Jason Rech

Jason Rech-new

Professor

Ph.D. 2001 University of Arizona
111 Shideler Hall
513-529-1935
rechja@miamioh.edu

My research interests are primarily in surficial processes of streams, wetlands and soils, geoarchaeology, and in terrestial records of climate and environmental change.  I love field work, enjoy geochronology, geochemistry, and stable isotopes, and like any method or technique that will help me answer my research questions.  I especially enjoy working in deserts, and have continuing research in the Middle East and the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, yet also like working close to home in Ohio on streams and wetlands.

Possible Thesis/Dissertation Topics

  • Historic impacts to streams and wetlands in the Midwest
  • Climate change and water resources in the Middle East
  • Oxygen isotopes of land snails as a paleoclimatic proxy in North America

Current/Recent Student Research Projects

  • Nathan Cardona (M.S. in progress) Climate Change, Extreme Precipitation, and Flooding in the Midwest
  • Abigail O'Connor (M.S. in progress) Using soil geochemistry to map historic and late Holocene floodplains, Four Mile Creek, Ohio
  • Christine Tenison (M.S. in progress) Reconstructing Stream Pattern and sedimentation pre- and post- European Settlement, Four Mile Creek, Southwestern Ohio

Selected Publications

Grudzinski, B.P., Fritz, K., Golden, H, Newcomer-Johnson, T., Rech, J.A., Fain, J., McCarthy, J., Johnson, B., Levy, J., Vang, T.K., Mauer, K. (In review). A global review of beaver dam impacts: stream conservation implications across biomes. Global Ecology and Conservation.

Nield, Catherine, Yanes, Yurena, Pigati, Jeffrey S., Rech, Jason A., von Proschwitz, Ted, Jeffrey C. Nekola, Jeffrey C., Oxygen isotopes of land snail shells in high latitude regions, Quaternary Science Reviews 279 107382.

Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., Springer, Kathleen B., Bosch, Stephanie, Nekola, Jeffrey C., Yanes, Yurena, 2021, Oxygen isotopes in terrestrial gastropod shells track Quaternary climate change in the American Southwest. Quaternary Research, 1-11. doi:10.1017/qua.2021.18

Workman, T. Race, Rech, Jason A., Gayó, Eugenia M., Santoro, Calogero M., Ugalde, Paula C., De Pol-Holz, Ricardo, Capriles, Jose M., Latorre, Claudio, 2020, Landscape evolution and the environmental context of human occupation of the southern Pampa de Tamarugal, Atacama Desert, Chile, Quaternary Science Reviews 243: 106502.

Calogero M. Santoro, Eugenia M. Gayo, José M. Capriles, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, Katherine A. Herrera, Valentina Mandakovic, Jason A. Rech, Barbara Cases, Luis Briones, Laura Olguín, Daniela Valenzuela, Luis A. Borrero, Paula C. Ugalde, Claudio Latorre, 2019, The Pleistocene roots of the Atacama Desert’s llama caravans, from the Pacific coast to the tropical forests, Chungara Revista de Antropología Chilena; 51(1):5-25.

Rech, Jason A., Currie, B.S., Jordan, Teresa E., Riquelme, Rodrigo, Lehmann, Sophie B., Kirk-Lawlor, Naomi E., Li, Shanying, Gooley, Jared T., 2019, Massive Middle Miocene gypsic paleosols in the Atacama Desert and the formation of the Central Andean rain-shadow, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 506: 184-194.

Rech, Jason A, Grudzinski, Bartosz , Renwick, William H., Tenison, Christina N., Jojola, Marvin Vanni, Michael J., Workman, T., Race, 2018, Legacy deposits, milldams, water quality, and environmental change in the Four Mile Creek watershed, southwestern Ohio, in Florea, L.J., ed., Ancient Oceans, Orogenic Uplifts, and Glacial Ice: Geologic Crossroads in America's Heartland Geological Society of America Field Guide 51, p. 113-144.

Yanes, Yurena, Al-Qattan, Nasser, Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., Dodd, Justin P., Nekola, Jeffrey C., 2018, Overview of the oxygen isotope systematics of land snails from North America, Quaternary Research, 1-16.

Yanes, Yurena, Nekola, Jeffrey C., Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., 2017, Oxygen stable isotopic disparities among sympatric small land snail species from northwest Minnesota, USA, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 485: 715–722

Rech, Jason, Springer, Kathleen, Pigati, Jeffrey S., 2017, The Great Acceleration and the disappearing surficial geologic record, GSA Today 22 (11) 8-9.

Catlett, Gentry A., Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., Al Kuisi, Mustafa, Li, Shanying, Honke, Jeffrey S., 2017, Activation of a small ephemeral lake in southern Jordan during the last full glacial period and its paleoclimatic implications, Quaternary Research 88: 98-109.

Steffen Mischke, Hanan Ginat, Gala Faerstein, Naomi Porat, Paul Braun, Jason A. Rech, 2017, Fossil-based reconstructions of ancient water bodies in the Levantine deserts, in Quaternary Environments, Climate Change and Humans in the Levant, edited by Y. Enzel and O. Bar-Yosef, p. 381-390, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Selected Grants

Assessing climate change and its impact on water resources across the Arabian Peninsula, 2022-2024, Fulbright U.S. Scholars Program; Middle East and North Africa, 2022-2024.

Using soil geochemistry to map historic and late Holocene floodplains, Four Mile Creek, Ohio, 2022, Jason Rech, USGS EDMAP.

Quantifying Induced Infiltration by Municipal Production Wells using Stable Isotopes of Water, 2022, USGS – Ohio Water Resources Center.

Dating Mussel Shells from Historical or Prehistoric Muskrat Middens, 2021, Kentucky Waterways Alliance.

The use of geologic mapping to reconstruct stream morphology and planform prior to European settlement, Four Mile Creek, southwestern Ohio, 2019, USGS EDMAP Program, $17,400.

Reconstructing landscapes, climate, and human ecology during the late Pleistocene in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, CONICYT (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica), Chile, 2016-2019, PIs José Capriles Flores, Calogero Santoro, Claudio Latorre, Jason Rech, Nicholas Tripcevich,

Collaborative Proposal: Development and calibration of the oxygen isotope systematics of small terrestrial gastropods, 2015-2018 PIs Jason A. Rech, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Yurena Yanes, and Jeffrey C. Nekola NSF EAR  1528733

Teaching Interests

GLG 111 - The Dynamic Earth
GLG 335 - Ice Age Earth
GLG 354 - Geomorphology
GLG 435/535 - Soils and Paleosols
GLG 436/536 - Paleoclimatology
GLG 499/599 - Geology of Streams (10-day short course in canoes)
Graduate seminars in soils and geomorphology

For a complete description of the courses please see the 2022/2023 Miami Bulletin.