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Geology News

Geology majors doing summer research

Several Cornell College geology majors will be doing research over the summer, both on campus and off, including some who have won fellowships from National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates summer program. Read More

Posted May 08, 2013

Geology professor gets $30,000 grant

Rhawn Denniston, professor of geology at Cornell College, has won a $30,000 grant to study stalagmites for evidence of long-term climate change. Read More

Posted Apr 11, 2013

Six courses traveled to tropical field stations in February

Fifty-seven students joined their Cornell professors for courses in the Bahamas and Belize during block 6. Cornell courses have traveled to the Gerace Research Center in the Bahamas for years, and 2013 marked the third annual trip to a field station in Latin America. Read More

Posted Mar 26, 2013

Greenstein does field work in W. Australia

Geology Professor and Associate Dean of the College Ben Greenstein did research and presented at a conference in Australia before traveling to Chicago to attend the National Conference on Student Recruitment, Marketing and Retention. Read More

Posted Oct 20, 2012

Geology majors earn summer research placements

This summer several geology majors will be participating in prestigious off-campus research and outreach experiences. Read More

Posted Mar 30, 2012

Explosive lesson in how volcanoes work

Students in Emily Walsh’s Igneous Petrology class got an explosive demonstration on volcanoes. Walsh and UI assistant professor Ingrid Uktins Peate used water, a trash can and liquid nitrogen to explain how volcanic pressure builds and then explodes. Read More

Posted Mar 26, 2012

Sophomore geology major publishes work

Claire LaBarbera, a sophomore geology major from Chicago, had a paper she co-wrote published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. LaBarbera performed the research that led to the publication of “Traveling supraglacial lakes on George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctica” at a summer program at the University of Chicago, but the article lists her affiliation with [...] Read More

Posted Mar 15, 2012

Greenstein lectures on reef development in an area of low hurricane frequency

Ben Greenstein, professor of geology, will give a lecture on Jan 26th titled “Coral reef development in an area of low hurricane frequency: Curacao (formerly the Netherlands Antilles).” Spectacular exposures of 125,000-year-old fossil coral reefs have been lifted 10 meters above sea level by tectonic forces on the island of Curacao. The resulting cliffs provide [...] Read More

Posted Jan 20, 2012

Denniston lectures on stalagmite research for analyzing hurricane activity

Rhawn Denniston, Associate Professor of Geology will give a lecture on Oct 20th entitled “Reconstructing 5,000 Years of Hurricane Activity across the Northern Australia Coast using Stalagmites.” Our ability to recognize trends in hurricane activity is complicated by short and often incomplete historical records. As a means of extending the time frame of these records, [...] Read More

Posted Oct 13, 2011

Geology professor interviewed in “The Atlantic”

Geology Professor Rhawn Denniston was interviewed by The Atlantic for its recurring Nine and a Half Questions feature. The conversation covers his work at Cornell, his paleoclimatology research and the future of sustainable energy. Denniston, who recently got a $98,000 National Science Foundation grant to study ancient weather patterns, also talks about the importance he places [...] Read More

Posted Oct 13, 2011

Geology professor gets $98,000 NSF grant

Rhawn Denniston, associate professor of geology, has been awarded a $98,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study pre-historical hurricane activity in tropical northern Australia. This research continues Denniston’s work on stalagmites and involves field work in caves in the remote Kimberley region of Australia, as well as laboratory work at the University of New [...] Read More

Posted Sep 07, 2011

Students working on summer research

Cornell has a tradition of involving students in research over the summer, both on campus and off. Here is a look at some of the research students are performing this year. Two Cornell College geology majors have been awarded summer Research Experience for Undergraduates fellowships by the National Science Foundation, the first time two Cornell [...] Read More

Posted Jun 14, 2011

SIG Lecture

On Nov 9th, Dr. Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll, visiting presidential fellow, will present a lecture on “The Paleoclimatic Evolution of the Monsoon Environment of Northern Australia: From Plate Tectonics to Aboriginal Vegetation Burning.” The seminar will outline the controls of the northern Australian summer monsoon at time scales ranging from those of plate tectonics to the likely [...] Read More

Posted Nov 02, 2010

Two students get research grants

Two Cornell College juniors were awarded $750 grants by the Paleontological Society to help a professor with research this summer. Chelsea Korpanty ’11 (geology/art) and Elizabeth Erickson ’11 (geology/environmental studies) each received a 2010 Student Research Award from the Paleontological Society. The awards will go to support independent research on Curacao this summer, which will then be developed into [...] Read More

Posted Apr 22, 2010

Phi Beta Kappa lecture set for April 23

Lisa Pratt, a professor in the department of geological sciences at Indiana University, will spend two days at Cornell College as the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and deliver a lecture at 11:10 a.m. Friday, April 23, in Hedges Conference Room in The Commons. The lecture, “Technical and Ethical Challenges Associated with the Search for Extraterrestrial [...] Read More

Posted Apr 15, 2010

Feser Awarded Undergraduate Research Grant

MOUNT VERNON – Kelsey Feser, a junior Geology major has been awarded an Undergraduate Research Grant from the North Central section of the Geological Society of America. Feser will spend two weeks on San Salvador Island, Bahamas working with Professor of Geology Ben Greenstein. Her research investigates the impact of the development of a Club [...] Read More

Posted May 26, 2009

Ellerbroek studies ancient climate via stalagmites

Rebecca Ellerbroek began her senior thesis research by spending the summer of 2008 at the University of New Mexico’s Radiogenic Isotope Laboratory with Professor Rhawn Denniston. Rebecca’s project centers on a stalagmite from the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia that was collected by Australian collaborators and shipped to Denniston that spring. Her goal is to [...] Read More

Posted Jul 08, 2008

Rhodes’ research paves way for outstanding graduate program

Kris Rhodes ’08 completed a paid internship with the Smithsonian Institution in the summer of 2007, working in the Department of Paleobiology of the National Museum of Natural History. Rhodes worked closely with paleontologists at the Smithsonian to develop climate reconstructions from Late Paleozoic (280 million years old) fossil leaf assemblages. Rhodes went through two [...] Read More

Posted Jun 30, 2008

Students research reefs and culture in the Bahamas

Each February, Cornell courses in biology, geology, and anthropology leave the cold Iowa winter behind for a month in the Bahamas. The Gerace Research Center on the island of San Salvador provides an excellent facility for ongoing Cornell studies of modern and ancient reef systems in the area. Science students and faculty have focused especially [...] Read More

Posted May 01, 2008

Rodzinyak completes range of geology research projects

By the end of her junior year, Kristyn Rodzinyak had participated in three significant research projects and presented her findings at several professional conferences. Most recently, Rodzinyak traveled to Western Australia with Professor Ben Greenstein to investigate the geologic record of rapid sea level change preserved in fossil coral assemblages in the northwest part of the state. Read More

Posted Apr 10, 2008