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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Earth Sciences

Earth Sciences: Fall 2023 Job Postings

• The Department of Earth Sciences invites applications to a fully endowed professorship named in honor of C.W. Matthews to be filled at the Associate or Full Professor level. We are seeking applicants who conduct innovative, interdisciplinary and quantitative research programs across all fields of geology. Please visit this site for additional information and to […]

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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Faculty News

Mass Of Earth-Like Rock Found Under The Far Side Of The Moon, Say Scientists

Forbes Scientists using data from Chinese lunar orbiters have discovered what they think is a mass of granite 30 miles wide deep under the surface of the moon. Located under the moon’s far side, it’s unlike anything found before. Presented today at the at the Goldschmidt Conferencein Lyon, France, a paper has also been published […]

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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Faculty News

SMU scientists find possible evidence of ancient giant volcano on the moon

Dallas Morning News Matt Siegler, a planetary scientist at SMU, was digging into old data to figure out how hot it is under the moon’s surface when he came upon something surprising: evidence of a massive, ancient volcano. The moon has always sparked the human imagination — the first known story of explorers landing on […]

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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Faculty News

Oldest Fossil of Sea Reptile Dating Back 94 Million Years Found in Utah

Newsweek – I knew right away we had something special, especially considering it was so old,” said Michael Polcyn, a vertebrate paleontologist and mosasaur expert at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The discovery of the oldest fossil of a marine reptile, dating back 94 million years, is shedding new light on the evolution of […]

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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Faculty News

Research pushes back the prehistoric timeline for apes in Africa by more than 10 million years

SMU News – Evidence of an early savannah grass growing millions of years earlier than previously known may fundamentally change the understanding of life in the prehistoric world. A pair of studies funded by the National Science Foundation and published in the journal Science document the earliest evidence for locally abundant open-habitat grasses in eastern Africa and how those environments […]

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Anthropology Biology Chemistry Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Economics Faculty News Mathematics Physics Political Science Psychology Religious Studies Statistical Science

2022 Dedman College Research Round Up

Dedman College News- Here are some of the Dedman College 2022 research highlights. For the full article please visit SMU News: A study led by fire anthropologist Christopher Roos suggests bringing “good fire” back to the U.S. and other wildfire fire-prone areas, as Native Americans once did, could potentially blunt the role of climate in triggering today’s […]

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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Faculty News

Fossils reveal single tree species dominated Ethiopia rainforest

SMU News- The dominant tree species belonged within the legume family, which includes  beans, peas, and giant trees in tropical forests. “We have estimated the lake beds that contain the fossils were present for about 50,000 to 60,000 years,” said Bonnie Jacobs, an emeritus professor and paleobotanist at SMU (Southern Methodist University) and a co-author […]

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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Faculty News

A bright-green comet not seen since last ice age will be in D-FW skies this month

Dallas Morning News – Dallas scientists say the comet takes 50,000 years to make a trip around the sun. A bright-green comet that has not been seen since the last ice age will be visible in D-FW skies later this month. The comet, called C/2022 E3 (ZTF), was discovered by astronomers at the Zwicky Transient […]

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Anthropology Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Faculty News

Ancient Indigenous practice could curtail today’s wildfires

AXIOS – For 400 years, Native Americans appear to have blunted the impact of climate in triggering wildfires. Find out how, through this study led by SMU‘s Christopher Roos. A study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances found that historical Indigenous “cultural burning” curtailed wildfire patterns on local scales over a period of roughly 400 years […]

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Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences Dedman College Research Earth Sciences Faculty News

Length of a canoe = wingspan of this new pterosaur species

SMU’s paleontologists Louis Jacobs and Michael Polcyn helped find fossils of this flying reptile of the dinosaur. Learn more is Science Daily