Jeff Honke
As a geologist with the USGS, I have had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of fascinating projects. My work focuses mainly on the Quaternary Period, and I have chased records of paleoclimate change and landscape evolution from the Alaskan Muskeg to the playas of the Mojave Desert.
I have spent many years coring lake sediments at Great Salt Lake and Bear Lake in Utah, Crevice Lake in Yellowstone NP, Alaskan ponds surrounded by giant grizzly bears, and high-altitude lakes in Colorado (Snowmastodon!). I am currently pursuing records of environmental change from dry lake beds, paleo-wetlands, and desert springs in the Mojave Desert. I employ a wide array of coring techniques and examine the sediment cores in incredible detail in search of clues that lead to a better understanding of the changing environments of North America. Imagining the extreme changes and the rates at which they happen is the most exciting aspect of the work I do. My work is currently centered in Denver, Colorado where I have been working on developing the best methods to extract age estimates and environmental signals from a wide range of geologic samples.
