A collaboration between the Northeast Climate Adapatation Science Center, students, and faculty in the department has resulted in the first decade-scale paleotemperature reconstruction for New England, spanning ~900 years.
Several of our students and faculty will be presenting their work at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Indiannapolis. If you're at the conference, be sure to check them out!
08:05 AM - 08:20 AM
Graduate student Jennifer Hatch, Professor Michele Cooke, and alum Dr. Scott Marshall just published a new open access paper in Geosphere on the active geometry of the southern San Andreas fault: A complicated system, with much more data needed to vastly improve current models of fault geometry and slip rates.
We had a busy and successful open house of our new teaching lab on Friday, featuring an analog modeling table for structural geology, flume table, augmented reality sandbox, and, of course, our alumni-funded stone tables, in addition to the
Could information about activity deep beneath Earth’s crust help humans prepare for major earthquakes through building, planning, and infrastructure?
Once again, the UMass Amherst Geography Club performed well against tough competition at the regional World Geography Bowl during the New England-St Lawrence Valley (NESTVAL) divisional meeting of the American Association of Geographers, October 12, 2018, at Keene State College. The team as a whole placed third in the region, which includes colleges and universities in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Quebec.
Since 1998, the American Geosciences Institute has organized this international event to promote understanding of Earth science and encourage stewardship of the Earth.
Congratulations to Dr. Piper Gaubatz on receiving The American Association of Geographers China Specialty Group outstanding service award! This award is presented to the individuals who provided significant services and leadership or made important contributions to the advancement of China geography studies.
Dr. Michele Cooke and PhD student Jennifer Beyer find unexpected ‘Deep Creep’ Near the San Andreas and San Jacinto Faults. Their analysis shows enigmatic earthquake pattern in San Bernardino basin is not typical. Find out more by visiting our site. Read More...
Dr. Jon Woodruff discusses a paper about the fate of coastal wetlands with #sealevelrise in a recent Nature News and Views. Read more....
Dr. David Boutt has been named the 2018 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer by the Geological Society of America's Hydrogeology Division.
More information about the lectureship / series, and the talks Dr. Boutt will be giving, can be found here.
Dr. Isaac Larsen will receive the 2017 Luna B. Leopold Young Scientist Award at the 2017 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, to be held 11–15 December in New Orleans, La. The award recognizes a young scientist for “a significant and outstanding contribution that advances the field of Earth and planetary surface processes.”
The UMass Amherst Geography Club was the top-scoring team for the fourth consecutive year in the World Geography Bowl held at the 2017 New England-St Lawrence Valley (NESTVAL) divisional meeting of the American Association of Geographers. The highest scoring team, geography students Kevin Bean, Carson Caraluzzi, Becca Feidelson, Will Kostick, Simon Perreira, and Le Tran, traveled to Central Connecticut State University for the October 20th competition.
Several of our faculty and students are presenting their research at the GSA annual meeting in Seattle this week. Below is a schedule of presentations, sessions chaired, and events hosted by members of our department:
Doctoral Candidate Laura Fattarusso produced a short video highlighting the work of the Dr. Michele Cooke's research group at the Geomechanics Lab and their modeling of strike-slip fault evolution. Watch the video here.
The Department of Geosciences was invited to create five exhibits showcasing various subjects in earth science, which is currently on display in the Integrated Science Building until the Fall of 2018. A webpage with a link to each exhibit can be found here.
Dr. Michael Rawlins, associate director of the Climate Systems Research Center, received grants from NASA and the U.S. DOE to study climate driven changes in arctic ecosystems. The grants will allow Rawlins and his team to expand on his multi-institutional effort to understand biological processes and land-ocean interactions controlling the structure and function of the Beaufort Lagoons complex in northern Alaska.
Dr. Robert DeConto has received a four-year grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Prediction of and Resilience Against Extreme Events (PREEVENTS) program.The goal of the grant is to better characterize the uncertainty in sea-level rise predictions and coastal flooding risk that stems from complex ice-sheet physics and interactions among the ice sheets, ocean, atmosphere and underlying solid land.
Associate Professor David Boutt received an award from the state of Massachusetts to continue monitoring isotopes in groundwater across the state. These data can be used to examine the impacts of drought vs. wet weather on groundwater.
Dr. Michele Cooke and recent graduates Alex Hatem and Kevin Toeneboehn recently published a paper in the Journal of Structural Geology on the formation and growth of strike slip faults and their relation to earthquakes. More information can be found here.
The paper can be found here.
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