Russell O. Colson
Professor of Geology
Department of Anthropology and Earth Science
Minnesota State University Moorhead
Research Interests
Research is important
at MSUM both because is provides opportunities for students to be engaged
in doing science and because it maintains my own vitality in my discipline.
I am an experimental
petrologist, meaning that I do experiments with earth materials in
an effort to understand how rocks form and what they tell us about the
past. I am also a planetary scientist, meaning that much of
my experimental work has involved solving questions about planets other
than Earth.
Research I have done includes
studies of
the
physical chemistry of molten rock materials,
the
distribution of elements between different phases of natural materials,
natural
resources on other planets, particulary our Moon,
the
petrology of alkalic magmas, and
the
chemical stratigraphy of the sediments deposited by former Lake Agassiz.
Currently, I am studying the physical chemistry of molten rock material using electrochemistry. MSUM has one of only a handful of labs worldwide that is using electrochemical methods to study molten rock material. Our results are important not only in understanding natural processes on the Earth and other planets, but are important contributions to glass and ceramic industries.
I am also participating in a study of the environment
in which the Edmontosaurus of South Dakota lived as 
the
age of the dinosaurs drew to a close. This study has involved
field work at a bone bed in South Dakota that is being escavated by Ron
Nellermoe at Concordia College. I am looking at the stratigraphy,
sedimentology, and paleontology of the rocks above and below the bone bed
in an effort to constrain where these great creatures lived and died.
Was it near a dune field at the edge of a continental sea? Was it
in a swamp, or a bend in the river?
Research interests and puzzles for elementary students
Anthropology and Earth Science
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last update: 11/13/01