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GSA 2018 ANNUAL MEETING & EXPOSITION

Indiana skyline. Photo courtesy of Jason Lavengood, Visit Indy.

Message from the GSA 2018 General Chair

Todd Thompson Set in the middle of the great Midwest, Indianapolis is the site of GSAʼs 130th Annual
Meeting & Exposition. Known as the “Crossroads of America” and the home of the Indy 500,
Indianapolis is a vibrant city that welcomes you with Hoosier hospitality and will surprise you
with its diversity, multi-culturalism, and cosmopolitan ambiance. GSA staff and the local
organizing committee are planning an exciting week packed with 26 pre- and post-meeting
field trip offerings, 29 short courses, and a wide variety of technical sessions. Also, local
universities, museums, and institutions will enhance the meeting with displays and activities
for all attendees.

If you want to sample Indy’s cultural offerings, there are many to choose from. Take a stroll downtown through
the White River State Park and ride in a gondola down the Central Canal. Along the canal, visit the Indiana State
Museum and its geological collections. The adjacent Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art
houses one of the finest collections of Native American contemporary art. Elsewhere in town, the Indianapolis
Children’s Museum is the largest of its kind in the nation and is home to a world-class dinosaur exhibit and verte-
brate paleontology lab. You can explore the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and auto racing in the Hall
of Fame Museum at the “Greatest Race Course in the World,” and then refresh yourselves at the diverse dining and
brewery options across the city.

Indianapolis, situated near the margin of Pleistocene glaciation, is a prime venue for exploring the geology of the
Midwest. Repeated glacial cycles have left fantastic exposures of Quaternary sediments from classic glacial
moraines and eskers to relict shorelines and dunes along the Great Lakes. Underlying these sediments, and exposed
south of the city, are Paleozoic strata in a sequence of escarpments and plateaus that are home to classic outcrops
and fossil locations, scenic waterfalls and deep gorges, and world-class karst landscapes and caves. Further south-
west in the Illinois Basin are economically important coal seams and oil fields that have fueled the nation. And
along the banks of the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana, a utopian town from the 1800s, named New Harmony,
was the birthplace of geological exploration in the United States, giving rise to the Owen brothers, who served as
state geologists in Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas, and whose geologic mapping and exploration was the under-
pinning of American geology for almost 200 years.

We look forward to welcoming you to Indianapolis this November!

Todd Thompson
GSA 2018 General Chair
Director and State Geologist, Indiana Geological & Water Survey

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