Allegheny College Students To Travel to National Geological Conference To Present Results of Fieldwork

Sept. 22, 2011 — Seven Allegheny College students have been selected to present their research at the Geological Society of America Conference in October in Minneapolis. Approximately 6,000 scientists are expected to attend the annual conference.

Erin Birsic, Lucas Carrion and Kathryn Kindler are presenting research that they performed in the Talkeetna Mountains of south-central Alaska with Professor of Geology Ron Cole. The title of their research is “Evolution of a Late Cretaceous-Early Tertiary Granitic Pluton and Associated Garnet-Bearing Dikes and Migmatite in a Collisional Terrane Suture Zone.” The students, who did fieldwork with Cole in Alaska during the summer, collected some of the first geological data from this region of Alaska.

Taylor O’Brien, Douglas Barber and James Ness are presenting research that they conducted in southwest Montana with Professor of Geology Robert Schwartz. The title of their presentation is “Braided Channel System in the Paleogene Beaverhead Intermontane Basin: A Longitudinal Segment in the Paleomissouri Headwater System of Southwest Montana.”

Shane Wells worked with Associate Professor of Geology Rachel O’Brien and the college’s manager of Geographic Information Systems, Christopher Shaffer. The title of their presentation is “Bedrock Elevation and Shallow Hydrologic Systems in a Glaciated Region, Northwestern Pennsylvania.”

Financial support for the students’ travel to the conference in Minneapolis is being provided by the Allegheny College Class of ’39 Research Fund and the Carol Darnell Freund, Class of 1954 Fund.