Kent Syverson

UW System Economic Development Grant ($451,317 for 2013-15) The Responsible Mining Initiative: Building an Educated STEM Workforce for the Natural Resource Industry, co-authored with Dr. J. Brian Mahoney

Syverson, K.M., 2020, Adventures in Glacier Bay—A Glacial Geologist’s True Stories of Life in the Alaskan Wilderness:  Amazon.com, ISBN 9798632713702, 172p.  Full-color memoir documenting my time in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve with the National Geographic Society’s Burroughs Glacier Expedition.  For more information, go to https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-book-adventures-glacier-bay-has-been-published-kent-syverson/

Research Interests

My research interests involve studying the glacial geology of Wisconsin and Maine with undergraduate geology students. Students and I have researched the history of the Driftless Area, evidence for permafrost conditions in this part of the state, the origin of the Blue Hills Felsenmeer of Rusk County (Thompson and Syverson, 2006; Hoaglund et al.,2007; Hinke and Wittkop, 2007; Orr et al., 2009; Mohr et al., 2009), the origin of high-relief hummocky moraines and ice-walled-lake plains (Clayton et al., 2008), and the surficial geology of Eau Claire County (Moran and Syverson, 2021). I also have studied pre-Late Wisconsinan till units to better understand the glacial history of the western Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey [WGNHS] and the Chippewa County Land Conservation Department funded this project in Chippewa County, and the WGNHS published the research results as a bulletin and colored map (Syverson, 2007). I am interested in glacial history (Syverson and Colgan, 2004, 2011; Ullman et al., 2015), glacial stratigraphic units, and served as lead editor for the State of Wisconsin glacial lithostratigraphy update published by the WGNHS (Syverson al., 2011).

Students in my upper-division courses (Geomorphology and Glacial Geology) have been involved extensively with projects to better understand the landforms in the Chippewa Moraine Ice Age National Scientific Reserve Unit near New Auburn, WI. These student projects were used by the National Park Service to develop exhibits for the Chippewa Moraine Visitor Center. These exhibits are worth a special visit to the Visitor Center (Chippewa County Hwy. M east of New Auburn). My research students also have produced geologic interpretive materials for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail in the Chippewa Moraine (Syverson et al., 2005), the Straight Lake State Park area of Polk County (Freeman et al., 2012a,b), and the Blue Hills Felsenmeer area of Rusk County (White et al., 2023).

My glacial geologic research in Maine has been supported by the Maine Geological Survey. Students and I have studied striations (scratches on the bedrock surface formed parallel to the flow direction as the glacier drags rocks across the bedrock) in Maine as evidence for major ice-flow direction changes (Syverson and Greve, 2003; Syverson and Thompson, 2008; Syverson and Olson, 2011). Ice-flow directions were increasingly deflected by a calving glacial margin in the Penobscot River valley (Syverson and Thompson, 2008; Syverson and Olson, 2011) and 200- to 400-m-high bedrock "bumps" at the base of the glacier as the ice thinned, a situation similar to my Ph.D. study area in Glacier Bay, AK. My students also have investigated glacial-marine sediment in the China Lake and Bangor regions in southern Maine (Syverson and Mans, 2005; Syverson and Thompson, 2008). Heavy glacier ice during the Ice Age caused the land surface to sink, and the ocean flooded the depressed land surface as the glacier ice melted.

Since 2009 I have explored the geology of frac sand deposits in the State of Wisconsin (see a video of my frac sand geology seminar presented on 2/17/2012 on YouTube).  I have done consulting in the sand industry, and this has led to a research project studying the mineralogy of sandstone cements (Haas et al., 2014; Fliflet et al, 2016).  These activities also laid the foundation for the Responsible Mining Initiative Economic Development Incentive Grant in 2013 ($451,000) to provide more scholarships and paid internship experiences for geology majors. 

Selected Invited Talks and Publications

• Ice Age Trail Alliance (Statewide Annual Conference), April 20, 2024, invited lecture entitled Geology of the Proposed Dreamer Segment of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, Rusk County, Wisconsin.  Presented in Baraboo, WI.
• Syverson, K.M., 2018, Musings on Logistics and Sand from Wisconsin, Texas, and Elsewhere – A Geologist’s Perspective (invited Guest Post):  Infill Thinking, issue no. 183, 14 September 2018.
• Syverson, K.M., and Elliot, B.A., 2017, Comparison of Northern White Sand and Texas Sand:  6th Annual Frac Sand Supply & Logistics Conference, Houston, TX, 29 September 2017 (invited talk).
• Silica Sand &Construction Aggregate Resources of the Upper Midwest, September 16, 2013, workshop sponsored by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME) Twin Cities Section.  Talk entitled: Mineable resources in Wisconsin – from iron ore and volcanogenic massive sulfides to glacial outwash and frac sand: An overview.
• Geology Naturalist, Holland American Line, three-week cruise in Alaskan waters, 2019