Digital Commons Network^™

A Room-Temperature Ferroelectric Resonant Tunneling Diode, Zhijun Ma,, Qi Zhang, Lingling Tao, Yihao Wang, Daniel Sando, Jinling Zhou, Yizhong Guo, Michael Lord, Peng Zhou, Yongqi Ruan, Zhiwei Wang, Alex Hamilton, Alexei Gruverman, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, Tianjin Zhang, Nagarajan Valanoor

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Resonant tunneling is a quantum-mechanical effect in which electron transport is controlled by the discrete energy levels within a quantum-well (QW) structure. A ferroelectric resonant tunneling diode (RTD) exploits the switchable electric polarization state of the QW barrier to tune the device resistance. Here, the discovery of robust room-temperature ferroelectric-modulated resonant tunneling and negative differential resistance (NDR) behaviors in all-perovskite-oxide BaTiO₃/SrRuO₃/BaTiO₃ QW structures is reported. The resonant current amplitude and voltage are tunable by the switchable polarization of the BaTiO₃ ferroelectric with the NDR ratio modulated by ≈3 orders of magnitude and an OFF/ON …

Four-Field Hamiltonian Fluid Closures Of The One-Dimensional Vlasov-Poisson Equation, C. Chandre, Bradley Allan Shadwick

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We consider a reduced dynamics for the first four fluid moments of the one-dimensional Vlasov-Poisson equation, namely, the fluid density, fluid velocity, pressure and heat flux. This dynamics depends on an equation of state to close the system. This equation of state (closure) connects the fifth order moment—related to the kurtosis in velocity of the Vlasov distribution—with the first four moments. By solving the Jacobi identity, we derive an equation of state which ensures that the resulting reduced fluid model is Hamiltonian. We show that this Hamiltonian closure allows symmetric homogeneous equilibria of the reduced fluid model to be stable.

Differential Operators On Classical Invariant Rings Do Not Lift Modulo P, Jack Jeffries, Anurag K. Singh

Department of Mathematics: Faculty Publications

Levasseur and Stafford described the rings of differential operators on various classical invariant rings of characteristic zero; in each of the cases that they considered, the differential operators form a simple ring. Towards an attack on the simplicity of rings of differential operators on invariant rings of linearly reductive groups over the complex numbers, Smith and Van den Bergh asked if differential operators on the corresponding rings of positive prime characteristic lift to characteristic zero differential operators. We prove that, in general, this is not the case for determinantal hypersurfaces, as well as for Pfaffian and symmetric determinantal hypersurfaces. We …

Genomic Tools Reveal Complex Social Organization Of An Invasive Large Mammal (Sus Scrofa), Chelsea L. Titus, Courtney F. Bowden, Timothy J. Smyser, Stephen L. Webb, James C. Beasley

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

A comprehensive understanding of sociality in wildlife is vital to optimizing conservation and management efforts. However, sociality is complicated, especially for widely distributed species that exhibit substantive behavioral plasticity. Invasive wild pigs (Sus scrofa), often representing hybrids of European wild boar and domestic pigs, are among the most adaptable and widely distributed large mammals. The social structure of wild pigs is believed to be similar to European wild boar, consisting of matriarchal groups (sounders) and solitary males. However, wild pig social structure is understudied and largely limited to visual observations. Using a hierarchical approach, we incorporated genomic tools …

The Dynamic Floor Of Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming, Usa: The Last 14 K.Y. Of Hydrothermal Explosions, Venting, Doming, And Faulting, L. A. Morgan, W. C.P. Shanks, K. L. Pierce, N. Iverson, C. M. Schiller, S. R. Brown, P. Zahajska, R. Cartier, R. W. Cash, J. L. Best, C. Whitlock, Sherilyn C. Fritz, U.S. Geological Survey, H. Lowers, D. A. Lovalvo, J. M. Licciardi

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Hydrothermal explosions are significant potential hazards in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA. The northern Yellowstone Lake area hosts the three largest hydrothermal explosion craters known on Earth empowered by the highest heat flow values in Yellowstone and active seismicity and deformation. Geological and geochemical studies of eighteen sublacustrine cores provide the first detailed synthesis of the age, sedimentary facies, and origin of multiple hydrothermal explosion deposits.New tephrochronology and radiocarbon results provide a four-dimensional view of recent geologic activity since recession at ca. 15–14.5 ka of the >1-km-thick Pinedale ice sheet.

