2019-04-07
- Jess Conroy has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER award for her proposal Ocean-atmosphere interactions through the lens of stable water isotopologues. This research will use new measurements of stable isotope ratios of O and H in seawater, precipitation, and water vapour, to advance understanding of the hydrologic cycle in the tropical Pacific, and how it is archived in key...
2019-03-28 - This 3-year NASA funding will provide support for Trish, and co-I Zhong Lu (Southern Methodist University), to build a data assimilation framework for six high-risk volcanoes in Alaska. Although remote, these volcanoes pose a hazard to the ~50,000 airline passengers that fly overhead every day along circumpolar flight paths. Satellite InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) data and GPS...
2019-03-27 - Jeremy Bellucci (B.S. ’06) and colleagues recently determined that a felsite clast in a sample of Lunar regolith (Apollo sample 14321), collected by Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard on February 6, 1971, may be derived from Earth’s Archean crust. Jeremy and team’s fascinating results were published in a recent issue of Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters (vol. 510, pp. 173-175, 2019) and...
2019-03-26 - Dr. Fang Huang, who earned his Ph.D. in 2007, working on igneous petrology and isotope geochemistry with Prof. Lundstrom, has been highlighted in the Geochemical Society's monthly newsletter. Fang is a professor at the famed University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and has a large, productive research group with excellent lab facilities....
2019-03-19 - The Department, along with the Illinois State Geological Survey, is fortunate to have been granted access to software donated by Petroleum Experts to use in research and education of students. The software, known as Move, is a premier structural geology modeling...
2019-02-14 - The world’s great rivers have been home to the growth of human civilization, form unique and vital ecosystems, and comprise regions that sustain the livelihoods of billions of humans. Yet today the world’s big rivers face a wide array of anthropogenic stressors that are challenging and threatening their functioning as never before. Jim’s review provides a state of-the-art...
2019-01-16 - Assistant Professor Jenny Druhan has been named a Theme Leader for a new Department of Energy funded Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) that is focused on the structure and function of shales. The EFRC is a collaborative research program led by Stanford University, with partners from the universities of Illinois, Southern California, and Wyoming as well as the SLAC National...
2019-01-15 - Professor Bruce Fouke was featured last weekend on NPR’s ‘The People’s Pharmacy’ talking about his group’s research on the deposits of kidney stones. This interview follows hot on the heels of publications in Scientific Reports and Earth...
2019-01-14 - Prof. Willy Guenthner’s (U-Th)/He lab is featured in a new AGU EOS article highlighting NSF support to geochronology and thermochronology labs that serve the broad geoscience community. As a part of this initiative, the lab will have a new full-time research scientist and manager, Linda Angeloni, who...
2019-01-02 - Prof. Don U. Deere, who taught Engineering Geology at Illinois from 1955 to 1972, passed away on January 14, 2018, in Gainesville, FL at the age of 95. A world-renowned engineering geologist and expert on tunneling, dam building and design, and the construction of large underground spaces, he received numerous distinctions throughout his career including being elected to...
2018-12-02 - Trish Gregg has been named as one of six LAS LEAP (Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors) Scholars for this year. The LEAP Award is granted to faculty early in their career based on scholarly productivity and contributions to the educational mission of their departments and the College of LAS. LEAP Scholars retain the title for two years and each scholar receives $5,000 in discretionary...
2018-11-28 - Professor Tom Johnson received his Fellowship from the Geological Society of America at its Annual Meeting in Indianapolis last week. Tom’s citation was ‘for his fundamental contributions to the analysis of chromium, selenium, mercury, and uranium isotopes in groundwater, in the context of environmental hydrogeology. In addition, he serves as the Head of the geology department at a Research I...
2018-10-17 - On October 4th, 2018, the department’s Alumni Achievement Award was presented to Dr. Norbert E. Cygan (B.S. ’54; Ph.D. ’62). Norb returned to campus with his wife, Royann, and enjoyed a day of catching up with old friends in the department, meeting new faculty and graduate students, touring the renovated Natural History Building, and presenting a talk about his career and one of his most...
2018-10-16 - In a paper just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Earth Surface, and led by graduate student Nate Bristow at the University of Notre Dame, Jim Best and colleagues Ken Christensen and Gianluca Blois, detail the fluid dynamics of colliding barchan dunes. These experiments, conducted in a unique flume facility that matches the refractive index of the working fluid and bed models and...
2018-10-08 - Geology Ph.D. student Robby Goldman was chosen by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) from a competitive applicant pool to take part in the AGU Voices for Science program. Robby has been very active in the UIUC Science Policy Group and as a result...