April 2020: Undergraduate Research Grant Award!

Daniel Shi (B.S. in Geological Sciences) has been awarded student research grant from the North-Central Section of Geological Society of America.  Kudos to Daniel on writing an excellent proposal! His senior/honors thesis project is titled: "Detrital zircon provenance constraints on the depositional setting of the Eagle Mountain Formation and implications for reconstructions of Basin and Range extension".

March 2020: Graduate Research Grant Awards!

Begum Kurtoglu (2nd year M.S. student) and Kenny Edge (1st year M.S. student) have been awarded student research grants from the AAPG Foundation, Grants-in-Aid program.  Begum's thesis project is titled: "Constraining space-time strain paths of the Panamint and Cottonwood Mountains, California, through low-temperature thermochronology".  Kenny's thesis project is titled: "Viability of conodonts as geochronometers". Congratulations to them both on writing terrific proposals! 

January 2020:
​Field Work

Kim Moore (1st year Ph.D. student), Kenny Edge (1st year M.S. student), and I had a great trip through southern and east-central Nevada.  We collected bedrock thermochronology samples across portions of the Central Nevada thrust belt in Lincoln County. Kim will use the samples to reconstruct Cretaceous to Miocene exhumation in the region as part of her dissertation. Lots of snow in these ranges! We made sure to stop for coffee and pie at the Little A'le' Inn in the bustling metropolis of Rachel, Nevada.

We spent the latter part of our trip examining and sampling late Cretaceous to Oligocene conglomerates in the region for detrital zircon U-Pb and (U-Th)/He double dating.  These sediments may provide important clues to the evolving landscape of the this region. Stay tuned!

September 2019: GSA Phoenix, AZ

Begum Kurtoglu, M.S. student, presenting her thesis research at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Phoenix, AZ in September. 

January 2019:
​Field Work

Begum Kurtoglu (M.S. student) and I had a great trip to the Death Valley region in January of 2019.  We collected data and samples from several areas in the Panamint and Cottonwood mountains. Begum will use the data and the resulting thermochronology ages to recontruct Late Cretaceous to Pliocene deformation between the Panamint and Cottonwood and Argus ranges. Minus a flat tire and some weather at the start, it was a successful trip!