User:Christieblick

Nicholas Christie-Blick is a Professor and former Chair of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and has been at Columbia University since 1983. He holds degrees in geology from the University of Cambridge, U.K. (B.A., 1974) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (Ph.D., 1979), and prior to joining Columbia was for three years a research geologist with Exxon in Houston, Texas. Christie-Blick's research deals with sedimentation processes, crustal deformation, and deep-time Earth history – currently with emphasis on the geology of the Neoproterozoic Earth. He is known also for his work in seismic and sequence stratigraphy and the paradox of low-angle normal faulting. Several of those themes came together in a popular Spring Break excursion to Death Valley, California for first- and second-year undergraduates (2002-2023). Christie-Blick also taught courses in sedimentary geology and tectonics, receiving the Best Teacher Award in Earth and Environmental Sciences in 1996 and 2008 from the department's Ph.D. students, and in 2010 from the undergraduates (the inaugural year of that award). From 2008-2014, he was an instructor and course chair for Frontiers of Science, an interdisciplinary science course in Columbia's famed Core Curriculum. Christie-Blick is a Fellow of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2021), and a recipient of the Laurence L. Sloss Award (Geological Society of America, 2023). He assumes Professor Emeritus status at the end of 2023.