The 2019 Spring Semester was full of fun adventures such as the northeast Geological Society of America Meeting, and hard work spent in the laboratory and on computers but it culminated in success.

Brendan Braithwaite completed his UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College Senior Thesis: “Retention of trace metals in urban forests and soils near municipal waste incineration facilities in northeastern U.S.”. It came down to the wire but, Brendan was able to generate dozens of elemental maps for urban forest sites at Springfield, MA, Poughkeepsie, NY, and Hartford Connecticut.

Rudy Marek also completed his UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College Senior Thesis “Investigating geologic controls on ecophysiology and nutrient cycling in the Forests of New England,”. Rudy’s data shows that glacial-till derived soils and re-worked sediment deposits in Western Massachusetts have very different physical and chemical soil properties, but tree growing on them had similar access to nutrients. However, some trees grew faster on one type of material, compared to the other. We aim to have these results from both of these studies in review for publication by the end of the summer!