Scholarships

Bolyard Family Scholarship

The Bolyard Family Scholarship has no restrictions or requirements. The RMAG Foundation welcomes applications in any field of geoscience, and rewards academic excellence and scientific achievement. The scholarship may be awarded to graduate students or to a rising senior at any four-year university or college that offers a degree in geology except for students attending the Colorado School of Mines or Colorado College which have their own dedicated scholarships. This scholarship was established by the Bolyards, longtime supporters of the RMAG Foundation and the geologic community. Dudley recently passed away and will be greatly missed. He served in major leadership positions with the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists and the RMAG Foundation. He is remembered for his passionate success in all his geologic endeavors and unbridled enthusiasm for geologic events.Marion has been a longtime leader in the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists Auxiliary, an organization which provides support for technical conferences, conventions, and various social events for the geologic community.

The 2025 Bolyard Family Scholarship was awarded to:

Nick R. Borders, PhD Candidate, Geology, University of Idaho

Nick’s dissertation topic is “Double Dating Eocene Sand and Gravel to Reconstruct Paleotopography, Tectonics, and Provenance in the Northern Sierra Nevada, California.” Using sedimentological field methods, (U-Pb) detrital zircon chronology and (U-Th)/He detrital thermochronology within detrital samples, he plans to better constrain the timing of uplift within the north and central parts of the range to resolve questions on the paleodrainage divide, sediment provenance, and early structural history of the Sierra.

Using the Eocene sediments to determine provenance will resolve part of these questions by bettering our understanding of the relative paleoelevation difference between the Sierran arc and the Nevadaplano, as well as the evolution of Cenozoic stream capacity and gradients. Furthermore, the spatial component of this project will allow us to better reconstruct the distribution of sources and drainages within the Nevadaplano. Understanding these paleodrainage systems may reveal the origin of gold in the Eocene sediments, the primary deposits prospected during the California Gold Rush. Finally, the resulting DZHe detrital thermal chronology will help unpack the older structural and exhumation history of the range itself and provide insights into the effect of Sierran lithospheric dynamics on paleotopography.

Nick’s work is under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Cassel.

Nick has a BS in Geology from Purdue University

Recent winners of the Bolyard Family Scholarship:

2024 Natali Kragh, Montana State University

2023 Shayla Triantafillou, Colorado State University

2022 Nicholas Ferry, University of Kansas