The Thomas Condon Lecture honors the legacy of its namesake, a minister, a university teacher and Oregon’s first State Geologist. Thomas Condon used the free public lecture to disseminate scientific knowledge to the general public throughout his career. To honor that legacy, the Oregon Board of Higher Education established the Thomas Condon Lecture in 1944. The generous support of CEOAS and the Research Office allows OSU to bring world-class scientists to campus each year.
2025 Thomas Condon Lecture
Wednesday, October 29
When: Lecture begins promptly at 6 p.m. Reception at 5 p.m.
Where: The LaSells Stewart Center, Construction & Engineering Hall, and on Zoom
Topic: Did The Flood Basalts Cross the Cascades?
Speaker: Nick Zentner teaches geology as Science Outreach and Education Coordinator at Central Washington University.
2025 George Moore Seminar
More information coming soon
Past Condon Lectures
- 2024 - Elizabeth Holley - Minerals for green energy: how geology dictates the social and environmental impacts of mining
- 2023 - Thure Cerling - Ivory, INTERPOL, intrigue: Using chemistry to solve forensic mysteries
- 2022 - Kathy Cashman - What's under a volcano, and how do we know?
- 2021 - Jim O'Connor - The Missoula Floods and the Channeled Scablands
- 2020 - Julia Clarke - The secret lives of dinosaurs
- 2018 - Kenneth Ridgway - Earth science & communities: Great earthquakes to wild rice
- 2016 - John Grotzinger - Curiosity's mission of exploration at Gale Crater, Mars
- 2015 - Ellen Morris Bishop - Oregon's climates through time – stories in the stones
- 2014 - Tullis C. Onstott - Carbon cycling in the deep subsurface: Never was so much owed by so many to so few
History of the Condon Lectures at Oregon State
George Moore Seminar
The George Moore Seminar is named to honor the career and contributions of Dr. George W. Moore. Dr. Moore spent his career working for the U.S. Geological Survey where he focused on regional tectonic and structural problems. After retirement, he moved to Corvallis, where he volunteered for the Department of Geosciences in a wide variety of capacities. At the time of his death, George was working on a book about the geology of wine in Oregon.
- 2024 - Tom Benson - The Geology of Lithium Resources and Best Practices in Lithium Exploration
- 2023 - Thure Cerling - Environments of human evolution in Africa: Some isotopic answers to intriguing, improbable, and (at times) impossible questions
- 2022 - Kathy Cashman - Onset and impacts of the c.7700 ybp eruption of Mount Mazama, OR
- 2020 - Julia Clarke - Voices from the past: How we approach estimation of acoustic characteristics of extinct animals
- 2018 - Kenneth Ridgway - Cenozoic flat-slab subduction processes and the tectonic development of southern Alaska
- 2014 - Tullis C. Onstott - The hidden universe