Faculty

What gives Banded Iron Formations their colors? How is the suture pattern of nautiloids and ammonites different? How does fossilized dinosaur bone look different from fossilized wood? These are some of the questions Marilyn Huff asks her undergraduate students to answer after they have viewed the Zuhl Collection, housed in the Alumni and Visitors Center at New Mexico State University. Huff, who teaches undergraduate geology at NMSU, was appointed curator of the Zuhl Collection in 2005.

The collection, which includes more than 1,000 rare geological items of petrified wood, fossils, rocks and minerals, is an invaluable teaching resource for Huff and other geology teachers throughout the region. As curator, Huff keeps track of the collection’s contents and displays, while making it accessible to the public and she is designing a self-tour through the artifacts in Zuhl Library and the Alumni and Visitors Center. In development is a traveling exhibit that may be used in public schools.

Huff has an undergraduate degree in geology from Georgia State University and a master’s in geochemistry from Georgia Tech. She has also done work on her Ph.D. at Louisiana State University. She has taught the introduction to geology course at NMSU and Doña Ana Community College for five years and has worked in libraries and with rocks for many years. She has also volunteered in public schools for the past eight years.

Students who take Huff’s introduction to geology classes and use the Zuhl Collection are partaking in the department of geology’s unique approach to undergraduate education. Called “URGE,” or Undergraduate Research for Geologic Experience, the department envisions engaging students in research projects that last several years, instead of the more conventional semester-long research classes.