The sedimentary record in Yellowstone Lake contains multiple hydrothermal explosion …

Searching For Air Showers With Rno-G, Jakob Henrichs

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

The Radio Neutrino Observatory – Greenland (RNO-G) is an in-ice neutrino detector, using radio emission to target the first measurement of neutrinos beyond PeV energies. In total 35 stations are planned for the detector, resulting in a detection volume of around 100 km³. Each of these stations is equipped with deep antennas embedded ∼ 100 m into the ice and downward-pointing log-periodic dipole antennas (LPDA) buried ∼ 3 m into the snow. At each station, three additional buried LPDA are pointing towards the sky and thus can be used to look for cosmic-ray induced air-showers. These air showers are a …

The Radio Neutrino Observatory Greenland (Rno-G): Status Update, Steffen Hallmann

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

The Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G) is an in-ice radio detector for ultrahigh energy neutrinos with the potential to make the first detection of a neutrino shower beyond ∼10 PeV via the Askaryan emission. With a projected 90% CL upper limit below 𝐸²Φ ≈ 10⁻⁸ GeV/cm²/s/sr within 10 years of operation, RNO-G will reach realistic models of GZK and astrophysical neutrino fluxes. In 2021, the first three stations of RNO-G were installed and started data-taking. Four additional stations were added in 2022 with some upgrades to the station hardware. Here, we present the current …

Using Nuradiomc To Study The Performance Of Uhe Radio Neutrino Detectors, S. Bouma, B. Clark, P. Giri, C. Glaser, S. Hallmann, N. Heyer, Ilya Kravchenko, A. Nelles, B. Oeyen, I. Plaisier, L. Pyras, F. Schlüter, C. Welling

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

NuRadioMC is an open-source, Python-based simulation and reconstruction framework for radio detectors of ultra-high energy neutrinos and cosmic rays. Its modular design makes NuRadioMC suitable for use with a range of past, current and future detectors. In addition, the recent deployment of a complete documentation as well as a pip release make NuRadioMC relatively easy to learn and use. Here, we outline the features currently available and under development in NuRadioMC, with a focus on its usage to simulate and study in-ice radio neutrino detectors.

Angular Resolution For The Radio Neutrino Observatory Greenland (Rno-G), Ilse Plaisier

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

In the ultra-high energy regime, the low predicted neutrino fluxes are out of reach for currently running neutrino detectors. Larger instrumented volumes are needed to probe these lowfluxes. The Radio Neutrino Observatory Greenland (RNO-G) detects in-ice radio waves emitted by neutrino induced particle showers in the Greenlandic ice sheet. Radio waves have a large attenuation length in ice O(1 km) and therefore RNO-G implements a sparse instrumentation to cover an unprecedented volume. The first seven RNO-G stations have been deployed in the summer of 2021 and 2022 and deployment will be ongoing in the next years. This contribution discusses …

Tunable Physical Properties In Bi-Based Layered Supercell Multiferroics Embedded With Au Nanoparticles, Jianan Shen, Zihao He, Di Zhang, Ping Lu, Julia Deitz, Zhongxia Shang, Matias Kalaswad, Haohan Wang, Xiaoshan S. Xu, Haiyan Wang

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Multiferroic materials are an interesting functional material family combining two ferroic orderings, e.g., ferroelectric and ferromagnetic orderings, or ferroelectric and antiferromagnetic orderings, and find various device applications, such as spintronics, multiferroic tunnel junctions, etc. Coupling multiferroic materials with plasmonic nanostructures offers great potential for optical-based switching in these devices. Here, we report a novel nanocomposite system consisting of layered Bi_1.25AlMnO_3.25 (BAMO) as a multiferroic matrix and well dispersed plasmonic Au nanoparticles (NPs) and demonstrate that the Au nanoparticle morphology and the nanocomposite properties can be effectively tuned. Specifically, the Au particle size can be tuned from …

