Gaining Hands-on Experience

John Witmer

John Witmer, Class of '07 and B.S. Environmental Geology candidate, has recently been awarded an Evolving Earth Foundation grant to support his research. John’s current geologic research focuses on a field- and laboratory-based study of marine sedimentary strata that have been uplifted and exposed in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains of southern Alaska. These strata are important for understanding geologic events that shaped the eastern Pacific Ocean during the Triassic-Jurassic global mass extinction event. New lithostratigraphic, biostratigraphic, and chemostratigraphic data will improve constraints on the paleogeography and paleoclimate and document marine biodiversity loss across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. John plans to conduct field work in Alaska during summer 2006, conduct lab analyses at Bucknell and Rutgers University during fall 2006, and present results in a senior thesis. His research is also funded by the Bucknell Program for Undergraduate Research and the Geological Society of America.