Earth Sciences
By virtue of our outstanding location in the scenic and rugged mountains of southwest Montana, Earth Science students have many opportunities to participate in field trips that will facilitate the study of earth processes, earth resources, earth history, and environments that people have modified. These field trips are an integral part of many courses, as well as extracurricular activities sponsored by the department. Fieldwork is a very important component of our instructional programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.Because of the research conducted by faculty in the department, an undergraduate student may have the opportunity to work on active research projects. In particular, we offer the opportunity to do a "Senior Thesis" to our top students in each senior class. The senior thesis enables a student to work on an actual research project under the supervision of a faculty member, write a research report (a mini-thesis), and present the results at a professional conference. This is excellent preparation for graduate school and/or the workplace. Our Master's theses frequently involve field-testing of state-of-the-art hypotheses proposed elsewhere, as well as formulation of the next generation of hypotheses, which will shape our disciplines in the decades to come. Most Master's thesis work in the Department is published in the peer-reviewed professional literature after presentation at regional or national professional meetings.
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Recent Submissions
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Avian tail ontogeny, pygostyle formation, and interpretation of juvenile Mesozoic specimens
(2018-06)The avian tail played a critical role in the evolutionary transition from long- to short-tailed birds, yet its ontogeny in extant birds has largely been ignored. This deficit has hampered efforts to effectively identify ... -
Ranching Sustainability in the Northern Great Plains: An Appraisal of Local Perspectives
(2018-06)In eight counties in Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska characterized by high levels of intact Northern Great Plains grassland habitat, ranchers observe the following sustainability challenges: Land prices and lack of ... -
Post-disaster agricultural transitions in Nepal
(2018-11)In Spring 2015, a series of earthquakes and aftershocks struck Nepal. The earthquakes caused significant changes in labor and land availability, cash income needs, and land quality. We examine how these post-earthquake ... -
Land Use Diversification and Intensification on Elk Winter Range in Greater Yellowstone: Framework and Agenda for Social-Ecological Research
(2018-03)Amenity migration describes the movement of peoples to rural landscapes and the transition toward tourism and recreation and away from production-oriented land uses (ranching, timber harvesting). The resulting mosaic of ... -
Recovery and adaptation after the 2015 Nepal earthquakes: a smallholder household perspective
(2018-06)Communities reliant on subsistence and small-scale production are typically more vulnerable than others to disasters such as earthquakes. We study the earthquakes that struck Nepal in the spring of 2015 to investigate their ... -
New records of Sphyraena (perciformes: sphyraenidae) for the Neogene of Cuba and Hispaniola
(2017-10)The study of an array of fossils of fishes from the tertiary of Cuba and the Hispaniola has allow us to identify several teeth of Sphyraena. This genus was previously recorded for the pliocene of western Cuba. Here we ... -
Planning for the local impacts of coal facility closure: Emerging strategies in the U.S. West
(2018-08)This study considers the contours of the coal transition in the United States from the perspective of local planning responses to coal plant retirements in the U.S. West. Plant closures in the region affect a diverse set ... -
Discovery of a hypersaline subglacial lake complex beneath Devon Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic
(2018-04)Subglacial lakes are unique environments that, despite the extreme dark and cold conditions, have been shown to host microbial life. Many subglacial lakes have been discovered beneath the ice sheets of Antarctica and ... -
Recovery and Adaptation after the 2015 earthquakes; A smallholder farmer perspective
(2018)Communities reliant on subsistence and small-scale production are typically more vulnerable than others to disasters such as earthquakes. We study the earthquakes that struck Nepal in the spring of 2015 to investigate their ... -
Gangdese Culmination Model: Oligocene—Miocene Duplexing along the India-Asia Suture Zone, Lazi Region, Southern Tibet
(2018-02)The mechanisms for crustal thickening and exhumation along the Yarlung (India-Asia) suture in southern Tibet are under debate, because the magnitudes, relative timing, and interaction between the two dominant structures—the ... -
Land-use history as a guide for forest conservation and management
(2017-06)Conservation efforts to protect forested landscapes are challenged by climate projections that suggest substantial restructuring of vegetation and disturbance regimes in the future. In this regard, paleoecological records ... -
Vertebral Adaptations to Large Body Size in Theropod Dinosaurs
(2016-07)Rugose projections on the anterior and posterior aspects of vertebral neural spines appear throughout Amniota and result from the mineralization of the supraspinous and interspinous ligaments via metaplasia, the process ... -
Opportunities and Trade-offs among BECCS and the Food, Water, Energy, Biodiversity, and Social Systems Nexus at Regional Scales
(2018-01)Carbon dioxide must be removed from the atmosphere to limit climate change to 2°C or less. The integrated assessment models used to develop climate policy acknowledge the need to implement net negative carbon emission ... -
Burial and exhumation history of the Xigaze Forearc, Yarlung Suture Zone, Tibet
(2017-12)The Cretaceous–Eocene Xigaze forearc basin is a crucial data archive for understanding the tectonic history of the Asian continental margin prior to and following collision with India during the early Cenozoic Era. This ... -
Field Report: Research along the Yarlung Suture Zone in Southern Tibet, a persistent geological frontier
(2018-03)The Yarlung Suture Zone in Southern Tibet marks the boundary between India and Asia–formerly separated by an ocean basin–and is a critical record of the tectonic processes that created the Tibetan Plateau. The Yarlung ... -
Returning Fire to the Land: Celebrating Traditional Knowledge and Fire
(2017-09)North American tribes have traditional knowledge about fire effects on ecosystems, habitats, and resources. For millennia, tribes have used fire to promote valued resources. Sharing our collective understanding of fire, ... -
Paleoecological implications of two closely associated egg types from the Upper Cretaceous St. Mary River Formation, Montana
(2017-11)Two closely associated egg types occur at the same locality in the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) St. Mary River Formation in north central Montana. These specimens represent the first fossil eggs described from this ... -
A Geospatial Approach for Identifying and Exploring Potential NaturalWater Storage Sites
(2017-08)Across the globe, climate change is projected to affect the quantity, quality, and timing of freshwater availability. In western North America, there has been a shift toward earlier spring runoff and more winter precipitation ... -
Quantifying nutrient uptake as driver of rock weathering in forest ecosystems by magnesium stable isotopes
(2017-06)Plants and soil microbiota play an active role in rock weathering and potentially couple weathering at depth with erosion at the soil surface. The nature of this coupling is still unresolved because we lacked means to ... -
A new Late Cretaceous iguanomorph from North America and the origin of New World Pleurodonta (Squamata, Iguania)
(2017-01)Iguanomorpha (stem + crown Iguania) is a diverse squamate clade with members that predominate many modern American lizard ecosystems. However, the temporal and palaeobiogeographic origins of its constituent crown clades ...
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