Discourse In Inquiry Science Classrooms, Diisc, Version 2.0 (User’S Manual For An Observation Research Instrument), Elizabeth B. Lewis, Dale R. Baker, Lyrica L. Lucas, Amy Tankersley, Elizabeth Hasseler, Ana Rivero, Brandon Helding

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This is a user's manual for the externally validated Version 2.0 of the Discourse in Science Inquiry Classrooms (DiISC) instrument. The instrument is best suited for use in conducting research in secondary (grades 6-12) science classrooms that focuses on teachers' instructional practices, but can also be used as a professional development tool for teacher self-reflection and identifying goals for instructional change. The DiISC Version 2.0 is aligned with a model of a scientific classroom discourse community and articulated characteristics of social constructivist lessons in the categories of inquiry, oral and written discourse, and academic language development and essential learning principles.

Noncanonical Amino Acid Mutagenesis In Response To Recoding Signal-Enhanced Quadruplet Codons, Yan Chen, Xinyuan He, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kun Liu, Tian Gao, Wei Niu, Jiantao Guo

Department of Chemistry: Faculty Publications

While amber suppression is the most common approach to introduce noncanonical amino acids into proteins in live cells, quadruplet codon decoding has potential to enable a greatly expanded genetic code with up to 256 new codons for protein biosynthesis. Since triplet codons are the predominant form of genetic code in nature, quadruplet codon decoding often displays limited efficiency. In this work, we exploited a new approach to significantly improve quadruplet UAGN and AGGN (N = A, U, G, C) codon decoding efficiency by using recoding signals imbedded in mRNA. With representative recoding signals, the expression level of mutant proteins containing …

Tracing Geochemical Sources And Health Risk Assessment Of Uranium In Groundwater Of Arid Zone Of India, P. Pandit, Atul Saini, Sabarathinam Chidambaram, Vinod Kumar, Banjarani Panda, A. L. Ramanathan, Netrananda Sahu, A. K. Singh, Rohit Mehra

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Water quality degradation and metal contamination in groundwater are serious concerns in an arid region with scanty water resources. This study aimed at evaluating the source of uranium (U) and potential health risk assessment in groundwater of the arid region of western Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. The probable source of vanadium (V) and fluorine (F) was also identified. U and trace metal concentration, along with physicochemical characteristics were determined for 265 groundwater samples collected from groundwater of duricrusts and palaeochannels of western Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. The U concentration ranged between 0.6 and 260 μg L⁻¹ with a mean …

Fossils On The Floor Mosaics In The Rotunda Of The Nebraska State Capitol Second Edition, Robert F. Diffendal Jr.

Robert F. Diffendal, Jr., Publications

The idea for this project arose during a field trip to the Nebraska State Capitol led by my long-time friend and colleague, Joe Hannibal, of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, during the Geological Society of America’s North-Central Section Meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Saturday, April 26, 2014. One of Joe’s interests is historical buildings and their building stones. He put together a very useful guidebook to the building and its decorative stones (Hannibal, 2014) that we used on our tour.

One of the many places that we visited was the State Capitol Archives, located in the basement, where the …

From Active Learning Trigonometry To Lecture-Oriented Calculus: Student Interactions, Kelsey Quaisley, Nathan Wakefield

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Active learning is an important component in many college mathematics classes. However, not all college mathematics classes are being taught using active learning-oriented methods. This phenomenological study examined how four undergraduate students’ reflections on their recent experiences in a lecture-based Calculus I course compared to their reflections on their previous experiences in an active learning-oriented Trigonometry course. According to participants’ reflections, certain prescribed classroom structures, such as large classroom sizes, seemed to negatively affect student interactions with both instructors and peers in Calculus I lecture, especially their ability to ask questions. Whereas feeling comfortable to ask questions in either Trigonometry …

