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.
Collections in this community
Recent Submissions
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A new terrestrial trace fossil Feoichnus martini n. isp. from the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation (USA)
(2020-09)A new trace fossil, Feoichnus martini new ichnospecies, from the Two Medicine Formation is here described. This ichnotaxon is reported from the upper Campanian deposits of the Egg Mountain locality (Montana) and consists ... -
Determining the source of placer gold in the Anaconda metamorphic core complex supradetachment basin using detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology, western Montana, USA
(2020-12)Despite the widespread occurrence and economic significance of gold placer deposits, modern provenance studies of placer sediments remain largely qualitative. This study applies detrital zircon (DZ) geochronology to determine ... -
Holocene geo-ecological evolution of Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park (USA)
(2021-08)Changes in climate and fire regime have long been recognized as drivers of the postglacial vegetation history of Yellowstone National Park, but the effects of locally dramatic hydrothermal activity are poorly known. ... -
Magmatism and Extension in the Anaconda Metamorphic Core Complex of Western Montana and Relation to Regional Tectonics
(2021-09)Metamorphic core complexes (MCCs) are a product of crustal extension, but their dynamics are still debated. Early research suggests that the formation of MCCs in the western United States was due to gravitational collapse ... -
Broad-Scale Surface and Atmospheric Conditions during Large Fires in South-Central Chile
(2021-05)The unprecedented size of the 2017 wildfires that burned nearly 600,000 hectares of central Chile highlight a need to better understand the climatic conditions under which large fires develop. Here we evaluate synoptic ... -
Do paleontologists dream of electric dinosaurs? Investigating the presumed inefficiency of dinosaurs contact incubating partially buried eggs
(2020-10)Troodon formosus, a theropod from the Late Cretaceous, is one of the few species of dinosaurs with multiple nest sites uncovered. It has been consistently demonstrated that eggs within these nests would have been partially ... -
Erroneously old radiocarbon ages from terrestrial pollen concentrates in Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming, USA
(2020-12)Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of pollen concentrates is often used in lake sediment records where large, terrestrial plant remains are unavailable. Ages produced from chemically concentrated pollen as well as ... -
Rethinking the heuristic traps paradigm in avalanche education: Past, present and future
(2020-08)This paper will review the emergence and adoption of decision heuristics as a conceptual framework within the avalanche research and education community and demonstrate how this emphasis on the heuristic decision framework ... -
Mesoproterozoic–Early Cretaceous provenance and paleogeographic evolution of the Northern Rocky Mountains: Insights from the detrital zircon record of the Bridger Range, Montana, USA
(2020-08)The Bridger Range of southwest Montana, USA, preserves one of the most temporally extensive sedimentary sections in North America, with strata ranging from Mesoproterozoic to Cretaceous in age. This study presents new ... -
Combining GPS tracking and survey data to better understand travel behavior of out-of-bounds skiers
(2020-09)Our research seeks to expand existing knowledge of travel behavior and decision-making in avalanche terrain. We have done this by using GPS tracking to observe the travel behavior of out-of-bounds (OB) skiers and collecting ... -
Evaluating the land: evolving perceptions of landscape in Gallatin Valley settlement, 1864-1918
(self-published, 1997-05)This study investigates how people have viewed the environment and the terrain of the Gallatin Valley through a cross section of time. The period during which the region was settled is explored for its impact on the present ... -
Developing nationwide avalanche terrain maps for Norway
(2020-06)Snow avalanches are a significant natural hazard in Norway. One method to manage the backcountry avalanche hazard is through detailed mapping of avalanche terrain. Avalanche terrain can be mapped using a variety of methods, ... -
An oviraptorosaur adult-egg association from the Cretaceous of Jiangxi Province, China
(2019-11)With abundant well-preserved clutches and several adult-clutch associations, oviraptorids provide some of the most detailed information on reproduction for dinosaurs. Here, we describe an oviraptorosaur closely associated ... -
An analysis of fossil identification guides to improve data reporting in citizen science programs
(2020-04)An increasing number of organizations use untrained volunteers to gather scientific data. This citizen science movement builds enthusiasm for science by engaging the public, as well as providing a way to gather large amounts ... -
The relationship between genome size and metabolic rate in extant vertebrates
(2020-01)Genome size has long been hypothesized to affect the metabolic rate in various groups of animals. The mechanism behind this proposed association is the nucleotypic effect, in which large nucleus and cell sizes influence ... -
The urgency of transforming the Midwestern U.S. landscape into more than corn and soybean
(2020-05)The current agri-food system emerged out of a desire to provide an inexpensive and secure food supply. Yet even before COVID-19, the abundant agricultural production of the Midwestern United States was generated amid a ... -
Resetting Southern Tibet: The serious challenge of obtaining primary records of Paleoaltimetry
(2020-08)Over the last several decades a number of studies have attempted to reconstruct the rise of the Himalaya and Tibet since India-Asia collision began in the early Cenozoic, with rather contradictory results. Here, we evaluate ... -
Horseshoe crab trace fossils from the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of Montana, USA, and a brief review of the xiphosurid ichnological record
(2020-05)A locality in the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of Montana preserves abundant and variable horseshoe crab tracks and trails of the ichnotaxon Kouphichnium isp. These specimens span six morphologies differing in ... -
Insect trace fossils elucidate depositional environments and sedimentation at a dinosaur nesting site from the Cretaceous (Campanian) Two Medicine Formation of Montana
(2019-11)We describe the diversity and abundance of insect (specifically hymenopterans and coleopterans) pupation structures in the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Two Medicine Formation at the Egg Mountain locality, western Montana, ... -
New occurrence of Neurankylus sp. (Testudines: Paracryptodiria: Baenidae) in the Upper Cretaceous Frontier Formation of south western Montana (USA)
(2020-04)An incomplete specimen assigned to the genus Neurankylus sp. was collected from Coniacian deposits of the Frontier Formation of Montana (USA). The material consists of anterior plastron, a costal plate and neural plate ...
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