Sam Bowring Geochronology Fieldwork Award

Sam Bowring Student Research Grant in Geochronology

Criteria

  • Work must include the collection of samples that advance the field of geochronology (e.g. fund geochron fieldwork)
  • Work must include best practices in geochronology fieldwork
  • Our goal is to increase in the role of scientists from minoritized populations in geochronology

Process

  • Apply to GSA Research Grants in early February
  • Note that your project seeks geochronology funding


Learn more about the Sam Bowring fundraising campaign to honor Sam Bowring's legacy in building the geochronology community through a student grant program fund managed by the GSA Foundation. 


Making a contribution is simple: Go to https://gsa-foundation.org/funds-and-awards/ and select the Sam Bowring Geochronology Fund to do so online. Please contact Division Officers for more information.

2025 Recipient of the Sam Bowring Student Research Grant in Geochronology

2025

Lindsay Worden

Lindsay is a second-year master's student at the University of Victoria, Canada pursuing research reconstructing a portion of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum. Using geochronology, glacial geomorphic mapping, and sedimentology, Lindsey is presenting a comprehensive glacial history of ice dynamics during retreat impacting human and ecological dispersal on northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia (Canada) during this time period. Lindsey says "I am honoured to accept the Sam Bowring Geochronology research award from the GSA! It has funded my project's fieldwork and sample analysis — thank you!"

2025

Maximillian Ehrenfels

Max is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg, where he investigated the Masirah Ophiolite in Oman and the Damara Orogen in Namibia using Ar–Ar thermochronology. Now a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, he is developing and improving laser-ablation (U–Th)/He dating methods. With support from the Sam Bowring Geochronology Fieldwork Award, his current project targets chromite and magnetite in sheared serpentinites to refine the timing of the India–Asia collision. 

Past Recipients

2024

Samuel Kwafo

Samuel is a PhD student at the University of Florida working on a project to refine the “Geochronology of the Upper Vindhyan Sequence.”  Bowring Research funds will contribute to a field season in the Vindhyan Basin in India, sampling for detrital and potentially volcanogenic zircons for U-Pb geochronology as well as for paleomagnetic measurements.

2022

Jordan Wang


Jordan is a PhD student at the University of Arizona. In his project titled, "Permo-Triassic Subduction Complex-Forearc Ophiolite Pair in southern British Columbia: Record of East-Dipping Subduction Initiation in the Canadian Cordillera?", Jordan will perform fieldwork in southern British Columbia studying the Bridge River Subduction Complex.

2023

Ema Armstrong

Ema is a PhD student and NSF GRF at Utah State University. Her research focuses on identifying earthquakes in the rock record using zircon (U-Th)/He thermochronometry. Ema will perform field work in the Salton Trough, California, targeting pseudotachylyte along the West Salton detachment fault.

2022

Kathleen Grosswiler


Kathleen is a PhD student at Pennsylvania State University. In her project titled, "How did the Wrangellia Large Igneous Province Impact the Environment During the Carnian?", Kathleen will perform fieldwork along the NW coast of North America, studying the Wrangellia flood basalts.