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University of Nebraska–Lincoln

School of Natural Resources

From Earth to Sky and Everything In Between

R.M. (Matt) Joeckel


RMJ in southeasternmost Richardson County at the original boundary marker between the Kansas and Nebraska territories, established in 1854. Pennsylvanian strata in the immediate area include fluvial-estuarine sediments with thin coals, in which early settlers had great (but misplaced) hopes for economic development

RMJ in southeasternmost Richardson County at the original boundary marker between the Kansas and Nebraska territories, established in 1854. Pennsylvanian strata in the immediate area include fluvial-estuarine sediments with thin coals, in which early settlers placed great (but unfounded) hopes for economic development.

I am Matt Joeckel, geologist in the School of Natural Resources (SNR).  I received my Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1993 and began working at UN-L in 2000.

The majority of my University appointment is in the Conservation and Survey Division (CSD), Nebraska’s geological, geographic, water and soil survey.  My duties include research, extension, and survey activities, occasional  teaching in SNR, and administrative duties associated with the position of Outreach Coordinator, which I have held since August, 2007. I also have a 30% appointment in the Department of Geosciences, in which I teach geology courses.

My main areas of expertise are sedimentology, the study of sediments and their environments of deposition and stratigraphy, the study of rock and sediment layers; environmental geology (including groundwater); mineral resources; and vertebrate paleontology.  I am also interested in soil formation processes and soil-landscape-parent material relationships.

In mapping and analyzing surficial geology, I promote an understanding of how Nebraska’s current landscape originated, and how people interact with that landscape and the geologic materials underneath it. My stratigraphic research helps determine where mineral (e.g., clay and limestone) and groundwater resources can be found, and also illuminates the origins of those resources.

My main research interests are in regional Paleozoic and Mesozoic stratigraphy, including limestone-bearing strata in eastern Nebraska; the geochemistry, mineralogy, and sequence stratigraphy of the Dakota Formation, a secondary aquifer in north-central and eastern Nebraska; understanding ancient soils and land surfaces from the perspectives of stratigraphy and climate change; surficial and environmental geology; and processes of soil formation on modern landscapes, including the evolution of saline and alkaline wetlands.

I am currently a participant in the Eastern Nebraska Water Resources Assessment (ENWRA), which has the long-term goal of an improved understanding of groundwater and groundwater-surface water interactions in eastern Nebraska.  I have yearly geologic mapping projects funded through the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) STATEMAP geologic mapping program.  I also compile a yearly inventory of mineral resource operations in Nebraska for USGS, as well as provide service to the state’s minerals industry. This form of applied scholarship can range from helping producers locate economic quantities of minerals and environmentally sound ways of extracting them to helping them settle disagreements regarding the nature, quality and application of mineral products. I also field questions from the public regarding groundwater, rocks and minerals, soils, and earthquakes, and geologic hazards.

I have ongoing cooperative research projects with personnel from the Kansas Geological Survey and the Iowa Geological Survey Bureau.  These projects deal with region-wide stratigraphic problems and the calibration of worldwide geologic events and time scales.  I have been conducting ongoing investigations into natural and human-accelerated acid-rock drainage in Nebraska, a process that has significant effects on local soil and surface-water environments.  In the process, I have found several minerals hitherto undescribed from the state, and in some cases, the entire Great Plains region.  Also in the realm of applied environmental geology, I recently collaborated with South Dakota State University’s Geoff Henebry in a NASA/JPL-funded study of the historical evolution of channels in the eastern Platte River. With SNR geologist Bob Diffendal, I also studied shoreline and environmental change around Lake McConaughy, Nebraska’s largest manmade body of water.

