Current News

Adjunct Prof. Sam Heads: New Oligocene Insect Collection

Posted on 08.07.2018 | Read More
Insect Fossil Image

Adjunct Professor Sam Heads, an internationally known insect paleontologist, recently brought a rare and valuable collection of Oligocene insect fossils to campus.  The story of the collection can be found at:
http://storied.illinois.edu/a-donation-for-the-ages/

 

Dispatch from Wasatch-Uinta Field Camp 2018!

Posted on 07.12.2018 | Read More
Prof. Michael Stewart (left), Prof. Kurt Burmeister (Ph.D., 2005, right), and the 2018 field camp students from UIUC Geology gather around the "Block I" as they tour Bonneville Salt flats.

Prof. Michael Stewart and the Illinois students attending the Wasatch-Uinta Summer Field Course based out of Park City, Utah have been working hard and observing some of the best Geology the west has to offer.

Trish Gregg Wins Prestigious NSF CAREER Award

Posted on 06.20.2018 | Read More
Prof. Trish Gregg at James Hutton’s classic Siccar Point unconformity, Scotland, during the 2018 GEOL 415/515 field class, which she co-led with Prof. Michael Stewart and Prof. Alison Anders.

Assistant Professor Trish Gregg has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER award for her proposal Investigating the unrest and eruption potential of caldera forming volcanoes in the Aleutians.

Yan Zhan Awarded NASA Earth and Space Sciences Graduate Fellowship

Posted on 06.20.2018 | Read More
Yan Zhan

Yan Zhan, a 4th year Geology Ph.D. candidate in Prof. Trish Gregg's Volcano Geodynamics group, has been awarded a prestigious NASA Earth and Space Sciences Graduate Fellowship.

Jia Wang Receives Best Student Poster Award at CMWR Conference

Posted on 06.08.2018 | Read More

Jia Wang received the Best Student Poster Award from among 135 student participants in the Computational Methods in Water Resources Conference

Tom Johnson Elected GSA Fellow

Posted on 05.30.2018 | Read More

Professor Tom Johnson has been elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.

Julia Cisneros Awarded NSF Grow Grant

Posted on 05.30.2018 | Read More

PhD graduate student Julia Cisneros has been awarded a Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide (GROW) grant from the Division of Graduate Education at the National Science Foundation.

In Memorium: Prof. Emeritus George Devries Klein

Posted on 05.11.2018 | Read More
George Klein 2013 Photo
Prof. George Klein, a sedimentary geologist who served on the UIUC Geology faculty from 1970 to 1993, passed away on April 30th.

Predicting Supervolcano Eruptions

Posted on 05.02.2018 | Read More
Prof Gregg and PhD candidate Haley Cabaniss

PhD candidate Haley Cabaniss, Prof. Trish Gregg and collaborator Prof. Eric Grosfils publish a paper in Geophysical Research Letters that lifts the lid on the precursors to supervolcano eruptions.

Snow On The Great Sand Dunes Greets GEOL 593 Class In Colorado

Posted on 04.25.2018 | Read More
Late Spring snow brought a dusting of white last weekend to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, for the start of a four-day field course that was a part of a graduate GEOL593 class "Sedimentary Structures".

Prof. Gregg's Very Successful Year as NCSA Faculty Fellow

Posted on 04.23.2018 | Read More
Greg Photo

Professor Trish Gregg was one of eight National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Faculty Fellowship awardees for 2017-18.  The Fellowship program provided $25,000 to support the development of a High Performance Computing method for combining large volcano monitoring data sets with sophisticated geodynamic models.  Gregg presented results from her NCSA Faculty Fellowship Project: "A Data Assimilation Framework for Forecasting Volcanic Unrest", Monday April 23rd, 2018. 

Professor Best Awarded The Lamarck Medal from EGU!

Posted on 04.10.2018 | Read More
LaMarck Medal image

Prof. Jim Best was awarded the 2018 Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal  by the European Geosciences Union at the EGU annual meeting in Vienna, April 9th, 2018. 

