In keeping with the mission of West Chester University, the first goal of the Department of Geology & Astronomy is to provide high quality undergraduate education for geoscience professionals and future teachers in the fields of the earth and space sciences. Our second is to provide graduate training in the fields of science education and continuing professional development.
bmitted by Tim Scott on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 13:09
The Colorado Ecosystem Field Studies program is a course held near Boulder, Colorado, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountain Range.
It is a 17 day, 3 undergraduate transfer credit field camp class in which students learn fundamental concepts and essential research methods in ecosystem science. Students' classroom-based knowledge is synthesized and applied through hands on investigation of an incredible Rocky Mountain ecosystem. Through outdoor, scientific exploration, students discover the complexity and relevance of ecosystem based disciplines of ecology, biology, enviromental science/studies, geology and geography. Investigation of the local ecology, geography, climatology and geology will reveal how the disciplines are interrelated in ecosystem research.
The CEFS course, in short, is an opportunity to study, hike and camp in the amazing foothills of the Rocky Mountains, gain valuable career skills in ecosystem research and earn transfer credit along the way. Studies will take place at the Cal-Wood Education Center, a private, non-profit organization located on 1,200 acres in the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountain at an elevation of 7,500-8,000 feet. The course will consist of daily reading assignments, written exams, a field practicum, a presentation of field research, and a research paper expanding upon the research topic.
This course is accredited through the University of Montana, Missoula's Environmental Studies Program (EVST 391). The cost of attendance is $1,675, both for in-state and out-of-state students, which includes all meals, camping fees, equippment, access to all of Cal-Wood's facilities, and use of the Cal-Wood Lodge. There is an additional $135 fee payable to the University of Montana Continuing Education Department for credit administration. There are two possible sessions: the first is from June 12-26; the second is from July 24-August 9.
Applications can be found and submitted online at the following website, http://www.ecofs.org/index.php/application-logistics.
For more information, please visit the ECOFS website; for the syllabus of the course see the following or the attachment below.
Submitted by Tim Scott on Wed, 02/22/2012 - 12:49
Looking for a fun and different MS degree in Petrology/Mineralogy/Geochemistry/Planetary Science?
There are two projects for two students who would like to earn a Master's Degree in Geology from the Univ. of Puerto Rico, located in Mayaguez Puerto Rico. The projects are fully supported (tuition paid + salary) by a research grant from NSF and departmental support.
Both projects are highly multi-disciplinary, and combine petrology, mineralogy, meterorite impact studies, sedimnetology, geomorpohology, geochemistry, and electron microsopy in new ways to identify evidence of eroded impact structures in the geologic record. Specifically, the project goals are to search for detrital shocked minerals in unusal sedimentary environments in sourthern Africa.
Students should have an interest in one or more of the above areas. Basic undergraduate coursework in mineralogy, petrology and sedimentology is required. Additional undergraduate research experience in any of the above areas would be helpful. Previous knowledge of or experience working with accessory minerals (zircon and others) would also be helpful but not necessary. The projects require a few weeks of summer field work in South Africa that will be conducted in the summer of 2012 (probably July).For these projects you must be able to participate in field work in July of 2012 and be able to start normal semester coursework in August 2012.
MS degree at UPRM generally takes 2-3 years. All full time graduate students are supported. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, U.S. citizens need no special paper work to visit/study in Puerto Rico. UPRM is a bilingual school (all classes are taught in both English and Spanish; official documents all are in English). The University of Puerto Rico is an exellent location to earn a Master's degree; all are encouraged to apply.
For more information regarding the university, please visit www.uprm.edu; for more on the graduate program, please visit geology.uprm.edu; and for any questions regarding this research or the opportunity, please contact current MS graduate student Timmons Erickson at timmons.erickson@gmail.com; or contact Aaron Cavosie at aaron.cavosie@uprm.edu.
Submitted by Tim Scott on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 12:25
The Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) is a long-standing program in pursuit of long-term field research on interrelationships of the scientific disciplines necessary to understand the total environment of arctic and mountain regions, with a key emphasis on research in the area of global glacier-climate problem.
