Geology News & Events
The Hanover College Geology Club held its annual fall term field trip in western New York and north-central Pennsylvania. We visited Niagara Falls and Letchworth State Park in New York and Red Hill, Pennsylvania. Red Hill is a world famous Late Devonian tetrapod locality that has yielded partial remians of Hynerpeton, a primitive amphibian, and associated flora and fauna including lobe-finned fishes. We found abundant plant and fish remains, including teeth and scales. Although we did not find any Hynerpeton remains, we did see casts of the type specimens in the nearby Red Hill Field Station. In May, students in Historical Geology will collect Late Devonian marine invertebrates near Rockford, Iowa.
The Geology Club conducted its sping break field excursion in Death Valley National Park and the Owen's Valley, California. In addition to examining spectacular geological features we also visited the site of the Indian Wells Brewing Company factory, where there is a flowing artesian well in the middle of an otherwise bone dry desert.
During the latter half of June Professor Heyo Van Iten and junior geology major Matt Burkey will be conducting geomorphological and paleontological research at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. They will be mapping Quaternary fluvial terraces and prospecting for Late Triassic dinosaurs and associated fauna.
The Geology Department's permanently endowed research fund for geology majors and minors is now official. We encourage anyone interested in supporting our program to contribute to this fund, which in addition to funding student research also funds exceptional learning opportunities such as the summer field course on vertebrate paleontology at Ghost Ranch and participation in professional earth science meetings. (Potential donors should contact Darleen Connolly (connolly@hanover.edu) for information on how to make a donation. All donations will be matched by Professor Emeritus of Geology Stanley Totten, up to a total of $50,000.)
The persons listed below have made contributions to our research fund (as of May 21, 2008).
David Chroback
Paul Clark
David Douglass
Mark Dunning
Bradley Gentry
Judith Goshorn
Jane Hayes
Larry Kane
David Kreighbaum
Michael Lichtenwalter
Charles McCulloch
Jeffrey Miller
Steven Quarcelino
David Seim
Nancy Tock
Stanley Totten
Heyo Van Iten
Andrew Wallace
Raymond White
Bill Wilcox