The geology major is spending her summer collecting soil samples at Unionville Serpentine Barrens for her KINSC-sponsored thesis research.
Abby Fullem '16 is spending her summer driving down tiny country roads, working with her hands under the hot Pennsylvania sun, and collecting soil samples at Unionville Serpentine Barrens, a high-priority biodiversity conservation site in Unionville, located in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Funded by the Marian E. Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center (KINSC), Fullem, a geology major at Bryn Mawr College, is conducting independent summer research for her upcoming senior thesis project on serpentine soils, which is a rare geological formation.
"People are trying to restore these barrens through a variety of tactics," she says. "I'm doing a soil analysis to look at how the restoration processes are going—to see if it's working and how it's working in different areas."
An hour west of Philadelphia, her research site is a nationally rare ecosystem housing several endangered and rare species of flora and fauna. The Barrens are also unique because they have traces of prehistoric and historical human land uses. Over the past 100 years, however, the land has been shrinking.
"Serpentine is a mineral that, when exposed, is pretty hazardous for most plants to live on," explains Fullem. "Some plants have evolved to live on this soil, which is really cool because it's a direct correlation between the bedrock and the plant life that's on it. This is why I think its interesting: it is geology meeting biology."
Serpentine soil is made up of the mineral serpentine, which is formed in mid-oceanic ridges. It is rarely found on the continent, but there are areas in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and northern California where it exists.
Fullem's summer work exemplifies the advantages of the Quaker consortium. Her thesis advisor, Don Barber, works at Bryn Mawr; she's doing GIS mapping this summer with G. Narayanraj, an associate professor at Swarthmore; and she's also working with Roger Latham, a retired Swarthmore professor who has his own conservation lab, Continental Conservation, in Rose Valley, Pa. She is also going to process soil data at Professor Alain F. Plante's lab at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is currently prepping soil for data analysis.
"Haverford has allowed me to do a lot of things that I couldn't do if we did not have all these relationships with other schools," she says.
Fullem, who works on the HaverFarm and with the Arboretum during the school year, is interested in continuing to work in ecology after graduation.
"I want to be doing something that is mentally stimulating, but also physically active," she says. "And I like the idea of conservation and environmental studies."
—Hina Fathima '15
"Summer Centered" is a series exploring our students' Center-funded summer work.
