Biographical Information

Dr. Hazlett, winner of 1996 and 2001 Wig Awards for teaching excellence at Pomona College, is an affiliated member of the Geology Department whose primary duties involve coordinating the Pomona Program in Environmental Analysis. (He is the first Stephen M.Pauley Chair in Environmental Analysis at the college, receiving this appointment in 2001). His regular teaching assignments are outlined below. His recent research (post 1996) has included work in the eastern Aleutian Islands on volcanic stratigraphy in conjunction with Dr. Jessica Larsen (University of Alaska, Fairbanks), mapping and interpreting the geologic evolution of Secret Spring Volcano and the Klamath River Gorge on the California-Oregon border with Dr. Stanley Mertzman (Franklin and Marshall College), studying a plutonic terrane and related volcanic cover in the Eldorado Mountains of southern Nevada (with Dr. Calvin Miller, Vanderbilt University), mapping volcanic stratigraphy in northwestern Iceland (Dr. Brennan Jordan, College of Wooster supervising) and more recently--commensurate with his new academic appointment--an exploration of land use issues focusing on the American West. His hobbies include landscape sketching and spelunking, with small research projects undertaken at Tramway Cave in the Grand Canyon, Spider Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and at Jackson Bay Great Cave near the southern tip of Jamaica. In general, Dr. Hazlett styles himself as transitioning from hard-core geology to environmental studies with a land use/natural resource emphasis. One colleague describes him as "changing from a pure geologist to a physical geographer with strong geologic training". The motivation for this change came gradually from years of teaching introductory geology with an environmental/natural hazards focus. To make these courses more interesting for non-majors and general elective students, Dr. Hazlett acted upon the questions: "How do I make what I've learned about the earth meaningful and important for my students? What is the future of geology in the service of society? What can I do personally, in what remains of my career, to improve our unfavorable environmental prognosis?"

Courses Presently Taught

EA50: Introduction to Environmental Analysis--an exploration of the motivations of the modern environmental movement rooted in the findings of Aldo Leopold and modern ecology, with an emphasis on food and energy production and a review of important environmental policies and laws (including the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water/Clean Air acts).

EA 60: Land Use and Land Abuse--a critical examination of Leopold's "Land Ethic," and a study of how land abuse may be recognized, both through the perspective of physical processes and in its secondary human impacts. Agriculture, grazing, timbering, energy development, recreation, military training, road construction, urbanization, mining, are subtopics dealt with throughout the semester. Students engage in an ersatz groundwater contaimination study as independent "consulting firms" in a real-world simulation.

EA 90: Strategic Natural Resources--What constitutes strategic resources? Why are they found where we find them, and what explains their distribution? Why are these important to humanity at present, why do we fight over them, and what role do they play in our present and forthcoming affairs? Fossil fuels, phosphates, iron, nickel, timber, topsoil, and groundwater are all topics for discussion.

Recent Publications