Alumni Newsletter Fall 2013 - Department of Geological Sciences

Transcription

GEOLOGICAL
SCIENCES
ALUMNI NEWSLETTER
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
NOVEMBER 2013
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GEOLOGICAL
SCIENCES
ALUMNI NEWSLETTER
2013
From Our Department Chair
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Faculty
Roster
Assistant Professors
John Huntley (Virginia Tech, 2007) Paleontology and paleoecology
James Schiffbauer (Virginia Tech, 2009)
Paleontology and geochemistry
Associate Professors
News................................................................4
Research grants................................................. 9
Staff and new faculty......................................... 10
Visiting faculty and scientists............................ 11
News releases.................................................... 12
Martin Appold (Johns Hopkins University, 1998)
Hydrogeology
Robert L. Bauer (University of Minnesota, 1982) Precambrian geology
Francisco Gomez (Cornell University, 1999)
Paleoseismology and neotectonics
Photo Gallery14
Professors
Visiting Speakers17
Field Camp
Field course...................................................... 18
Students
Undergraduate research program...................... 20
Undergraduate degrees and scholarships........... 21
Graduate degrees.............................................. 22
Graduate scholarships...................................... 23
Student awards................................................. 24
Publications.....................................................26
Development Activities
Camp Branson needs...................................... 28
Contributions..................................................29
Endowments....................................................31
New faculty awards......................................... 33
Board members................................................ 34
From our board chair........................................ 35
Alumni
News...............................................................36
In memoriam.................................................. 39
Breaking news................................................. 40
Editor: Kevin L. Shelton
Composition: Shannon Hemenway
Printing costs of the Newsletter are provided by the
Geology Development Fund.
On the cover: Rainbow over Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
River, in early June before field camp starts. Hot spring activity has continued through the ages altering the lava to produce
lovely colors. This is one of many features our students see
while on the Tetons-Yellowstone excursion from Camp Branson. (Photo by Alan Whittington).
Cheryl A. Kelley (University of North Carolina, 1993)
Aquatic geochemistry
Mian Liu (University of Arizona, 1989)
Geophysics
Kenneth G. MacLeod (University of Washington, 1992) Paleontology and biogeochemistry
Peter I. Nabelek (SUNY, Stony Brook, 1983)
Trace-element geochemistry
Eric A. Sandvol (New Mexico State University, 1995) Seismotectonics
Kevin L. Shelton (Yale University, 1982)
Economic geology
Michael B. Underwood (Cornell University, 1983) Sedimentology
Alan G. Whittington (Open University, 1997)
Crustal petrology
Director of Field Studies
Miriam Barquero-Molina (University of Texas, 2009)
Field methods
Professors Emeriti
Raymond L. Ethington (University of Iowa, 1958)
Conodont biostratigraphy
Thomas J. Freeman (University of Texas, 1962)
Carbonate petrology
Glen R. Himmelberg (University of Minnesota, 1965) Chemical petrology
William D. Johns (University of Illinois, 1952)
Clay mineralogy
Staff
Shannon Hemenway, administrative assistant
Marsha Huckabey, administrative associate I
Carol Nabelek, research chemist
Stephen Stanton, library information specialist II
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From Our Department Chair . . .
This past year has been a time of great accomplishments that can be attributed to the hard work and
dedication of our faculty, staff, students and alumni.
Highlights of our activities are presented throughout
the Newsletter and reflect the spirit and excitement
of teaching, learning and discovery that underlie our
success.
In academia, there is little that rivals the satisfaction
of hiring faculty members and watching them succeed. John Huntley (PhD, Virginia Tech) joined us
in August as a new assistant professor in sedimentary
environments/paleontology. There is a brief biography of John later in the Newsletter. I am pleased to
announce the promotion of Cheryl Kelley and Alan
Whittington to the rank of full professor. Congratulations.
This year we will be searching for a new faculty member in the broad area of structural geology and tectonics. We are seeking an individual whose research will
ideally complement and expand upon one or more of
the areas of departmental expertise in solid-earth processes including geodynamics, igneous and metamorphic petrology, neotectonics, and seismology.
As you read through the Newsletter you will see that
all of our faculty members are involved actively in research and presentations at national and international
conferences that bring recognition and prestige to our
department. Please join with me in celebrating their
notable accomplishments.
We continue to attract talented students at both the
MS and PhD levels. This fall we have 36 graduate
students in residence. This past year they presented
or were co-authors on 23 presentations at national
or international conferences, 3 regional conferences,
published 6 papers, and received 13 research grants or
fellowships based on proposals that they wrote. Our
graduate students also continue to work cooperatively
through the Geology Club and the MU Student
Chapter of the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists.
Eleven of our students completed graduate degrees
this past year. We will miss each of those who are
leaving. Yanying Chen and Rayan Yassminh are
remaining at MU to pursue doctoral studies. Follow-
ing a summer internship with Samson Resources, Joey
Cochran has moved to Virginia Tech for his doctoral
work. Mark Grzovic is pursuing doctoral studies in
remote sensing at St. Louis University. Others have
found employment in a variety of fields. John Corley
is working for the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources. Emma Hansen works as a mineralogist
for Omya Inc. in Cincinnati. Nathan Hinrichs was
an intern with Exxon-Mobil this past summer. Jeffrey Ingram is working for an engineering firm in St.
Louis. Mark Sutcliffe is working for Newfield Exploration in Oklahoma.
We are fortunate to have a new group of talented
graduate students. Eleven new students arrived in
January and this fall. Bulbul Ahmed (MS from
University of Dhaka, Bangladesh) will work toward
his PhD studying carbon sequestration with Martin
Appold. Claire Beaudoin (BS from Webster University in St. Louis) will pursue her MS studying
carbon isotope compositions of methane produced
in hypersaline ponds with Cheryl Kelley. Jesse Broce
(MS from Virginia Tech) will work toward his PhD
studying experimental taphonomy and analytical
paleontology of soft-bodied organisms of the BurgessShale-type preservational style with Jim Schiffbauer.
