POCATELLO, Idaho — When he was young, Glenn Thackray would amble in gravel quarries with his friends in their hometown of Niles. Now, he ambles around the Pacific region — from Idaho to Tasmania — studying earthquake fault lines and glacial movements.

Earlier this month, the Idaho State University professor became a fellow of the Geological Society of America after being elected by a peer. It was a formal recognition of his leadership in the professional association, his teaching and in glacial and climate research.

Thackray said he did not expect to be recognized with 79 other geologists as fellows this year.

“Sometimes we forget to look outside of what we’re doing on a day-to-day basis,” he said, chuckling.

Day to day, Thackray teaches students in the classroom and in the field while gathering information on what has been happening on the earth’s surface for the past million years.

Many days in his youth, he said he was hanging out in quarries, finding fossils near St. Joseph and collecting agates and rocks with copper near Lake Superior.

He was surrounded by the features of his future career, he said. He was just not “keyed into it” yet.

“I grew up on a landscape of glaciers of Niles, for sure,” Thackray said. “The hills outside of Niles were all built there by glaciers, and I completely ignored it for a long time.”

The professor of 24 years did not decide to study geology during his time at Niles Community Schools. He said it was a subject he was not well aware of, as the school district did not explicitly teach it. Yet, he said his math and science teachers played a large role in his success as a geologist.

“Even if it wasn’t geology, they made us curious about things,” he said. “I think that has been a really big part of becoming a geologist and succeeding as a geologist.”

Now, when Thackray comes back to Niles to visit family each year, he sees the quarries and lakes he grew up and played in with a new lens.

“I’ve recognized things in my own neighborhood that I had never noticed before,” he said.

Now, he notices the way that the St. Joseph River cuts into the valley. He sees rocks in his former yard that were brought from what is now Canada by the glaciers that cut into southwest Michigan. He looks at Lake Michigan not only in aesthetic appreciation, but as an exposed basin filled with melted ice sheets.

Thackray spends much of his research looking at similar features in Oceania and the U.S. 

He especially focuses on glaciers’ impact on climate systems and the hazards that can arise near earthquake fault lines, such as the mountains in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

While many geologists study the long processes of the earth, Thackray’s studies at the earth’s surface deal with recent time periods.

“I study the last million years or so, which sounds like a long time, but in geology, that’s barely scratching the surface,” he said.

Grand Rapids resident Amie Staley was able to work with Thackray during her time as his teaching and research assistant while at Idaho State University’s graduate program. She keeps in touch with him years after graduating, and she said she tells others that Thackray was the best adviser she could ask for.

“I felt, as a master’s student, he was a great person to guide you, but he let you work independently,” Staley said. “He let you soar.”

Now, as an employee of the Michigan Geological Survey, Staley works in the field of glaciers, just as her former adviser does.

“He is an out-of the-box thinker, and I think he helped me think that way as well,” she said.

On top of his recent induction as a Geological Society of America fellow, Thackray was also recently elected to a four-year term on the association’s council. In this role, he will make decisions to better support the group’s 20,000 members.

“Glenn Thackray has made insightful contributions to the understanding of glaciation and climate across the Pacific region,” said Grant Meyer, the University of New Mexico professor that nominated him, in a statement. “He also provided effective leadership for [Geological Society of America’s] Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division.”

Thackray will be formally recognized as a fellow at Geological Society of America’s annual meeting, which takes place Sept. 22 to 25 in Phoenix, Arizona.