Research Opportunities

There are many opportunities for students to participate in and conduct research in geology at Bryn Mawr. Many geology courses include small independent research projects in the library or laboratory. All undergraduate majors complete a senior thesis involving independent research. Many undergraduates also participate in summer research experiences, either with Bryn Mawr faculty or faculty at other institutions.

Summer Internships

Click here for current opportunities off campus.

Geoscience Research Programs at Bryn Mawr

Petrology and Tectonics
Maria Luisa Crawford and William A. Crawford have been engaged in a long term effort, in collaboration with colleagues at several other institutions including the University of Arizona, Princeton University, Virginia Tech, and West Chester University in the Appalachian belt in the Piedmont area of Pennsylvania and adjacent parts of Delaware and Maryland; and in the central part of the coast orogen of British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. Our goal is to to investigate mechanisms of crustal growth by tectonic accretion and associated deformation, by magmatic addition, and by uplift and to establish the thermal history of the rocks affected. At Bryn Mawr we emphasize igneous and metamorphic petrology and geochemistry as well as structural analysis of deep-seated rocks. Our collaborative arrangements provide access to isotopic geochemistry and geochronology. We also were part of the ACCRETE Continental Dynamics project team. Many students have participated in field and laboratory components of this research.

Structural Geology, Paleomagnetism and Tectonics
Research in structural geology at Bryn Mawr is currently led by Arlo B. Weil. More info about Arlo's research is available here.

Paleontology
Paleontology at Bryn Mawr is based on the premise that understanding extinct organisms can be acheived in non-traditional ways, including study of living counterparts and computer simulations. Professor Bruce Saunders has been active in a twenty-year program in marine biology, focused on study of the chambered nautiuls and deep-water crustaceans, at such remote sites as Micronesia, Papua, New Guinea and the Great Barrier Reef. This has provided a basis for calculating and simulating how long-extinct fossil counterparts, the ammonites, might have lived. His study of the worlwide distribution of these organisms has led to formulation of new views of the influence of worldwide sea level fluctuations on evolution, extinction, and the stratigraphic record.

Marine Sedimentology, Quaternary Paleoclimatology and Coastal Geology
Don Barber and the Bryn Mawr students he supervises conduct research that applies sedimentological, geophysical and geochemical techniques to study coastal processes, paleoceanography/paleoclimatology and geoarchaeology.  The Bryn Mawr geomorphology pages also provide info about this research.