Megan Brown (BS from Arizona State University)
will work toward her MS studying intraplate earthquakes with Mian Liu. Danielle Cavender (BS from
the University of Tennessee, Martin) will pursue her
MS studying unusual zinc-lead-copper deposits in
Missouri with Kevin Shelton. Joshua Field (MS from
Indiana University) will pursue doctoral studies of
sub-economic MVT ore deposits and their relationship to economically viable deposits with Martin Appold. Jesse Merriman (MS from MU) is studying the
thermal structure of continental lithosphere and the
role of the lower crust for his doctoral work with Alan
Whittington. Sean Polun (MS from Idaho State University) is pursuing doctoral studies of neotectonics of
the Afar depression, Ethiopia with Paco Gomez. Tara
Selly (BS from Gustavus Adolphus) is working toward
her MS studying paleontology with Jim Schiffbauer.
Ariana Soldati (MS from the University of Pisa) is undertaking doctoral studies of the rheological evolution
of basaltic lava flows during cooling and crystallization
with Alan Whittington. Chen Song (MS in Civil Engineering from MU) is pursuing an MS in Geological
Sciences studying sedimentology and physical properties of samples from the Nankai Trough Seismogenic
Zone Experiment with Mike Underwood.
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We received a number of very strong applications
for graduate study this year. Although competition
is keen among universities to attract highly qualified
graduate students, our ability to attract quality students to MU is a reflection of both the strength of our
programs and our ability to provide competitive financial support to students. The College of Arts and
Science continues to provide funds for TA stipends.
However, to be competitive with peer institutions, we
supplement these stipends with Department Scholarships that are provided by a variety of endowed
student scholarships.
In summary, we’re doing great! However, we would
not be able to make competitive offers to attract these
quality students without the help of our alumni and
friends scholarship funds. We thank you for your
commitment to our students!
Our undergraduate program has approximately 60
students. The departmental scholarship funds that
our alumni have supported are critical in allowing
us to attract and retain some of the best students on
campus. In addition to our scholarship program,
our departmental Undergraduate Research Program
is supporting several students who are working on
senior theses this academic year.
On behalf of the faculty, students and staff, I want
to thank those of you who continue to support our
department through your annual gifts.
On a personal note, let me thank our department’s
alumni and friends for the kindnesses they have
shown to me over the past decade.
Enjoy the Newsletter and remember to keep us
informed of your activities.
We are now on Facebook (MUGeology), so “like” us
to follow what we are doing.
Sincerely,
Kevin L. Shelton
Chairman and
E.B. Branson Professor
Graduate students, from left, Arianna Soldati, Elizabeth Gammel,
and Frank Calixto enjoy the fall 2013 welcome reception for new and
returning faculty and students.
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Faculty News
(In their own words)
Martin Appold was involved in several different
projects over the past year studying the behavior of
shallow crustal fluids. Chris Burrows completed his
master’s thesis in December for which he modeled the hydrology of the Forest City Basin in the
central U.S. and assessed the capacity of the St. Peter
Sandstone for large-scale CO2 sequestration. Ajit
Joshi began a new phase of his doctoral research on
solitary waves in which he is assessing their capacity to transport methane instead of oil. Abdelsalam
Hassan continued his master’s research on fluid
inclusions of the Vazante non-sulfide Zn deposit in
Minas Gerais, Brazil. His research is complementing
the senior thesis work completed earlier this year by
Derek Prokopf, who studied fluid inclusions in the
nearby Morro Agudo Zn-Pb sulfide deposit. Their
work should provide insights into why fluids sourced
from similar rocks in the same sedimentary basin can
produce such strongly contrasting styles of mineralization. In April, Martin renewed a project with the
U.S. Department of Energy sponsored Southwest
Partnership for CO2 Sequestration. The project is
focused on enhanced oil recovery and CO2 sequestration in the Farnsworth hydrocarbon field in northern
Texas. In June, Martin received approval for funding
from the National Science Foundation to start a new
project aimed at characterizing fluid inclusions in
trace occurrences of Mississippi Valley-type (MVT)
Zn-Pb mineralization in the U.S. mid-continent.
The goal of the project is to see if the fluids that form
trace occurrences of MVT mineralization differ systematically in composition from previously characterized fluids that form large ore bodies. The courses
that Martin taught last year include Groundwater
Hydrology, Hydrogeologic Processes, and Mineral
and Energy Resources of the Earth. In addition, he
began redesigning the online version of Principles of
Geology.
Miriam Barquero-Molina had a happy 2012-2013
year in our Department. During the fall semester
she taught Planet Earth and an upper-level, duallisted undergraduate/graduate-level course on the
Geologic Evolution of Western North America. In
spring 2013 Miriam taught Sedimentology and
Principles of Geology. The class on the Geology of
the Western U.S. had a field component, so during
Thanksgiving week recess they flew to Las Vegas,
rented vehicles and drove off into the wilderness.
Their itinerary began east of Las Vegas, near Lake
Mead, where they started by studying Paleozoic rocks
entrenched in Basin and Range deformation near
Frenchman Mountain. They proceeded towards the
La Madre Mountain area, west of Las Vegas, in order
to observe Sevier-style Mesozoic deformation (Keystone and Red Springs thrusts) that has been preserved
in spite of Tertiary extension. They gladly left Las
Vegas behind and continued west into Death Valley,
where they spent two glorious days awash in breathtaking geology: Turtlebacks, the Amargosa Chaos,
Lake Manly shoreline deposits (such as Shoreline
Butte), Borax mines, volcanoes (Ubehebe and Little
Hebe craters, and associated smaller craters), alluvial
fans and active faulting at Red Wall Canyon and
Mosaic Canyon, an active eolian field at the Mesquite
Dunes and, of course, the lowest topographic point in
the continental US, Badwater Basin, and the salt flats.
