Welcome Letter

Welcome to GSA Connects 2022

Greetings!

Jeff Lee
Jeff Lee, GSA Connects 2022 General Co-Chair
Cal Barnes
Cal Barnes, GSA Connects 2022 General Co-Chair

Colorado, home to stunning scenery of mountains, rivers, and plains, welcomes the Geological Society of America’s 2022 Connects meeting (9–12 October) to Denver. Since the last GSA meeting in Denver six years ago, we enjoyed the full gamut of normal life activities during the pre-COVID years, hopefully navigated the syn-COVID years unscathed, and at this year’s meeting perhaps we will excitedly enter a post-COVID time.

This meeting will be fully hybrid; nonetheless, the two of us look forward to seeing you all during this stimulating scientific meeting, which includes 176 topical sessions, five Pardee Symposia, 38 short courses, and 14 field trips. As GSA does so well, we have planned plenty of engaging activities for students, early-career geoscientists, and K–12 educators, and we will have a vibrant Resource & Innovation Center. One of the special aspects of an in-person meeting is the spontaneous and not-so spontaneous informal gatherings you make with colleagues, former students, friends, and new scientists.

Want a break from the meeting? Enjoy a hike in the Front Range in one of dozens of parks where you can walk across flat-lying Cenozoic sedimentary deposits and basalt flows that unconformably overlie tilted Mesozoic and late Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that unconformably overlie Proterozoic igneous and gneissic rocks. If you gain enough elevation, be greeted by a stunning panorama of Denver and the Great Plains of Colorado. Or visit one of the many museums, like the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, with offerings from art to minerals to dinosaurs and more.

While in Denver, check out the recently opened Meow Wolf Convergence Station, Meow Wolf’s third permanent exhibition in the United States. Check out Dinosaur Ridge and then visit the best place to see the stars, Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre and see King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Walk the River North Arts District and see some of the best murals and graffiti. A palette of flavors awaits you among Denver’s distinct restaurants, roving food trucks, food carts. and cuisine from some of Denver’s semifinalists in this year’s James Beard Awards.

We look forward to seeing you in Denver,

 

Jeff Lee, research professor, Dept. of Geophysics, Colorado School of Mines
Cal Barnes, professor (retired), Dept. of Geosciences, Texas Tech University

GSA 2022 Connects General Co-Chairs