The Juneau Icefield Research Program emphasizes field work in Earth Systems Science - the total systems inter-relationship of field geology, environmental geography, alpine geomorphology, ecology, geophysics, glaciology, glaciohydrology, remote sensing, meteorology, and surveying. The goal is to appreciate inter-science investigations not only in pristine wilderness regions but assessments of environmental problems even in rural and urban areas.
Participants take part in an intensive Summer Arctic Expeditionary Program on the Juneau Icefield, the fifth largest icefield in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most spectacular. The program is held in cooperation with NASA and in partnership with the Juneau Icefield Research Program, the Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research, and the University of Alaska Southeast.
The JIRP will be conducted from June 28th to August 23rd. Additional field activity may be arranged for qualified students interested in JIRP and allied regional research projects. Up to NINE credits can be arranges through the environmental science program at the University of Alaska.
Participants must be enrolled in or admitted for work as candidates for a college or university degree. Exceptions are made when students are between programs. High scholastic record or potential is expected. Weight is placed on personal character, strong interest, and professional motivation. All students are required to enroll in at least four credits at the University of Alaska, SE, in ENVS 493/193. The full regular fee is $4800.
completed application form will include an up-to-date transcript, evidence of school or university status, a statement of professional goals, a physician's medical certification, and three letters of recommendation regarding scholarship, character and compatibility. The JIRP application form can be downloaded www.juneauicefield.com or the following links. Application Form --- Physician's Certification Form.
Submitted by Tim Scott on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 12:47
Posted in
Internships
The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) is offering two paid summer research internships in 2012.
The Southern California Earthquake Center/Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SCEC/SURE)
This is an 8-10 week program program that pairs a student, one-on-one, to conduct research with a pre-eminent earthquake scientist or specialist. Many SURE interns also have the opportunity to work alongside graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, and thus gain the special perspective of these early career professionals.Most projects for SURE interns require some knowledge of geology, geophysics, or geotechnical engineering, and thus most SURE interns are juniors or seniors majoring in those fields; however, mentors do sometimes have projects without required coursework or other restrictions. There are typically numerous applicants interested in every project. A review committee matches finalists with appropriate projects and then each mentor selects among those finalists.
Each SCEC/SURE intern is paid a stipend of $5000 for 8-10 weeks of research. The length of the internship depends on the project and on the internship schedule that each mentor and intern will create in late spring.
The Southern California Earthquake Center/Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (SCEC/UseIT)
This is an 8 week team based undergraduate research program that unites undergraduates who are sophomores, juniors, or seniors in the coming fall, taking potentially any major, and coming from colleges and universities across the continent to participate in a leading-edge program at SCEC headquarters at the University of Southern California (USC). SCEC/UseIT interns work on multi-disciplinary, collaborative teams to tackle a scientific "Grand Challenge" posed by SCEC director Dr. Thomas Jordan. The Grand Challenge varies each year but always entails performing computer science research that is needed by earthquake scientists or outreach professionals. The majority of UseIT interns have considerable computer science skill or aptitude, but successful UseIT interns have hailed from nearly three dozen disciplines, all class levels, and all skill levels. Successful UseIT interns have in common a willingness to step outside their comfort zones and try new things.
Each SCEC/UseIT intern receives a stipend of $5000 for 8 weeks of research. This stipend is expected to cover food, housing, parking, and incidentals.Housing is available on the USC campus for any interested USEIT student. The cost of the housing will be deducted from the stipend.
The Priority application deadline for both of these programs is: February 27th, 2012. To learn more about them and apply to SURE and UseIt, please visit the following website Internships at the Southern California Earthquake Center or review this flyer.
Submitted by Tim Scott on Tue, 02/21/2012 - 16:27
A reconstruction depicts the swampy land that was covered up 300 Million years ago.
