Carol D. Frost

Carol Denison Frost (born May 23, 1957) is an American isotope geologist, petrologist and professor. Her primary research focuses on the evolution of the continental crust and granite petrogenesis. She has spent over forty years investigating the geologic history of the Wyoming Province and the formation and geochemical classification of granite. Other contributions include isotopic fingerprinting of natural waters, including water associated with energy production. She served as Director of the Earth Sciences Division, National Science Foundation, from December 2014 to January 2018. Frost joined the British Geological Survey Board of Directors in 2023. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Mineralogical Society of America, and a Geochemistry Fellow of the Geochemical Society and European Association of Geochemistry.

Early life

Frost grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. Prior to the 1964 Alaska earthquake her family home was four blocks from Cook Inlet; afterwards it was only two. This experience of the dynamic Earth led her to study geology at Dartmouth College, where she completed an undergraduate honors thesis in the Salt Range of northern Pakistan. She earned the PhD at the University of Cambridge in 1984. Frost worked with Keith O'Nions on her doctoral research in Cambridge. She used isotopic tracers to investigate sediment provenance and granite petrogenesis, and her publisshed work underscored the important role of crustal recycling in the geochemical evolution of the continental crust. In 1991, she became a Life Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge.

Career

Frost joined the University of Wyoming as an assistant professor in 1983, rising through the ranks and becoming professor in 1995. Frost held a number of administrative positions, first at the University of Wyoming and then at the National Science Foundation. From 2006 to 2007, she was founding director of the School of Energy Resources at UW. She then served as Associate Vice President for Research (2008-2010), Vice President for Special Projects (2010-2012), and Associate Provost (2012-2013). In 2014 she became Division Director for the Division of Earth Sciences at the National Science Foundation, a position she held until returning to the University of Wyoming in early 2018. Frost became Professor Emerita in 2020.

Frost served as the 101st President of the Mineralogical Society of America (2020). She previously served as Vice President (2018–2019) and Councilor (2007–2010). She also served as a Councilor for the Geological Society of America (2022–2026) and has chaired publications committees for both the American Geophysical Union and the Mineralogical Society of America.

Research Frost's research involves studying how the continental crust has changed throughout Earth's history. She works with a multitude of rocks, including igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary (from the Archaean period to today) as well as natural waters and materials such as coal and crude oils. She focuses especially on the Archean continental crust in Wyoming, where she is looking at what she describes to be “the oldest high-pressure metamorphism in North America” (Frost, n.d., Research Statement, para. 2) Her work on granite associated with anorthosite helped to settle a long-lived controversy over whether they are of crustal or mantle origin. Frost’s work in Wyoming contributed to understanding of the evolution of the Earth’s early crust and the initiation of modern plate tectonics. Her collaborative work in the Granite Mountains established the presence of 3.8 billion-year-old crust, and in the Teton Range has documented Neoarchean granulite-facies metamorphism, providing evidence for Himalayan-style continental collision at approximately 2.68–2.67 billion years ago.

Frost's research in Wyoming has found that various groundwater aquifers are made up of unique Sr isotopic compositions, and therefore, by using Sr isotopic ratios, contamination between aquifers can be identified. 2016 Geochemistry Fellow, Geochemical Society and European Association of Geochemistry 2013 National Ski Patrol Purple Merit Star 2008 George Duke Humphrey Award, University of Wyoming

Writings 2025 Petrogenesis of the Rattlesnake Hills alkaline magmatic complex, Wyoming, USA: potential for rare-earth-element enrichment, Frost, C.D., Swapp, S.M., Hoch. A.R., Runyon, S.E. Journal of Petrology. 66(11): egaf091. doi:10.1093/petrology/egaf091. 2024 Archean cratons: time capsules of the early Earth. Frost, C.D., and Mueller, P.A. Elements 20(3): 162-167. doi: 10.2138/gselements.20.3.162. 2019 (2nd edition) – Essentials of Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology (textbook), B. Ronald Frost and Carol D. Frost, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1108710589. 2017 - Hadean origins of Paleoarchean continental crust in the central Wyoming Province, Frost, C. D., McLaughlin, J.F., Frost, B.R., Fanning, C.M., Swapp, S.M., Kruckenberg, S.C., Gonzalez, J. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 129(3-4): 259-280. doi: 10.1130/B31555.1. 2016 - On silica-rich granitoids and their eruptive equivalents. Frost, C.D., Frost, B.R., and Beard, J.S., American Mineralogist. 101:1268-1284. doi:10.2138/am-2015-5307. 2013 "Proterozoic ferroan feldspathic magmatism" Carol D. Frost, B. Ronald Frost 2008 "A Geochemical Classification for Feldspathic Igneous Rocks" B. Ronald Frost, Carol D. Frost 2006 "Archean geochronological framework of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming" Carol D Frost, C Mark Fanning 2003 "Early Archean to Mesoproterozoic evolution of the Wyoming Province: Archean origins to modern lithospheric architecture" Carol D. Frost, B. Ronald Frost, Kevin R. Chamberlain