Growing up across the street from the Grass River in Canton, New York, Jeffrey J. Clark, assistant professor of geology, developed his interest in rivers at a young age. A member of the Lawrence faculty since 1998, Clark is a fluvial geomorphologist specializing in the study of how human activity alters the physical characteristics of rivers.
Over the past eight years, he has made more than a dozen research trips -- including one with 12 students during the 1999 spring break -- to Puerto Rico, where he has worked closely with the International Institute of Tropical Forestry. His most recent visit took him there in March 2000 to begin a new research initiative. Supported by a $23,288 grant from the Law Environmental Company, Clark is attempting to reconstruct the flood history of the Rio Indio in north-central Puerto Rico.
Closer to home, Clark and his students are conducting on-going research on the impact of landscape changes on Apple Creek, a waterway on Appleton's burgeoning north side, as the surrounding area shifts from agricultural use to residential development. Specifically, Clark is collecting data to determine the relationship between rainfall and run-off in Apple Creek and nearby storm-water detention ponds.
In 1999, Clark collaborated with Katie Young, '00, on a study of changes in the water table at Menasha's Heckrodt Wetland Preserve in relation to water-level fluctuations in Lake Winnebago. The year-long study produced a paper that was presented by Young at the 14th Annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Missoula, Montana, last April and subsequently published in the proceedings volume.
Clark co-authored the paper, "PCBs in the Fox River: A Community Service-Oriented Term Project in Environmental Science," which was presented at the Geological Society of America's North Central section meeting. Two other articles were scheduled to be published in December 2000: "Effects of Land-Use Change on Channel Morphology and Hydraulic Geometry in Northeastern Puerto Rico" in the Geological Survey Association Bulletin and "Meeting Minutes in Service-Learning Projects" in the Journal of Geoscience Education.