Grudgingly they left Death Valley behind and crossed
over the majestic Panamint Mountains to reach
Bishop, Cal. and the northern end of Owens Valley,
where they spent a couple of days poking around
recently to currently active volcanic areas, including
the Long Valley Caldera, Mammoth Mountains, the
Mono-Inyo Craters, Panum Crater and Mono Lake
with its shoreline tufa towers. And to complete what
had been an incredible field trip, on Thanksgiving day
they drove to Morro Bay, Cal., where they spend some
happy moments looking at andesitic volcanic plugs,
taking a swim in the Pacific Ocean, watching the sun
set while sitting on a rocky pier, and cooking a group
potluck-style Thanksgiving meal under the stars. It
was quite an experience. When not teaching, leading
field trips, or working on our field camp, Miriam
spent some time thinking about and preparing for
our upcoming Study Abroad program in Chile, which
will take place over fall 2013 and winter intersession
2013-2014. With a current enrollment of 23 students,
and capacity for a few more, Miriam, Bob and Kevin
will be teaching a twice-weekly class on the geology of
the Andean margin during the upcoming fall semester. The class will be in Chile from December 31st
through January 17th of winter intersession. They
will fly into Santiago de Chile, rent vehicles at the airport and drive north towards the Atacama region and
will look at some impressive geology associated with
the Andean volcanic arc on their pilgrimage north to
the Altiplano-Puna. Once up there, they will have the
chance to look at recent to active volcanism in the Altiplano-Puna, the largest porphyry-copper mine in the
world, Chuquicamata, and the Salar the Atacama, one
of the biggest salt lakes in the world. Miriam is happy
to report that the number of undergraduate majors
continues to creep up, currently hovering around 60.
Advising our undergraduate students continues to be a
pleasure, and quite a bit of work!
Bob Bauer is spending much of the fall semester writing lectures for the study abroad course, taught with
Miriam Barquero-Molina, entitled “Volcanism and
Mountain Building Processes in Chile. The course
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involves two parts, a four-credit class this fall and a
17-day, two-credit trip to Chile, leaving this NewYear’s Eve. Miriam has been working hard to set up
logistics for the trip, and Miriam, Bob, Kevin and the
students (23 enrolled) will all contribute to the class
presentations this fall. We look forward to having a
great report on the trip for next year’s Newsletter. Bob
continued to teach at Camp Branson this summer.
After the field course was over, he spent two weeks
working in the field with graduate students Michael
Hilmes and Jamie Russell, who are completing MS
theses, and undergraduate student Sam Glasscock,
who started a senior thesis. Michael’s work involves
fracture modeling associated with the deformation
that produced offset in the basin margin folds south
of Lander (Dallas Dome, Derby Dome and Sheep
Mountain anticline). Jamie will be mapping part of
Hudson Dome and adjacent areas north of Lander.
Sam’s work involves fracture analysis across part of the
Dallas Dome – Derby Dome interchange. The end of
the field season became a bit more exciting than usual
when a forest fire in Sinks Canyon flared up with three
more days of Bob’s planned fieldwork with students
remaining. They saw the smoke up in the range from
where they were conducting field work in the basin,
but weren’t sure about the exact location until they
got a phone call from Miriam telling them that Sinks
Canyon was being evacuated. They spent the next two
nights in Lander, and got in one more day in the field.
By the third day of the fire, they were allowed to return
to camp, but only to pack up and leave the next morning. The entire north side of the canyon was burned,
but the fire was stopped at the Sinks Canyon road, just
across from the entrance to Camp Branson. It was a
very close call. This fall, Bob will be a co-leader on a
field trip sponsored by the Mineralogy, Geochemistry, Petrology and Volcanology (MGPV) Division of
GSA that precedes the Geological Society of America
Annual Meeting in Denver. The trip to the Laramie
anorthosite complex and its contact metamorphic
aureole includes stops in the contact aureole that Bob
studied with Jeff Edson, who completed his MS thesis
research project in the area last spring. Jeff’s research
was supported in part by a combination of grants from
the U.S. Geological Survey, the Colorado Scientific
Society, and a Department award from the Keller
Opportunities for Excellence Fund. Bob continues to
serve as the Department’s Director of Graduate Studies, and coordinates graduate recruiting and applicant
admissions. Bob’s new student from this recruiting class is Jamie Russell, from Sam Houston State
University. Bob’s classes last year included Structural
Geology, Continental Tectonics, and Field Camp. This
fall Bob is teaching Advanced Structural Geology, the
Chile course noted above, and is serving as the chair of
the MU Campus Writing Board.
Ray Ethington reports that he examined numerous dinosaur bones and fossil eggs (with the yolk
preserved) brought to the department by people who
found them near outcrops of cherty Burlington Limestone. He thinks it likely that some of them did not
accept his interpretation and sought a second opinion,
but he has not as yet had anyone return to share what
insights they obtained elsewhere. His long awaited
paper (with John Repetski and Jim Derby) on the
pre-St Peter Ordovician rocks of Ozarkia and adjacent
regions was published early in the year in AAPG’s volume dedicated to James Lee Wilson. Present efforts
are to finish manuscripts on Sauk/Tippecanoe strata in
the Utah-Nevada border region and on the type Whiterockian Series in central Nevada, both involving students who passed through here in earlier years. When
those efforts are completed, he expects to resume work
on collections from the Midwest and the Great Basin
that accumulated prior to retirement. For reasons
known only to them, the Department of Geological
and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State has designated
him as a Distinguished Alum who will be recognized
at a dinner in Ames in November. His ISU degree
was awarded 60 years ago, and he is surprised that
better candidates have not appeared in that interval;
he did not decline the award however. (Editor’s note:
Ray authored this, so please don’t blame me.)
Tom Freeman is busy as always in a number of venues. He will attend the GSA meeting in Denver this
fall with his usual exhibit hall booth. The number of
schools using Tom’s Geology Field Methods continues to grow. Tom’s two lab manuals continue to be
used on our campus plus at other schools. Environmental Geology 2e is taught by our geology faculty;
and Geoscience Laboratory 5e, is directed within
the Honors College by Sarah Humfeld in the Division of Biological Sciences. Honors College students
work with seismic data provided by former Saint
Louis University, Brian Mitchell, who provided the
graphics being required to locate the epicenter of an
earthquake. Students soon discover, with wide-eyed
interest, that the epicenter is within the state of Missouri. Closer to home, son Rob, CEO of TradeWind
Energy, continues to construct wind farms, as per
those in Kansas and Oklahoma; while son Tom, who
works with Polaris Institute, continues to deal with oil
spills such as that of BP. Meanwhile, Peggy continues
to spend time in her art studio, while also serving as
our family’s travel agent.
