A List
2/19/07

UNDERSEA GEOLOGY TOPIC OF SLU GRAD'S TALK

CANTON - University of Florida Professor of Geology Michael Perfit, a 1971 graduate of St. Lawrence University, will deliver the Susan Caroline Ferguson Memorial Lecture in Geology on Thursday, March 1, at 8 p.m., in Bloomer Auditorium, Brown Hall. The talk, on new geological and biological discoveries in deep-submarine exploration of the East Pacific Rise, is open to the public, free of charge.

At the University of Florida, Perfit combines field work, laboratory studies and theoretical models, to better understand magmatic processes and how they are related to plate tectonics. His most recent studies focus on the volcanology and petrologic evolution of the oceanic crust. During the last decade, Perfit and his colleagues have been instrumental in documenting and studying the first recorded volcanic eruptions on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the northwest coast of North America, and the East Pacific Rise in the equatorial Eastern Pacific. He has participated in over 25 major oceanographic cruises and has had nearly 40 dives in the manned research submersible ALVIN, to depths greater than 12,000 feet.

Following his graduation from St. Lawrence with a degree in geology, Perfit earned a master's degree in marine geology and the Ph.D. in geochemistry at Columbia.

He has been a member of the U.S. Science Advisory Committee and the Lithosphere Panel of the Joint Oceanographic Institutes and served as the chair of the Deep Submergence Science Committee. Perfit most recently served on the executive committee of Ridge 2000, a long-term program of scientific research on mid-ocean ridges and other tectonic spreading centers sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and as chair of the R2K Education and Outreach Committee.

-30-

More information: Geology Alumni News

The Ferguson Lecture

The Sciences at St. Lawrence