UTRGV’s Geology Club celebrated its 50th anniversary this year and will continue to have its biweekly club meetings and camping trips.
The Geology Club has meetings from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. every other Tuesday in Science Building 2.607 on the Edinburg campus.
The club has about 30 active members.
“Most of the time our meetings are, ‘these are the trips that we have going on. This is the activities that we have going on.’ Just a list of what’s going on,” said Brandi Reger, Geology Club president and multidisciplinary studies senior. “How you can
be involved.”
The club also invites guest speakers and allows other students to present their research.
“We’re mostly talking about camping trips,” Reger said.
Reger said the club tries to stay local since it drives to camping locations.
“Last year, we went to Inkspire, just outside of Austin; Devil’s River, up in Del Rio,” said Spencer Lindgren, Geology Club vice
president and environmental sciences senior.
Reger said the club attended the Hydro-Geo Workshop in Boerne this school year.
“We try to stay local because everything is so far, but the club has been out to Mexico, to New Mexico, all the way up to Arkansas. … they go all over, depends on how much people there are,” Lindgren said.
The club usually carpools and drives to locations.
“As much as we possibly can, we carpool,” Reger said.
“We all work together, and we’ll say ‘you take this stuff. We’ll take this stuff’,” Lindgren added.
Reger said she has been a member for two years and joined because she wanted to become involved on campus.
“This was the coolest group that I had seen,” Reger said. “I was a part of the Anthropology Club when I started, and it died while I was a member and nobody was doing anything. … and then I found out about the Geology Club, and I got sucked in, and I haven’t left. I actually changed my minor to geology after I joined the Geology Club because I had so much fun with it.”
She said it ties in well with what she wants to study, archeology.
“I’m trying to understand the sight processes and how people lived and the environment,” Reger said. “So, geology really helps to understand the basics of an environment and how that works together. Geology is awesome like that.”
Lindgren said he has been a member for a year and joined because of a friend. He joined via Skype calls with Edinburg from Brownsville.
“I’m an environmental science major, with a deep interest in camping, being outside, understanding the environment we live in,” he said.
Lindgren said he wanted to join to meet other students who had a similar interest.
“Or else I probably would have never … met a lot of these people,” he said. “[To have] a sense of purpose or a sense of place within the environmental science department.”
The club will still accommodate any student from Brownsville who wants to join.
The club visited Seminole Canyon last weekend and is already planning another trip.
“We’re planning to visit Big Bend [National Park] at the end of this semester,” Reger said. “That should be awesome.”
Lindgren said club events are fun.
“Not only if you’re just interested in earth science, but just meeting a group of people that like being outside,” he said.
“We’re all nerds about being outside together,” Reger added while laughing.
Lindgren said the club is open to students of all majors.
“Honestly, if you like camping, if you like talking about outside, or plants, or animals, or whatever; it doesn’t have to be strictly geology,” he said. “Most of us are environmental science majors, but we have a lot of mixtures as well. If you enjoy anything about this planet, join the Geology Club.”
