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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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 ... -
Live birth in an archosauromorph reptile
(2017-02)Live birth has evolved many times independently in vertebrates, such as mammals and diverse groups of lizards and snakes. However, live birth is unknown in the major clade Archosauromorpha, a group that first evolved some ... -
Pinus contorta invasions increase wildfire fuel loads and may create a positive feedback with fire
(2017-03)Invasive plant species that have the potential to alter fire regimes have significant impacts on native ecosystems. Concern that pine invasions in the Southern Hemisphere will increase fire activity and severity and ... -
A Laurentian record of the earliest fossil eukaryotes
(2017-05)The oldest evidence of eukaryotes in the fossil record comes from a recurrent assemblage of morphologically differentiated late Paleoproterozoic to early Mesoproterozoic microfossils. Although widely distributed, the ... -
Climate driven thresholds for chemical weathering in post-glacial soils of New Zealand
(2016-09)Chemical weathering in soils dissolves and alters minerals, mobilizes metals, liberates nutrients to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and may modulate Earth's climate over geologic time scales. Climate-weathering ... -
Parent material and pedogenic thresholds: observations and a simple model
(2016-10)Pedogenic thresholds, where multiple soil properties vary substantially and coherently in a narrow portion of a broad environmental gradient, are well-described on basaltic soils in Hawaii. One such threshold occurs along ... -
Reproduction in Mesozoic birds and evolution of the modern avian reproductive mode
(2016-10)The reproductive biology of living birds differs dramatically from that of other extant vertebrates. Although some attributes of modern avian reproduction had their origin within theropod dinosaurs like oviraptors and ... -
An accumulation of turtle eggs with embryos from the Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) Judith River Formation of Montana
(2017-01)A weathered accumulation of turtle eggs, interpreted as remnants of a single clutch composed of at least 16 turtle eggs (MOR 710) from the Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) Judith River Formation of north-central Montana, USA, ... -
Approaches and mechanisms for ecologically based pest management across multiple scales
(2016-08)The past 50 years have seen substantial change of agroecosystems in the world, including an intensified use of agrochemicals and expansion of cropland, resulting in a rapid loss of biodiversity and a reduction of ecosystem ... -
Trust matters: Why augmenting water supplies via desalination may not overcome perceptual water scarcity
(2016-11-16)Historically, water scarcity has been understood to result from unfavorable climatological and hydrological factors. From this perspective, infrastructural solutions that augment water supplies, such as desalination, are ... -
Testing soil fertility of Prehispanic terraces at Viejo Sangayaico in the upper Ica catchment of south-central highland Peru
(Elsevier, 2016-07)This study presents a pilot geoarchaeological investigation of terraced agricultural systems near San Francisco de Sangayaico, in the upper Ica catchment of the Southern Peruvian Andes. It aims to assess the evidence for ... -
Solute sources and geochemical processes in Subglacial Lake Whillans, West Antarctica
(2016-05)Subglacial Lake Whillans (SLW), West Antarctica, is an active component of the subglacial hydrological network located beneath 800 m of ice. The fill and drain behavior of SLW leads to long (years to decades) water residence ... -
Aerobic and Anaerobic Thiosulfate Oxidation by a Cold-Adapted, Subglacial Chemoautotroph
(2015-12)Geochemical data indicate that protons released during pyrite (FeS2) oxidation are important drivers of mineral weathering in oxic and anoxic zones of many aquatic environments including those beneath glaciers. Oxidation ... -
A new brachylophosaurin hadrosaur (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) with an intermediate nasal crest from the Campanian Judith River Formation of northcentral Montana
(2015-11)Background: Brachylophosaurini is a clade of hadrosaurine dinosaurs currently known from the Campanian (Late Cretaceous) of North America. Its members include: Acristavus gagslarsoni, which lacks a nasal crest; Brachylophosaurus ...
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