Faculty Profile
Ben Edwards
(he/him/his)Professor of Geosciences; Moraine Chair in Arctic Studies (2002)
Contact Information
Kaufman Hall Room 142
717-254-8934
Bio
His research foci are interactions between volcanoes and glaciers (glaciovolcanism), Arctic and Alpine climate change (including directing the °µÍø½ûÇø Arctic and Alpine Climate Change Research Experience AACCRE), UAV (a.k.a. drones) science, and the impacts of volcanic ash on plants. Volcano studies include the formation of pillow lava and cooling joints, large-scale lava-ice experiments at the Syracuse Lava Lab (http://lavaproject.syr.edu), petrological imaging of lithospheric stratigraphy (using xenoliths from Neogene to Recent volcanoes in the North American Cordillera), applications of theoretical models for understanding the formation of cooling fractures in lavas, and the formation of deposits during volcano-ice interactions. His other interests include soil-forming processes, mineralogy, environmental hazards, the history of science, the history of Arctic exploration, and the influence of plate tectonics on almost everything. His current research involves taking students to places like Alaska (Gates of the Arctic), Iceland (2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption), Greenland, the Canadian Arctic (Nunavut), British Columbia, Chile (2015 Villarrica eruption) and Peru to study volcanic stratigraphy, glaciers and climate change.
Education
- B.A., Carleton College, 1989
- M.S., University of Wyoming, 1993
- Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 1997
2025-2026 Academic Year
Fall 2025
GEOS 305 Earth Materials
Completion of both GEOS 305 and GEOS 309 fulfills the WID Requirement.
GEOS 550 Independent Research
Spring 2026
GEOS 151 Foundations of Earth Sciences
How do mountains and oceans form? Why do the positions of continents shift? Can rocks bend or flow? What is the history of life on our planet? This course explores the materials that make up the Earth and the processes that shape it, both at and below the surface. Students will take field trips around the Carlisle area as well as complete analytical and computer laboratory activities in order to acquire basic field, laboratory, and computer modelling skills. This course serves as a gateway to the Earth Sciences major, but is also appropriate for non-majors. Three hours of lecture and three hours of lab per week.
GEOS 311 Intro to Remote Sensing
Permission of Instructor Required. This course will use QGIS and other software to introduce students to methods for analyzing changes to Earth's cryosphere, the region where water exists yearly in the form of ice. The focus will be mainly on changes to glaciers, sea ice and permafrost in the Arctic that can be mapped using satellite data and aerial photography, although we will also explore the Antarctic and 'Third Pole' cryospheres briefly. Students will learn techniques for tracking cryospheric/environmental changes and how to access data from a variety of online sources (e.g., Landsat and Sentinel imagery) to do their own research projects. Weather permitting, we will also collect basic datasets using UAVs to better understand the limitations of remote sensing tools.