Department of Earth Sciences

GCEC Students

The diverse group of GCEC students work collaboratively on a number of projects in the Sierras advancing our understanding of the record of climate change preserved there.

Margie DeRose-

Detailed mapping of glacial deposits and their stratigraphic relationships to dated volcanic flows for potential use as absolute age constraints, in addition to details of till clast lithology for possible correlation with source locations, Long Valley Caldera, Eastern Sierra, CA. 

Cassandra Meyers-

Cassy is studying geochemical proxies for climate in the Owens Lake core OL-92. She is examining climatic variability at centennial and millennial timescales during the Mid-Pleistocene.

Michael Trumbower

Michael plans to collect lake sediment cores from 3-5 alpine lakes in the Eastern Sierra Nevada to better constrain possible
additional climatic fluctuations in the Holocene.  He will compare various physical and chemical properties to radiocarbon
dates of these cores to develop a more robust set of absolute dates for the Holocene Period.  Better understanding of Holocene climate will allow us to better predict how current climatic
conditions and alpine water resources will trend in the future. 

Baird King-

Baird is using detailed mapping of moraines as well as lake core analysis to construct a timeline of high-resolution glacial fluctuations occurring in the late-Pleistocene and Holocene.  His research will advance the current understanding of the relationship between global climate changes and the regional changes observed in the Sierra Nevada paleoclimate record.  He is working in the Eastern Rock Creek drainage of the Sierra Nevada, California.

Joanna Oseguera-

Joanna is investigating the variability of gastropod fossils within the ancient Waucobi lake beds of eastern Sierra Nevada, CA. Her current research project is testing the biotic variability of the fossils as a potential climate signal for the late Pliocene. Other interests include the gastropod fossils of Lake Bonneville and how they relate to changes in subsystem of the lake and the overall system of the climate. 

Daryl Kohut

Daryl is interested in mapping contacts between glacial moraines and lava flows, as well as studying their stratigraphic relationships to obtain a possible age constraint on ice advances.

Dustin Burton

Dustin will be developing Quaternary paleoclimate records from Speleothems from the Cedar Flats Cave in the White-Inyo Mountains. This research aims to determine wet-dry cycles in the Owens Valley potentially providing insight into future climate change for the region especially as global climate change continues to trend upward and approach levels not seen since interglacial periods of the past.