Researchers have uncovered a forest in northern China preserved under a layer of ash deposited 300 Million years ago. Preservation of the forest, just west of the Inner Mongolian district of Wuda, has been likened to that of the Italian city of Pompeii. The researchers were able to reconstruct nearly 1,000 sq m. of the forest's trees and plant distributions.
This rare insight into how the region once looked is described in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The excavations sampled three sites across a large expanse that was covered with about a metre of ash.
Due to the pristine preservation of some of the plants, the team estimate the ash fell over the course of just a few days, felling and damaging some of the trees and plants under its weight but otherwise keeping them intact.
"It's marvelously preserved," said study co-author Hermann Pfefferkorn of the Unversity of Pennsylvania in the US. "We can stand there and find a branch with the leaves atached, and then we find the next branch and the next branch and the next branch. And then we find the stump from the same tree. That's really exciting."
The team identified six groups of trees, ranging from low-lying tree ferns to now-extinct 25 m trees Sigillaria and Cordaites, as well as well preserved specimens of another extinct group called Noeggerathiales.
Based on the findinds, the team worked with a painter to depict what the forest would have looked like before the ash cloud descended. Prof. Pfefferkorn said that, as a particularly complete and well-caught moment in time, the forest would serve as a baseline for assessing future finds. "It's like Pompeii," he said. "Pompeii gives us deep insight into Roman culture, but it doesn't say anything about Roman history in and of itself."
"But on the other hand, it elucidates the time before and the time after. This finding is similar. It's a time capsule and therefore it allows us now to interpret what happened before or after much better."
For more information about this article and others, please visit the website of the BBC News and BBC America.
Submitted by Tim Scott on Tue, 12/06/2011 - 13:12
NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone" of a distant sun-like star.
This artist's conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets1.
The "habitable zone" of a planetary system refers to the band of orbits where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. Kepler has recently discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.
"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Kepler-22b is located 600 light-years away. While the planet is larger than Earth, its orbit of 290 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our world. The planet's host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.
Kepler discovers planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets that cross in front, or "transit," the stars. Kepler requires at least three transits to verify a signal as a planet.
"Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., who led the team that discovered Kepler-22b. "The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season."
This diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-22, a system with the first "habitable zone" planet discovered by NASA's Kepler mission. [This] zone is the sweet spot around a star where temperatures are right for water to exist in its liquid form. Liquid water is essential for life on Earth.
Submitted by Marc Gagne on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 15:09
On Tuesday, August 23, just before 2:00pm, the earth moved in Virginia and most of the East Coast felt the quake. Waves of excitement rippled through the Department of Geology and Astronomy as it became apparent what we were feeling was actually an earthquake, the largest that most of us have experienced! The epicenter of the magntiude 5.8 quake was located near the Spotsylvania Fault about 40 miles northwest of Richmond, in the central Virginia Seismic Zone. That area also experienced a magnitude 4.5 quake in 2003. A similar seismically active zone, the Lancaster Seismic Zone, is present in southeastern Pennsylvania. The largest recent earthquake in our area occurred in 1994 with magnitude 4.6, and was centered a few miles west of Reading.
External Links:
USGS information about the quake
A very informative blog from the American Geophysical Union
Watch the seismic waves travel across the continent thanks to Earthscope/USArray
Earthquakes in Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Geological Survey)
Click on Either Picture to Enlarge and Learn More.
Submitted by Tim Scott on Mon, 07/18/2011 - 09:31
But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.
In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles.
"Money is pouring in" from investors even though shale gas is "inherently unprofitable," an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. "Reminds you of dot-coms."
"The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work," an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 28, 2009.
Company data for more than 10,000 wells in three major shale gas formations raise further questions about the industry's prospects. There is undoubtedly a vast amount of gas in the formations. The question remains how affordably it can be extracted.
Click on Either Picture to Enlarge and Learn More.
The data show that while there are some very active wells, they are often surrounded by vast zones of less-productive wells that in some cases cost more to drill and operate than the gas they produce is worth. Also, the amount of gas produced by many of the successful wells is falling much faster than initially predicted by energy companies, making it more difficult for them to turn a profit over the long run.
|
