UCR Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Calling all Geology, Geography, Earth Sciences, and Earth & Planetary Sciences Alumni! It’s time to reconnect, reminisce, and rock out at our Spring Alumni Event! May 3rd 12pm until....... Geology Courtyard. Information and RSVP at

2025 Alumni Event Calling all Geology, Geography, Earth Sciences, and Earth & Planetary Sciences Alumni! It’s time to reconnect, reminisce, and rock out at our Spring Alumni Event 📅 May 3rd, 2025 | 12 PM – 8 PM 📍 UCR Geology Courtyard

Are you ready for From California to Down Under: The Fossils of the Ediacaran Exhibit Opening?

Produced in collaboration with the Droser Lab at UCR Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, this new temporary exhibit will feature fossils from South Australia that are over 600 million years old! Discover the strange and beautiful world of the Ediacara biota starting this Saturday, March 15th at the Western Science Center!

Art by Dominic Pennetta.

We're hiring!

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Riverside is seeking applicants for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Economic Geology, broadly defined. We seek expertise in economic geology, critical minerals, hydrothermal geochemistry, or related fields at the interface between Earth and Planetary sciences and mineral resources. Please circulate this to your best people!

EPS has 22 full-time faculty members with diverse research programs. We have a range of resources, including extensive analytical laboratories used for elemental and isotopic characterization of geological materials that is expanding as part of a recently funded Critical Minerals Analytical Training Center. We are also centrally located near major historical and active sites in the mineral and energy resources industry.

The application window is open now: https://aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF01981 Application review will begin January 6th, 2025. We look forward to seeing your applications!

EPSci grad students Phill Boan, Walker Weyland, and David Duarte showcased a booth at the Inland Empire Science Festival this past weekend, sharing to the public what our department has to offer!

Did you view the partial solar eclipse on Monday? UCR observed roughly 55% coverage of the moon in front of the sun. Geophysics professor David Oglesby gave EpSci students a look through his telescope outfitted with a special solar filter. Several EpSci students even traveled directly to the path of totality, capturing incredible images.
All photos shown here were taken by our students!

NEW PAPER ALERT🚨
Check out UCR EPSci graduate student Rachel Surprenant's and Professor of Geology Dr. Mary Droser's recent paper in Royal Society Open Science!
Link: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231313

More AGU photos! Congrats to all those who presented their research last week!

EpSci attended the annual American Geophysical Union conference this past week. Congrats to those who presented this week in both oral and poster sessions!

What’s Shakin’?

Did you visit our table today during the nationwide Great ShakeOut? Here, the UCR community had the chance to talk about earthquakes with EPSci graduate students and learn how to prepare for one. Remember to Stop, Drop, and Hold on!

NEW PAPER ALERT🚨

Check out UCR EPSci graduate student Sandy Herho's recent paper in Geographica Pannonica!

Link:http://www.dgt.uns.ac.rs/dokumentacija/pannonica/papers/volume27_3_4.pdf.pdf

EPSci graduate students: Norma Contreras, Celeste Hofstetter, Adam Margolis, and Yijian Zhou presented their research at the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) annual conference this week! Also in attendance was one of our newest graduate students: Lupita Bravo!

Several EPSci faculty presented their research including: Gareth Funning, Abhijit Ghosh, David Oglesby!

EPSci graduate students Rachel Surprenant and Phillip Boan presenting their work at the Palaeo Down Under conference in Perth, Australia this week! Below are the titles of their talks:

Rachel Surprenant: Mind the gap: leveraging biostratinomic variability to refine the records of Ediacaran tubular organisms and morphologically convergent structures

Phillip Boan: That’s random: the metre-scale distributions of Dickinsonia from Nilpena Ediacara National Park