Michael C. RygelDepartment Chair, Professor- SUNY Potsdam
Professional Geologist (NYS) [email protected] | (315)267-3401 I grew up in the coalfields of western Pennsylvania and have always been fascinated with the scale of heavy industry, energy, and the transformation of geologic resources into the raw materials that underpin society. I earned a B.S. in Geology from the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown (2000), a Ph.D. in Earth Science from Dalhousie University (2005), and worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2005-2006). I started at SUNY Potsdam in 2006 and currently hold the rank of Professor and serve as the Chair of the Geology Department. My typical teaching load includes some combination of Physical Geology, Historical Geology, Sedimentary Geology, Introduction to GIS, Cartography, and the Freshman Seminar series at SUNY Potsdam. Since 2011 I have spent my summers co-teaching Indiana University’s Field Geology in the Northern Rocky Mountains (G429).
My research interests focus on the sedimentology and stratigraphy of shallow marine-terrestrial clastic systems. I focus largely on Late Paleozoic strata and have worked in the Maritimes Basin (Atlantic Canada), Appalachian Basin (eastern USA), Anadarko Basin (Texas and Oklahoma), and numerous depocenters in eastern Australia. More recently, I have started working on the sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy of Madison Group (Mississippian) carbonates in SW Montana. I worked as a consultant for Devon Energy from 2011-2013 and became a Professional Geologist (NYS) in 2017. I am a Past-President of the New York State Council of Professional Geologists and serve as an Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences and the Journal of Sedimentary Research. |