Media Invitation: 4 Geoscience Livestream Events at Connects 2025
Just because you can’t join the Geological Society of America (GSA) in person in San Antonio next week doesn’t mean you have to miss the emerging science. Mark your calendar for these upcoming live events from GSA Connects 2025 beginning on Sunday, 19 October 2025.
Contact Katie Busser (kbusser@geosociety.org) if you’d like to receive daily tip sheets during the meeting (through Wednesday) with abstract links. Here is a sneak peek of Sunday’s.
Sunday, 19 October 2025: GSA Presidential Address and Awards Ceremony
Nathan Niemi: The Future of Geoscience Field Education
Noon–1:30 p.m. CDT (UTC-5)
Watch Live Stream Here
At Connects 2025, GSA focuses on themes of transition, dissolving borders, and reaching for the stars. These themes are reflected in the challenges and opportunities that face geoscience field education, as shifting student interests, technological advances, and barriers to participation require reconsideration of what experiential field training may look like. GSA President Nathan Niemi speaks on the crucial task of attracting and inspiring the next generation of students to tackle the multi-faceted geoscience challenges our society faces.
Monday, 20 October 2025: Noontime Lecture
Ron Nirenberg, Former San Antonio Mayor: Whiskey’s for Drinking and Water’s for Fighting: How San Antonio Stays Ahead of the Battle Coming to Texas
12:15–1:15 p.m. CDT (UTC-5)
Watch Live Stream Here
There is an old saying in the Lone Star State that "whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting." There is perhaps no greater political challenge (nor lack of political fortitude) than solving our water issues for the common good, especially in a place where the "rule of capture" (a private landowner also owns the water underneath that land) is the prevailing law and we lack a statewide supply management strategy that ensures an adequate, quality water supply for its people.
That's why the San Antonio community, the seventh most populous and one of the fastest growing cities in the country, has become a model by taking matters into its own hands over the last 30 years, diversifying its supply and investing in technology and policy solutions to protect its local underground aquifers. In this session, former Mayor Ron Nirenberg, recognized locally and nationally for his work on water and environmental policy, discusses the "San Antonio way" for ensuring long-term water security.
Tuesday, 21 October 2025: 2025 Michel T. Halbouty Distinguished Lecture
Michael Howard Young: Comparing Life-Cycle Environmental Impacts and Costs of Electricity Generation Systems
12:15–1:15 p.m. CDT (UTC-5)
Watch Live Stream Here
What are the all-in costs, environmental and economic, of expanding and running an electrical grid for Texas, and how might these costs change over the next 30 years? Can we quantify trade-offs among society’s goals of providing reliable and affordable energy, mitigating climate change, and ensuring affordability for consumers?
Learn how environmental impacts manifest along global supply chains for materials (e.g., lithium, cobalt, etc.) that support energy development at different times during the 30-year lifespan of the facilities—and explore how innovation and action can help mitigate these impacts.
Wednesday, 22 October 2025: GSA Noontime Lecture
Elizabeth Rampe: Mars Encoded: How Minerals Reveal the Red Planet’s Geologic Evolution
12:15–1:15 p.m. CDT (UTC-5)
Watch Live Stream Here
The martian surface today is cold and dry, where wind-driven transport of sand and dust, sublimation and refreezing of H2O and CO2 ice near the poles, and seasonal gully formation are the most active surface processes. Mars was once much more geologically active. The red planet hosts the largest volcano in the solar system, a canyon system that is thousands of kilometers long, and river channels and lake deposits that indicate liquid water was common ~3 to 4 billion years ago. Minerals in these ancient igneous and sedimentary rocks on Mars are the key to understanding the planet’s geologic history, including magmatic evolution and surface conditions, like the pH, salinity, and temperature of past surface and near-surface waters.
This presentation will discuss orbital and in-situ mineralogical detections, their implications for Mars’ geological evolution, and future directions for Mars mineralogy.
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