028 PHOTOGRAPHS V ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION Geology and Fossils

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series: PHOTOGRAPHS V
028 ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Geology and Fossils

TAGS: Environmental Education, photographs, fossils, geology, rocks, earth science, coal, students, geological education,

028 PHOTOGRAPHS ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION Geology and Fossils

One of the most interesting field trips for early students was to nearby areas of disturbed earth that revealed some of the geoloical and fossilized rocks that hint at the ancient geological history of the land in Eastern Kentucky,

Katherine Pettit, the School’s founder, had a great interest in the geology of the region and her personal library contains much literature on the geological history and the agricultural potential of the region. She was particularly interested in the publications of Willard Rouse Jillison, an early geologist who taught at the University of Kentucky.

Willard Rouse Jillson (May 28, 1890 – October 4, 1975) was a politician as well as a geologist. His small book, Agricultural Perspectives of Kentucky Geology provides a succinct overview of the geology of the State. Katherine Pettit stayed closely attuned to Jillison’s politics as well as his geology. Jillison was well known in Frankfort and authored numerous books on Kentucky politicians as well as geology matters. . Katherine Pettit followed politics as closely as she followed geology and showed a particular interest in coal mining activity in the eastern coal fields, In eastern Kentucky the two fields of study, politics and geology, went hand in hand.