Don Woolverton

Tulsa, OK

Geologist, Geophysicist 

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Don was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He was always interested in science but also had an appreciation for art. At McCluer High School he was taught and mentored by the great St. Louis artist, Art Heyne. After High School, Don went to the University of Missouri in Columbia as an art major. In his first semester, Don took a class in Geology because it sounded interesting, and it was. With the next semester and every semester after that came a new geology class. Without thinking about it or planning for it, he became a geology major. He received both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Geology from the University of Missouri and went on to a 40 year career as a geologist and geophysicist. Now Don has time to merge art with Geology. He attempts to compose unusual and interesting images with a digital microscope from the surface of rocks that he has cut and polished. The idea is to lure the viewer into what looks like a painting and then to reveal that it is in fact a rock, hopefully sparking some level of interest in the Earth sciences.