Natural Sciences Department

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Dr. Andrew Breckenridge

Assistant Professor
Geology

abrecken{atuws}

ph. 715-394-8311

office. Barstow 103C

Education

PhD   University of Minnesota    2006
MS    University of Minnesota    1999
BS Purdue University    1994

Courses
GEOL 110 Dynamic Earth
GEOL 360 Geomorphology

Role as Faculty
I believe helping students learn to think critically and communicate effectively through writing and speech is a teacher's greatest challenge. As a geology instructor, especially at the introductory level, I also have the wonderful opportunity to reintroduce adults to the diversity, timelessness, and complexity of the Earth.

Research Interests
My teaching and research interests cover the areas of sedimentology, stratigraphy, global climate change, glacial geology, and the study of the Earth's landforms. I am fascinated by lake sediments because they provide a window into the past through which we can see how landscapes and climate have changed. These are my current research areas:

the early history of Lake Superior, which was marked by several large floods that cascaded through the upper Great Lakes en route to the North Atlantic Ocean and may have impacted ocean circulation and global climate
understanding the nature of the drainage of Lake Agassiz, a massive lake that once reached from western Quebec to northern Saskatchewan, and may have caused a global climatic cooling 8200 years ago
developing techniques to use lake sediments to reconstruct barrenground caribou populations over thousand-year time scales

Recent Scholarly Activity
Breckenridge, A., Lowell, T., Stroup, J., and Evans. G. 2011. A review and analysis of varve thickness records from glacial Lake Ojibway (Ontraio and Quebec, Canada). Quaternary International, doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.09.31.

Hobbs, H.C., and A. Breckenridge. 2011. Ice advances and retreats, inlets and outlets, sediments and strandlines of the western Lake Superior basin. in J.D. Miller, G. J. Hudak, C. Wittkop, and P. I. McLaughlin (eds), Archean to Anthropocene: Field Guides to the Geology of the Mid-Continent of North America, GSA Field Guide 24, 299-315.

Fisher, T.G., Weyer, K.A., Boudreau, A.M., Martin-Hayden, J.M., Krantz, D.E., and A. Breckenridge. 2010. Constraining Holocene-aged lake levels in the Michigan basin. Journal of Paleolimnology, DOI:10.1007/s10933-010-9460-2

Breckenridge, A., Lowell, T.C., Fisher, T., Yu, S. 2010. A late Lake Minong transgression in the Superior basin as documented by sediments from Fenton Lake, Ontario. Journal of Paleolimnology, DOA:10.7007/s10933-010-9447-2

Shi-Yong Yu, S., Coman, S., Lowell, T.V., Milne, G.A., Fisher, T.G., Breckenridge, A., Boyd, M., and J.T. Teller. 2010. Freshwater outburst from Lake Superior as a trigger for the cold event 9300 years ago. Science 328:1262-1266.

Breckenridge, A., and T.C. Johnson. 2009. Paleohydrology of the upper Laurentian Great Lakes from the late glacial to early Holocene. Quarternary Research 71:397-408.

Research Opportunities for Students

Reconstruct ancient Lake Superior shorelines using GIS
Use ostracodes preserved in lake sediments to understand climate change in northern Ontario and Quebec
Study ancient lake sediments from the Nemadji River basin to reconstruct the dynamics of the ice sheet over 10,000 years ago
Develop methods to use lake sediments to reconstruct caribou populations

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