School of Earth and Climate Sciences

Gordon Hamilton, a long-time member of the Climate Change Institute and Associate Research Professor of Earth Sciences is now an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, adding a formal teaching component to his position at the University.  He maintains his active role in the Climate Change Institute. With the retirement of Dr. Terry Hughes from the […]

The late Charles V. Guidotti, Professor in the U Maine Department of Earth Sciences from 1981 to his untimely death in 2005, has been honored with having a new mineral, guidottiite, named after him. This name was approved by the Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names of the International Mineralogical Association, which has officially […]

An interdisciplinary team of faculty and students from the Department of Earth Sciences, Department of Anthropology, and Climate Change Institute were funded by the National Geographic Society to use ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to investigate the interior structure of a Preceramic period mound near Chao, in the northern coastal desert of Peru. Named Los Moreros (The […]

On October 1, 2, and 3, the Department will host the annual New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference, a three-day series of field trips in the region.  These day-long trips are on a range of topics, from peatland hydrology to glacial geology to tectonics to volcanology.  The conference is open to all, with trips pitched to […]

As we look forward to a new academic year, we welcome 15 new majors (some starting their first year at UMaine and some transferring from other majors) and 11 new graduate students to the Department!  We now have 42 active undergraduate majors and 33 graduate students.

Although we didn’t report any of it here, members of ERS made plenty of news this summer. Over the next couple weeks, we’ll post many of those items, a few at a time.  To start things off… Scott Johnson and colleague Dr. Senthil Vel (UM Mechanical Engineering) were funded by the National Science Foundation to […]

The University of Maine System has approved an Intent to Plan for a new Climate Change and Culture degree, offering a B.S. or B.A. This degree, offered through collaboration between the Departments of Earth Science and Anthropology, seeks to provide an undergraduate degree related to Climate Change, one of the leading environmental and human problems […]

The Department announced its awards and scholarships for 2010 on Friday at the Spring Picnic.  Congratulations to Pat Ryan, Kaleb Boucher, Ashley Stinson, Robin Arnold!  See the complete list.

Join us Friday, April 30 at 4:00 on the lawn between Bryand and Sawyer for an end-of-the semester gathering and celebration.  In addition to the barbecue, salads, and other goodies, we will announce and award the student prizes and scholarships.  All are welcome!

A feature article appears today in the Bangor Daily News reporting the recent findings of Professor Steve Norton’s research into Sargent Mountain Pond in Acadia National Park.  The possibility that Sargent Mountain Pond was Maine’s first lake to develop after the ice sheet retreated allows Norton and colleagues an opportunity to record and study environmental […]

Registration is now open for this year’s Earth Science Teachers workshop, an annual event sponsored and hosted by the Department of Earth Sciences.  The Workshop will occur on Wednesday, April 28th.  This year’s theme relates fundamental processes within larger Earth systems.  The full announcement follows below. Earth Science Teachers Workshop: Fundamentals, systems, and cross-cutting concepts […]

On Saturday February 27th at 3:34 am local time (6:34 UTC) a magnitude 8.8 earthquake occurred offshore of the west coast of Chile.  The primary earthquake was located 105 km (65 miles) WSW of the city of Talca, Chile, and has been followed by numerous aftershocks. US Geological Survey calculations indicate that the earthquake’s focus […]

Stephanie Allard and Brittany Gilman appear in Student Focus section of the Winter issue of the UMaine Today magazine, discussing their summer work in Greenland.  Click here for the full article.

Research Scientist Ed Grew is in his 25th year at UMaine, a milestone that the University will mark formally in the spring.  Below is a letter recognizing Ed’s contributions to the University: The Department of Earth Sciences welcomes the opportunity to recognize the 25 years of service of Edward Grew to the University of Maine.  […]

At 5:44pm on January 12, the University of Maine’s new seismometer began to pick up shaking from a distant earthquake event.  For the next hour the incoming signal saturated the display as seismic waves passed by the station.  Our seismograph had detected the magnitude 7.0 Haitian earthquake which is responsible for tremendous loss of human […]

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a highly regarded organization with an international profile, has selected UMaine for membership. UCAR, with its associated National Center for Atmospheric Research, works to create collaborative research related to the Earth’s atmosphere and related systems. UCAR selected UMaine because of the international prominence of the Climate Change Institute […]

In Fall 2009, the Department of Earth Sciences instituted a new curriculum and revised its requirements for the B.S. and B.A. degrees.  These changes were made with the three primary goals of (1) increasing the climate change, surficial processes, and societal relevance content, (2) offering a wider variety of elective courses, and (3) providing more […]

Funded by a grant of $457,584 from the Major Research Instrumentation program of the National Science Foundation and additional support from the Office of the Vice President for Research at UMaine, the Department of Earth Sciences has recently installed a new scanning electron microscope (SEM) with several specialized accessories to support research and education in […]

Professors Ed Grew, Brenda Hall, Scott Johnson, Andrei Kurbatov, Kirk Maasch and Paul Mayewski were all informed that the National Science Foundation will fund some of their research proposals through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Grew’s proposal ($ 190,718) focuses on boron-rich minerals and boron isotopes in deep-seated crustal rocks from East Antarctica, and […]

Scott Johnson, Professor of Tectonics and Structural Geology in the UMaine Department of Earth Sciences, has been elected Fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA) for his outstanding research, teaching and service contributions to the broad ?eld of Earth Sciences. The status of Fellow is given to only about 2 percent of the GSA’s […]