Current Year Lectures
GSM seminars with slide show presentations are free and open to the public. They are presented by leading professionals in their fields and are aimed at learners from high school to adult. A question-and-answer session follows each seminar. The labs, also free and open to the public, allow a hands-on learning experience and demonstrate the ideas and principles of geology and earth science. Live lectures and labs require no registration; just show up a few minutes early on the evening of the lecture. These lectures and labs are eligible for Continuing Education Unit (CEU) credits.
Click on date of any seminar for attendance information and other details. For a printable version of our schedule of seminars and labs, click here.
Except as noted, live lectures during fall 2024 are Mondays at 7:00 PM CT on the University of Minnesota campus, Keller Hall, Room 3-230. A lecture with (V) following its title is an online virtual lecture. For these, free registration is required by non-members; the instructions are supplied with the lecture description.
Our schedule is planned over 6 months in advance, so changes may occur. Always check this website shortly before each lecture for the latest seminar information.
Winter weather will come and snow might impact our lectures. The GSM will make any decision about cancelling or postponing a lecture due to inclement weather no later than 3:00 PM the day of the lecture. This information will be posted on the GSM home page (http://www.gsmn.org/). So check our home page shortly before each lecture in case there is a cancellation or a last-minute change. Also, we will e‐mail lecture postponement and cancellation information to our members.
Past seminars marked with * were recorded and the recording is available on the Geological Society of Minnesota YouTube channel. Subscribe to this channel for updates.
GSM Lecture Schedule for 2024-2025
| Seminar Lab Date | Seminar Lab Subject | Seminar Lab presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 09/16/24 | Fall Banquet - Geology of the Mississippi River Gorge | Randy Strobel, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences, Metropolitan State U. |
| 09/30/24 | Plan, Core, Scan, Store: Facilitating Core Research | Kat Cantner, M.Sc., Science & Outreach Coordinator for Continental Scientific Drilling Facility at U of Minnesota |
| 10/14/24 | Damaging earthquakes continue in Oklahoma nearly a decade after peak wastewater injection (V) | Jacob Walter, Ph.D., State Seismologist, Oklahoma Geological Survey |
| 10/28/24 | *Groundwater Governance in the Great Lakes States—from Well-Cobbled to Equitable and Sustainable? | Carrie Jennings, Ph.D., Research and Policy Director, Freshwater Society |
| 11/11/24 | Geological Mapping | Harvey Thorleifson, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, U of MN |
| 11/25/24 | Shale in a Nutshell: An Overview of Shale Oil and Gas in the U.S. and Texas (V) | Tim McMahon, Ph.D., Project Manager & Principal Investigator for Tight Oil Resource Assessment (TORA) consortium |
| 12/09/24 | The Great Courses: Wonders of the National Parks: A Geology of North America | Ford Cochran |
| 01/27/25 | Origin of olivine phenocrysts in oceanites at Piton de la Fournaise volcano (Reunion hotspot) | Benoît Welsch, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar in Geology, Macalester College |
| 02/10/25 | Soils | Holly Dolliver, Ph.D., Department Chair of Plant and Earth Science, U. of Wisconsin, River Falls. |
| 02/15/25 | Saturday Lab: The Crystallography of Common Rock Forming Minerals | Jeff Thole, Geology Laboratory Supervisor and Instructor at Macalester College. |
| 02/24/25 | Greatest Mass Extinctions in Earth's History (V) | Rachel Phillips, Ph.D., (GEO GIRL), Postdoctoral Researcher and Instructor, U. of South Carolina |
| 03/10/25 | Mining (V) | Joyashish Thakurta, Ph.D., Research Manager, Natural Resources Research Institute, U. of Minnesota Duluth |
| 03/24/25 | Earthquake Hazards | Stephan Delong, Ph.D., USGS Earthquake Science Center and Visiting Professor, U. of Minnesota |
| 04/07/25 | Ancient Seas, Modern Thrills! Journey Through Minnesota's Paleozoic Geology | Andrew Retzler, M.Sc., Sedimentary Geologist, Minnesota Geological Survey |
| 04/21/25 | Stromatolite Morphology and Diversity - How did (mostly) brainless pond scum build large, complex structures? | Julie K. Bartley, Ph.D., Professor, Gustavus Adolphus College |
| 05/05/25 | Spring Banquet - Bemidji and Bemidji West (Pearl Harbor). | Jared Trost, M.Sc., hydrologist with Upper Midwest Water Science Center, USGS |