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The Mineral Industries Lodge at Stone Valley was built in 1938 and was used for field camps until 1960.  It burned in 1980. In this undated photo of a geology field camp, Prof. P.D. Krynine is at the right.  Source: Penn State Archives

Field Camp 1960

Students In 1960 the Curriculum (Department) of Geology-Mineralogy required summer Geologic Surveying (Geol 70) and Field Geology (Geol 72).  The Curriculum (Department) of Geophysics-Geochemistry had two options -- Geophysics and Geochemistry, both of which only required Geol 70.  Most of these names are from the database of 1961 Geological Sciences or Geology-Mineralogy alumni that, hopefully, is a proxy for 1960 field camp, although some may have attended a year earlier or a year later. 

Faculty
   Frank M. Swartz, Gene Williams (PhD '57)

Where They Stayed
   Mineral Industries Lodge, Stone Valley, Huntingdon County, PA (see also the 1919-1954 page)

Projects
   Over time, field camp students mapped in the Allensville, Alum Bank, Bedford, Donation, McAlevys Fort, Ogletown, Pine Grove Mills, and Schellsburg quadrangles.  This work was incorporated into the map Bedrock Geology of Pennsylvania.

History
     In 1940, The Pennsylvania State College entered into agreement with State and Federal Agencies to use forested lands and to develop roads in Stone Valley for the College's educational programs. Subsequently, the Mineral Industries, Forestry, and Civil Engineering Lodges were built to accommodate summer field courses taught by those departments. In 1954, the Federal government deeded the land over to the University, and in 1957 a Stone Valley Management Committee initiated plans to construct a dam across Shaver's Creek. The dam was started on June 15, 1957 and completed on January 11, 1960.  With the completion of the dam, creating Lake Perez, and the allocation of 574 acres of land in the Stone Valley Tract for recreational development, the Stone Valley Recreation Area was initiated. By 1960 the MI Lodge had already been redesignated the Main Administration Building.  A year later, the Department of Civil Engineering, School of Forestry, and the Geosciences Department transferred their control of the facilities to the college of Health and Physical Education, now the Intercollegiate Athletics Department.

Probably because of the facility transfer, 1960 was the final year that Field Camp was held at Stone Valley or in Pennsylvania.  In 1961 the field school moved to Montana.

Jeff Parsons remembers that in 1960 "between our Junior and Senior years, Steve Kirsch, Paul Vicocky, Harry McGoldrick and I went out to the University of Wyoming field camp based at Centennial, Wyoming. I recall that Frank Schwartz was a little annoyed with us because we weren't going to the Penn State field camp at Stone Valley that year. At the end of the 1960 Univ. of Wyoming session I went up to work with Rob Scholten along the Continental Divide out of Dubois, Idaho (the Lone Pine Inn) and adjacent Montana for about a month. There was no formal PSU field camp there that summer, but Larry Ramspott and Jan Smith were both there working on their doctoral and MS theses, respectively. I was a general field assistant working with Scholten.  The first western PSU field camp was the following summer, in 1961."