Paco Gomez and his neotectonics research group had
a productive year. In the classroom, Paco taught his
regular courses on physical geology (for undergraduate science & engineering majors), surficial geology
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(undergraduate), and engineering geology (graduate/
undergraduate). Four students completed their M.S.
degrees: William “Joey” Cochran (GPS and neotectonics along the southern Dead Sea fault), Alzubair
Abousaif (Quaternary faulting in the Wind River
Basin, Wyoming), Nathan Hinrichs (Paleoseismology
along the Wutaishan fault, north China), and John
Corley (Neotectonics in the Daixian Basin, north
China). In addition, two students completed senior
theses under his supervision: Howard Loftis analyzed
ground-based radar data from the Helheim Glacier in
SE Greenland, and Letha Binel analyzed fault scarps
in the central Afar region of Ethiopia (including field
work). Ongoing studies include the Ph.D. studies of
Bjorn Held on kinematics and mechanics of landslides
in the Rocky Mountain region, as well as the seismotectonic research along the Dead Sea fault of Ms.
Rayan Yassminh (co-supervised with Eric Sandvol).
Additionally, Sean Polun, a new student, is beginning
his Ph.D. research on neotectonics in the central Afar
region of Ethiopia. Fieldwork over the past year has
seen the extremes: Greenland during the fall of 2012,
and Ethiopia during the winter of 2013. In addition,
Paco has been conducting fieldwork on rock falls and
landslides in Colorado in collaboration with colleagues
from the Department of Civil Engineering. As part
of his efforts to map topography and measure surface
displacements, Paco is also starting to explore the use
of low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (flying robots!) as
tools for mapping and surveying.
Glen Himmelberg is now in his sixth year as Chair
of the Mathematics Department at MU. According
to Glen, his time in the Math department has been
an interesting, challenging and sometimes rewarding
experience. Marilyn and Glen managed to get away
in July; they spent several days in Denver with friends
and then went to Charleston, South Carolina to spend
some time with their daughter. They enjoyed being
away from Columbia and the demands of the work
environment. Makes one think that retirement may
not be too bad the next time around.
John Huntley, his wife, Laura, and two-year-old
daughter Lydia Grace are settling in well in Columbia and finding the climate agreeable after two cold
winters in New York’s north country at St. Lawrence
University where John was a visiting assistant professor. John is currently teaching Principles of Geology
and preparing to team teach Historical Geology and an
upper-level/graduate course Patterns and Processes in
the Fossil Record in the 2014 spring semester with Jim
Schiffbauer. In 2012-13 John co-authored a manuscript in Paleobiology investigating the interaction
between bivalve hosts, their trematode parasites, and
how temporal trends in this interaction are controlled
by environmental changes exerted by glacio-eustatic
sea level dynamics in Pleistocene-modern marine
environments in the northern Adriatic Sea; a manuscript in Quaternary Geochronology establishing an
amino acid racemization-based geochronology for the
North American freshwater mussel genus Lampsilis;
and a manuscript in Journal of African Earth Sciences examining the paleoecology and stratigraphy
of upper Cretaceous strata in the Sinai Peninsula,
Egypt. Two manuscripts are currently in press and
in revision examining the palatability of brachiopods
and how it relates to their post-Paleozoic decline (in
press at Palaios) and an amino acid racemization-based
study of time-averaging of Holocene bivalves from the
São Paulo Bight, Brazilian Shelf, respectively. John
is excited to establish his lab at MU and is pursuing
external and internal funding sources, and is actively
recruiting graduate students for next fall.
Cheryl Kelley had much to be happy about this past
year. In May, she celebrated the successful defenses of
master’s students, Laura Senefeld and Brooke Nicholson. Laura investigated the organic matter degradation
pathways and rates in two small coal mine lakes (one
circumneutral and the other acidic) north of Columbia
in the Rocky Fork Conservation Area. Brooke, on the
other hand, was involved with understanding substrate
limitation for methanogenesis in hypersaline environments. Cheryl did fieldwork both in Baja California,
Mexico and the Atacama Desert, northern Chile. In
January, Cheryl welcomed new graduate student,
Claire Beaudoin, to MU. Claire received her undergraduate degree at Webster University near St. Louis,
and will continue some of the work in hypersaline ecosystems by exploring methane oxidation in these dry,
salty places. She has already begun her fieldwork by
accompanying Cheryl and other researchers to northern Chile after the end of classes in May. They visited
two salars (Salar de Llamara and Salar de Atacama) and
the El Tatio geyser field, the largest geyser field in the
Southern Hemisphere. In the classroom this past year,
Cheryl enjoyed teaching the Environmental Geology
and Global Water Cycle in the fall semester and Organic Geochemistry in the spring. We are pleased to
report that Cheryl was recently promoted to the rank
of Professor.
Mian Liu continues to work on earthquakes and
mountain building with his students and colleagues.
As part of an international collaborative project funded
by the National Science Foundation, Mian’s group has
been studying the earthquakes in North China, where
a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in 1976 killed more than
250,000 people and wiped out the industrial city of
Tangshan. A series of small to moderate earthquakes
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rattled the Tangshan region again last year, causing
widespread concerns in the public and within the
science community. Based on the earthquake history
and calculations of crustal strain, Mian and colleagues
concluded that the recent seismicity is the aftershocks
of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. This fall, a new
graduate student, Megan Brown, joined Mian’s group
to study induced earthquakes. Mian’s other two
graduate students are trying to make it to the finish
line - Jieyang Ye is working on strain partitioning and
earthquakes in southern California, while Feng Lin
is modeling crustal extension in North China. The
collaboration with China continues to expand. In
the past year Mian hosted five Chinese visitors, four
of them come from various institutions of the China
Earthquake Administration. Mian also received a
prestigious national scholarship from China, which
supports his research in China and a guest directorship of the Computational Geodynamics Lab of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the classroom, Mian
taught Plate Tectonics and Thermal Processes in the
Solid Earth, a class that encourages students to learn
computer programming by solving real geological
problems. It is satisfying that this class has led to a
number of student publications in recent years. Mian’s
family is doing great. Daughter Karina started middle
school this fall, and thanks to her schedule, Mian is
arriving at the office by 7:30 every morning!