Personnel Information

Name R.M. (Matt) Joeckel
University Title Associate Professor
SNR Title Outreach Coordinator
Additional Title Research Geologist
Address 615 Hardin Hall, Lincoln NE 68583-0996
Phone 402-472-7520
Fax 402-472-2946
Email rjoeckel3@unl.edu
Related Websites http://csd.unl.edu/

Go to Matt's Full Profile

Key Publications

  • Joeckel, R.M., Loope, H.M., Wally, K.D., and Hellerich, J.E., 2007, Late Cenozoic geomorphology of a bedrock-dominated landscape adjacent to the laurentide glacial limit, Southeastern Nebraska, USA. Zeitschrift fur Geomorphologie, v. 51, p. 469-486.
  • Joeckel, R.M., Wally, K.D., Fischbein, S.A., and Hanson, P.R., 2007, Sulfate mineral paragenesis in Pennsylvanian rocks and the occurrence of slavikite in Nebraska. Great Plains Research, v. 17, p. 17-34.
  • Joeckel, R.M., Nicklen, B.L., and Carlson, M.P., 2007, Low-accommodation, eustasy-dominated, coarse-clastic sediment apron alongside a basement uplift, Pennsylvanian of Midcontinent North America. Sedimentary Geology, v. 197, p. 165-187.
  • Mason, J.A., Joeckel, R.M., and Bettis, E.A., 2007, Middle to Late Pleistocene loess record in eastern Nebraska, USA, and implications for the unique record of Oxygen Isotope Stage 2. Quaternary Science Reviews, v. 26, p. 773-792.
  • Phillips, P.L., Ludvigson, G.A., Joeckel, R.M., Gonzalez, L.A., Brenner, R.L., and Witzke, B.J., 2007, Sequence stratigraphic controls on synsedimentary cementation and preservation of dinosaur tracks: Examples from the lower Cretaceous (upper Albian) Dakota Formation, Southeastern Nebraska, U.S.A. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 246, p. 367-389.
  • Greene, R.S.B., Joeckel, R.M., and Mason, J.A., 2006, Dry-saline lakebeds as potential source areas of aeolian dust: studies from the central Great Plains of USA and SE Australia. Regolith 2006: Consolidation and Dispersion of Ideas. Proceedings of the CRC LEME Regolith Symposium, November 2006, Hahndorf Resort, South Australia.
  • Grocke, D.R., Ludvigson, G.A., Witzke, B.L. Robinson, S.A., Joeckel, R.M., Ufnar, D. F., Ravn, R.L., 2006, Recognizing the Albian-Cenomanian (OAE1d) sequence boundary using plant carbon isotopes: Dakota Formation, Western Interior Basin, USA. Geology, v. 34, p. 193-196.
  • Gosselin, D.C., Klawer, L.M., Joeckel, R.M., Harvey, F.E., and Warren,K. J., 2006, Arsenic in rural public water supplies, Nebraska, USA. Great Plains Research, v. 16, p. 137-148.
  • Burbach, M.E., and Joeckel, R.M., 2006, A delicate balance: Rainfall and groundwater in Nebraska during the 2000-2005 drought. Great Plains Research, v. 16, p. 5-16.
  • Fang, J., Chan, O., Joeckel, R.M., Huang, Y., Wang, Y., Bazylinski, D.A., Moorman, T. B., and Ang Clement, B. J., 2006, Biomarker analysis of microbial diversity in sediments of a saline groundwater seep in Nebraska. Organic Geochemistry, v. 37, p. 912-931.
  • Joeckel, R.M., Ang Clement, B., and Van Fleet, L.R., 2005, Sulfate mineral crusts, pyrite weathering, and acid rock drainage in the Dakota Formation and Graneros Shale (Cretaceous), Jefferson County, Nebraska. Chemical Geology, v. 215, p. 433-452.
  • Joeckel, R.M. and Ang Clement, B J., 2005, Soils, Surficial Geology, and Geomicrobiology of Saline-Sodic Wetlands, North Platte River Valley, Nebraska, USA. Catena, v. 61, p. 63-101.
  • Feldman, H.R., Franseen, E.K., Joeckel, R.M., and Heckel, P.H., 2005, Impact of longer-term modest climate shifts on architecture of higher-frequency sequences (cyclothems), Pennsylvanian of Mid-continent USA. Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 75, p. 350-368.

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