Geology-Geography Department Eastern Illinois University

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Geology-Geography Department Eastern Illinois University

page for the Geology-Geography Department at Eastern Illinois University

12/14/2023

Congratulations Panthers, you’ve made it through finals week! Enjoy your break, but don’t forget to return your tools of the trade (textbooks) before you leave!

12/11/2023

Great time Friday night at the annual GTU last supper! Thanks to all the faculty, staff, students, and friends of the department who joined us to celebrate the end of the fall semester.

11/02/2023

Some good old sulfide immiscibility. Students are enjoying the ore deposits course this semester, investigating everything from impact induced ore deposits to skarns, and everything in between!

11/02/2022

Creedite, a rare and beautiful mineral in our mineral and meteorite display from Mina Navidad, Durango, México. Found in 1916, Creedite was named after the site of its discovery, Creede Quadrangle in Mineral County, Colorado, USA.

10/21/2022

Flow banded pumice and obsidian from Panum Crater, California. Outside of the crater’s complex eruptive history, this rock records in stone the path that volatiles (gasses) took through the lava as it was erupted. The pumice in the sample (lighter color with vesicles) formed from a reduction in pressure where previously dissolved gasses escaped as the lava cooled. To form the obsidian (darker material), the lava would have had to remain pressurized while quickly cooling, or as in this sample, have already lost its gas prior to cooling.

A big thank you to EIU Geology major Anthony Kilber for sharing this sample from their personal collection!

03/04/2022

Brittle starfish from the Solnhofen limestone in Bavaria tell a story from the sea floor 150 million years ago. These rocks represent an archipelago at the edge of an ancient sea. Due to a high salt content and low oxygen levels, scavengers were unable to disturb this area, allowing for high levels of preservation.

01/27/2022

Today marks the 55th anniversary of the loss of Apollo I astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee. As part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance, we pause to honor the astronauts of Apollo I, STS-6 Challenger, and STS-1 Columbia. “They gave their lives in service to their country in the ongoing exploration of humankind’s final frontier”. Per aspera ad astra.

12/08/2021

Special thanks to Noah Spence from the Coles County Regional Planning and Development Commission! Noah recently served as a guest speaker in our PSM GIScience Seminar course, discussing infrastructure mapping, the Illinois E911 Project, and other activities at the CCRPDC.

12/03/2021

All the way from Pilbara, Australia, here is an Archean stromatolite (Alcheringa narrina). Dated at approximately 2.7 billion (yes, billion!) years old, stromatolites were a major source of oxygen, and played a dramatic role in shaping the future of Earth’s atmosphere. A trace fossil of layered microbial life (mostly Cyanobacteria), some stromatolites are dated all the way back to ~3.4 billion years old, making them one of the oldest records of life on Earth!

11/29/2021

Presenting pentagonite, a rare silicate mineral that is named for the pseudo-symmetrical five-fold habit that is typical of twins within this species. Pentagonite is dimorphic with cavansite, and may represent the high-temperature form of the two species.

11/25/2021

Enjoy your roasted dinosaur! Best wishes from the EIU Geology & Geography department.

11/22/2021

All the way from Samara, Russia, today we have a gorgeous specimen of native sulfur. Sulfur has a variety of uses ranging from fireworks to batteries, and is one of the most abundant elements in living things. Often formed in volcanic settings, sulfur can also form as a sublimate from volcanic gasses along with realgar/orpiment and cinnabar (soon to be featured here).

Address

600 Lincoln Avenue
Charleston, IL
61920

Website

https://www.eiu.edu/geoscience/

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