Posted on Feb 14, 2003

John Garver, professor
of geology, has been selected as an associate editor for the American Journal of Science. Garver will
serve a three-year term, guiding manuscripts on the evolution of mountain
systems, and the tectonic architecture of the earth. Founded in 1818 by
Benjamin Silliman, the journal is the oldest continuously published scientific
journal in the U.S. It is devoted to geology and related sciences and
publishes articles from around the world presenting results of major research
from all earth sciences. Readers are primarily earth scientists in academia and
government institutions. For more visit: http://plate.geology.yale.edu/level5/Ajs.html.
Garver also has published an article, “Metamictization of natural zircon:
accumulation versus thermal annealing of radioactivity-induced damage” in a
recent Contributions to Mineralogy and
Petrology. The paper details
a discovery that he made about the cooling age of zircon that is widely used as
a standard (for age determination) in which he found that previous work had
made faulty assumptions. The paper has attracted considerable attention because
it overturns 30 years of understanding in the field. He has also published an
article, “Etching age standards for fission track analysis” in the journal Nuclear Tracks and Radiation Measurements.
The paper details the emerging methodology for dating zircon samples used to
determine how fast mountains rise and grow.