The Lamarck Medal was established by the EGU Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Paleontology Division, in recognition of the scientific achievement of Jean Baptiste Lamarck.  It is awarded to scientists for their exceptional contributions to stratigraphy, sedimentology or palaeontology.  The Medal is awarded to Prof. Best this year for "major contributions to our understanding of physical sedimentary processes and their products in the geological record."  

Jack Albright Awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Posted on 04.03.2018 | Read More
Jack Photo
Second year geophysics Ph.D. student, John “Jack" Albright, has been awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. This is the fourth NSF Fellowship awarded to UIUC Geology grad students in the past three years, an unprecedented level of success!!

Spring 2018 Oil and Gas Short Course

Posted on 03.26.2018 | Read More
Short Course Presentation
shell logoThe Department's Spring Oil and Gas Industry Short Course,sponsored by Royal Dutch Shell, "Controls on and Prediction of Sandstone Porosity and Permeability," was taught by Drs. Linda Bonnell and Rob Lander on March 10th and 11th. 

Eryops Skeleton Being Repaired for Display

Posted on 02.21.2018 | Read More
Photo of repair planning
The department's Eryops Skeleton replica is being repaired in preparation for its return to NHB, with the help of  Christa Deacy-Quinn from the Spurlock museum.  Click here for blog posts as the project proceeds.

Stable Cratons May Not Be As Tectonically Stable As We Think

Posted on 02.20.2018 | Read More
Graduate students Jiashun Hu and Quan Zhou, with Faculty Lijun Liu, Craig Lundstrom and Stephen Marshak, reveal a new story of the geological history of cratons in South America and Africa.

Leah Matchett '16 Named Knight-Hennessy Scholar

Posted on 02.16.2018 | Read More
Leah Matchett Photo (Photo by Javier Flores)

Leah Matchett, a Geology alumna from the class of 2016, is one of 49 students selected in the first year of the Knight-Hennessy Scholar program for postgraduate study at Stanford University.

See the Illinois News Bureau story about Leah here.


The Great Unconformity: Erosion linked to supercontinent cycles and snowball Earth?

Posted on 02.06.2018 | Read More
The Great Unconformity in the St. Francois Mtns.
Graduate student Mike DeLucia, and advisors Willy Guenthner and Steve Marshak, have constrained the timing and magnitude of erosion that produced the Great Unconformity surface (the global erosion surface separating Precambrian and Paleozoic rocks) in the St. Francois Mountains of Missouri (an area well know to many Illinois Geology students)!

Colorado Plateau Model Returns!

Posted on 01.25.2018 | Read More
Photo of the new home for our Colorado Plateau model
The department's 3-D model of parts of the Colorado Plateau, including the Grand Canyon and southern Utah, found its new home in the Natural History Building, after about 4 years in storage.

Fossil displays return to NHB

Posted on 01.24.2018 | Read More
U of I carpenters mount fish fossil replica in NHB
The Department of Geology continues to bring its historical treasures back into the Natural History Building.  Several detailed replicas of fossils that were part of the early natural history displays in NHB have been brought out of storage and are being mounted in the hallways for all to see.

Clay Conference at Univ. of Illinois

Posted on 01.15.2018 | Read More

The Univ. of Illinois is hosting the 55th Annual Meeting of the Clay Minerals Society (CMS) on June 10 - 14, 2018. Prof. Stephen Altaner, who is on the Organizing Committee, will lead a field trip to the Starved Rock State Park area, a field trip to the type locality of illite, and a thematic session on Teaching and History of Clay Sciences. The U of I also hosted the CMS meeting in 2013 when it was one of the most attended meetings in CMS history.

New Insights on Yellowstone Volcanism: Liu and Team

Posted on 01.15.2018 | Read More

In a paper “Western US volcanism due to intruding oceanic mantle driven by ancient Farallon slabs” published in Nature Geoscience, Lijun Liu and graduate students Quan Zhou and Jiashun Hu have employed seismic tomography to reveal new insights into the origin of Yellowstone volcanism and challenge existing views on deep mantle plumes.

Cisneros Presents to Chancellor, President, and Board of Trustees

Posted on 12.11.2017 | Read More

Julia Cisneros was invited as the sole student representative of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign to speak about her research and fieldwork in the Amazon and Yellow Rivers and showcase the importance of applied fieldwork and student research opportunities to the Chancellor, President, and Board of Trustees.

