Jason Rech
My research interests are primarily in surficial processes of streams, wetlands and soils, geoarchaeology, and in terrestial records of climate and environmental change. I love field work, enjoy geochronology, geochemistry, and stable isotopes, and like any method or technique that will help me answer my research questions. I especially enjoy working in deserts, and have continuing research in the Middle East and the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, yet also like working close to home in Ohio on streams and wetlands.
Possible Thesis/Dissertation Topics
- Radiocarbon reservoir effects of aquatic mollusks in streams in the Midwest
- Historic impacts to streams and wetlands in the Midwest
- Climate change and water resources in the Middle East
- Oxygen isotopes of land snails as a paleoclimatic proxy in North America
Current/Recent Graduate Student Research
- Abigail O'Connor (Ph.D. in progress) Climate change and water resources in Jordan
- Renie Thomas (Ph.D. in progress) Spring and wetland hydrology and geomorphology
- Emily Ratvasky (M.S. in progress) Radiocarbon reservoir effects of freshwater Mussels along the Big Darby Creek and Scioto River, Ohio
- Nathan Cardona (M.S. 2023) Climate Change, Extreme Precipitation, and Flooding in the Midwest
- Christine Tenison (M.S. 2022) Reconstructing Stream Pattern and sedimentation pre- and post- European Settlement, Four Mile Creek, Southwestern Ohio
Select Publications
O'Connor, Abigale, Cardona, Nathan, Zhang, Jing, Levy, Jonathan, Rech, Jason A., accepted, A record of historical temperature change from 1893 to 2021, southwest Ohio, Ohio Journal of Science.
Rech, Jason A., Tenison, Christina N., Baldasare, Alexander, Currie, Brian S., 2023, Radiocarbon dating and freshwater reservoir effects of aquatic mollusks within fluvial channel deposits in the Midwestern United States. Radiocarbon 65(4):1098-1117.
Grudzinski, B.P., Fritz, K., Golden, H, Newcomer-Johnson, T., Rech, J.A., Fain, J., McCarthy, J., Johnson, B., Levy, J., Vang, T.K., Mauer, K. (In review). A global review of beaver dam impacts: stream conservation implications across biomes. Global Ecology and Conservation.
Nield, Catherine, Yanes, Yurena, Pigati, Jeffrey S., Rech, Jason A., von Proschwitz, Ted, Jeffrey C. Nekola, Jeffrey C., Oxygen isotopes of land snail shells in high latitude regions, Quaternary Science Reviews 279 107382.
Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., Springer, Kathleen B., Bosch, Stephanie, Nekola, Jeffrey C., Yanes, Yurena, 2021, Oxygen isotopes in terrestrial gastropod shells track Quaternary climate change in the American Southwest. Quaternary Research, 1-11. doi:10.1017/qua.2021.18
Workman, T. Race, Rech, Jason A., Gayó, Eugenia M., Santoro, Calogero M., Ugalde, Paula C., De Pol-Holz, Ricardo, Capriles, Jose M., Latorre, Claudio, 2020, Landscape evolution and the environmental context of human occupation of the southern Pampa de Tamarugal, Atacama Desert, Chile, Quaternary Science Reviews 243: 106502.
Calogero M. Santoro, Eugenia M. Gayo, José M. Capriles, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, Katherine A. Herrera, Valentina Mandakovic, Jason A. Rech, Barbara Cases, Luis Briones, Laura Olguín, Daniela Valenzuela, Luis A. Borrero, Paula C. Ugalde, Claudio Latorre, 2019, The Pleistocene roots of the Atacama Desert’s llama caravans, from the Pacific coast to the tropical forests, Chungara Revista de Antropología Chilena; 51(1):5-25.
Rech, Jason A., Currie, B.S., Jordan, Teresa E., Riquelme, Rodrigo, Lehmann, Sophie B., Kirk-Lawlor, Naomi E., Li, Shanying, Gooley, Jared T., 2019, Massive Middle Miocene gypsic paleosols in the Atacama Desert and the formation of the Central Andean rain-shadow, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 506: 184-194.
Rech, Jason A, Grudzinski, Bartosz , Renwick, William H., Tenison, Christina N., Jojola, Marvin Vanni, Michael J., Workman, T., Race, 2018, Legacy deposits, milldams, water quality, and environmental change in the Four Mile Creek watershed, southwestern Ohio, in Florea, L.J., ed., Geological Society of America Field Guide 51, p. 113-144.
Yanes, Yurena, Al-Qattan, Nasser, Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., Dodd, Justin P., Nekola, Jeffrey C., 2018, Overview of the oxygen isotope systematics of land snails from North America, Quaternary Research, 1-16.
Yanes, Yurena, Nekola, Jeffrey C., Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., 2017, Oxygen stable isotopic disparities among sympatric small land snail species from northwest Minnesota, USA, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 485: 715–722
Rech, Jason, Springer, Kathleen, Pigati, Jeffrey S., 2017, The Great Acceleration and the disappearing surficial geologic record, GSA Today 22 (11) 8-9.
Catlett, Gentry A., Rech, Jason A., Pigati, Jeffrey S., Al Kuisi, Mustafa, Li, Shanying, Honke, Jeffrey S., 2017, Activation of a small ephemeral lake in southern Jordan during the last full glacial period and its paleoclimatic implications, Quaternary Research 88: 98-109.
Steffen Mischke, Hanan Ginat, Gala Faerstein, Naomi Porat, Paul Braun, Jason A. Rech, 2017, Fossil-based reconstructions of ancient water bodies in the Levantine deserts, in Quaternary Environments, Climate Change and Humans in the Levant, edited by Y. Enzel and O. Bar-Yosef, p. 381-390, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Select Grants
A survey of Pleistocene, Holocene, and historial mussell shell deposits along the Big Darby Creek and Scioto River to inform mussel conservation, 2024, Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves, $4,880.
Assessing climate change and its impact on water resources across the Arabian Peninsula, 2022-2024, Fulbright U.S. Scholars Program; Middle East and North Africa, 2022-2024.
Using soil geochemistry to map historic and late Holocene floodplains, Four Mile Creek, Ohio, 2022, Jason Rech, USGS EDMAP.
Quantifying Induced Infiltration by Municipal Production Wells using Stable Isotopes of Water, 2022, USGS – Ohio Water Resources Center.
Dating Mussel Shells from Historical or Prehistoric Muskrat Middens, 2021, Kentucky Waterways Alliance.
The use of geologic mapping to reconstruct stream morphology and planform prior to European settlement, Four Mile Creek, southwestern Ohio, 2019, USGS EDMAP Program, $17,400.
Reconstructing landscapes, climate, and human ecology during the late Pleistocene in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, CONICYT (Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica), Chile, 2016-2019, PIs José Capriles Flores, Calogero Santoro, Claudio Latorre, Jason Rech, Nicholas Tripcevich,
Collaborative Proposal: Development and calibration of the oxygen isotope systematics of small terrestrial gastropods, 2015-2018 PIs Jason A. Rech, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Yurena Yanes, and Jeffrey C. Nekola NSF EAR 1528733
Teaching Interests
- GLG 111 - The Dynamic Earth
- GLG 335 - Ice Age Earth
- GLG 354 - Geomorphology
- GLG 435/535 - Soils and Paleosols
- GLG 436/536 - Paleoclimatology
- GLG 499/599 - Geology of Streams (10-day short course in canoes)
- Graduate seminars in soils and geomorphology