Ken MacLeod enjoyed his research leave traveling to
Germany, Austria, and England to collect samples and
collaborate with European colleagues. He is enjoying
being back in the classroom teaching the paleontology class this fall and both the dinosaur class and
a graduate class on stable isotope techniques in the
spring. His students also have had an active year. Page
Quinton was awarded an NSF fellowship to undertake
8 weeks of field, lab, and museum work in Australia
through NSF’s East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students. She reports that she
saw many iconic Australian animals including a platypus in the wild, and she snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef. Page returned to Columbia with a nice suite
of Ordovician conodonts and in the coming months
will be analyzing them to compare their oxygen isotopic signature to values she’s measured in correlative
samples from the U.S. Shannon Haynes successfully
defended her master’s thesis last fall and has decided to
stay at MU to work on a doctoral degree. She traveled
to England in the spring to attend an Ocean Drilling Program workshop, is finishing writing a lengthy
paper on the taxonomy of some Cretaceous planktonic foraminifera, and will be working for a couple of
weeks this fall in Ellen Martin’s lab at the University
of Florida measuring neodymium isotopes on Late
Cretaceous fish debris. Damon Bassett continues to
teach at Missouri State University, welcomed a new
daughter in the spring, and will be presenting research
at this year GSA meeting in Denver. Kelsey Putman
has taken a full time job with Samson Resources in
Tulsa.
Peter Nabelek continued his collaborations with MU
colleague Alan Whittington and Anne Hofmeister
of Washington University to explore the effects of
temperature-dependent thermal diffusivity on the rates
of magma crystallization. He also continued his collaboration with colleagues from the Geological Survey
of Canada to study the mechanism of sill emplacement
and associated contact metamorphism in a Proterozoic
sedimentary basin on Victoria Island in the Arctic
Canada. Peter’s graduate students continue to work on
exciting research pertaining to various aspects of igneous and metamorphic geology. Yanying Chen began
her doctoral studies on metamorphism and fluid flow
in the Mesozoic White-Inyo magmatic arc in California. Elizabeth Gammel is pursuing master’s studies to
determine the roles of Li, B, and other fluid-soluble
elements by analyzing fluid inclusions in the San
Diego County pegmatite district. Peter and Elizabeth
collaborated on field aspects of the project with former
student Mona-Liza Sirbescu. Ashraf Gafeer is using
trace element chemistry to determine sources of Tertiary lavas in Libya, including the deep Sahara desert.
Last fall, Peter enjoyed a conference and field trip to
the Adamello batholith and its metamorphic aureole in
the Italian Alps. The wine and grappa were tasty.
Eric Sandvol and the seismology research group have
continued working this past year on the large amount
of data from northern China and the Andean and
Tibetan plateaus. This year they deployed a 71 station
broadband seismic network in central Turkey as a
part of the Continental Dynamics Central AnaTolia
(CDCAT) project. Savas Ceylan and Eric worked
with colleagues from the University of Arizona for
approximately two months to finish installing all of the
seismic stations. This is the largest deployment of its
kind in Turkey. Katrina Burch from UMKC started
her doctoral research this year on the joint inversions of receiver functions and surface wave dispersion curves for both the Tibetan and central Andean
plateau in order to compare crustal thicknesses for the
two largest plateaus on earth. She will also participate
in the CDCAT fieldwork, helping to service the 71
station array starting in October. Savas Ceylan has
published an important new model on the structure
of the Tibetan plateau. In addition to this work, Savas
has done important theoretical work on the resolution
capability of recent surface wave tomography methods.
He has found that we are able to resolve structure that
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is a fraction of the wavelength of teleseismic surface
waves. In addition, Gleb Skolbeltsyn is finished with
his work imaging eastern Turkey and the Caucasus
region using surface waves. Gleb is now working on
analyzing shear wave splitting data in Turkey, Georgia,
and Azerbaijan and has found that the slab he has
apparently discovered is having a significant effect on
mantle flow. Frank Calixto-Mori has just published
his work on analyzing Rayleigh wave propagation
across the PUNA array and is working to finalize his
research on seismic anisotropy beneath the southern
Puna plateau. He is also beginning his work on the
seismic attenuation of the Peruvian crust; this research
is very important for the seismic hazard of this very
tectonically active country. Wenfei Ku and Eric are
continuing their work with the Air Force Research
Laboratory and the National Nuclear Security Agency
on the seismic attenuation in the Iranian and Tibetan
plateau. This research is important to be able to better
predict seismic amplitudes across this complex plateau,
which can be used in discriminating earthquakes from
explosions. They have expanded their work from the
crust to the uppermost mantle in order to understand
propagation of shear waves within the lithospheric
mantle. In addition to this work on attenuation,
Qiyun Yan is measuring Sn Q in northern China. She
has found a very interesting attenuation structure that
is significantly different from the velocity images in the
region. Finally Rayan Yassminh has nearly finished
her thesis on understanding seismic sources in the
northern Middle East. She hopes to begin work on
understanding the attenuation structure of the United
States in the near future.
James Schiffbauer welcomed his first two graduate
students this Fall. Coming in from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, Tara Selly has started her
MS research to understand the preservation of a nifty
Cambrian critter, Anomalocaris, one of the Earth’s
earliest “super predators.” She’ll be analyzing fossil
materials, as well as conducting experimental decay
trials with shrimp to understand timing of disarticulation. His PhD student is a familiar face, Jesse Broce,
from Virginia Tech, where Schiffbauer served on his
MS committee. Jesse is a recipient of Mizzou’s Huggins Fellowship, and has decided he wants to focus
his efforts on fossil worms—exciting! No, really! As
worms are entirely soft-bodied, the route that must
be taken for them to fossilize is exceptional. He will
couple decay experimentation with paleontological,
sedimentological, and geochemical analyses of some
amazing fossil deposits known for capturing soft-tissues in the record. When he’s not busy drinking in the
Columbia life, he’s been contacting biologists to get
his hands on various types of worms, from polychaetes
to scalidophorans. Over the past year, Schiffbauer has
been busy writing grant proposals, editing a special
volume on the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition slated to
appear as the March 2014 issue of the Journal of Paleontology, organizing the 2014 Paleontological Society
short-course associated with the Vancouver Geological
Society of America annual meeting, and submitting
papers, 8 of which are in press or have been published,
and another 5 are in various stages of review or acceptance. He is currently teaching Environmental Geology, Introduction to Geochemistry, and a graduate-level
Electron Microscopy in Geosciences problems course.
