Category: Departmental News

The speaker at the 2010 Student Symposium on Off-Campus Study was Bereket Haileab, Associate Professor of Geology at Carleton College.

As a geologist, Dr. Haileab mapped volcanic ash deposits used to determine the ages of many early human fossils throughout Kenya and Ethiopia. He has been teaching at Carleton since 1994 and served as the Director of the ACM Tanzania Program in fall 2008.

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We are proud to report that two Carleton geology majors have been awarded National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships!  The fellowships provide graduate students with three years of support worth a total of over $100,000.  The fellowships carry annual stipends of $30,000 plus a one-time allowance of $11,500 for education-related expenses.
Among the ten winners of fellowships this year from Carleton were two Carleton geology majors:  Kristin Bergmann ’04, who is attending the California Institute of Technology and Sam Kanner ’10, who will be attending the University of California-Berkeley.

Also, the eight honorable mentions in the competition from Carleton included geology alums Tyler Mackey and Lydia Staisch, both ’08.

Dr. Elizabeth Screaton, associate professor of geological sciences at the University of Florida, will present “From the Seafloor to the Seismogenic Zone: Fluid Flow in Earthquakes” on Friday, April 23 at 3:30 p.m. in Mudd Hall, Room 73. This event is free and open to the public.

We’re very happy to announce that Bryn Benford, who taught Introductory Geology for us last year, is back again for another round of teaching Introductory Geology this spring term. 

Bryn is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  Her thesis, advised by Dr. Basil Tikoff, is entitled, “An integrated tectonic study of the Jamaica strike-slip restraining bend.”  Bryn’s masters thesis, also done under Dr. Tikoff’s supervision, was entitled, “Continuation of the Western Idaho shear zone: South Mountain, Idaho.”

Bryn was a geology major and honors student at her alma mater, Franklin and Marshall College. 

To keep her sanity and get out of Mudd once in a while, Bryn is also helping coach the Carleton track team in the triple jump and hammer throw events.

Welcome back Bryn!

A Web site created at Carleton College to make earth science come alive in the classroom has been awarded the Science Prize for Online Resources in Education.

In an era in which knowledge of geoscience is fundamental to handling such pressing issues as climate change and environmental degradation, the Web site, known as On the Cutting Edge, fosters the sharing of ideas about teaching with the aim of improving education throughout the field.

“In the United States, many students get earth science in seventh or eighth grade—and never have another geoscience class,” says Cathryn Manduca, director of the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College and a co-founder of On the Cutting Edge. “Yet now it is especially important for students in general to understand what is facing us environmentally, and for the workforce to have more and better-trained geoscientists.”

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Carleton’s Version Of The Story

The Science Education Resource Center (SERC) works to improve education through projects that support educators. Although their work has a particular emphasis on undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education, they work with educators across a broad range of disciplines and at all educational levels. An office of Carleton College, their work is funded primarily through National Science Foundation grants. The office has special expertise in effective pedagogies, geoscience education, community organization, workshop leadership, digital libraries, website development and program and website evaluation.

SERC website

Julia Schwarz, Laura Bazzetta and Nate Ryan, all class of 2010, horsing around in the epic snow pile behind Mudd. We had more snow this year, and better skiing in the arb, than we can remember in many years.

We’d like to welcome, and thank, Paul Riley, a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who stepped in this term to teach Tectonics while Sarah Titus is on sabbatical. 

Paul is a 2004 graduate of Franklin and Marshall College’s Geoscience program.  His senior thesis was entitled “Shear sense indicators in the Snake Range Decollement, NV,” and he was awarded the  Geology Award as an outstanding geology major.  Paul’s advisor for his senior thesis was Zeshan Ismat.   His masters thesis at the University of Wisconsin, under the supervision of Laurel Goodwin, was entitled “Spatial distribution of deformation bands and fractures in the Pajarito fault zone and implications for vadose zone fluid flow through the Bandelier Tuff, NM.”  His PhD thesis, being done under the supervision of Basil Tikoff, is entitled “Characterization and organization of fracture systems in the Tuolumne Intrusive Suite, Sierra Nevada Batholith, CA.”

Along the way, Paul has gained wide-ranging experience including numerous teaching and research positions, grants, awards, and industry experience interning with ExxonMobil last summer.

Paul is also an accomplished marathoner, who for fun ran in a Carleton track meet last weekend and beat all the students in the 5K heat!  But being a relatively short race, it called for more of a burst of speed than the long, consistent pace of a marathon, and he says his legs are still sore.

It’s great to have you here Paul!

The following Carleton Geology Department people presented papers in technical sessions at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, OR in October and the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco, CA in December. Carleton people are indicated in bold face type, and students and alums are indicated with their class years. The papers listed are only those which involved a current Carleton student or employee; many other Carleton alums, too many to list here, also presented papers at the meetings.

Why would anyone propose starting up an off-campus study program – and a science program, at that – in a tiny village, perched on a ridge in the Apennine Mountains in central Italy?

The answer, according to geology professor Cameron Davidson from Carleton College and environmental studies professor Laura Peterson from Luther College, is that the village in question – Coldigioco – is a center for geological research and is superbly situated for a field-based program in the earth and environmental sciences.

And though it’s not part of the “official” answer, Coldigioco happens to be, Peterson said, “one of those places that people just seem to fall in love with.”

This summer, with the support of a grant from the ACM Faculty Career Enhancement (FaCE) Project, Davidson and Peterson will take a group of faculty from ACM colleges to Coldigioco for a five-day workshop, “Earth and the Environment in Italy.” The deadline to apply for the June workshop is February 10.

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