What the heck is geophysics and why would I care? Join Dr. Greg Baker, Professor of Geology at CMU, for a foray into the branch of geology focused on the use of quantitative methods for the analysis of physical properties and physical processes of our Earth—in other words, utilizing technology to understand Earth-science. This is a one-hour live webinar.
When: March 7th from 5:30 - 6:30 PM
Where: Virtual - a link will be sent to you prior to the event
What: Geophysics is a branch of geology focused on the use of quantitative methods for the analysis of physical properties and physical processes of our Earth—in other words, utilizing technology to understand Earth-science. So what does that really mean? Dr. Greg Baker uses technological toys to work on interesting geology problems on our public lands!
Although geophysics comprises a very broad array of topics—from earthquakes & Earth’s core, to climate change, to ocean circulation, to mountain-building tectonics— Greg’s specific area of focus is on “problems” in the Earth’s near-surface. The topical areas Greg has worked on recently include glaciers & glacial processes, groundwater & groundwater contamination, and landslides & wildfire-related slope erosion using a variety of tools. Greg will introduce this broad array of topics and tools related to geophysics, and then conclude with a discussion of ongoing technological advances and the problems they might be used to solve in the future.
This event is free and open to the public.
About the speaker
Dr. Greg Baker received his BS and MS degrees from Lehigh University and his PhD from Dr. Don Steeples at the University of Kansas in 1999. He considers himself an applied geologist—meaning field work and hypothesis testing in real world situations are paramount—and his principle tools fall into the “remote sensing” category including techniques such as shallow seismic imaging, ground penetrating radar, and quantitative sUAS (drone) photogrammetry. Dr. Baker has over two decades of research at the R-1 level (his work has been cited over 1400 times with an h-index of 21), but his passion has always been in teaching; thus, his current position as Professor of Geology at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado, is exactly the right fit with a world-class outdoor classroom. He has been a participant in large-scale projects including: superfund sites (e.g., identifying uranium groundwater contamination at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee USA); large mining sites (e.g., protecting water resources near the Los Azules copper mine, San Juan Argentina); DoD remediation (Forts Richardson & Wainwright in Alaska USA), and climatology (e.g., Holocene evolution of parabolic dunes, White River Badlands, South Dakota; mapping ice/water transport, Matanuska Glacier, Alaska USA).