The Nebraska Educator, Volume 6, Issue 2 (2022), Heidi Jo Bartlett , Co-Editor-In-Chief, Danika Lang , Co-Editor-In-Chief

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Contents

Developing Metacognition: Leveraging a Spiral Curriculum to Enhance Strategy-Learning Programming • Matthew Brooks, Educational Psychology

A Thematic Analysis of Faculty Advice for Doctoral Students • Alexa Yunes-Koch, Katie Johnson, Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education

Emotional and Attentional Regulation: Impact of Trauma and Journal Writing • Jody-Ann Coore, Educational Psychology

From Active Learning Trigonometry to Lecture-Oriented Calculus: Student Interactions • Kelsey Quaisley, Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education & Dr. Nathan Wakefield, Mathematics

Maximizing Student Citizenship Education • Consuelo Gallardo, Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education

Masked or Unmasked? The Impact of Hidden Facial Expressions on Interpretations of Emotion • Justin Andersson, …

Altered Collective Mitochondrial Dynamics In The Arabidopsis Msh1 Mutant Compromising Organelle Dna Maintenance, Joanna M. Chustecki, Ross D. Etherington, Daniel J. Gibbs, Iain G. Johnston

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Mitochondria form highly dynamic populations in the cells of plants (and almost all eukaryotes). The characteristics and benefits of this collective behaviour, and how it is influenced by nuclear features, remain to be fully elucidated. Here, we use a recently developed quantitative approach to reveal and analyse the physical and collective ‘social’ dynamics of mitochondria in an Arabidopsis msh1 mutant where the organelle DNA maintenance machinery is compromised. We use a newly created line combining the msh1 mutant with mitochondrially targeted green fluorescent protein (GFP), and characterize mitochondrial dynamics with a combination of single-cell time-lapse microscopy, computational tracking, and network …

When The Math Matters: Improving Statistical Advocacy In Gerrymandering Litigation, Robin L. Juni

Nebraska Law Review

Lawyers regularly joke about their supposed inability to address mathematical issues. However, mathematical concepts are sometimes at the core of a legal dispute, and lawyers do a disservice to their clients if they are not able to engage in effective advocacy in these contexts. This Article discusses Gill v. Whitford, a gerrymandering dispute involving an important mathematical idea— the core statistical concept of regression analysis, particularly multivariable regression analysis—which Chief Justice Roberts referred to in Whitford as “sociological gobbledygook.” In fact, the mathematical analysis has crucial implications and connections to the legal issues. This Article explains the statistics behind that …

Valuing Angling On Reservoirs Using Benefit Transfer, Richard T. Melstrom, Mark A. Kaemingk, Nicholas W. Cole, John C. Whitehead, Christopher J. Chizinski, Kevin L. Pope

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Economic assessments are rarely applied to inland recreational fisheries for management purposes, especially when compared to fish, habitat, and creel assessments, yet economic assessments can provide critical information for management decisions. We provide a brief overview of economic value, key terminology, and existing economic techniques to address these issues. Benefit transfer, a technique used to measure economic value when an original analysis is not practicable, is conducted by drawing on existing estimates of economic value in similar contexts. We describe an application of benefit transfer to measure the economic value of several recreational fisheries in Nebraska, USA. We examine two …

Evaluation Of An Equivalent Mean Grain Size Diameter To Rationally Predict The Erodibility Of Fine Riverbed Soils In Nebraska, Basil Abualshar

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The erosion of riverbed soils under the bridges is one of the major reasons that cause bridge closure or failure leading to a significant effect on the local economy. One of the commonly used methods to predict the erosion rate of soils is the excess shear stress method, which is based on two parameters describing the erodibility behavior; the erodibility coefficient and the critical shear stress. On the other hand, studies showed that the mean grain size diameter D₅₀ could be correlated to the erosion resistance of soils, usually for cohesionless soils but not for cohesive soils. It is …

Noyce Science, 2012-2021 Ten Cohorts Of Teachers, Master Of Arts For Science Teaching Brings Science To Life, Unl Noyce Track 1, Phase 2 Grant Activity Brochure, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Elizabeth Hasseler, Lindsay Augustyn, Tori Pederson, Grace Kovar

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Summary of UNL NSF Robert Noyce Track 1, Phase 2 grant (2015-2020) to recruit and prepare new secondary science teachers and associated research activities.

