Amy Brock-Hon, Robert Lake Wilson Professor of Geology, examines samples collected during her fieldwork. Photo by Angela Foster.
At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, research is always happening.
Across campus, faculty in their respective fields are expanding the limits of their expertise by discovering new knowledge, better understanding the world and developing innovative solutions to problems.
Research organizations such as the UTC Research Institute, Quantum Center, Center for Informatics and Progress, and Center for Applied Geospatial Data Science provide spaces for researchers to conduct their work.
Research at UTC is often described as a bridge between students and faculty, built around shared curiosity and academic interests. While the word “research” can conjure images of lab coats and microscopes, it takes many forms across disciplines—from historians examining the past to engineers developing new systems. At its core, research is about asking questions, exploring ideas and contributing to a broader understanding of the world.
For Robert Lake Wilson Professor of Geology Amy Brock-Hon, the past 15 years in the UTC Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science have been a time to explore her passion and deepen her understanding of the field.
As a soil geomorphologist, Brock-Hon explained that she uses soil to understand the landscapes of a specific region. She has taken students into the field to map areas and collect samples, while fostering curiosity about the world around them.
“I tell my students, ‘The satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life,’” Brock-Hon said. “I think that defines me and who I am today. What I try to do when I’m teaching is get students curious because that drives them to figure things out. Along the way, you learn skills, you learn knowledge and solve problems.”
What are you currently working on?
“I’ve got two kinds of regions of work. One that is longstanding, ongoing since the offshoot of my dissertation work in Nevada, which is a place I don’t get to as often. I have a mapping project there where I’m mapping a quadrangle. I have a lot of fieldwork, where I transect the area and map the materials.
“Putting together a map is a lot of work. In the same area, I study landscape features tied to different soil characteristics. It’s a unique place because it has a rare soil on Earth, and it’s four to five million years old, which tells us the landscape has been there for about that long. Rarely do we find places like that on Earth. It’s a place worth studying because it holds a record of processes that go further back than today’s soils. It contains information about paleoclimate, and in Nevada, it can also tell us about plate tectonics and earthquake activity.
“More recently, around 2019, I stumbled onto this project, which has become really fascinating. It’s closer to Chattanooga, so I’m able to take students out there for field trips and classes and have them collect data for research. The site includes features on the Cumberland Plateau that are essentially very large holes in the ground. What makes them unique is that they’re at the top of the plateau; features with that shape are usually found down in valleys or along slopes. I’ve taken students out there to collect geophysical data, which allows us to see the characteristics of the subsurface.”
Amy Brock-Hon at the Raccoon Mountain Caverns.
Are the research sites connected?
“Both of my research sites—two in Nevada and one here in Tennessee—share a word that describes a feature: depressions. These depressions appear on the surface, but their genesis, or what caused them, is different. That makes for an interesting comparison with students, looking at similar-looking features and contrasting the processes behind them. You can start to make connections about whether the same processes are at work or not. It’s fun to bring those ideas together.”
Why does this area of research interest you?
“It satisfies my curiosity. The knowledge gained benefits our understanding of landscapes, how they change over time and landscape hazards. In the case of the Cumberland Plateau depressions, we’re looking at how water moves through these. How does the system’s hydrology affect it? What do these features tell us about subsurface hydrology? We could then understand contaminant movement better.
“They’re cool to figure out and a great place to work, especially if you enjoy doing fieldwork and don’t mind that it can be strenuous. When we did the geophysics, it involved carrying car batteries up and down slopes, along with cables, metal plates and a sledgehammer. We spent days collecting data and the students loved it. If you enjoy being outdoors and gathering data to understand the things you’re studying, it’s a really cool experience.”
Did you always want to work in geology?
“I earned my bachelor’s degree in geology at Oklahoma State University. When I graduated, I knew I wasn’t done learning. My world had been opened to all these new things. I was interested in the surface of the earth, landscapes and trying to figure out why that is over there. What has changed over time? How will it change in the future? I knew I wanted to do that.”
What would you recommend to students interested in geology research?
“If you enjoy science and if you’re curious about how the world works—and if any of that curiosity involves the earth, like the form, shape and materials—then I’d say give it a go.”
Learn more
UTC Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science
