News

  • David Blackwell, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences and W.B. Hamilton Professor of Geophysics, has passed away after a brief illness.  Dr. Blackwell was a faculty member in the geology department (1968-2013), a former department chair (1982-1986), and an international leader in heat flow and geothermal studies. He was a fellow of the Geological Society of America, among other prestigious honors. Professor Blackwell was also an undergraduate alumnus of SMU (class of 1963) a former member of the Mustang Band, and he remained passionate about SMU and the department. Over the last few years, he documented an extensive history of the Earth Sciences department for our archives, and we look forward to completing the project for others to enjoy. For those of us lucky to work with or take classes from Dr. Blackwell, his effect on our careers is difficult to quantify.

  • Faculty and graduate students in the Department of Earth Sciences help uncover the story of human survival and migration out of Africa: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/21/africa/toba-supervolcano-early-human-migration-africa-scn/index.html 
  • Scientists at SMU used infrasound sensors to track atmospheric changes during the recent total solar eclipse: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2024/04/08/we-had-good-visibility-how-north-texas-scientists-studied-the-total-solar-eclipse/

  • DFW Airport history: When they found dinosaur fossils: https://www.wfaa.com/video/news/local/dfw-airport-history-when-they-found-dinosaur-fossils/287-265d5c12-7bf8-4172-ba7e-ad5af38dfd0e. From WFAA's Rewind Series, this story follows the history of a plesiosaur specimen recovered during construction of the DFW airport. The specimen was recovered by Bob Slaughter for the Shuler Museum of Paleontology at SMU. It was exhibited for many years in the Braniff terminal at DFW Airport, but was relocated to an administration building when the airline ceased to operate. SMU recovered the specimen approximately 10 years ago for study.

  • The American Geophysical Union has honored two Earth Sciences alumni with section awards in 2022:

    Dr. Xie Hu, Natural Hazards Early Career Award 2022.  Xie was a student of Dr. Zhong Lu whose research focused on use of radar remote sensing for geohazards.  Her PhD included chapters of stability of tailings impoundment outside of Salt Lake City and InSAR- and GPS based work on landslides.  Following her time at SMU, she moved into a postdoc position at UC Berkeley and is now an assistant professor at Peking University.                 https://www.ues.pku.edu.cn/english/faculty/faculty1/lastname/h1/355860.htm

    Dr. Vashan Wright, Science and Society Team Award.  Vashan was a student of Dr. Matt Hornbach and received a PhD Geophysics.  Vashan started his work on seismic and tsunami hazard and tectonics of Jamaica, but his interests quickly moved into understanding granular physics and rock physics.  While at SMU, he helped found the graduate student after-seminar to help build the sense of community amongst Earth Sciences graduate students, and he played a key role in the creation and design of the ‘Unlearning Racism in Geoscience (URGE)’ program. He is currently an assistant professor at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UC San Diego.           https://vwright.scrippsprofiles.ucsd.edu/

  • Massive Hunga volcano eruption sets new standard for crowdsourcing scientific observation of seismic events. 

  • In her last semester at SMU, an internship with the City of Denton helped Earth Sciences alumna, Alison Wenzel, discover a talent for teaching Texans to take care of their environment. Read about Alison's work with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality here: https://blog.tceq.texas.gov/2021/06/14/environmental-education-isnt-always-elementary/

  • The SMU Geothermal Laboratory has been honored with a resolution by the House of Representatives of the 87th Texas Legislature congratulating the research facility for 51 years of vital contributions to science and industry.

  • Suzanne E. Smrekar, PhD 1990, is the principal investigator for the planned VERITAS space probe to Venus which has been selected through the NASA Discovery Program. This investigation is one of the final selections from four mission concepts NASA picked in February 2020 as part of the agency’s Discovery 2019 competition. Dr. Smrekar is also the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Mars InSight lander.

  • Southern Methodist University's Shuler Museum of Paleontology has partnered with DFW Airport for a geological study of a creekbed on airport property that contains prehistorical ash. In this video, join us on a dig at the site!

  • Listen to Dr. Dale A. Winkler, Director of the Shuler Museum of Paleontology, discuss Wannchampsus kirpachi (small terrestrial crocodile), two skulls preserved in contact, Early Cretaceous fossilized bone. Link to story.

  • Remembering James Elwood Brooks

  • Azle residents are frustrated and waiting for answers after multiple earthquakes affect their town. Link to story1. 

  • Curator of earth sciences at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science and adjunct associate professor at Southern Methodist University, Tony Fiorillo, discusses Dallas' star Perot dinosaur in movie Walking With Dinosaurs.

  • Dr. James E. Quick discusses fossil supervolcano highlighted in new UNESCO geopark. Link to story.

  • Michael Polcyn discusses the use of three-dimensional printing for fossils still trapped in medium. Link to story.

  • Maria Richards, SMU researcher touts geothermal energy potential of Eagle Ford wells. Link to story.

  • Dr. Yuri Kimura, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences postdoctoral fellow, has two papers published based on her doctoral dissertation, Evolutionary Patterns of Tooth Shape in Relation to Diet Inferred by Stable Carbon Isotope of Tooth Enamel in Murine Rodents from the Miocene of Pakistan. Link to paper1. Link to paper2.

  • Maria Richards of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory asks, what is holding back consumers from buying green power? Link to story.

  • Dr. Louis Jacobs and other members of the PaleoAngola Project discover a new type of fish-eating crocodile in Angola.

  • Jewel Lipps of College Station, a Southern Methodist University sophomore majoring in environmental science and chemistry, was recently awarded a grant through the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Undergraduates program. Link to story.

  • Huffington Department of Earth Sciences graduate student, John Graf, and Dr. Louis Jacobs of the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man, discuss the coelacanth fossil's discovery and its importance. Link to story.

  • Huffington Department of Earth Sciences graduate student, Junghyun Park, meets former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and presents him with a copy of her doctoral dissertation, Infrasound Signal Processing from Regional Arrays; Seismic Characteristics of North Korean Nuclear Explosions. Link to story.