More than 30 scientists from 11 states and four countries, led by Hamilton College Geosciences Professor Eugene Domack, will embark in January 2010 upon one of the most complex interdisciplinary Antarctic expeditions ever funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). During the two-month trip the scientists will be addressing a significant regional problem with global change implications, the abrupt environmental change in Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf System. The expedition is part of the NSF’s International Polar Year (IPY) program. More ...

Hamilton graduate Oren Root (1803-1885) was the first to find igneous, volcanic rocks known as kimberlites in New York State. In 1881, he retired as Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Mineralogy and Geology at Hamilton, and left a legacy of sage and introspective research for future students and faculty to imitate. This summer, Alexandra Hutchison ’10 and Lisa Feuerstein ’10 are expanding on the study of kimberlites across Central New York and the eastern states. They are working with Associate Professor of Geosciences David Bailey to determine why kimberlites exist in certain places and where they came from. Their projects have slightly different aims, but both revolve around the effort to discern the more reliable theories from those with not enough evidence. More ...

The Patagonia region of Chile has some of the highest wind potentials in the world, peaking at nearly 200,000 megawatts of power and sweeping by at five or 10 meters per second. Natalie Elking ’12 and Isabelle Cannell ’11 began to develop an interest in this obvious but overlooked source of energy after writing a group paper on what they believed was the proper approach to wilderness conservation in Patagonia. J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack taught the course, and expressed interest in editing their paper and trying to get it published. As the topic moved more into the realm of wind and tidal power issues, Domack suggested a trip to Chile to investigate the matter. Elking and Cannell agreed, and enthusiastically accompanied him this past May. More ...

To the east of North America are the White Mountains of New Hampshire. To the north, the Monteregian Hills of Quebec. Just west of these is Cannon Point, a cape on Lake Champlain near Essex, N.Y. These three formations typify the uncommon magmatic activity (behavior of molten rock) in the Northeast. Moving past Cannon Point to the west, a person would be hard pressed to find any magmatic features before coming upon the magnificent Rocky Mountains. That makes Cannon Point a rarity among eastern rock structures, and its magnetic igneous intrusions make up the western-most activity of the region. Jonathan Traylor ’10 is studying these rocks to see what they might say about regional magmatic activity that dates back to the Cretaceous period. More ...

Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, attended the 16th International Symposium on Polar Sciences in June in Incheon, Korea, where he presented an invited talk titled “Larsen Ice Shelf System (LARISSA): A Multi-disciplinary Earth Systems Approach to Antarctic Environmental Change.” More ...

Anoop Pandey '10 is responsible for distributing the famed "golden bikes" for free student use on campus, but the part of the globe he's studying certainly isn't accessible by bike. This summer, Pandey is using remote sensing to study unusual fold structures along faults in the Western Desert of Egypt. He is working with Upson Chair for Public Discourse and Professor of Geosciences Barbara Tewksbury.  More ...

During the last Ice Age, the whole country of Iceland was covered in a thick sheet of ice. From an aerial view, most of the island would have appeared to be in a state of frigid serenity. But under the ice, chaos ensued – massive volcanoes entombed in the ice erupted often, causing the overlying ice to melt. As the hot lava erupted into cold water, explosions occurred, depositing fragmented rock and glass with few lava flows. More ...

Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, and Hamilton students Natalie Elking '12 (geoscience) and Izzy Cannell '11, (environmental studies) are spending part of the summer in South America to fact-find issues related to energy development in Chilean Patagonia. More ...

The LARISSA team met at National Science Foundation for a Principal Investigators meeting on May 5 and 6 in Washington, D.C. LARISSA is a National Science Foundation-funded initiative that joins an international, interdisciplinary team together to address a significant regional problem with global change implications, the abrupt environmental change in Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf System. Lead Principal Investigator (PI) and Project Director Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, and Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Biology Michael McCormick attended along with several representatives from National Geographic Magazine. More ...

Professor of Geosciences Barbara Tewksbury delivered the commencement address at Virginia Tech's Department of Geosciences graduation ceremony on May 10. The title of her address was "Insights from Apollo for Teaching and Learning Geoscience in the 21st Century."  More ...