Geoscientist at Williams College Studying Planet's Youngest Sea

12:00AM / Tuesday, June 14, 2005Print Story | Email Story

Williamstown â€“ Markes E. Johnson, the Charles L. MacMillan Professor of Natural Sciences at Williams College, has been awarded a Petroleum Research Fund grant for $50,000 by the American Chemical Society. The grant is the eighth award Johnson has received through the American Chemical Society since 1979. The Petroleum Research Fund, which promotes research participation in geology and chemistry on both the undergraduate and graduate levels, has enabled more than 50 Williams students to accompany Johnson on his frequent excursions to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico since 1990. The current grant will support research on his project, "Paleography and Correlation of Pliocene Basins in the Gulf of California." The project is aimed at understanding the development of one of the planet's youngest seas, also known as the Sea of Cortez. Expansion of the Gulf over the last five million years is being traced by Johnson and his students along former shorelines uplifted by as much as 650 ft. above sea level. Johnson has been at Williams since 1977, and has taught courses in historical geology, paleobiology, and stratigraphy. He is the author of "Discovering the Geology of Baja California â€“ Six Hikes on the Southern Gulf Coast" (University of Arizona Press, 2002) and co-editor of "Pliocene Carbonates and Related Facies Flanking the Gulf of California" (Geological Society of America Special Paper, 1997), among works most closely related to ongoing field studies in Mexico. Previous awards include a Class of 1945 World Fellowship for his project, "Island Ecology Through Geologic Time" and grant support from the National Geographic Society for research on former shorelines in Western Australia, Siberia, and China's Inner Mongolia. Johnson is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and a member of the Paleontological Society, among other professional groups. He received his B.A. from the University of Iowa in 1971 and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1977.

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Williamstown Homeowners Facing 7 Percent Hike in Tax Rate

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
02:03PM / Sunday, August 23, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Property owners will pay nearly a dollar more per $1,000 of assessed value in the current fiscal year under a tax classification proposal that goes to the Select Board on Monday evening.

According to a memo prepared by town Assessor Christopher Lamarre, the FY27 tax rate will be $15.16 per $1,000 of property value, an increase of 96 cents, or 6.8 percent, from the $14.20 per $1,000 property owners paid in the fiscal year that ended on June 30.

The increase is because of a 9.12 percent hike in the levy based on the budget and fiscal articles approved for FY27 at May's annual town meeting.

In FY26, the town collected $21.9 million from property taxes; this year, it needs to collect $24.1 million to pay its bills, a rise of $2.2 million.

That is by far the largest hike in the last 10 years — the period covered by data readily available on the town's website. In FY26, levy grew by 5.8 percent, following an eight-year period where the largest jump was 5.52 percent in 2018.

At the same time, the town continued to see growth rate in the tax base that does not keep up with rising costs. In FY27, "new growth" is pegged at $18.2 million, yielding just $258,004 in new tax revenue — far below the $2.2 million in needed revenue.

The total of taxable property in town in FY27 is $1.6 billion.

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