Michael A Velbel

Professor Velbel (Ph.D., Yale University, 1984), professor emeritus at MSU, studies regolith geoscience, and the rates and mechanisms of mineral-water interactions during rock and mineral weathering in natural systems.  His research investigates the geological, mineralogical, geochemical, and geomorphic factors that control mineral alterations at the Earth's surface and the migration of chemical elements through the landscape, emphasizing small-watershed geochemistry.  Microanalytical studies of clay minerals, other phyllosilicate minerals, and other minerals formed from rock-forming silicate minerals by mineral-water reactions in naturally altered rocks reveal weathering processes, constrain the elemental mobility required by mineral-water reactions and the conditions of the reaction environments, and define known parameters for inverse models of natural weathering rates. More recent related areas of research include terrestrial weathering of Antarctic and non-Antarctic meteorites; rock-, mineral-, and chemical-weathering on Mars and in Martian meteorites; enhancing understanding of Mars surface mission imagery (esp. Phoenix, Curiosity, and Perseverance) and compositional data through microscopic and mineralogical studies of terrestrial weathered-rock analogs and regolith (soil) analogs and simulants; recognition and characterization of pre-terrestrial aqueous alteration on other meteorite (mainly primitive) parent bodies from mineralogical investigations of meteorites (especially C2 carbonaceous chondrites); and preservation of sample science integrity for past (e.g., Stardust, Hayabusa, Hayabusa2, OSIRIS-REx), and future sample-return missions (e.g., Mars Sample Return Campaign).  He collaborated and co-authored journal articles with the Mineralogy-Petrology subteam of the Stardust comet-dust sample return mission Preliminary Examination Team (2006-2009) and the Phoenix Mars Lander MECA Optical Microscope (OM) team (2009-2012). Closer to home, he collaborated with other meteorite scientists in the initial characterization and naming of all three of Michigan’s most recent meteorite falls (Coleman, Worden, and Hamburg). 

In addition to MSU, Prof. Velbel has held visiting appointments at the University of Cincinnati (1990-1991), the Faculté des Sciences-St Jérôme of the Université Paul Cézanne (Université d'Aix-Marseilles III) (1992), and the Australian National University and the (Australian) Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Evolution and Mineral Exploration (CRC-LEME) (1998).  He held NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowships at the NASA Johnson Space Center (1987, 1999). He was a Smithsonian Senior Fellow (2012-2013) and a Research Associate (2013-2022) at the Division of Meteorites, Department of Mineral Sciences, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.  

Prof. Velbel was President of The Clay Minerals Society (2013-2014), Editor in Chief of its journal, Clays and Clay Minerals (1 July 2014 to 15 January 2016), and an Associate Editor for several journals. He was a member of the Michigan Space Grant Consortium Executive Board (2011-2020). He has served a number of administrative and advisory roles including program, project, and proposal review for NASA, NSF, and the Department of the Interior, and, most recently, decision support for the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return Campaign.