He’ll be co-teaching Historical Geology and a splitlevel course titled Patterns and Processes in the Fossil
Record in the Spring with new faculty member Dr.
John Huntley. Later this year through early next, he
is looking forward to attending GSA with his students
and chairing two topical sessions at the North American Paleontological Convention in Gainesville, Florida.
At home, Schiffbauer’s son PJ, now 17 months old, has
made major strides in expanding his vocabulary. His
new favorite word is dinosaur, although dad has been
working very hard on getting him to say “Cambrian
Explosion,” much to momma’s dismay.
Kevin Shelton begins his tenth year as department
chair, continuing to balance administrative responsibilities, teaching and research. Kevin is working with new
MS student Danielle Cavender (BS from University of
Tennessee-Martin) on unusual Zn-Pb-Cu MVT ore
mineralization in the lower portion of the Bonneterre
Dolomite of southeast Missouri. The mineralization does not appear to be related spatially to obvious
stratigraphic controls, such as pinchouts of the Lamotte
Sandstone against Precambrian knobs. Ongoing studies will address geochemical and structural controls
on ore precipitation and localization with the hope of
developing a predictable exploration model for this
unusual mineralization. Recent master’s student Emma
Hansen finished her thesis on gold mineralization
in the north end of the Yellowknife greenstone belt,
Canada and works as a mineralogist with Omya Inc.,
a leading global producer and distributer of industrial
minerals. Kevin is busy this semester teaching Economic Geology (at 8 a.m.!), Mineralogy and a couple
of lectures in the Chile study abroad class. On the
family front, son Ben and wife Sarah Eagle moved to
Austin, where Ben works for National Instruments and
Sarah works for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Daughter Emily has started her senior
year at MU majoring in elementary education and is
student teaching in Ashland. Lois and Kevin managed
to find some time to get away to Yellowstone for a few
days in July.
Mike Underwood devoted another year to the Nankai
Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment, serving as a
member of the Project Management Team and Specialty Coordinator for Lithostratigraphy and Sedimentary
9
FACULTY
RESEARCH GRANTS
Petrology. He boarded D/V Chikyu for about a week
to help with the crossover of science parties. Unfortunately, the long-anticipated riser drilling operations
were hampered by damage to the riser pipe during a
storm. This year, IODP Expedition 348 runs from late
September into January of 2014, with a target depth
of 3800 meters below seafloor. One of our graduate
students (Chen Song) will be sailing on the expedition as a sedimentologist, one of only three student
participants from the United States. Mike was invited
to New Zealand in April to give a keynote address at a
GeoPRISMS Workshop, and he was part of an international group to submit a successful IODP proposal
for drilling slow-slip patches in the Hikurangi Trough.
As usual, he also taught three courses (Tectonics and
Sedimentation, Environmental Geology, and Oil and
Gas Resources).
Alan Whittington taught a graduate class in Silicate
Melts in Fall 2012, and the undergraduate Regional
Field Trip class and Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology in Spring 2013. The regional trip over Spring Break
was almost stranded in western Kansas by a snowstorm,
which led to the itinerary being reversed. Despite
camping in temperatures as low as 12˚F in Grants,
NM, everyone remained in good spirits and they experienced a great assortment of geology from lava flows
and calderas to uplifted mountain ranges, river terraces
and sand dunes. It was a busy year in the lab, with two
new calorimeters installed and seven students doing
research. In December, Thaïs Magaldi completed her
senior thesis on basalts from Fuego volcano, Guatemala, before returning to Brazil to finish her degree. In
January, Jesse Merriman (MS 2011) returned to MU
to begin working on his PhD on the thermal evolution
of the lithosphere. In May, Sarah Smith completed
her senior thesis on the properties of (Ca,Fe,Mg)Si2O6
glasses, and graduated with a BS in Chemistry. In the
summer, field camp alum John Dedecker (FC 2012)
stopped in Columbia for a week to measure the viscosity of the basalts he is studying at North Carolina for
his MS degree. Spring was a busy semester for traveling, with a visit to the University of Toronto at the end
of January, a petrology field trip to southeast Missouri
and then the spring break field trip in March. In June,
Alan went to Camp Branson to assist Miriam with the
Yellowstone field trip, which this year included a new
emphasis on the Eocene Absaroka volcaniclastic debris
fans. In July, Alan went to a volcanology conference in
Kagoshima, Japan. The premeeting field trip included
a visit to Aso caldera and climbing the summit lava
dome of Mt. Unzen, while the mid-conference field
trip included witnessing a spectacular eruption of
Sakurajima, from up close. The family is doing well –
in April, Angela received a Kemper Award for teaching
and together with Xander (9) and Hamish (6), they
explored 8 of the 11 states in the SEC on a January
road trip to Orlando.
Consortium for Ocean Leadership
National Science Foundation (cont’d)
Paco Gomez with Active Research Grants
Mike Underwood
Mike Underwood
Mike Underwood
$15,000
$15,000
$10,000
Department of Energy
Martin Appold$252,000
Department of Defense
Eric Sandvol
$265,000
Eric Sandvol$121,000
Doe Run Company
Kevin Shelton
$15,000
MU Arts and Science Alumni Fund
Mike Underwood
MU Research Council
Cheryl Kelley
Ken MacLeod
James Schiffbauer
$1,500
$7,500
$7,500
$7,500
NASA
MU Geotechnical Engineering $750,000
Mian Liu, Milene Cormier,
Paco Gomez, Eric Sandvol
$2,147,000
Mian Liu
$135,000
Ken MacLeod
$225,000
Ken MacLeod
$165,000
Peter Nabelek and Alan Whittington $246,000
Eric Sandvol
$565,000
Eric Sandvol
$328,000
Eric Sandvol
$323,000
Eric Sandvol
$112,000
Eric Sandvol
$25,000
Angela Speck and Alan Whittington $280,000
Alan Whittington
$439,000
Alan Whittington and MU co-PI’s
$892,000
Alan Whittington $317,000
NSF of China
Mian Liu
Cheryl Kelley$149,000
Alan Whittington$307,000
NWT Geoscience
National Science Foundation
UM Research Board
Martin Appold$230,000
Paco Gomez
$25,000
Paco Gomez$290,000
Kevin Shelton
James Schiffbauer
Eric Sandvol
U.S. Geological Survey
Robert Bauer
$150,000
$5,000
$75,000
$15,000
$12,000
10
FACULTY
STAFF
New Faculty Member
John Huntley comes to Mizzou geology most recently from St. Lawrence University where he served as a visiting assistant
professor for two years. He completed his BS at Appalachian State University and MS at the University of North Carolina
– Wilmington (both in Geology). Upon completion of his PhD (Geological Sciences) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University, John remained in Blacksburg for a year as a post-doctoral associate. This position was followed by a one-year
position as a lecturer in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Kentucky and a two-year
stint as a Humboldt Fellow at GeoZentrum Nordbayern at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen, Germany. John
is a paleobiologist/paleoecologist interested in reconstructing long-term trends in organismal interactions preserved in marine
invertebrate fossils (such as parasitism and predation), quantifying macroevolutionary trends in diversity and morphological
disparity, and disentangling these records from the stratigraphic biases inherent in the fossil record.
