Cheryl Collins

Title: GIS/CEMP Technician
Affiliation: Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences
Location: DRI Las Vegas
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Phone: 702.862.5428

Professional Interests

Cheryl Martin Collins is an archaeologist and GIS technologist. Her archaeological field experience primarily covers the eastern and southern Great Basin prehistoric cultures. During her employment with the Desert Research Institute, Cheryl has spent the bulk of her time working on archaeological projects in southern Nevada, particularly in Nye and Lincoln counties. The focus of her academic research involved stone tool production and use by the Virgin Anasazi at Mt. Trumbull, located in far northwestern Arizona, and the exchange of obsidian between the Virgin Anasazi and other regional groups. Using X-ray fluorescence technology on obsidian artifacts recovered from Mt. Trumbull, Cheryl has identified additional trade directions beyond those which had been previously discovered through research on the exchange of shell, turquoise, and pottery through northwestern Arizona. To support her thesis research, Cheryl successfully applied for four grants from the Lander Endowment at the Desert Research Institute and two grants from the Graduate and Professional Student Association at UNLV. She was invited to present her Virgin Anasazi research at a symposium during the Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in 2005 and the Great Basin Anthropological Conference in 2006. Cheryl served five years as the president of the Archaeo-Nevada Society and was a recipient of a Nevada Historic Preservation Award in 2005. She volunteered as lead archaeologist on a project with Archaeo-Nevada to prepare artifacts excavated from the Elwood B site in Overton, NV for curation at the Lost City Museum. With a grant from DRI's Lander Endowment, Cheryl also served as the PI on a project to carry out a cultural resources inventory on BLM land north of Cathedral Gorge State Park to facilitate the transfer of the northern part of the gorge to the State of Nevada.

Using ArcGIS, Cheryl also provides computer mapping and modeling for various other projects at DRI, including hydrological flow modeling, 2D and 3D borehole and tunnel models, and conversion of geologic cross sections to 3D representations.

3D Hydrologic Drilling Sample Video

Click here for a sample video of a 3D model showing a hydrologic drilling operation with tunnels, wells, test locations, fault information, water locations, and stratigraphy.