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. Here is the link. 
  • 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.

Where are recipients of the Sam Bowring Research Grant completing their research? View locations on this interactive map. 

2026 Recipients of the Sam Bowring Student Research Grant in Geochronology

2026

Ryan Eden

Ryan is a structural geology PhD student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research, supported by the Sam Bowring Geochronology Fieldwork Award, uses detailed geologic mapping paired with geochronology of zircon and monazite to elucidate relationships between the development of local shortening structures and the generation of peraluminous, two-mica granites in the footwall of the Northern Snake Range Detachment Fault, eastern NV. 

2026

James Barnes

James is a second-year master’s student whose research integrates geologic mapping with detrital zircon and rutile geochronology to better understand depositional history and sediment-routing pathways during the Late Cretaceous across the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain and Mississippi Embayment. This grant will support his sample analysis.

Past Recipients

2025

Lindsay Worden

Lindsay is a master's student at the University of Victoria, Canada. Using geochronology, glacial geomorphic mapping, and sedimentology, she 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. 

2025

Maximillian Ehrenfels

Max is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin where 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. 

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.

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

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.

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.