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Gabbie Ledesma and Jazlyn Beeck win Undergraduate Presentation Awards, 2020 North-Central Section GSA Meeting

In May 2020, geology undergraduates Gabbie Ledesma (Spring 2020 graduate) and Jazlyn Beeck presented their undergraduate research at the virtual North Central meeting of the Geological Society of America.

Gabbie’s oral presentation, entitled “Can Terrestrial Manganese-rich Samples Help Distinguish Manganese-enrichments in Gale Crater Mars?”, is the culmination of research conducted with her advisor, Dr. Betsy Swanner, and collaborators at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Minnesota State University – Mankato. Gabbie presented an outstanding video in leiu of an in-person talk, which earned her the award for best undergraduate oral presentation.

You can watch Gabbie’s full presentation video by using this link.

Jazlyn won the award for best undergraduate poster presentation with her poster entitled “Pedogenic Carbonate Concretions in Iowa’s Loess Soils: A Modern Carbon Sink?” Jazlyn’s research, conducted under the guidance of Dr. Swanner and Mark Rasmussen from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, focuses on the origin of carbonate nodules within soils of the Loess Hills.

You can read Jazlyn’s abstract by using this link.

Undergraduate research is an important opportunity for our geology and meteorology students, and the department is certainly proud of Gabbie and Jazlyn’s accomplishments.