Rex Buchanan is Director Emeritus of the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS), based at the University of Kansas, and is currently the Director of the Consortium to Study Trends in Seismicity at the KGS. He grew up near Little River, in Rice County, Kansas, on the edge of the Smoky Hills. He started at the KGS in 1978, and was the Interim Director from 2010 to 2016.

He is coauthor of Roadside Kansas: A Guide to Its Geology and Landmarks (rev. edition, 2010) and editor of Kansas Geology: An Introduction to Landscapes, Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils (rev. edition, 2010), both published by the University Press of Kansas, and coauthor of The Canyon Revisited: A Rephotography of the Grand Canyon, 1923–1991, published by the University of Utah Press (1994).

He served as Secretary of the Association of American State Geologists, chair of the GSA Geology and Public Policy Committee, and President of the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE), the Kansas Academy of Science, and the Association of Earth Science Editors. He chaired the Kansas Task Force on Induced Seismicity from 2013 to 2016. In 2008, he was named a GSA Fellow and in 2016 received GSA’s Public Service Award. In 2009, he was given the John Strickler award for environmental education from KACEE. He also provides occasional commentaries on Kansas Public Radio. He has an undergraduate degree from Kansas Wesleyan University and graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.