The perennial drive to recruit and prepare science professionals to become science teachers requires an enormous, collaborative effort. At the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, we have pledged ourselves to that worthy cause of educating new science teachers. This report summarizes the accomplishments of and celebrates those science teachers who have dedicated themselves to educating diverse youth and fostering a love of science in a world of STEM possibilities. They are the new generation of educators who face, …

Magnetism Of Novel Rare-Earth-Free Intermetallic Compounds, Haohan Wang

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Rare-earth-free magnets have drawn lots of interest because of their low cost, and the production is not limited by the shortage of rare-earth elements. This dissertation focuses on three rare-earth-free materials, Fe-Co-Ti alloys, Fe-Ni-B alloys, and Co-Si. All of them are synthesized by arc melting followed by melt-spinning. Fe_3+xCo_3−xTi₂ (x = 0, 2, 3) alloys exhibit hexagonal crystal structures and show non-collinear spin structures according to neutron diffraction. The magnetic moments have projections on both the c-axis and basal plane, and the corresponding misalignment angle exhibits a nonlinear decrease with …

Speciation With Gene Flow In A Narrow Endemic West Virginia Cave Salamander (Gyrinophilus Subterraneus), Evan H. Campbell Grant, Kevin P. Mulder, Adrianne B. Brand, Douglas B. Chambers, Addison H. Wynn, Grace Capshaw, Matthew L. Niemiller, John G. Phillips, Jeremy F. Jacobs, Shawn R. Kuchta, Rayna C. Bell

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Due to their limited geographic distributions and specialized ecologies, cave species are often highly endemic and can be especially vulnerable to habitat degradation within and surrounding the cave systems they inhabit. We investigated the evolutionary history of the West Virginia Spring Salamander (Gyrinophilus subterraneus), estimated the population trend from historic and current survey data, and assessed the current potential for water quality threats to the cave habitat. Our genomic data (mtDNA sequence and ddRADseq-derived SNPs) reveal two, distinct evolutionary lineages within General Davis Cave corresponding to G. subterraneus and its widely distributed sister species, Gyrinophilus porphyriticus, that …

Single-Pass Inline Pipeline 3d Reconstruction Using Depth Camera Array, Zhexiong Shang, Zhigang Shen

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Faculty Publications

A novel inline inspection (ILI) approach using depth cameras array (DCA) is introduced to create high-fidelity, dense 3D pipeline models. A new camera calibration method is introduced to register the color and the depth information of the cameras into a unified pipe model. By incorporating the calibration outcomes into a robust camera motion estimation approach, dense and complete 3D pipe surface reconstruction is achieved by using only the inline image data collected by a self-powered ILI rover in a single pass through a straight pipeline. The outcomes of the laboratory experiments demonstrate one-millimeter geometrical accuracy and 0.1-pixel photometric accuracy. …

Circuits Based On Magnetoelectric Transistor Devices, Nishtha Sharma Gaul, Andrew Marshall, Peter A. Dowben, Dmitri E. Nikonov

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Logic circuits constructed with magnetoelectric (ME) transistors are described herein. A ME logic gate device can include at least one conducting device, for example, at least one MOS transistor; and at least one ME transistor coupled to the at least one conducting device. The ME transistor can be a ME field effect transistor (ME-FET), which can be can be an anti-ferromagnetic spin-orbit read (AFSOR) device or a non - AFSOR device. The gates and logic circuits described herein can be included as standard cells in a design library. Cells of the cell library can include standard cells for a ME …

Advanced Cnc/Peg/Pdmaa Semi-Ipn Hydrogel For Drug Delivery Management In Wound Healing, Samia Afrin, Md. Shahruzzaman, Papia Haque, Md. Sazedul Islam, Shafiul Hossain, Taslim Ur Rashid, Tanvir Ahmed, Makoto Takafuji, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman

