Our Courses
Our courses cover environmental geology, geomorphology, marine geology, oceanography/limnology, petrology, and tectonics.
More about Our CoursesMiddlebury College Earth and Climate Sciences students experience the excitement of the geological and environmental sciences in interesting, dynamic, and fun settings in the Green Mountains and Adirondacks, on Lake Champlain, and beyond.
From studying soil evolution in Costa Rica to using mathematical models to understand how changing glaciers affect drought buffering in mountains, our faculty actively engage students in the exploration of the Earth system.
We are committed to scientific and academic excellence in an inclusive and evolving environment.
Our courses cover environmental geology, geomorphology, marine geology, oceanography/limnology, petrology, and tectonics.
More about Our CoursesUpcoming ECSC events, lectures, and more
MBH 417
Brooks Range of Alaska
Dr. Justin Strauss
The Arctic Ocean remains the last major ocean basin on the planet whose tectonic origins are still debated. This is largely a function of the remoteness of the region, the general lack of shipborne geophysical data due to perennial ice cover, and other geological complexities, such as the presence of extensive volcanic overprinting from the Cretaceous High Arctic large igneous province. In this talk, I will present updated geological data from the Alaskan margin of the Arctic Ocean, specifically the Brooks Range of northern Alaska, to provide new insights into the tectonic development of the Arctic Ocean.
Lunch will be provided.
MBH 417
NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography Mission: A New Satellite for Measuring Earth’s Surface Water
Water is both our greatest resource and the source of our most destructive hazards, including floods and droughts. It is surprising, though, how little we know about how water is distributed globally and how that distribution is changing in time. Over the last 20 years, NASA and its partners from France, Canada, and the UK have been developing a new satellite mission designed to measure the world’s surface water in oceans, rivers, lakes, and wetlands in unprecedented detail. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission was launched on December 16th, 2022 and has been collecting data on the elevation, extent, and storage of water around the world ever since. It has allowed us to track water levels in millions of lakes, has enabled us to see river flow from space, and has allowed us to measure ocean circulation with a level of detail never seen before. It has even revealed the bathymetry of the world’s oceans with about three times the accuracy of all other data ever collected.
The story of SWOT is exciting, and Middlebury grads have played key roles in its development. Tamlin Pavelsky ‘01, now a professor at the University of North Carolina, is the lead hydrologist for the mission. Camryn Kluetmeier ‘21.5, a researcher in Tamlin’s lab, has led the collection of field validation data in New Zealand, Alaska, California, and beyond. Together, they will tell the story of how SWOT was conceived and implemented, how they have validated its accuracy, and the first scientific results that have begun to emerge from the mission.
MBH 219
MBH 417
Askja Volcano, Iceland
“Explosive Volcanism on Mars”
Dr. Patrick Whelley is a geologist who studies volcanic and aeolian processes and products on terrestrial planets. His work uses a combination of remote sensing and in-situ observations. He has a BS and MS from Arizona State University and a PhD from the University at Buffalo, SUNY and currently works a research scientist with the University of Maryland on a co-operative agreement at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In the field, he collects high-resolution topographic data using a terrestrial laser scanner. The data inform volcanic mapping and provide ground-truth for remote sensing measurements. Patrick uses remote sensing data to characterize explosive volcanic stratigraphy on Mars. His work has implications for volcano hazard mapping, on Earth, and for interpreting volcanic histories of the terrestrial planets
Lunch will be provided.
Teaching is our passion and research is an integral part of that teaching. Our research interests include ocean studies, lake studies, soil studies, structural geology, metamorphic and igneous petrology, geochemistry, and geomorphology. All of our research has field and lab components.
Since Vermont is a classic area for the study of mountain system evolution, one general theme of the program is to relate geological processes to the origin and evolution of global tectonic patterns, integrating data from the world’s oceans and continental areas.
Lisa Luna ’13, pictured, went on to work at NewClimate Institute in Berlin, Germany, as a climate policy analyst focused on policies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Luna also earned her MSc in geoscience from the University of Potsdam in Germany. She returned in fall 2021 to join us as a visiting professor.