Staff
Marsha Huckabey celebrated her
27th year at MU. As an administrative associate, she continues to excel
at running the fiscal aspects of the
department. She also works with our
geology development board in their
many activities throughout the year.
Shannon Hemenway is in her second
year as our administrative assistant.
She balances a variety of tasks including grants, graduate admissions, and
field camp.
FACULTY
VISITING SCHOLARS
Visiting Faculty Member
In January 2013, Geology Development Board member Tim McHargue (FC ‘70, BS ‘71, MA ‘74), center, taught a weeklong
course on Clastic Sequence Stratigraphy at MU. Twenty-four students attended the class, the largest group Tim has taught to
date. Comments from students were uniformly glowing about the class, which represents another avenue in which alumni can
“give-back” to the department through donation of their time and talents. Tim is a Consulting Professor at Stanford University and has an adjunct professor appointment at MU.
Visiting Scientists
The China Earthquake Administration awards overseas scholarships to ~ 20 scientists each year for international studies of
earthquakes. Through Mian Liu’s efforts, MU has become a prime destination for these scholars. In 2012-13, our department
hosted four scholars from different institutions of the China Earthquake Administration, from left, Shi Chen, Xiaogang Cai,
Daiqin Liu and Jia Cheng.
11
12
FACULTY
NEWS RELEASES
Supervolcanic Ash Can Turn To Lava Miles From Eruption, MU Scientists Find
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Supervolcanoes, such as the one sitting dormant under Yellowstone National
Park, are capable of producing eruptions thousands of times more powerful than normal volcanic
eruptions. While they only happen every several thousand years, these eruptions have the potential
to kill millions of people and animals due to the massive amount of heat and ash they release into
the atmosphere. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have shown that the ash produced by
supervolcanoes can be so hot that it has the ability to turn back into lava once it hits the ground tens of
miles away from the original eruption.
Following a volcanic eruption, lava typically flows directly from the site of the eruption until it cools
enough that it hardens in place. However, researchers found evidence of an ancient lava flow tens
of miles away from a supervolcano eruption near Yellowstone that occurred around 8 million years
ago. Previously, Graham Andrews, an assistant professor at California State University Bakersfield,
found that this lava flow was made of ash ejected during the eruption. Following Andrew’s discovery,
Alan Whittington, a professor in the University of Missouri Department of Geological Sciences in the
College of Arts and Science, along with lead author Genevieve Robert and Jiyang Ye, both doctoral
students in the geological sciences department, determined how this was possible.
“During a supervolcano eruption, pyroclastic flows, which are giant clouds of very hot ash and rock,
travel away from the volcano at typically a hundred miles an hour,” Robert said. “We determined
the ash must have been exceptionally hot so that it could actually turn into lava and flow before it
eventually cooled.”
Because the ash should have cooled too much in the air to turn into lava right as it landed, the
researchers believe the phenomenon was made possible by a process known as “viscous heating.”
Viscosity is the degree to which a liquid resists flow. The higher the viscosity, the less the substance can
flow. For example, water has a very low viscosity, so it flows very easily, while molasses has a higher
viscosity and flows much slower. Whittington likens the process of viscous heating to stirring a pot of
molasses.
“It is very hard to stir a pot of molasses and you have to use a lot of energy and strength to move your
spoon around the pot,” Whittington said. “However, once you get the pot stirring, the energy you are
using to move the spoon is transferred into the molasses, which actually heats up a little bit. This is
viscous heating. So when you think about how fast the hot ash is traveling after a massive supervolcano
eruption, once it hits the ground that energy is turned into heat, much like the energy from the spoon
heating up the molasses. This extra heat created by viscous heating is enough to cause the ash to weld
together and actually begin flowing as lava.”
The volcanic ash from this eruption has to be at least 800 degrees Celsius to turn into lava; however,
since the ash should have lost some of that heat in the air, the researchers believe viscous heating
accounted for 100 to 200 degrees of additional heating to turn the ash into lava.
Robert, Andrews, Ye, and Whittington’s paper was published in September 2013 in Geology. The
National Science Foundation funded this research through a CAREER award to Whittington.
Story Contact: Nathan Hurst.
FACULTY
NEWS RELEASES
Rheomorphic ignimbrite of the ca 8-10 Ma
Rogerson Formation, Snake River Plain,
southern Idaho. Although transported many
kilometers from its source as volcanic ash in
a pyroclastic density current, this rhyolitic
material welded together during deposition in
a high-strain shear zone and then flowed like
lava, producing refolded folds. (Photos by
co-author Graham Andrews, California State
University-Bakersfield.)
13
14
PHOTO GALLERY
FIELD TRIPS
MU students and Miriam Barquero-Molina atop
Dante’s View along the crest of the Black Mountains overlooking Death Valley. This was one of
several spectacular geologic sites that students
in Miriam’s Regional Geology Fieldtrip class
saw in their trip west. From left, Nolan Walla,
Joao Machado, Miriam Barquero-Molina, Cade
Claevelin, Meghan Howard, Tony Bollasina,
Laura Senefeld, Genevieve Robert, and Gina
Ceylan.
Alan Whittington dons traditional
samurai armor during a volcanic conference in Japan.
