Geology's Melissa Rice to Speak About Mapping Mars April 28 in Wilson Library

Western Washington University Assistant Professor of Geology Melissa Rice will give a talk entitled “Mapping Mars – Our Evolving Vision of the Red Planet” from 4-5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 28 in the Map Collection in Wilson Library 170.

This event is free and open to the public.

 Rice will discuss the mapping, science and exploration of Mars, once thought by scientists to be a living world covered with vegetation that changed with the seasons. The Space Age brought a new view of Mars as a dry, cratered and barren planet. In more recent decades, with mapping efforts by sophisticated spacecraft, our vision of Mars has continued to evolve into that of a complex and fascinating world. 

Rice is an assistant professor of Geology at Western, where she teaches in both the Geology and the Physics and Astronomy departments. Her research focuses on the sedimentology, stratigraphy and mineralogy of planetary surfaces; the current aim of her work is to better understand the habitability of ancient environments on Mars. She is a collaborator on the active NASA Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity missions. Rice received her doctorate in Astrophysics at Cornell University and was a postdoctoral scholar in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology.           

This event is sponsored by Western Libraries, The Planetary Society, WWU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and WWU’S Department of Geology.

For more information, contact Dennis Matthews, Map Collection manager at Western Libraries, at Dennis.Matthews@wwu.eduor call the Map Collection at Western Libraries at (360) 650-3272.