February NGS Meeting and Program
February 19, 2026
Granite City Food & Brewery
6200 O Street
Lincoln, NE, 68510
5:30 pm - social
6:00 pm - dinner and program
7:00 pm - business meeting
Registration deadline: February 15, 2026!
Member/nonmember registration - $35
Student Member registration - $0
Please use the guest function to pay for your entire cohort or sponsor student meals!
Click HERE to register!
Your registration for this meeting includes a meal, your choice of non-alcoholic beverage, and gratuity. Menu choices include the Asian Chicken Salad, Chicken Toscano, or Millionaire Bacon Burger. Also, be sure to visit the bar if you would like a cocktail or a beer.
Program:
Yatkola - Edwards Student presentation by Ursula Ziebolz, University of Nebraska - Omaha
Investigating the response of calcareous nannoplankton to the late cretaceous oceanic anoxic event 2 (oae2; 94 ma) using novel statistical techniques and integrated fossil and geochemical datasets
Ursula Ziebolz is a geology undergraduate student at UNO, currently completing her final year. She has worked over the past two and a half years under Dr. Schueth on the calcareous nannofossil paleoecology of the Western Interior Seaway, during the OAE2. Her research findings have previously been presented at the 2025 GSA Connects, in San Antonio.
Lecture at UNO: PFAS “Forever Chemicals”: Water Resource Impacts in Washington
Greg Caron, Regional Manager Hazardous Waste Program, Washington State Department of Ecology
January 21st (Wed), 2 PM, Room Durham Science Center 111
November 2025 NGS Meeting program:
“Stratigraphy of the Graneros Shale and Greenhorn Limestone of Eastern Nebraska"
Jon Schueth, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska - Omaha
Abstract: The stratigraphy of Cretaceous rocks in Eastern Nebraska has been enigmatic due to the lack of good outcrops, with the closest being exposures in central and northern Kansas. The lack of good rock data has led to rough correlations with known stratigraphy in Kansas and Colorado, but there has not been a detailed stratigraphic study of the Cretaceous in Nebraska to see how these units compare to the type sections elsewhere. I will describe new cores recently drilled by the UNL Conservation and Survey Division, and a few others discovered in their core depository, that have complete sections of the Graneros Shale and Greenhorn Limestone. The cores were described and had elemental geochemistry and calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy done to assess their stratigraphy and depositional lithofacies. I will suggest that what is largely considered "Graneros Shale" in Nebraska is part of the Greenhorn Limestone. The Graneros contains heterolithic sandy and muddy units characteristic of deposition in a deltaic to pro-deltaic setting. The presence of sand in the Graneros makes it difficult to discern from the underlying Dakota Formation, and its gradational contact with overlying Greenhorn makes the upper contact equally difficult to determine. I will describe how the use of elemental chemostratigraphy and biostratigraphy helps to define these units clearly and place them in the broader regional stratigraphic context. I will then discuss how the Greenhorn differs from its equivalent strata elsewhere and the implications for that with regards to the Western Interior Seaway. Importantly, this study has updated our understanding of the Cretaceous of eastern Nebraska and finally starts to fill in the blank space on our understanding of the ancient Cretaceous seaway that once covered the state.