Dr. Suzanne Birner

Assistant Professor of Geology and Earth Science
Contact for Geology Program

Contact Information

Margaret Cargill Science Bldg., Room 435
CPO: 2191
Email: birners@berea.edu
Phone: 859-985-3277

If you have found an interesting rock, mineral, or fossil that you would like me to look at or identify, please email me. Please include your name and at least one photograph of the sample. Reaching out to me by email is preferable to phone calls when it comes to identifying specimens. Thank you!

Spring 2021

Office Hours

Tue/Fri: 1 – 2 p.m. (in MAC 251, following class)
Wed: 1 – 3 p.m. (virtual)

Class Schedule

  • GEO 101 A (Mon/Tue/Thur/Fri: noon – 2:50 p.m.)

Degrees

  • B.S. with Honor, Geology, California Institute of Technology, 2012
  • Ph.D., Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, 2018

Papers and Publications

  • Birner, S.K., Cottrell, E., Warren, J.M., Kelley, K.A., and Davis, F.A. (2018) “Peridotites and Basalts Reveal Broad Congruence Between Two Independent Records of Mantle f O2” Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
  • Cottrell, E., Lanzirotti, A., Mysen, B., Birner, S.K., Kelley, K.A., Botcharnikov, R., Davis, F.A., and Newville, M. (2018) “A Mössbauer-Based XANES Calibration for Hydrous Basalt Glasses Reveals Radiation- Induced Oxidation of Fe” American Mineralogist.
  • Birner, S.K., Warren, J.M., Cottrell, E., Davis, F.A., Kelley, K.A., and Falloon, T.J. (2017) “Forearc Peridotites from Tonga Record Heterogeneous Oxidation of the Mantle Following Subduction Initiation.” Journal of Petrology.
  • Davis, F.A., Cottrell, E., Birner, S.K., Warren, J.M., and Lopez, O.G. (2017) “Revisiting the Electron Microprobe Method of Spinel-Olivine-Orthopyroxene Oxybarometry Applied to Spinel Peridotites.” American Mineralogist, doi:10.2138/am-2017-5823.
  • Birner, S.K., Warren, J.M., Cottrell, E., and Davis, F.A. (2016) “Hydrothermal Alteration of Seafloor Peridotites Does Not Influence Oxygen Fugacity Recorded by Spinel Oxybarometry.” Geology, doi:10.1130/G38113.1.

Honors and Awards

  • 2018 Awarded NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship; accepted Assistant Professor position at Berea College instead.
  • 2016 GeoPRISMS AGU Student Award, for talk entitled “Records of Upper Mantle Oxygen Fugacity Gleaned from High-Density Sampling of Basalts and Peridotites at Ultraslow Ridges”, AGU Fall Meeting.
  • 2016 Harriet Benson Fellowship Award, Department of Geological Sciences, Stanford University.
    2016 Certificate for Outstanding Mentoring, School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences,
  • Stanford University.
  • 2016 McGee Grant, funding to measure oxygen fugacity in peridotites and basalts from the Southwest Indian Ridge, Stanford University.
  • 2014 McGee Grant, funding to spend three weeks at the Smithsonian Institution to further develop an improved oxybarometry technique for spinel peridotites, Stanford University.
  • 2013 Outstanding Student Paper Award, for talk entitled “Variations in Oxygen Fugacity among Forearc Peridotites from the Tonga Trench”, AGU Fall Meeting.
  • 2013 Honorable Mention, GeoPRISMS AGU Student Award, for talk entitled
    “Variations in Oxygen Fugacity among Forearc Peridotites from the Tonga Trench”, AGU Fall Meeting.
  • 2012 ARCO Stanford Graduate Fellowship, Stanford University.
  • 2012 James Michelin Scholarship in Geology and Geophysics, California Institute of Technology.