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Macalester College Geology Department


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News and Events - Macalester

!!BREAKING NEWS!!
Kelly MacGregor has tenure!




The Provost and her piper arrived bright and early Monday a.m. to share the news and end the anxiety. Please join the Geology Department in congratulating Kelly on this momentous occasion.

Here's to you Kelly!




Macalester Geology Summer Research
A number of our seniors were involved with a variety of research projects over this past summer.
Read their stories here.


Welcome Back Students!

We are excited to start a new year in the Geology Department. Our growing numbers of majors and minors can count on another year of engaging classes, enlightening seminars, exciting field trips, and eclectic GeoClub activities. Many of our students are continuing work on projects that were started over this past summer in places such as Svalbard, Mongolia, Alaska, Massachusetts, and Nebraska. Check back for upcoming information on department events, talks, and other news. We are in the process of acquiring an incredible new instrument for the Keck Lab - stay tuned!


Attend a reception with Macalester alumni
Join Macalester alumni, current students, and professors attending the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting at a reception in Portland. We have reserved a private room for this event. Join us for an evening of friends, rocks, and fossils!

7 - 9:30 p.m.
Monday, October 19
Halsey Room

Lloyd Center Ballroom
Doubletree Hotel & Executive Meeting Center
1000 NE Multnomah Street, Portland, OR
503-281-6111




Welcome back students! It is only a matter of a few weeks until field trips will again be happening for a number of spring semester geology courses. Speaking of field trips, the department sponsored two 'Geological Excursions' this past January. Ray Rogers, Kristi Curry Rogers, and Jeff Thole brought 20 students to San Salvador, Bahamas for a 10-day exploration of beaches, reefs, hypersaline inland lakes, and many, many biting insects. Karl Wirth led a Macalester contingent to the Galapagos Islands with Tim Flood and his students from St. Norbert College.


Group at Graham's Harbor, San Salvador, Bahamas


At the equator, Ecuador



 Geology Department Seminar

Dr. Michal J. Kowalewski – Professor of Geobiology
Department of Geosciences, Virginia Tech


Friday, October 31, 4:00 pm
OLRI 150
Refreshments will be served

This talk will provide an overview of research on evolutionary history of animal diversity in the oceans. The talk reviews recent advances in the field and provides an in-depth discussion of a case study that highlights interpretative and methodological difficulties we face when reconstructing the geological history of biodiversity.
http://www.paleo.geos.vt.edu/



 Geomicrobiology: bugs that make, eat, and breathe rocks

Dr. Gregory Dick - Assistant Professor
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan


Monday, October 20, 3:30 pm
OLRI 150
Refreshments will be served

Microorganisms have had a profound impact on the physical and chemical properties of the Earth. This talk will provide an introduction to geomicrobiology, an emerging field that seeks to understand how microorganisms shape the world, both today and throughout Earth’s history. Research on two modern processes will be used to illustrate interactions between microbes and minerals: the biomineralization of manganese in deep-sea hydrothermal plumes and dissolution of pyrite that drives the formation of acid mine drainage. A key point is that DNA-based approaches are offering new and exciting insights into geomicrobiology. The intimate links between biological and geochemical processes highlight the need for more interdisciplinary work between the Earth and Life Sciences. http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/geomicrobiology/



  2008 Summer Trip

For five days this past August three Macalester geology professors (Ray Rogers, Kristi Curry Rogers, Jeff Thole) and five geology majors (Jeff Dobbins, Oscar Boyle-Mejia, Owen Rudloff, Rachel Murray, and Nora Catolico) canoed through the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in central Montana. We were joined by our colleage Jim Mitchell (Lewistown BLM), and Emily Reinsel , a geology major from Colorado College. The goal was to explore the geology of this largely inaccessible region (the river is essentially the only access corridor) and to collect fossils and rocks on the way downstream. The trip was spectacular every step of the way. The weather was nearly perfect (only one raging thunderstorm at the end of the voyage), and the rocks and fossils were quite cooperative. New bonebeds were discovered, and only a few rattlesnakes were encountered. This stretch of the Missouri River is rich with history - the Nez Perce traveled through in their attempt to reach sanctuary in Canada, and Lewis and Clark paddled upstream. Moreover, the first dinosaur fossils described from North American strata were collected along the banks of the Missouri near where our journey began. We can't wait to do it again with a new crew of students!

Photos from the trip availible here


2008 Department of Geology Senior Class


Congratulations to this years outstanding senior class. (L-R: Scott Persons, Sarah Nicholas, Sophia Kast, Jakob Wartman, Emily Dunn, Danny Bowman, Emily Harrison, Tom Tobin, Robin Canavan, Alexandros Konstantinou)


The evolution of grasses and grass-eaters: Insights from the fossil record of plant silica
with Caroline Strömberg (University of Washington)

Monday, April 14
4:00 PM
Olin-Rice 100

Grasses (Poaceae) are an extremely diverse clade, with unrivalled ecological and economic importance. Their rise to ecological dominance during the Cenozoic is thought to have fundamentally changed Earth's surface and influenced the evolution of a wide variety of animals, including humans. Over a century of research has been devoted to elucidating the evolutionary and ecological interplay of grasses and grass-eaters through geologic time, yet many questions are left unanswered. The main reason for this is the paucity of grass remains (leaves, pollen) in the fossil record. Strömberg will talk about some of her work using an alternative source of paleobotanical data, plant opal (phytoliths), to shed light on how the evolution of grasses and the spread of grasslands changed vegetation structure and faunas through the past 65 million years.




The Geology Lecture Series and Geo Club presents:
Unraveling the mysteries of the Martian water cycle
with Dr. Erin Kraal (Department of Geosciences Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)

Thursday, April 10
12:00 noon
Olin-Rice 100







The Geology Department is saddened to report the passing of our friend, colleague, and long-term department-mate Jerry Webers on February 15, 2008. Jerry joined our department in 1966 shortly after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, and for the next 30+ years he helped to shape our curriculum and department culture. He was a passionate geologist and paleontologist, and an outstanding teacher. He was also a strong advocate of collaborative student-faculty research, and his model of scholarship lives on in the department. We miss him and remember fondly the field trips, stories, and adventures on the rocks both near and far. More information and photos can be found here.



Welcome to Dr. Kristina Curry Rogers, who recently joined us (and the Macalester Biology Department) as an Assistant Professor. Kristi looks forward to her new full time career as a professor, and she is presently expanding her curriculum to accommodate students interested in evolution and vertebrate anatomy. She will begin teaching on a full time basis in the Fall 2008 term. In the meantime, she is working up some new classes and catching up on various research projects related to dinosaur growth and evolution. Feel free to stop by her office (OLRI 115) and welcome her to Macalester!



Rebecca Terry won the Romer Prize at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Austin, Texas. The Romer Prize is awarded for "original and important research in vertebrate paleontology and a presentation of the highest quality at the annual meeting." Rebecca is currently completing her Ph.D. research in the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago



Dr. Sarah Titus, Carleton College, will present her research on Friday, November 2, 2007, in OLRI 250. The talk starts at 3:30 p.m. and is entitled "Deformation rates across the San Andreas fault system, central California determined from geology and geodesy."

Refreshments will be served. All are welcome.


Macalester College · 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105  USA · 651-696-6000
Comments and questions to mac.geology@gmail.com