by Geitner Simmons | IANR Communications
Lincoln, Neb. —Matt Joeckel, the Nebraska state geologist and a professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s School of Natural Resources (SNR), has been selected to the top leadership position of the North American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature. The NACSN, formed in 1916, is an international organization providing direction on a wide range of issues regarding geologic study.
The association selected Joeckel as chair by acclamation during the organization’s annual meeting at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Denver. Joeckel will serve in the organization’s top post for 2023 after serving as vice chair. He earlier was one of three designated representatives to the commission from the Association of American State Geologists.
Joeckel is senior associate director of SNR and director of the state Conservation and Survey Division (CSD), a unit within SNR conducting a wide array of geological, geographic, water and soil surveys. He attended UNL, the University of Kansas, the University of Florida, and Iowa State University on his way to attaining his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.
Over the past century, the top leadership post at NACSN has been held by some of the geology profession’s most noted leaders, including Raymond Cecil Moore of the University of Kansas, as well as Hollis D. Hedberg, Malcolm P. Weiss and Ernest Mancini.
Joeckel is the only Nebraskan to have served as either vice chair or chair of NACSN.
NACSN historically served geological communities in the U.S., Canada and Mexico and now has nonvoting representatives from multiple nations in the Caribbean and South America. The association aspires to be multilingual in its work and to eventually be the “Panamerican” Commission. It now has 41 members acting in various capacities.
The association’s duties include developing statements of stratigraphic principles; recommending procedures applicable to classification and nomenclature of stratigraphic and related units; and reviewing problems in classifying and naming stratigraphic and related units. The association’s focus includes social and cultural concerns such as a recent recommendation by NACSN members for the use of indigenous place names.
Joeckel is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and in 2011 was selected to serve as curator of geology in the University of Nebraska State Museum.
Joeckel has central expertise in a variety of geological studies including sedimentology, the study of sediments and their environments of deposition; stratigraphy, the study of rock and sediment layers; environmental geology (including groundwater); mineral resources; terrestrial paleoecology and paleoclimatology; and geomorphology.
Much of his stratigraphic research has focused on Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks, from 66 million to 252 million years ago. Recent projects include studies of Pennsylvanian cyclothems in the midcontinental U.S.; and geochemistry, mineralogy and sequence stratigraphy of the Dakota Formation, a secondary aquifer in north-central and eastern Nebraska. He began research projects on Neogene strata in western Nebraska, particularly the Ash Hollow member of the Ogallala Group, which is a major part of the High Plains Aquifer.
Joeckel is a participant in the Eastern Nebraska Water Resources Assessment, which aims to strengthen understanding of groundwater and groundwater-surface water interactions in eastern Nebraska. He has yearly geologic mapping projects funded through the U.S. Geological Survey's STATEMAP geologic mapping program. He compiles a yearly inventory of mineral resource operations in Nebraska for USGS and provides service to the mineral industry of Nebraska.