Publication

Seeing Climate Change? at The Benton

Department of Earth Sciences Professor Robert Thorson, with assistance from Curator Amanda Douberley, created a new exhibit titled “Seeing Climate Change?” at The William Benton Museum. This exhibit is a partnership between science and art, presenting working from the Benton collection that touch on the themes of phenology, climate change, measurement, climate, weather, and seasonality. […]

Stone Walls, the Signature Landform of New England

Department of Earth Sciences Professor Robert Thorson has developed a naming and classification system for stone walls in New England. Published in Historical Archaeology, the new criteria allow for easy and objective identification of the thousands of miles of stone walls across New England. Professor Thorson hopes his stone wall taxonomy and identification protocol will […]

Past Hydroclimate of Namibia

Assistant professor Ran Feng is co-author on a new study investigating precipitation changes in Namibia over the past 5 million years. Published in Geophysical Research Letters, the study uses leaf wax hydrogen isotopes to reconstruct precipitation. The authors link changes in precipitation in Namibia to sea surface temperatures within the Benguela Upwelling System and Indian […]

Greenland Ice Loss at MIS 11

Department of Earth Sciences Associate Professor Julie Fosdick worked on a new study to better understand the history of the Greenland ice sheet. The study, published in Science, looked at soil found at the bottom of an ice core taken from Northwest Greenland. Evidence suggests this soil was last at the surface during Marine Isotope […]

Uplift History of Taiwan

Queenie Chang, a former PhD student of the Department of Earth Sciences, led a recent study alongside faculty Michael Hren and Tim Byrne on the uplift history of Taiwan. Published in Science Advances, Chang and others measured the hydrogen isotope composition of leaf waxes preserved in sediments to reconstruct changes in elevation of the southern […]

Late Devonian Extinction

New research of brachiopod fossils from the Late Devonian (~370 Ma) mass extinction suggests extinction survivors stayed in similar ecological niches despite large environmental disturbances. Current and former researchers in the Department of Earth Sciences, including Sarah Brisson, Jaleigh Pier, Andrew Beard, Anjali Fernandes, and Andrew Bush, produced the study after examining over 20,000 brachiopod […]

UConn Seismometer Records Turkey Earthquake

Professor Vernon Cormier discusses the recording of the Turkey earthquake on the UConn seismometer. Shown below are UConn seismograms of Turkey’s earthquake and aftershocks the past 24 hours. Also below is a map of the mainshock and aftershock, illustrating the length of fault slip. In the mainshock, the slip will distributed across a broad area […]

Uniform Warmth Along Eastern US During Miocene

A recent publication by Department of Earth Sciences faculty Tammo Reichgelt and Ran Feng investigated how terrestrial climate in the eastern U.S. changed through time. The researchers used a combination of fossil floras and climate modeling to reconstruct eastern U.S. climate during a past warm interval known as the Miocene. Their research identified a reduced […]

Global Signature of the Siberian Traps

A study involving Professors Tracy Frank and Chris Fielding in the Department of Earth Sciences provides new insights into the latest Permian mass extinction. Published in Nature Communications, the team collected and analyzed samples from terrestrial sites in southern Pangea for mercury, which is a proxy for volcanic activity. These southern hemisphere mercury records capture […]

Connecticut’s Natural Landscape

Learn about the geology of Connecticut through 10 essays in Connecticut Magazine by Department of Earth Sciences Professor Robert Thorson. In this collection, he describes many unique aspects of Connecticut’s landscape that help define the state’s identity. By recounting Connecticut’s tectonic, glacial, and human history, Thorson illuminates how the land of steady habits came to […]