This year DEEPS undergraduate students visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona for their annual Spring Break Field Trip (SBFT). Twenty-six students, Assistant Professor Emily Cooperdock, and Lab Manager Travis Parsons explored the spectacular geological features and processes, and bonded over snowy mishaps and sandwiches. Here is what they had to say about their adventures:

DEEPS Chair and Professor Greg Hirth has been elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The Academy is an honorary society that recognizes and celebrates the excellence of its members, as well as an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines, professions, and perspectives to address significant challenges.

Professor Jack Mustard spoke with Scientific American about the Mars Sample Return program and NASA's recent update. “There are aspects of solar system evolution that can only be done through the return of samples [from Mars]."

The University’s Task Force on the Status of Women Faculty’s April 2023 report found that women faculty feel their service to the Brown community is “undocumented and, as a consequence, underappreciated.” Professor Jan Tullis commented on the role of women mentors, especially for those in STEM, saying that “there’s been a tendency over time … for women students to feel more comfortable coming to me as an advisor … especially about personal things, but also (about) academic things.”

Each year, IBES core faculty, fellows, and affiliates jumpstart their research with the help of IBES Catalyst Research Awards. Assistant Professor Dan Ibarra's Catalyst Award supported his team’s research on weathering fluxes throughout the world.

Rhode Island was among several East Coast states that felt a small earthquake on Friday morning, April 5th. Brown University Professor of Geological Sciences Karen Fischer says even though the quake was small, it was felt in multiple states because of the geologic makeup of the East Coast.

Professor Colleen Dalton talks with NBC 10 about the April 5th earthquake that struck New Jersey and why it was unusual.

Angel Mojarro, who graduated from Brown in 2011 with B.Sc. Geological Sciences, discusses his research on lipids at NASA Goddard and the chance to work on the samples from OSIRIS-REx in a recent NASA Early Career Scientist Spotlight.

Dr. Sierra (Wiegman) Brown holds a B.S. (2016) in Geophysics and Geochemistry from SUNY Fredonia, and M.S. (2018) and Ph.D. (2022) degrees in Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences from Brown University. Brown is also an enrolled member of the Shinnecock Nation, and draws on the practice of “Two-Eyed Seeing” to provide unique insights that integrate indigenous and western approaches to knowledge.

DEEPS Professor John Mustard recently shared his opinion with Nature about NASA's new considerations for the Perseverance rover's mission, saying the rocks currently on board are “great, but they’re not sufficient to be the transformative samples that we want them to be.”

The AGU's 2023 Outstanding Student Presentation Award winners were recently announced, including two DEEPS graduate students. Anahi Carrera won within the Education section for her AGU presentation titled, "Underrepresentation of first-generation college students in the geosciences - A diverse group to support in the post-Affirmative Action era." Alexia Rojas Alexia won within Tectonophysics for her AGU presentation titled, "Long Term San Andreas Fault Offset Re-Examined Through a Multichronometer Study of a Key Piercing Point." View the 2023 Winner Gallery to see their posters.

Recent Postdoctoral Research Fellow Kai-Xun Chen has published a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, titled “Seismic evidence for a mid-lithospheric discontinuity in 155 million-year-old Pacific lithosphere. Consistent with now-frozen melt that was trapped in the young lithosphere close to the ridge.” The publication lays out evidence for a low velocity layer inside old oceanic lithosphere. Dr. Chen completed this research while he was a postdoctoral researcher in DEEPS, working with Prof. Don Forsyth and Prof. Karen Fischer.

DEEPS PhD candidate César Bucheli recently published a new paper in Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, titled “What can we learn from geothermobarometry at the dacitic Doña Juana Volcanic Complex (Colombia)? Implications for understanding Pleistocene crystal mushes and pre-eruptive storage conditions in the Northern Andes.” Bucheli and co-authors reconstructed the geochemical behavior of Pleistocene melts feeding eruptions of the Doña Juana Volcanic Complex (SW Colombia, Northern Andes) and found evidence to suggest the existence of one of the first examples of long-lived trans-crustal magma systems in the country.

As the 2024 Black History Month comes to a close, DEEPS is celebrating our Black community members and honoring the Black scientists who have made invaluable contributions to our society. DEEPS Communications Assistant Angela Snider highlights three Black women (from the past, the present, and up-and-coming) who have made important contributions to the geosciences.

Professor Jim Head spoke with China Global Television Network on Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Lunar Mission in the South Pole area of the Moon.

Professor Tim Herbert commented on new research in Science, saying “The dance of global temperature is primarily not called by ice, but more likely by [carbon dioxide]."

Associate Professor Ingrid Daubar and colleagues recently published a new paper in Space Science Reviews titled “Planned Geological Investigations of the Europa Clipper Mission.” The publication outlines the geological investigations planned for the Europa Clipper mission, which aims to assess Europa’s potential habitability.

PhD candidate Jared M. Kodero recently published a new article in Communications Earth & Environment, titled “Future transition from forests to shrublands and grasslands in the western United States is expected to reduce carbon storage.” The article examines the anticipated impact of climate change on vegetation in the western United States, particularly the shifts in dominant Plant Functional Types and carbon storage.

DEEPS Professor Jim Head spoke with Space.com about the MEPAG Tiger Team report and their insights into NASA's moon-to-Mars strategy. "NASA is currently updating the objectives for the Moon-to-Mars initiative with the strategy of 'architect from the right/execute from the left,'" Head said.

Brown researchers DEEPS professor Alberto Saal, and Kim Cobb, DEEPS professor and director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, were both named to the 2023 class of fellows by the American Geophysical Union, a scientific organization.

Co-authored by 21 international climate experts, including IBES Fellow and DEEPS Professor Baylor Fox-Kemper, a new article in Frontiers in Science offers the first comprehensive analysis of the diverse factors controlling global temperatures and provides a framework for improving warming predictions.

In a new paper published in Science Advances, Professor Donald Fisher, a Geosciences faculty member at Penn State and Brown alumnus, and DEEPS Chair Greg Hirth propose that rocks buried deep in ancient subduction zones could help scientists make better predictions of how these zones behave during the years between major earthquakes.

In a new paper published in the journal of Science China Earth Sciences, DEEPS Professor James Head and colleagues used the phases of volcanic activity and deposits formed by meteorite impacts to propose a new time scale for the Moon's geologic history.

Fatima Husain earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Organic Geochemistry in 2017. Now, she is a PhD student at MIT investigating the co-evolution of life and Earth and works to communicate science to the public.

Postdoctoral Fellow Lillian Dove recently spoke to National Geographic about the cooling power of the perilous Drake Passage, infamous for its deadly ocean currents and massive rogue waves. Dove's findings suggest that the region's less stratified ocean could make it a highly efficient hotspot for carbon storage compared to other areas on Earth.

The Spring 2024 semester begins this week, and we are excited to welcome everyone back to campus. We reached out to members of the DEEPS community to hear what they're looking forward to in the upcoming semester, and here's what they shared: