Why Give to Geology?

A Letter from the Department Chair

Dear W&M Geo Alums and Friends,

We’re midway through the Fall semester in Williamsburg, so I’m excited to give you updates from W&M Geology and let you know about upcoming events that we hope to see many of you at soon. 

First off- if you are visiting for W&M Homecoming, please join us at the Geology Department’s reception in the Rock Garden from 10am-noon on Saturday, October 18^th.  For the uninitiated, the Rock Garden is our slowly growing patch of geologic macrosamples procured from beyond the Coastal Plain – neatly tucked into the wooded grove between the Sunken Garden & Crim Dell.  It’s a beautiful place to gather and celebrate our community.  We’ll have drinks and snacks- please drop by if you can.

If you will be at GSA in San Antonio TX, please join us for a joint reception with Virginia Tech and JMU on Monday, October 20th from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio River Walk, in the Presidio B room. There should be a reasonable amount of hors d’oeuvres and plenty of drinks.

Whether you graduated 2 years ago or over 20 years ago or somewhere in between, W&M Geology has changed quite a bit since you were here. But one thing has remained constant: we provide very impactful student experiences- in teaching and research and will continue to do so.  In just the most recent 9 months we’ve taken students thousands of miles north, east, and west of the Wren Building to study rocks and geologic features that stretch our students’ minds beyond the Atlantic Coastal Plain.  We’ve had wonderful people come and go over the years, and we’ve been improving our labs, infrastructure, and space, but our community has remained rock solid for decades. 

With regards to wonderful people coming, we are thrilled to welcome Melissa Chipman as the newest member of our community!  Melissa specializes in climate and environmental reconstructions in the Arctic and is bringing lots of energy and enthusiasm to The Sedimentary Record this Fall.  She will soon be teaching Global Climate Change, Paleoclimatology, and other awesome courses in the coming years. 

Geology 310 continues to take students to incredible places.  In the earliest days of 2025, Chuck and Anne Rasmussen (Music Dept) took a group of students to learn about the culture and geology of Oman.  They enjoyed a show at the Royal Opera House, toured Bronze and Iron Age archaeological sites, and of course studied famous ophiolites. Immediately following May’s graduation ceremony, Rowan Lockwood and Chris Hein took two dozen students to Hawaii– another epic journey in which students learned about everything from lava tubes to echinoderms.   I’ve attached a few photos to share a view of some of these educational adventures.

We’ve also been busy with our research -last March, we took over 25 students to the Geological Society of America meeting in Harrisonburg, Virginia- and most of them presented their research on a variety of topics including beach nourishment, the formation of kyanite quartzites, the timing of deposition events associated with Paleozoic orogenies, radon hazards, Paleocene molluscan assemblages, hillslope asymmetry, and more.  We do a wide range of societally relevant research projects with students.  For another example, check out Professor Dom Ciruzzi’s super cool research on the body language of trees! https://news.wm.edu/2025/09/30/learning-natures-language/

Oh, and speaking of change, we have a new Chair!  Some of you may have never met me, some of you may remember me as ‘the new guy’ (a title I held on to as long as humanly possible), but most of you probably remember me as the weird dude who hangs out in a room full of lead bricks.  After 2 decades of incredible leadership from others, I’m delighted to lead the department and ultimately pass the torch to the new crop of faculty- all of whom are incredible teachers and researchers.

I hope this gives you a flavor of what we’ve been up to, and we hope to see you soon.  You are probably painfully aware that we live in tumultuous times, and funding for many natural sciences programs is being cut.  We can only offer the impactful opportunities we do with your generosity.  Please support Geology so we can continue to provide the best possible undergraduate experience and properly develop the next generation of geoscientists. 

Also- please keep in touch with us!  If you have an updated email you’d like us to use, please contact Trina Hawkins (tlhawkins@wm.edu) with the updated information.  If you know of alumni who we might have lost contact with, please send this along to them. 

Take good care,

 

Jim Kaste (jmkaste@wm.edu)
Professor & Chair of Geology
William & Mary