Students from the graduate class of Geosystems Program taking the CE281 "Engineering Geology" course enjoyed a beautiful autumn weekend studying the active Tahoe-Sierra Fault Zone, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA, below.  The three-day camping-field trip was led by Professor Robert Kayen. 

The class visited a number of normal faults that distribute strain across the boundary separating the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the extensional Basin-and Range Province of Nevada and Utah.  Students also visited Pardee Dam operated by EBMUD, landslides along the Highway 50 corridor, glacial deposits of the alpine high-Sierra, and learned from US-EPA Tahoe expert Jacques Landy about the loss of water clarity in Lake Tahoe primarily due to the pulverization of volcanic cinder grit used for winter road traction.