Geoscience Day

All Geology students present their capstone research each year at the end of the spring semester. The students work one-on-one with a faculty research advisor to develop a project of interest, acquire data in the field or lab, and, after analyzing their data, present their research at the IUP Scholars Forum and Geoscience Day.  

Students will present their research at the fifty-first annual Geoscience Day on Friday, April 25, 2025.

• Geoscience Day, Friday, April 25
• Kopchick Hall, room 104
• The talks can be viewed on the department’s YouTube Channel

Geoscience Day Schedule

• 8:30 — Welcome and Opening Remarks by Dr. Nick Deardorff, Chair
  

• 8:35–9:20 Student Oral Presentations

  • 8:35, Adriana Lasta Perez: Enhancing Education Through Hydrology: Assessing Marsh Run Flood Patterns and Innovative Teaching Strategies

  • 8:50, Alexa Pechulis: Using Diatom Abundance and Diversity to Understand the Water Quality of a Suburban Neighborhood Stream

  • 9:05, Austin Konopka: Using Diatom Abundance and Diversity to Understand Water Quality of a Rural-Suburban Interface

• 9:20–9:30 Break
  

• 9:30–10:30 Student Oral Presentations

  • 9:30, Hope Burbank: Establishing a Baseline of Stream Characteristics in Indiana County, PA: Leveraging Community Connections

  • 9:45, Zachary Stuart: Tanoma Acid Mine Drainage Analysis

  • 10:00, Samuel Jubin: Environmental Change Through Time as Identified Through the Rock Record at Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry

  • 10:15, Autumn Jones: Identifying the Orientation and Grouping of Stegosaurus Vertebrate Fossils

• 10:30–10:40 Break

• 10:40–11:40 Student Oral Presentations

  • 10:40, Joshua Mitchell: Using Diatom Size to Reconstruct Holocene Southern Ocean Climate

  • 10:55, Bailey Campbell: Effects of Global Temperatures on the Abundance of Marine Diatoms

  • 11:10, Hannah Taylor: Using Diatom Microfossils to Understand Paleo Nutrient Availability in the Scotia Sea.

  • 11:25, Marisol Gonzalez Flores: Mapping Mineral Chemistry in Exhumed Seafloor Rocks, Central Range, Taiwan

• 11:40–12:10 Poster Session
  

• 12:10–1:10 Alumni Presentation Brock Kennedy ’18