Department of Chemistry: Faculty Publications

A Semi Interpenetrating Polymer Network (semi-IPN) hydrogel was prepared and loaded with an antibiotic drug, gentamicin, to investigate the wound healing activity of this system. The semi-IPN hydrogel was synthesized by combining natural polymer cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) and synthetic polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG) and poly (N,N0-dimethyl acrylamide) (PDMAA), which was initially added as a monomer dimethyl acrylamide (DMAA). CNC was prepared from locally obtained jute fibers, dispersed in a PEG-NaOH solvent systemand then mixed with monomer DMAA, where polymerization was initiated by an initiator potassium persulphate (KPS) and cross-linked by N,N0-methylenebisacrylamide (NMBA). The size, morphology, biocompatibility, antimicrobial activity, thermal and …

Toxicological Responses To Sublethal Anticoagulant Rodenticide Exposure In Free‑Flying Hawks, Nimish B. Vyas, Barnett A. Rattner, J. Michael Lockhart, Craig S. Hulse, Clifford P. Rice, Frank Kuncir, Kevin Kritz

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

An important component of assessing the hazards of anticoagulant rodenticides to non-target wildlife is observations in exposed free-ranging individuals. The objective of this study was to determine whether environmentally realistic, sublethal first-generation anticoagulant rodenticide (FGAR) exposures via prey can result in direct or indirect adverse effects to free-flying raptors. We offered black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) that had fed on Rozol® Prairie Dog Bait (Rozol, 0.005% active ingredient chlorophacinone, CPN) to six wild-caught red-tailed hawks (RTHA, Buteo jamaicensis), and also offered black-tailed prairie dogs that were not exposed to Rozol to another two wild-caught RTHAs for 7 …

Climate Resilient Potato Systems For The 21st Century And Beyond, Brett A. Lynn

Doctor of Plant Health Program: Dissertations and Student Research

Climate change’s effects will dramatically reshape food systems and food security in the twenty-first century and beyond. Given potato’s susceptibility to heat and drought, climate change is poised to disproportionately affect potato production. Globally, potato is the fourth most important crop and yields a higher caloric density than any other commercial crop. Thus, disruptions to potato production bear serious implications for global food security.

In the United States, considerable potato production occurs in the arid West, which already faces water scarcity. This scarcity is anticipated to increase in many areas due to climate change. In addition to scarcity, growers will …

Within‑Marsh And Landscape Features Structure Ribbed Mussel Distribution In Georgia, Usa, Marshes, William K. Annis, Elizabeth A. Hunter, John M. Carroll

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Ribbed mussels, Geukensia demissa, are marsh fauna that are used in coastal management and restoration due to the ecosystem services they provide. Ribbed mussel restoration efforts may be improved with a greater understanding of the environmental drivers of ribbed mussel distribution at multiple spatial scales to predict areas where restoration could be successful. This study sought to estimate the effects of within-marsh (4 m) and landscape (500 m) factors on ribbed mussel distribution. Ribbed mussel densities were surveyed at 11 sites along the coast of Georgia, USA, and overlaid with spatial data for within-marsh factors (elevation, distance to marsh …

Our Past Creates Our Present: A Brief Overview Of Racism And Colonialism In Western Paleontology, Pedro M. Monarrez, Joshua B. Zimmt, Annaka M. Clement, William Gearty, John J. Jacisin, Kelsey M. Jenkins, Kristopher M. Kusnerik, Ashley W. Poust, Selina V. Robson, Judith A. Sclafani, Kelsey T. Stilson, Shamindri D. Tennakoon, Carmi Milagros Thompson

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

As practitioners of a historical science, paleontologists and geoscientists are well versed in the idea that the ability to understand and to anticipate the future relies upon our collective knowledge of the past. Despite this understanding, the fundamental role that the history of paleontology and the geosciences plays in shaping the structure and culture of our disciplines is seldom recognized and therefore not acted upon sufficiently. Here, we present a brief review of the history of paleontology and geology in Western countries, with a particular focus on North America since the 1800s. Western paleontology and geology are intertwined with systematic …