The Senior Program

The Senior Program in geosciences is a two-semester course in which majors plan and pursue an independent senior project under the close supervision of at least one faculty member. The senior project is an integrating, culminating experience that draws on the skills and knowledge acquired in the first three years; for many students, it represents graduate-level work.

Recent projects in geosciences include:

• Changes in Land Cover and Surface Temperature in the Utica, NY Area
• Tephrochronological Analysis of the Plio-Pleistocene Chemeron Formation, Baringo Basin, Kenya: Refining Stratigraphy and Constraining Chronology of Vertebrate Fossil Sites
• Heavy Metal Contamination from Coin Corrosion in Freshwater Systems: A Case Study of Wakulla Springs, Florida
• What’s in Our Water? Quantifying and Analyzing Dissolved Ions and Their Possible Sources in Oriskany Creek
• Characterizing Ground Deformation at Whakaari/White Island From 2016-2024
• Determining Seasonal Variability in the Omo-Turkana Basin From the Pleistocene to Modern Using Ostracod Stable Isotope Analysis
• Developing a SWAT+ Model for the Oriskany Creek Basin in Upstate New York
• Evaluating Strain at the Ancient San Andreas
• Potential Unrecognized Neoarchean Metamorphism in the East Pilbara Terrane: Insights From Monazite Uranium-Lead Geochronology
• Identifying Predation Preferences on Freshwater Gastropods Using a New Quantification Methodology
• Constraining the Timing of Paleoarchean Doming in the East Pilbara Terrane: A Structural Study of the Wilina Pluton
• The River Bank: Heavy Metal Pollution From Coins and Impacts to Freshwater Molluscan Communities
• Growing Pains of an Adolescent Earth: How Did the Northeast Margin of the Shaw Dome, Western Australia, Deform During Emplacement?
• Geologic Mapping and Kinematics of the Androscoggin Riverlands Shear Zone