Dartmouth Earth and Planetary Sciences

05/29/2026

Associate Professor of EAPS Justin Strauss was recently quoted in Earth.com: “Given our understanding of the regional geology in northwestern Canada, there is great potential here to revisit our understanding of Ediacaran Earth history,”.
(Photo shows fig. 5 from Evans et al., 2026: paleoenvironmental distribution of Ediacaran faunal assemblages through time)

This study is published in Science Advances here:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aed9916

See the article here: https://www.earth.com/news/canadian-fossils-may-rewrite-the-origin-story-of-animal-life/?utm_campaign=Vox-Daily&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8FJjV_QOlTWyJ8MCkuVj6peQWLJcNA5ZNr-Ag4864FQBfaRjqmKcz02N_MGxL0m2uRmHq9kOXReMTFc

05/28/2026

Today many of our EAPS undergraduates (some shown here) presented their work at the Karen E. Wetterhahn Science Symposium. This annual Symposium is Dartmouth’s opportunity to celebrate STEM at Dartmouth and to recognize the efforts of their undergraduate researchers. Notably, two of our undergrads won 2nd & 3rd place for their Senior Honors Theses! Congratulations to Caleb Saks and Jacob Schnell!
Read more on the Wetterhahn here: https://students.dartmouth.edu/surfd/news-events/wetterhahn-science-symposium
Read more on the Reed Science Competition here:
https://students.dartmouth.edu/surfd/news-events/wetterhahn-science-symposium/christopher-g-reed-science-competition

05/26/2026

This term, EAPS undergraduate ‘Ale’aokalani Kahele (‘27) has worked on a project to create a guide for future Stretchies detailing the history of the different tribal lands the EAPS off-campus field program, ‘The Stretch’, goes through, Indigenous relationships to land and water, legal issues concerning tribal/public land use and sacred sites, and more! See more here: https://alea-stretch-seven.vercel.app/

05/21/2026

Students in the field! Students in the EARS 1 intro lab course spent the afternoon learning how to gauge the stream velocity of Mink Brook in Etna, NH by measuring stream transect, depth, and velocity from Dr. Justin Stroup.

05/20/2026

Please join us in congratulating C. Brenhin Keller who has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure! Read more about Brenhin’s work here: https://brenhinkeller.github.io/

05/14/2026

A New Name for Earth Sciences! Starting this summer, Dartmouth’s Department of Earth Sciences will be known as the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). Dartmouth’s growing research program in planetary science will now have a name to match!
Read more here: https://fas.dartmouth.edu/news/2026/05/new-name-earth-sciences

05/13/2026

Congratulations to Professor of Earth Sciences Robert (Bob) Hawley, who has been named director of the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, effective July 1! As Bob says “Teaching and learning are, by their very nature, a human interaction”.
Read more here:

More news Articles Earth Sciences Professor Named DCAL DirectorNews subtitleRobert Hawley will lead the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning.ImageImage Professor of Earth Sciences Robert Hawley is a glaciologist known for his innovative approach to teaching. (Photo by Sophia Scull ’25...

05/11/2026

Congratulations, Dr. Joel Wilner, on a successful PhD defense! Joel’s dissertation is titled “Pushing the Boundary: Modeling and Data-Driven Insights into Paleoclimate and Erosion at Glacial Margins”

05/11/2026

Congratulations, Lauren Morrison, on a successful Master’s defense! Lauren’s thesis is titled “Investigating the preservation of goethite through magnetic techniques”.

04/27/2026

Congratulations, Dr. Jiawen Li, on a successful PhD defense! Jiawen’s dissertation is titled “Tracing Microbial Methanogenesis and Methane Oxidation with Clumped Isotopologue Compositions of Methane”