Chowns receives Distinguished Scholar Award

Dr. Tim Chowns, professor of geology, received the Distinguished  Scholar Award, the highest honor the College of Arts and Sciences bestows upon a faculty member.

Chowns' class project of coring in the marsh at the north end of Jekyll Island is a typical field trip for students.

The College presented Chowns, who devotes his academic life to research with undergraduate students, an award of $1000, a plaque and a public forum to share his experiences in a lecture presentation.

Most of Chowns’ recent projects have been scouting  Alabama rocks that are hundreds of millions of years old and collecting sediment core thousands of years old.

When at the beach, it is serious business again. 

Undergraduate research at Jeckyll shows that the island has doubled its size over the last few thousand years due to many of the inlets  on the coast changing their location in response to rising sea levels.

 “Two radiometric dates were obtained from this core,”  explained Chowns. “The younger date associated with marsh deposits at the top of the core was 1,950 years before present, or BP. The older was 31,800 years and indicates river sands deposited during the Ice Age when the coastline was many miles to the east and much of the continental shelf was dry land.”

Chowns will be signing autographs at the opening of the new Calloway Building renovation.

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