Pomona College Geology Department

08/21/2026

Read about our students' summer research on the Pomona College news page:

Elle Hawthorne ’29 spent a month on a research cruise to Hawai’i as a research assistant to Visiting Professor of Geology Maria Prokopenko, who is part of a team studying how nitrogen travels great distances to support life in ocean "deserts."

08/04/2026

The final installment of our students' blog is now available:

The fourth, and final, installment of our students' blog from their oceanographic research cruise

07/20/2026

Read Part 3 of our students' blog here:

The third installment of our students' blog from their oceanographic research cruise

07/09/2026

Part 2 of our students' blog is available:

The second installment of our students' blog from their oceanographic research cruise

07/07/2026

Read the first installment of our students' blog as they embark on an oceanographic research cruise this summer:

A team of Pomona-Pitzer students, led by Prof. Masha Prokopenko is participating in the oceanographic research cruise in the Eastern North Pacific.

08/16/2024

Great article on summer fieldwork and research into the Independence d**e swarms undertaken by Dr. Nikki Moore and student Khadi Diallo (PO '25):

This summer, Prof. Nikki Moore took three trips to the Sierra Nevada, each accompanied by different Claremont Colleges students. The two hiked to d**es Moore targeted and mapped, collecting d**e rock samples for lab analysis.

04/26/2024

HOT DOG! PoCo Geo advanced to the "Igneous Eight". Thank you for all your help. That means that voting is again essential. Today—APRIL 26— we take our "FAN"Tastic SoCal Geology against a layercake contender: U. of Southern Mississippi. We're the only West Coast Geo program remaining. Every vote counts, so get that aunt, andesite, abyssal mud, or axial planar cleavage to cast that vote toward Claremont. Voting is OPEN! Here's the Link: https://commoninja.site/835a56a7-dddd-4f27-9c42-aad8b51725ee OR, use linktr.ee/geosociety to get to the link.

04/25/2024

We're on to the Sedimentary 16! We need your votes again TODAY (APRIL 25) to advance to the next round. PoCo Geo now faces Tarleton State U—it's an R2 State Uni SW of Dallas, Texas. Spread the word! Get every Buddy, Brother, Bouma Sequence, and Basin to put in a vote. Let's get the Swifties to vote for us.

04/23/2024

We look forward to welcoming our alumni back campus and the geology department this weekend!

Even if you can't make it back to campus for alumni weekend, we need your help:

We're asking for alumni support for the Department's Tee Shirt logo which is running in the Geological Society of America's first ever "Tee Off" an International, bracket-style competition that pits geology department logos head-to-head. Design is shown below, inspired by our alluvial fan existence, and it's what we'll put on this year's Tee Shirts which we are ordering today.

Who Can Vote? ANYONE with Instagram or a Web browser! So we appreciate your vote and your help recruiting the votes of family, friends, faults, or feldspars. From Sweden to New Zealand, every vote counts

When: The first round of voting is in progress; Pomona will face either Illinois State University or Slippery Rock University, tomorrow, April 24.

👉🏽VOTE HERE! https://commoninja.site/835a56a7-dddd-4f27-9c42-aad8b51725ee 👈🏽VOTE HERE!

Info on the GSA "Tee Off" is here: https://www.instagram.com/geosociety

07/28/2023

Great article here about Jade Star Lackey's latest insights into the Laramie orogeny:

When and how the Rocky Mountains were created are questions that Professor of Geology Jade Star Lackey offers paradigm-shifting answers to in a new paper.