The two professors, Kendra Murray and Dave Pearson, were awarded $800,000 from the National Science Foundation. This grant money will be used to study the geologic makeup of the Great Unconformity. An unconformity is a surface that separates rocks from different ages. They are formed when no rocks from the time in-between are preserved. The Great Unconformity represents a gap of 2 billion years. 

Murray said the missing 2 billion years represents about 40 percent of the Earth’s history. 

“For geologists, rock records like this correspond to profound gaps in our knowledge about Earth’s history,” she said. “This project aims to fill parts of that gap in the ancient tectonic history of our region and help us better understand how this history contributed to shaping the modern Northern Rockies.” 

For their research Murray and Pearson will collect rock samples from various parts of the Great Unconformity, including the Uinta Mountains in Utah and the Idaho side of the Teton Range. Once they have the samples, they will grind them down until they are small enough to be studied through high-powered microscopes. 

Pearson said much of the rock record of the area has eroded away, which led to the creation of the Great Unconformity. 

“Our research will help scientists understand what was happening before and during the formation of other significant unconformities, thus ‘filling gaps’ in our knowledge of Earth's history,” he said. 

The funding will also allow a few students to work on the project. There will be five undergraduate students and nine graduate students working alongside Murray and Pearson. Six of these students will be from ISU. 

“This project is an amazing opportunity to reveal a part of Earth’s geologic history that we don’t know much about,” said Anna Miller, a master’s student studying geology. “I look forward to working with everyone involved and seeing what we learn.” 

The research team will partner with the Idaho Museum of Natural History to create a mobile museum exhibit. This exhibit will highlight the history of the mountain ranges in the study area. It will visit several museums in communities throughout the Rocky Mountains.