News: Department of Geoscience
![hands holding bottle and applicator over fossil](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/releases/main-images/Preparing%20Fossil_0.jpg?itok=OMOO_3R5)
UNLV geoscientist, student among international research team behind discovery of ancient monkey species that lived in Africa 22 million years ago.
![petri dish and beakers containing liquids](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/articles/main-images/newsmakers-D70349_24.jpg?itok=SjUDA66i)
In 2018, faculty and students collaborated with one another and international colleagues on scientific exploration that sought to help people make sense of themselves and the world around them.
!["bathtub ring" around Lake Mead](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/media/image/2022-05/D72695_401%20Lake%20Mead.jpeg?itok=8atgV98Y)
Climate change researcher Matt Lachniet explains the impacts of hotter temperatures.
Scholarship fuels research that could save communities from floods.
![Shaimaa Abdelhaleem](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/articles/main-images/D72277_001.jpg?itok=HCRlq6Tr)
Most kids want to be doctors, vets, police officers, or teachers when they grow up. Shaimaa Abdelhaleem had different ideas.
As geologist Peg Rees heads to retirement, the 4,000 pounds of rocks she collected go to the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center.
![UNLV geoscientist Eugene Smith](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/articles/main-images/D66836_32_TA.jpg?itok=QRUO-L96)
How a vacation in South Africa, a one-of-its-kind UNLV lab, and pieces of volcanic glass smaller than a grain of salt changed a long-held view of human history.
![rough diamond crystal](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/releases/main-images/Diamond_shutterstock_136864628_0.jpg?itok=nqbhvMqW)
Scientific analysis of diamond impurities - known as inclusions - reveal naturally forming ice crystals and point to water-rich regions deep below the Earth's crust.
![Libby Hausrath and student Seth Grainey working by microscope in lab.](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/articles/main-images/D68282_11_0.jpg?itok=pdDe6hnX)
UNLV research could help assess landing locations and excavation sites for NASA’s 2020 rover mission to Mars.
![senior Amber Turner and alumna Lisa Danielson](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/articles/main-images/D71525_005_0.jpg?itok=rvtwLOBy)
UNLV geoscientists and students like undergraduate Amber Turner (left, with alumna Lisa Danielson) are studying our planet and others to understand the impacts humans are having on Earth and the possibilities of life beyond it.
![Jonathan Baker and colleagues examine stalagmite in a cave](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/articles/main-images/SampleCollection.jpg?itok=TbIrWgqa)
UNLV Ph.D. candidate’s research in Russia challenges widely held understanding of past climate history; study appears in latest issue of top journal Nature Geoscience.
![Closeup of books](/sites/default/files/styles/768_width/public/articles/main-images/D66150_32.jpg?itok=z6u9X-6t)
From professional reasons to personal connections, faculty across campus share why they’re fond of certain works they penned.