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The Nobel Conference 2018 “Living Soil: A Universe Underfoot” was a tremendous success!  We had 3350 attendees including nearly 1000 high school students, and another 4000+ live-streaming the talks.  The speakers were AMAZING, and really enjoyed spending time with our students and faculty. Soil was also celebrated through the fine arts, performing arts, music and…

I hope you’re all paying attention to the phenomenal footage from Hawaii!  From the first cracks in driveways to the sputtering lava fountains to the mighty rivers of lava flowing to the sea…  How awesome is our planet!  Laura was there on vacation in January, and there was no indication that a major eruption was…

The 2018 Nobel Conference is titled “Living Soil: The Universe Underfoot”, with geology center stage!  Laura is co-chairing the conference with Jim Dontje, the director of the Johnson Center for Environmental Innovation, and Julie and several GEO students are deeply involved in planning and hosting.  We have a crazy-talented set of speakers who will address…

The Gustavus Geology Department welcomes Rory McFadden as our new tenure-track professor!  Rory will teach the solid earth parts of geology, including the courses Earth Materials (previously known as Mineralogy), Petrology, Structural Geology, in addition to our intro courses and research seminars. Rory taught at Gustavus this past year as a one-year visiting professor, including…

Archaeology: some people think it’s an exciting glamorous discovering-Pompeii kind of life, while others think all we do is dig around in the dirt. As I learned on my dig this summer, the reality is somewhere in between. All I knew about the site upon arrival was that it was a Roman Villa, first built…

Hi there! I’m Sarah Bruihler and I’m a senior in the Geology Department. Last summer I worked with Julie Bartley on stromatolite research; for my senior thesis I will be doing a comparison of modern and ancient stromatolites, identifying similarities and differences between them. In June, Julie and I traveled for a week to the…

In January 2017 I began researching near Santa Rosalia, Mexico on the Boleo Mineral Mine through a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) with other geology students and professors from both the U.S. and Mexico. Over the course of three weeks, my partner, mentor and I explored around the mine site and mapped the locations of…

We welcome Rory McFadden this fall, who joins the Gustavus faculty as a one-year visiting professor to teach the solid earth courses.  Rory has studied structural and tectonic geology all over the world, from Antarctica and Panama to California and New England.  Stop in to say hello, and if you need to identify a mystery…

Jim Welsh retired in May 2017, ending a 37-year era at Gustavus.  Here is a small excerpt from the speech Laura Triplett gave at his retirement dinner: “Indeed, the entire Welshian is defined by Jim’s passionate commitment to the student experience and camaraderie, a fierce belief in the value of the earth sciences, and a…