EOS Research Spotlight: Wendy Yang

Posted on 12.07.2017 | Read More

Assistant Professor Wendy Yang’s recent paper “Evaluating the Classical Versus and Emerging Conceptual Model of Peatland Methane Dynamics” published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles has been recognized as a significant contribution and highlighted in the EOS Research Spotlight.

National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship: Julia Cisneros

Posted on 12.07.2017 | Read More

Graduate student Julia Cisneros won a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship this fall for a project titled “Dune morphology and dynamics in fluvial channels." 

Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal of the American Geoscience Institute: Susan Kieffer

Posted on 12.07.2017 | Read More

Professor Emeritus Susan Kieffer is a leader in the emerging field of Geoethics. This year she received the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal of the American Geoscience Institute and contributed to a book chapter on Geoethics. Dr. Kieffer is also presenting an invited paper at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union: The International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG) by Susan Kieffer, Silvia Peppoloni and Giuseppe di Capua. Union Session U12A: How do we ensure research integrity? 

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship: Robert Goldman

Posted on 12.07.2017 | Read More

Graduate student Robert Goldman won an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in fall 2017 based on his proposal "Developing a Comprehensive 3D Finite Element Model of Magma Plumbing Systems to Improve Forecasts of Eruption Timing, Location, and Destructive Potential."

Paper Accepted in Frontiers in Earth Science: Zhan, Gregg

Posted on 12.07.2017 | Read More

Graduate student Yan Zhan, advised by Trish Gregg, had a paper accepted in Frontiers in Earth Science. This work demonstrates how modeling the eruption potential of a restless volcano can be improved by incorporating volcano monitoring data by “hindcasting” a 2009 explosive eruption of Kerinci volcano, Indonesia.

R&D 100 Award for Crunchflow, Druhan

Posted on 11.21.2017 | Read More
Crunchflow model of groundwater flow and reactions

Crunchflow, a computer modeling package developed partially by Prof Jenny Druhan, has received a prestigious R&D 100 award from R&D Magazine.

 

2017 Alumni Achievement Award: Jim Kirkpatrick (Ph.D. '72)

Posted on 11.14.2017 | Read More
Photo: Presentation of the plaque
On November 3rd, 2017, Prof. R. James Kirkpatrick (PhD ’72), Dean of the College of Natural Sciences at Michigan State University, was presented with the department’s Alumni Achievement Award.  Jim is well known to many current and former members of the department, having served UIUC for nearly 30 years as a faculty member, department head, and executive associate dean (10 years).

Jessica Conroy: Thriving in Research

Posted on 10.31.2017 | Read More
Jess Conroy
Assistant Professor Jessica Conroy has been included in a list of 7 women climate scientists in an article published in The Guardian.  The piece highlights the successes and contributions of several prominent women climate scientists.

Saturday, Nov. 4th Natural History Building Re-dedication

Posted on 10.31.2017 | Read More
Natural History Building

 November 4th, 2017:  Please join us for a grand event to mark the re-dedication of the Natural History Building!  Geology alumni from all over will be converging on NHB for a re-dedication ceremony, tours, and plenty of socializing to celebrate the completion of this once-in-a-lifetime renewal of the traditional home of Geology, on the quad.

Jim Best to be awarded the Lamarck Medal from EGU

Posted on 10.10.2017 | Read More
The Lamarck Medal

Prof. Jim Best will be awarded the 2018 Lamarck Medal from the Division on Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Paleontology of the European Geosciences Union!

2018 Spring Field Course: Classic Localities of Scotland

Posted on 10.08.2017 | Read More
The 2014 Group in Scotland
In Spring, 2018, the Geology 415/515 Field Course will return to Scotland!  Professors Anders, Gregg, Stewart and Burmeister will lead a group of 22 students to visit classic localities to investigate glacial geomorphology, super volcanoes, the rifting of Pangaea and thrust tectonics. 

Department of Geology Offices Return to NHB!

Posted on 07.12.2017 | Read More
"Geology Row" on the third floor of NHB
Department of Geology faculty and grad student offices have moved back into the Natural History Building.  We are now located on the east side of the third floor.  The building looks and feels wonderful!