A nonprofit organization for promoting the scientific and educational aspects of geology through monthly meetings, field trips, publications, scholarships and awards.
Our Next Meeting
January 28, 2026
Student Speaker Night:
Ziman Wu, UC Berkeley ― Formation and Early Diagenesis of Bahamian Carbonate Mud
Ryan Lynch, UC Davis ― Active Faulting in the Klamath Mountains Revealed by Lidar Data
Lena Felicitas Hernandez, UC Berkeley ― The Hunt for the Leona Volcanics
Talks to come:
February 25, 2026 (joint mtg with SF Chapter of the AEG)
Danielle Madugo, California Geological Survey —
A Newly Identified Creeping Strand of the Concord Fault
March 25, 2026
Jeremey Lancaster, State Geologist of California —
Post-Fire Geohazard Risk Management in California’s Warming Climate
April 29, 2026
Dr. James Faulds, Nevada State Geologist —
Keeping Nevada in Hot Water: Unleashing the Full Geothermal Potential of the Great Basin Region
News
Two NCGS members have books published by Berkeley’s Heyday Books that would make good gifts. Gary Prost‘s Rocks and Riches introduces selected California geology sites that everyone should visit. Order it here. Andrew Alden‘s Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City offers residents and visitors a new dimension to this iconic California city. Order it here. Use the discount code HEYDAY30 for 30% off either title.
Our scholarship application period is closed. The NCGS awards up to two $2000 scholarships to graduate students for projects related to Northern California geology (see details on the Scholarship page). Awardees will be announced at our January meeting.
The U.S. Geological Survey has released a new comprehensive, interactive geologic map of the contiguous United States. See the map here and read the USGS announcement here.
Word comes that J. David Rogers, a pioneering engineering geologist and leader of some memorable NCGS field trips, has died in Rolla, Missouri, where he was emeritus professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology. See his obituary here and his personal website here.
Newly added to our Past Field Trips page is the field trip handout David Howell prepared in 2016 for the NCGS trip to the ultrapremium Promontory Vineyard and the merely superpremium Harlan Estate, in Napa Valley. While it doesn’t include the wines we tasted, it does cover the unusual rocks in that memorable part of the world.
Our May Speaker, Walter Alvarez, gave a lucid personal picture of his wild surmise that a Pliocene inland sea once occupied the middle of the Sahara. He published a drier version <2 years ago in this open-access paper in the Journal of African Earth Sciences.
A camera in Myanmar recorded the March 28th magnitude 7.8 earthquake as it moved the ground by several meters. The YouTube video is amazing, and it’s explained in great depth at the Earthquake Insights Substack.
Recently added to the Past Field Trips page is the field trip guide for our 2015 visit to San Luis Reservoir, where the lake shore exposes widespread conglomerate outcrops.
Our thanks to trip leader Todd Greene of CSU Chico, who published results from this locality in Geosphere in 2017.
Become a Member
Our meetings are held each month from September to June (except December), usually on the last Wednesday. Here are details.
When you attend our meetings you’ll be the first to learn about upcoming speakers, field trips and outreach activities. You’ll also receive the monthly NCGS newsletter, full of interesting articles on geoscience topics. Learn more.
During the heavy Covid-19 period, we were broadcasting our meetings via Zoom. Recorded talks have been posted on our YouTube channel, @NCGS1000. We discontinued the broadcasts in September 2024.
Talk to us on social media: Bluesky and Facebook.
