Department of Geosciences - Clark Science Center - Smith College

We made cards for faculty and staff. We designed
a new level of department gear in the form of pintcapacity
glasses with a “Bring Your Own Brunton”
logo inspired by Kaila Matatt ‘10 (drawn by Jake
Pecht, Katie Castagno, and Naomi Barshi, all ‘12)
to add to a 2011-2012 round of shirts (with design
by Monica Rolls and Katie Castagno, both ‘12). We
held a successful lunch-bag talk with Nanci Young,
who drew from her vast archivist knowledge to share
stories about the early days of our department when it
was housed in College Hall and, later, Lilly Hall! We
welcomed a new faculty member to our department in
true Club style with several pranks, including weekly
delivery of a geology pun written on a punch card. To
finish up a wonderful year, we put on our second Geo
Senior Banquet, complete with a skit about our esteemed
faculty (written and played by the seniors) and
fantastic prophecies about the seniors’ future adventures.
We look forward to more adventures next year!
• The old aqueous geochemistry lab moved into a
much bigger two-room lab complex down the hall,
forming part of the marvelous new Center for Aqueous
Biogeochemistry.
• The Geomorphology lab in Sabin-Reed moved down
the hall to a freshly refurbished classroom, which also
serves as our much-improved venue for departmental
talks and events.
• A permanent optical microscopy lab, serving the lab
needs of Mineralogy, Petrology, and Sedimentology,
has replaced the old Geomorphology lab. Microscopes
are mounted permanently on tables, always at
the ready for eager users.
Students enjoying the new microscopy lab in Sabin Reed 102.
• The old Sedimentology lab in Sabin-Reed has been
reconfigured as a multipurpose teaching space, with
movable tables that can be rearranged to accommodate
lectures, discussion groups, lab projects, and seminars.
• John Brady moved his experimental petrology lab
from a cramped, dungeon-like space in the Burton
basement to a spacious, sunlit lab on the first floor of
Sabin-Reed. The day has come: Earth’s interior can
now be studied at the Earth’s surface.
GEO seniors in front of the Peabody Museum on Yale
University campus during Spring 2012 Tectonics class trip.
Building Renovations
Renovations to Burton Hall and Sabin-Reed during the
past year have greatly improved our teaching and lab
spaces, as the Department of Geosciences expanded
into rooms vacated when the Department of Chemistry
moved to a different building. Among the big
changes:
GEO computer lab moved from The Cave into the
former Mineralogy Lab.
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