We can almost taste spring, but I still want to share some photos and stories from this past January in Geology. Our corner of Nobel was very lively!
The Dinosaur class finished up their fossil preparation and curation, and took a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago. If you want to see the fossil cleaners in action, see a short video here: Gustavus students cleaning dinosaur bones
Some students from Jeff Jeremiason’s J-term course (pictured here: Griffin Reed ’16, Amy Christensen ’15 and Nevada Wendlandt ’14) were dissolving dragonfly larvae from northern Minnesota and measuring their mercury content, to study bioaccumulation of the toxic metal in organisms.
Others in that course worked on Laura Triplett and Zach Wagner’s (’13) silica project. Here, Michael Walker (Chemistry, ’13), Rachel Mohr (’16) and Zach VanOrsdel (’15) watched Zach W. run the ICPMS in the Environmental Chemistry lab.
Our senior Geology majors were also busily working on their thesis projects. Here, Jeff Allen (’13) is digesting sediments from an old firing range to explore trace metal contamination and mobility, while Amanda Adams (’13) isolated belemnites she collected last summer in Wyoming to study paleo-environments in ancient inland seas.
Here, Emily Seelen (Biology and Environmental Studies, ’13) was working on writing an article with Jeff Jeremiason on their mercury research, while Jake Bruihler (Geology and ES, ’13) was working on data he collected in Seven Mile Creek to help understand landform development and creek incision.
Matt Illies (’13) was isolating and examining conondonts he collected from the Decorah Shale at sites in Minnesota and Iowa to determine whether depositional environments varied in time and space across that formation.
Jenny Hanson (’14), our courageous and multi-talented department and research assistant, did a variety of organizational tasks for us in addition to continuing to help Julie Bartley with their geochemistry research projects.