University of Puget Sound Students Experience Costa Rica’s Geologic Wonders

Alumni, Faculty, Students

Opportunity erupts for Loggers studying the volcanoes and caves of Costa Rica.

Once every two years, a small group of Puget Sound students studying geology spend one to two weeks immersed in rigorous experiential learning on trips known as Georneys—pronounced “journeys” with a nod to the geological sciences. On these trips, students get to do hands-on science, learn from experts, and experience some of the most stunning geology on the planet. Since 2007, students have visited Ecuador, Hawai`i, Iceland, New Zealand, and Tanzania.

Dr. Anne Fetrow ’15 was on the trip to Tanzania as a third-year majoring in geology with a minor in environmental policy & decision making. This year, Fetrow, now a National Sciences Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, was invited to join Professor Kena Fox-Dobbs, Professor Emeritus Jeff Tepper, and 13 current students in Costa Rica to share her expertise as a sedimentologist.

The Georneys team began their adventure in La Fortuna, an ecotourism-centric town at the foot of the Arenal Volcano. They spoke with scientists monitoring the volcano and learned about the area’s cultural and natural history.

“Arenal is a perfect cone with a little bit of steam coming out of it. If you were going to draw a volcano, this is what it would look like,” says Fetrow. Thanks to a subduction zone off the west coast of Costa Rica, the country boasts a chain of active volcanoes similar to the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest.

Anne Fetrow ’15, Kena Fox-Dobbs, and Jeff Tepper — Puget Sound's Georneys field trips are supported by the F.A. McMillin Memorial Fund, which was established in 1990 in honor of beloved geology professor F.A. McMillin. Pictured, left to right: Anne Fetrow ’15, Professor Kena Fox-Dobbs, and Professor Emeritus Jeff Tepper.

Student looks at a stalactite in a limestone cave in Costa Rica. Georney trip 2023. — The Georneys group was able to explore Costa Rica's extensive system of subterranean limestone caves.

A Georneys student climbs through a narrow cave passage in Costa Rica, 2023. — Participants who wanted an extra challenge could crawl through a narrow passageway affectionately known as "The Birth Canal."

Georneys participants hike below the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica, 2023. — Costa Rica is home to six active volcanoes and dozens of dormant or extinct volcanoes.

Georneys group listens to a volcanologist in Costa Rica, 2023. — Participants got to learn from local scientists who monitor and study the volcanoes.

Arenal seen from the water. Costa Rica Georneys trip, 2023. — Faculty from Puget Sound's geology department have been leading educational trips to far-flung locales every other summer since 2007.

A student crosses a rope bridge in Costa Rica on a Georneys trip in 2023. — In addition to its rich geologic features, Costa Rica is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth.

Professor Kena Fox-Dobbs looks up a tree in Costa Rica on a Georneys trip in 2023. — Participants spent time learning about the country's ecotourism industry and about the intersection of the natural and cultural landscapes in Costa Rica at sites like Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio.

A volcanic landscape, including a bright blue lake, in Costa Rica, taken on a Georneys trip in 2023. — Costa Rica's volcanism is due to a subduction zone off its west coast, where the Cocos and Caribbean tectonic plates meet.

A sloth sits in a tree in a Costa Rican rainforest. Taken on a Georneys trip in 2023. — Previous faculty-led Georneys trips have taken students to Ecuador, Hawai`i, Iceland, New Zealand, and Tanzania. These trips are just some of the many ways Puget Sound students take their education into the field.

The next location on the itinerary took the group to the labyrinthine landscape of Costa Rica’s limestone caves, where they learned about the region’s water cycle. “There's this very complex, deep sequence of caves that have multiple levels. We got to explore a lot and do a lot of shimmies to really get in there,” says Fetrow, whose particular area of study is carbonate rock like the limestone that forms Costa Rica’s extensive cave system.

Fetrow was able to experience the trip as both student and scholar, learning from local researchers and also sharing her own knowledge and experience as a geologist. “I'm a carbonate sedimentologist and so it was really neat to see and get to talk about the different formations that are growing in those caves and explain how we can use them to reconstruct what the climate of this region was like in the past as well as how it has changed over time,” Fetrow says.

In addition to studying the fascinating mineralogy of Costa Rica, the group also experienced the ecotourism the country is known for, visiting Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio, a protected rainforest and habitat for tropical birds, insects, and primates, to look at Costa Rica’s diverse ecosystem.

“I really loved going on this adventure. It’s a perfect example of how to integrate an understanding of the landscape and ecotourism from an environmental and cultural perspective as well as a geological one, because those things are inherently intertwined and you can't learn one without the other,” says Fetrow.

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