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Review the stories below and archived newsletters to read about:

Highlights of student successes from the semester (scholarship winners, AGU attendees, and transfers and degrees)
News of the department (new programs, field trips, courses, displays, etc.)
Personal stories/letters from alumni, students, and faculty
Stories and images

Yajaira Ortega -- Geologist -- Working in the field

9/1/2025: I recently graduated with a B.S. in geology from Sonoma State University. I obtained a job as a mud logger within the past few weeks with West Coast Geologic. We aid in drilling geothermal wells. I am currently in Star Peak Nevada! I'll be here for the next 3 weeks!
The Summer of 2024 I had the opportunity to participate in a REU with Northern Illinois University. I looked at fresh and salt ground water speed and direction in an 85 m deep sinkhole in Yucatan, MX.
I have been to 8 conferences. I have worked on 3 different research projects during my time at Sonoma State University including looking at microstructures/deformation of calcite utilizing an SEM and synchrotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. I helped create an . I looked at the dissolution of different calcite based materials in different concentrations of acids. I was club president for 2 years.
I just completed my field camp in the French Alps. It was a wonderful experience. (See photo above!)
Since funding for science is not available, I plan on obtaining my masters degree in a few years when the political climate is better. Until then I join the workforce.
John Sedlander -- Life long learner

911�� student John Sedlander took Physical Geology Lecture and Lab (GEOL 10 + 10L) in Fall 2022, then enrolled in the San Francisco Geology field class (GEOL 21B) in Fall 2023. In his words, “For me, the field trips rounded out my understanding of what we learned in the Physical Geology class. Actually seeing and touching rocks and soil clarifies my understanding of the material presented in slides and in print. Our last stop at Fort Funston was particularly useful in understanding the timeline of geological events. Geological time is a little tricky to grasp, but when we contrasted the formation of San Francisco terranes as something that happened 175 to 65 million years ago, and the coastal terraces as something that built up over only 2 million years, the perspective shifts. And the 200-foot-high bluffs above the beach... some of that was uplifted, of course, and some was deposited, and some, I suppose, may have been eroded while everything else was happening.

Thank you for the care put into the course. Thank you for not giving us the answers right away and letting us try to figure things out. I’m already investigating which class to take next.
GEOL 21B -- Fall 2023

In Fall 2023, the San Francisco Geology Field Class ended its 3-Saturday run at Fort Funston, where participants are seen here exploring a deep layer at the base of a landslide. The layer is filled with fossils.

ARCHIVES: Annual Newsletters

Newsletters from past years were published in May of the year in the title and cover events from Summer through Fall through Spring of the previous year.

Read through some of our previous newsletters:

Earlier newsletters are PDF files and not necessarily fully accessible by screen reader. Please reach out if you would like to see these and are encountering any problems reading them.

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ARCHIVES: Annual Newsletters

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