Scholarships

Stone-Hollberg Scholarship For Structural Geology Research

The Stone-Hollberg Scholarship is awarded to a graduate student at any accredited college or university who is conducting structural geology or geophysics research in the Rocky Mountain region.  It was established with generous contributions by Donald Stone and John Hollberg, two Rocky Mountain structural geologists.  Don Stone spent sixty years in the oil and gas business, specializing in structural geology and seismic interpretation of the Rocky Mountain foreland province.  He is recognized for his detailed structural cross section restorations, especially when he teamed up with his colleague, John Hollberg, to digitize the Wyoming Transect. The Transect is a detailed structured cross section across the state of Wyoming, originally drawn at a scale of 1:24,000 (1 inch=2000 feet). Don donated a lifetime of career files to the Denver Earth Science Library which are available to the public.

The 2025 Stone-Hollberg Scholarship was awarded to:

Alexander Brettmann, MS Student, University of Utah

Alex is addressing the tectonostratigraphic evolution and resulting geothermal implications of the Black Rock Desert, Utah. The Black Rock Desert is at the transition between the Basin and Range Province and the Colorado Plateau. The research will focus on understanding how fault reactivation and extensional overprinting of compressional structures influence basin-scale deformation and geothermal resource potential. Insights from this study will contribute to regional geological knowledge and enhance geothermal exploration in Utah.

Alex’s work is under the direction of Dr. Cari Johnson

Alex has a BA in Geology from Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA

Recent winners of the RMAG Foundation Scholarship:

2024 Emma Tombaugh, Utah State University

2023 Luke Basler, University of Idaho

2022 Moones Alamooti, University of North Dakota