November BRGS Meeting: Fifty Years of Archean Geology and Early Earth Discoveries

** Register Early!! Online Event Registration will close by 10:00 am on the day of the event.**

Join us Friday, November 13, 2026

as Dr. Gary Byerly, 

LSU Emeritus

presents

Abstract

Over the past fifty years LSU scientists have made repeated major discoveries in their studies of early Earth, primarily in the 3.55 to 3.22 Ga Barberton Mountains, South Africa.  This includes evidence for early life, enormous meteor impacts, revised models for Archean structure and stratigraphy based on detailed mapping, the first systematic geochronology, and most recently the discovery of Hadean zircons that extend in time the geological history of early Earth.  Two themes will tie this work together: the importance of cross-field collaboration (igneous and sedimentary geology), and the slow systematic mapping at many scales, using a variety of both field and laboratory-based methods.  This lecture will briefly highlight the most significant discoveries as well as a more detailed analysis of “work” after retirement (including recent publications in Science, Nature, Geology, Geochimica, Proc. National Academy of Sciences, New Astronomy Reviews, AGU Advances, and Precambrian Research).

                                                                                                                                           Biography     

Dr. Byerly received his PhD in 1974 from Michigan State University.  He held post-doctoral positions at the Smithsonian and USGS before joining the LSU faculty in 1977.  He held positions of Departmental Chair, Science Dean, and Graduate Dean before retiring in 2015.  Studies prior to LSU included mapping basalts of the Columbia Plateau and two oceanographic cruises to study volcanism related to sea-floor spreading.  At LSU he would begin a very successful collaboration with sedimentologist Don Lowe: including nearly continuous funding over 40 years, though NSF and NASA, to study the Archean, primarily in South Africa.  He has been elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of South Africa, GSA and AAAS.  

** Remember to Register Early!! Online Event Registration will close by 10:00 am on the day of the event in order to get the online details out in a timely manner.  In-person registration available until the meeting starts.