot and mouth outbreak in the U.K. the trip had to be postponed. However, a trip was undertaken to the northwestern United States and southern British Columbia to visit a number of classic mines including Sullivan, the Lucky Friday Mine (Coeur d' Alene district), Butte, and Stilwater. In 1999 the spring trip was a mid-semester transect across the Andes from Antofagasta, Chile to Salta, Argentina with a number of mine visits and stops to examine the geology of the Andes. The trip included three mapping exercises at different mineral deposits. During 1998, two spring field trips took place. The first, led in January by Professor Hitzman, was to the Vancouver Stock Exchange so that students could learn about how junior mineral exploration companies are started and how they operate. At the end of the semester, Professor Hutchinson and Professor Closs led a trip to visit the ore deposits in the Precambrian areas around the Great Lakes including the Hemlo, Sudbury, and Noranda districts. In 1997 the spring field trip visited Arizona for mapping exercises at the Proterozoic Jerome volcanogenic massive sulfide and the Silverbell porphyry copper deposit. The trip also included visits to a number of active porphyry copper mines.
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