UWs Frost to Give Inaugural Chappell Public Lecture at Australian National University

Carol Frost, a University of Wyoming professor of geology and geophysics, will present the inaugural Chappell Public Lecture at the Australian National University’s (ANU) Research School of Earth Sciences Thursday, Nov. 22.

The lecture series is named for the late Professor Bruce Chappell, one of the most distinguished geologists of his generation who made significant scientific contributions in understanding the compositional variations and origins of granitic rocks. During his 37-year career at ANU, Chappell received numerous awards and honors in recognition of his contributions to geoscience.

Chappell and his colleague Allan White’s 1974 paper, “Two Contrasting Granite Types,” stimulated renewed interest in the origin and significance of granitic rocks, Frost says. Her talk, “Tales Granites Tell,” builds on the geochemical framework that Chappell and White used to identify I-type and S-type granites and their source rocks. She will describe three Precambrian intrusions in the Wyoming province and the information they provide about igneous processes, both plutonic and volcanic, and Archean to modern.

Frost earned her A.B. (1979) from Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. (1984) from the University of Cambridge, both in Earth sciences.

She joined the UW Department of Geology and Geophysics in 1983 and also has served in various administrative roles, including as associate vice president of research and vice president for special projects. From 2014-18, she served as the director of the Division of Earth Sciences at the National Science Foundation. In 2019, she will become the Mineralogical Society of America’s 100th president.

Frost’s research focuses on the origin and evolution of the continental crust; the classification and petrogenesis of granites and related rocks; and the application of environmental isotopes to problems related to energy and the environment.