| Department of Geosciences

UMass Geosciences at AGU

Several faculty and students will be presenting research at the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington DC from December 10th-14th. Below is a schedule of where and when to see them!
Professor Michele Cooke on Deaf Gain in the scientific community

Professor Michele L. Cooke was recently featured by UMass Magazine discussing Deaf Gain and the value that deaf and hard-of-hearing people provide to the larger community.
Rawlins and Boutt on extremely wet autumn in New England

Dr.'s Michael Rawlins and David Boutt weigh in on the how and why this was one of the wettest autumns on record for New England. Read More...
Riversmart Communities authors chapter in Handbook of Critical Physical Geography

Alum Nicole Gillet, Dr. Eve Vogel, alum Noah Slovin, and Dr.
XRF Facility receives NSF grant to upgrade equipment

This grant pays for a new X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer to replace two old and failing X-ray spectrometers at UMass-Amherst. The current instruments have operated constantly for more than 30 years. The new instrument will continue to be an important resource for the students and faculty at UMass, the Five College consortium in the region and universities worldwide. The UMass laboratory has served scientists the world over for more than 30 years. It will now be able to continue the tradition as a valuable and trusted resource for high quality XRF chemical analyses to the U.S.
Morse awarded Peacock Medal by Mineralogical Association of Canada

Stearns A. “Tony” Morse, professor emeritus of geosciences, has received the Mineralogical Association of Canada’s Peacock Medal, its highest award, for “outstanding contributions to the mineral sciences of Canada.” The award was presented at a lunch June 19 during the association’s annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. Read more...
Collaborative open-access paper offers 900-year temperature history for New England

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.
U-Mass Geosciences at GSA 2018 in Indianapolis!

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!

Sunday, 4 November 2018

08:05 AM - 08:20 AM
Hatch, Cooke, Marshall with new paper on Southern San Andreas

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.
Earth Science Week Open House Highlights teaching labs, unveils pillow basalt in Morrill Courtyard

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

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U-Mass Physical Modeling Lab releases new video

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.
Geology and Society exhibits now on display in ISB

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.
Rawlins receives NASA, DOE grants to study Arctic ecosystems

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.
DeConto received 4-year NSF grant to study uncertainty in sea-level rise predictions & coastal flooding risk

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.
Boutt receives grant from state, awarded top international lectureship.

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.
Cooke and recent alums publish new paper in JSG on formation of strike-slip faults

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.
Larsen receives high honors with national young scientist award

The American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Earth and Planetary Surface Processes Focus Group announced this week that it has chosen Isaac Larsen, assistant professor of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, to receive the coveted Luna B. Leopold Young Scientist Award for 2017. It recognizes a young scientist “for making a significant and outstanding contribution that advances the field of earth and planetary surface processes.”
Yu author of one of top ten most-cited papers in Remote Sensing

Dr. Qian Yu is the author of what has become one of the top ten most-cited papers in remote sensing over the past decade!

More information on Google Scholar's "Classic Papers" can be found here.
New article co-authored by Brian Yellen in Water Resources Research

A new article in Water Resources Research, co-authored by adjunct professor Brian Yellen, examines long-term dynamics in sediment yield by using time-varying sediment-discharge rating curves.

The article can be found here.
RiverSmart featured on WGBY and GCTV

The work of many of our department researchers, as part of RiverSmart Communities was recently highlighted on 2 local television programs: WGBY and Greenfield Community Television.