PhD student Shaina Sadai and Professor Mark Leckie are recipients of the University's 2021 Distinguished Teaching Awards. Since 1961, the University of Massachusetts has presented the Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) to instructors who demonstrate exemplary teaching at the highest institutional level.
Recent research on soil loss in the Corn Belt by graduate student Evan Thaler and professors Isaac Larsen and Qian Yu has been highlighted by Smithsonian Magazine. Read the Smithsonian article here...
Several students and faculty will be participating in the 2021 (virtual) annual meeting of the American Assocation of Geographers. See below for a schedule of who is presenting when:
Lightning Talk: Using climate modeling and interdisciplinary theory to analyze climate justice impacts of the Paris Agreement
Shaina Sadai
1:40PM
In a new paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters PhD student Anna Ruth Halberstadt, Dr Rob DeConto, former postdocs Ed Glasson, Doug Kowalewski and colleagues, model ice-sheet dynamics during a past warm period (the mid-Miocene) that is often used as a future analog due to elevated CO2 and warm temperatures.
PhD student Laura Fattaruso recently published a piece on temblor about recent research that looks into why the southern San Andreas Fault has had a relative lack of recent earthquakes: a story that involves the famous Salton Sea, prehistoric Lake Cahuilla, and how those lakes can affect stress in the earth's crust along the Fault.
The hydrogeology research group has published a number of articles in the past few weeks on their research in the Salar De Atacama, Island of Tobago, and Massachusetts. This stellar cast of authors includes Professor David Boutt and graduate students Marsha Allen, Sarah McKnight,
![Linemen work to restore power in Texas during winter storm, February 2021. Photo by Jonathan Cutrer, via Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0]](http://www.geo.umass.edu/sites/default/files/styles/thumb-square/public/field/image/news/texas-1-1068x580.jpg?itok=Mc3N8Okc)
Associate Professor Eve Vogel provides an analysis in ProMarket about the recent failure of the Texas Power Grid in the contexts of broader electricity markets, biophysical limitations, and different governance options. The piece features a map by MS Geography-GIST students
Recent alum Ian Hillenbrand, professors Mike Williams and Haiying Gao, along with PhD student Cong Li, have just published a paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters proposing that a
U-Mass Geosciences has a strong showing at the (virtual) annual meeting of the Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America, March 14th and 15th 2021. If you're attending #NEGSA2021 this year don't miss out! Here is a schedule of who is presenting and when.
Graduate student Evan Thaler, with professors Isaac Larsen and Qian Yu, recently published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that documents complete carbon-rich topsoil loss in one-third of the Corn Belt in the Midwest – nearly 30 million acres. Read more...
The American Geosciences Institute just published their report of Geoscience graduate employment trends as of December 2020: "91% of geoscience graduates who earned their degree between 2014-2018 were employed, while 75% of graduates from 2019 and 80% of graduates from 2020 reported the same.
Dr's Brian Yellen, John Woodruff, and collaborators at WHOI recently published a paper in Estuaries and Coasts documenting their findings of much-lower-than-expected sediment levels behind dams in the Lower Hudson watershed in addition to creating a tool to quickly estimate the amount of sediment trapped behind dams. Read more here...
While most of our course offerings are remote this semester, we are offering several courses through U-Mass University Without Walls. These are asynchronous courses that are taught independently from your regular semester courseload, and can taken by anyone, whether enrolled at UMass or not. They are all listed in SPIRE.
Dr. David Boutt, along with colleagues at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, has been commissioned as part of a cooperative study to investigate how lithium extraction impacts the hydrologic environment in Latin America, especially with regards to lithium brine-fresh water aquifer systems. The goal of the study is to provide companies with better guidance on sustainable lithium extraction.
The Geosciences Department is pleased to announce the November 29, 2020 publication of The Chinese City (Routledge, 2021), by Professor Piper Gaubatz (Geography Program) and Professor Weiping Wu (Director, Columbia University Graduate Program in Urban Planning). This is a completely revised second edition of their 2012 book. The book engages with major recent changes in Chinese cities and urban life.
Dr. Isaac Larsen is spending the spring semester at the University of Salzburg, Austria as a recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award. He will teach graduate courses and conduct research on Earth surface changes using cosmogenic nuclide geochemistry techniques to study erosion rates using sand samples from rivers and river terraces in non-glaciated Alpine landscapes, as well as investigating how they respond to climate change.
Alum Dr. Alan Condron and Professor Ray Bradley recently published a paper in Geology which uses accounts of 19th century European explorers to ground-truth arctic sea ice models. Read more here...
It is with deep regret that we mark the passing of Professor Ward Motts (3/31/1924 - 2/22/2020). The memorial service will be on March 29th at South Congregational Church, 2 PM
Ward S. Motts, pioneering hydrogeologist and emeritus professor of geology at UMASS Amherst, died peacefully aged 95 at the Hospice of the Fisher Home in Amherst, MA. A memorial service had been planned for March 29th at South Congregational Church in South Amherst.
A new paper co-authored by Dr. Stephen Burns uses speleothem records to document paleoclimate in Southern Arabia. The research found over 21 pluvial periods with precipitation of more than 300 mm per year to have occurred since ∼1.1 million years ago. Read more...
Dr. Michael Rawlins, climate modeler and associate director of the geoscience department’s Climate Systems Research Center, is lead author of a new analysis of the changing character of runoff, river discharge and other hydrological cycle elements across the North Slope of Alaska.
Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette was interviewed by the Polish blog Glacjoblogia discussing her research of past climate change— looking particularly into the last 2-3 million years of Earth history across the Arctic.
Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette will highlight the Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling program on PBS's Polar Extremes, airing February 5th and 8pm EST. The show also contains several familiar faces to those in our department, including alum Jeremy Shaken: Watch the trailer, and show, at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/polar-extremes/
PhD students Karin Lehnigk and Sarah McKnight have created a blog highlighting their experiences while conducting research abroad this semester.
PhD student Brendan Moran, Dr. David Boutt, and Dr.
Several students and faculty are presenting their research at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union this week in San Fransisco. Below is a list of when and where you can find them:
Department of Geosciences
627 North Pleasant Street
233 Morrill Science Center
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003-9297
Phone: (413) 545-2286
Fax: (413) 545-1200
