2009 – Ken Nelson
Clay mineralogy across a sequence boundary embedded in terrestrial facies, Judith River Formation, Montana (thesis in progress).
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Ken traveled with me to the Missouri Breaks in the summer of 2007 to collect the samples for his study. He will defend his thesis in April 2009.
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2008 – Walter (Scott) Persons
Preservation and depositional environment of the enigmatic Ediacaran fossil Aspidella (thesis in progress).
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Scott traveled to the Boston Basin in Massachusetts with support from the Keck Geology Consortium to work
on Ediacaran fossils in the Cambridge Formation.
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2008 – Sophia Kast
Reconstructing the paleoclimate of ancient Madagascar (thesis in progress).
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Sophia traveled with me to Madagascar in the summer of 2007. Her research focuses on reconstructing the
Late Cretaceous paleoclimate of Madagascar. Clay mineralogy, climofunctions (based upon past theses that have compiled a wealth of geochemical data),
and overall analysis of the paleofauna are all components of this research. Sophia received a Young Explorers Grant from the National Geographic Society to help fund her research.
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2008 – Robin Canavan
A diagenetic study of fossil bones preserved in
sandstone and mudstone facies (thesis in progress).
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Robin traveled with me to the Missouri Breaks in the summer of 2006 to collect the
bones for this study. She also accompanied me to the USGS in Denver to analyze her fossils using LA-ICP-MS.
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2006 – Cara Harwood
Authigenic mineralization and geochemical
taphonomy of vertebrate microfossils from the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation of Montana, 107p.
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Cara is presently a masters candidate at the University of California, Davis.
She presented her senior thesis research at the 2005 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Salt
Lake City and the 2006 European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria.
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2005 – Mara Brady
An experimental and field-based approach to the taphonomy of
microvertebrate assemblages: a case study in the Judith River Formation of north-central Montana, 135p.
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Mara is presently a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago.
She presented her research at the 2004 annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in
Denver and the 2005 regional meeting (north-central) of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis,
where her platform talk won an award for best student paper.
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2005 – Christopher Dwyer
A comparative investigation of diagenesis fossil teeth from the
Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine and Judith River Formations of Montana, 78 p.
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Chris presented his senior thesis research at the regional meeting (north-central) of the Geological Society
of America in Minneapolis. He then went off to the island of Chuuk in Micronesia.
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2005 – Josephine Williams
Authigenic cements and rare earth element concentrations in
fossil bones from the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formations, northwestern Montana, 60 p.
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Jodi presented her senior thesis research at the 2005 regional meeting
(north-central) of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis. Her poster at this meeting won an award.
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2005 – Brett Dennis-Duke
Revisiting the magnetostratigraphy of the Upper Cretaceous Berivotra
and Maevarano Formations, northwestern Madagascar, 57 p.
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Brett tackled some amazingly difficult rocks in her senior thesis, and characterized the chaotic
paleomagnetic signature of fine-grained debris flow deposits. Since graduation she has interned at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and is
presently applying to graduate programs in marine geology.
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2004 – Anna Jerve
Geochemical analysis and characterization of paleosols from the Masorobe
Member of the Upper Cretaceous Maevarano Formation, Mahajanga Basin, northwestern Madagascar, 53 p.
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Anna recently completed her master’s degree at Michigan State University, and is presently a PhD
student at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. Anna’s work on the geochemistry of paleosols will soon culminate in a multi-authored paper
on the ancient soils and paleoclimate of Madagascar (Josh and Sophia will contribute to this effort as well).
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2004 – Brady Foreman
Geochemical characterization and discrimination of bentonites in the Upper
Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation, northwestern Montana, 58 p.
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Brady is presently PhD candidate at the University of Wyoming. He presented his research at the annual meeting
of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Denver. He recently published his senior thesis research in the journal Cretaceous Research.
He is also a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
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2003 – Michelle Casey
Magnetostratigraphy of the Upper Cretaceous Maevarano and
Berivotra formations, Mahajanga Basin, northwestern Madagascar, 130 p.
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Michelle has already completed her master’s thesis at Virginia Tech, and she is presently a
PhD candidate at Yale University. She presented her research on the paleomagnetism of Madagascar rocks at the 2003
annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in St. Paul and the 2004 regional meeting (southeastern) of the
Geological Society of America in Washington, DC.
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2002 – Elizabeth Hajek
Comparative sedimentology of two Late Cretaceous localities
near New Ulm, Minnesota, 83 p.
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Liz has already completed her master’s thesis at the University of Wyoming, and she
is presently a PhD candidate at the same institution. She presented her research at the 2002 annual meeting of the
Geological Society of America in Denver.
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2001 – Rebecca Terry
Character and significance of a silicified unconformity in Late Triassic-Early
Jurassic strata of the Limpopo Valley, Southern Zimbabwe, 123 p.
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Rebecca is presently a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. She traveled with me
to Zimbabwe and Madagascar in the summer of 1999 to conduct her research on a silcrete horizon in the Mpandi Formation
of Zimbabwe. She presented her research at the 2001 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Boston.
Rebecca is also a recipient of the NSF Graduate Fellowship. Most recently, she won the prestigious Romer Prize at the
annual meeting (2007) of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
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2000 – Josh Miller
Paleosols as indicators of paleoclimate in the Upper Cretaceous Maevarano Formation,
Mahajanga Basin, northwestern Madagascar, 111 p.
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Josh is presently PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. He traveled with me to Madagascar in
the summer of 1998 to conduct his research. He presented his findings at the 2000 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America
in Reno, Nevada. Josh is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Fellowship.
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2000 – Adrian Sutter
A comparative taphonomic study of vertebrate fossilization in marine and
terrestrial strata of the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation, North-Central Montana, 65 p.
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Adrian went on to a masters program at the University of Arizona.
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1999 – Lillian Sandler
Taphonomy and paleoecology of an unusually well-preserved
sample of herbivore coprolites from the Chadron Formation (Eocene), South Dakota, 96 p.
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Lili presented her thesis research at the 1998 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Toronto.
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1996 – Eric Roberts
Continental insect borings in dinosaur bone: examples
from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar (see Roberts et al., 2007, Journal of Paleontology, v. 81). |
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Eric accompanied me to Madagascar in 1996 when he was still an undergraduate at Cornell College.
Since that time he has gone on to obtain a masters degree from the University of Montana and a Ph.D. from the
University of Utah. Eric is presently a Lecturer (Professor) in Sedimentology at the University of the Witwatersrand in the
Republic of South Africa
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