Maryland Garnets and the Formation of the Appalachians

Not all minerals are created equal. Dr. Freya George would argue that gem-quality garnets in jewelry aren’t nearly as interesting as those she finds in metamorphic rocks! Freya will take us on a journey through geological time, and will discuss what garnet—a mineral that can preserve records of mountain building somewhat akin to dendrochronology climate records in ancient trees—can tell us about the rise and fall of the Appalachians over the last 500 million years. Come learn about how quickly two-inch crystals could form, where might be the best place in your backyard to go mineral hounding, and why there are so many geological similarities between Vermont, Maryland, and Virginia! Until very recently, Dr Freya George was the Blaustein Fellow at Johns Hopkins. Now, Freya is Lecturer at Bristol University in the United Kingdom. She earned a PhD from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, where she built foundations for a career researching mountain building processes through geological time and how chemistry moves through a solid-state rock deep beneath those mountains in the Earth’s crust. Her work takes her to sites as diverse as the Indian Himalaya, the ultra-clean labs at Boston College, and Overshot Run at Loch Raven Reservoir.