Tufa towers at Mono Lake, California. These
amazing lacustrine calcium carbonate deposits
originated underwater, but are now seen as
spires because of the drop in lake level. This
was another part of the amazing geology seen
on the Regional Geology Fieldtrip.
PHOTO GALLERY
FIELD TRIPS
Undergraduate student Letha Binel surveying
a fault scarp in the Afar Depression of east
Africa during fieldwork with Paco Gomez in
January 2013. Letha’s research was assisted
by funds from our department’s Undergraduate Research Program.
Undergraduate student Howard Loftis
measuring the velocity of the Helheim
Glacier (southeast Greenland) using
MU’s ground-based radar interferometer. Howard’s research with Paco
Gomez was assisted by funds from our
department’s Undergraduate Research
Program.
Graduate students Yanying Chen (left) and
Elizabeth Gammel take time away from
fieldwork in California to really get to know
the rocks. Peter Nabelek inspires this type of
starry-eyed dedication from his students.
15
16
PHOTO GALLERY
FIELD TRIPS
Graduate Student Claire Beaudoin at the
Salar de Atacama, Laguna Cejar, Atacama
Desert, Chile. Claire is studying carbon
isotope compositions of methane produced in
hypersaline ponds with Cheryl Kelley.
Alan Whittington’s head provides the
scale for large spherulites (rosettes, left
middle) in the Nez Perce Creek lava flow
breccias in Yellowstone National Park.
Field camp students saw many volcanic
features under Alan and Miriam’s guidance.
Graduate students Yanying Chen (left) and
Elizabeth Gammel at Yosemite, California
during their summer 2013 field season. These
two students of Peter Nabelek are studying
deep crustal fluid flow associated with metamorphic of the White Mountains, California
and evolution of Li- and B-bearing fluids in
granitic pegmatite systems, respectively.
VISITING SPEAKERS
SPEAKERS
Visiting Speakers
A rich and varied program of visiting speakers was
funded by our Williamson Family Endowment Fund.
Last year’s Williamson Family Colloquia and other
seminars included:
David Alvarez, U.S. Geological Survey, Columbia,
Missouri
Bottom sediment as a source of organic contaminants in Lake Mead, Nevada, USA.
Sara Carmichael, Appalachian State University
Manganese is the new black: microbial and fungal
biomineralization in Appalachian cave systems.
Jean Cline, University of Nevada – Las Vegas
Nevada’s giant Carlin gold district – A unique continental margin hydrothermal system?
Katrina Edwards, University of Southern
California
Intra-terrestrial life.
John Huntley, St. Lawrence University
Stratigraphic paleoecology: Disentangling biological
patterns from the rock record.
Sue Kay, Cornell University
Neogene lithospheric evolution of the Central Andean margin.
Jamie Levine, Appalachian State University
Syn-deformational partial melting in migmatites and
evidence for strain-induced melting.
Greg Ludvigson, Kansas Geological Survey
The pedogenic siderite paleoclimate proxy.
Frank Patterson, Anadarko Petroleum
Mozambique: Discovery within a discovery.
Sarah Penniston-Dorland, University of
Maryland
Petrologic and geochemical evidence for fluid-rock
interactions and mass transfer in subduction zone
metamorphic rocks.
Henry Posamentier, Chevron Corporation
Integration of seismic stratigraphy and seismic geomorphology for prediction of lithology: Applications
and workflows.
Alex Pullen, University of Rochester
Mesozoic tectonics and Miocene-Quaternary aridification in the sedimentary record of the Tibet Plateau.
Zhixiong Shen, Tulane University
Sedimentary records of late Quaternary vertical
crustal motions in the Mississippi delta and their
geodynamic implications.
Stuart Simmons, University of Auckland, New
Zealand (Society of Economic Geologists Distinguished Lecturer)
Geological controls on fluid flow in geothermal
systems, examples from the Taupo Volcanic Zone,
New Zealand.
C. Geoff Wheat, University of Alaska
Geochemical constraints for hydrothermal flow on
ridge flanks: The important role of sediments.
Seth Young, Indiana University
Linkage of ocean ventilation, weathering, and biodiversity in the Ordovician: A chemostratigraphic
perspective.
Guangsheng Zhuang, Yale University
Understanding the growth of the Tibetan plateau:
From basin analysis, (U-Th)/He to paleoaltimetry.
17
18
FIELD CAMP
FIELD COURSE
Camp Branson Report
Summer 2013 was a great year at Camp Branson. We
gathered 43 students from 17 schools: University of
Missouri, Missouri State and University of MissouriKC (MO); University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
(TN), Wayne State (MI), Kansas State (KS), Sam
Houston State (TX), Indiana University Northwest
(IN), Montclair State (NJ), University of Cincinnati
(OH), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and St.
Norbert College (WI). We were pleased that 19 of
our 43 students qualified for scholarships from our
alumni contributions to the camp’s scholarship funds
(see photo). If you have a chance, visit our field camp
website (http://fieldcamp.missouri.edu/) which is the
main avenue through which potential students learn
about our camp.
Our projects in field camp are diverse and highlight
a broad range of geological field experiences, including sedimentology, stratigraphy and sedimentary
environments, geologic mapping of folded and faulted
sedimentary rocks, structural analysis of metamorphic
rocks, surface and groundwater hydrogeology and
reflection and refraction geophysics. We were able to
work with a group of exceptional field instructors with
expertise in the disciplines to which the students are
exposed at Camp Branson. Jon Mies, a structural geologist at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga,
worked with Miriam on the field mapping projects
on Dallas and Derby Domes. Alan Whittington and
Miriam accompanied the students on a four-day field
trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons National
Parks. Eric Carson (University of Wisconsin-Madison
and Wisconsin Geological Survey) led a glacial deposit-mapping project in Sinks Canyon during the 5th
week of camp and an advanced glacial geomorphology project (new this year!) during the 6th week. Ed
Romanowicz (SUNY-Plattsburgh), and Sarah Ledford
(Syracuse University) oversaw all of the surface and
groundwater hydrology projects. Eric Sandvol took
charge of all the geophysics projects.
Our advanced projects in hydrogeology and
geophysics once again proved to be very popular
options amongst our students during the sixth and
final week of camp, when students have the freedom to choose their final project in the course. For
our advanced geophysics project, we used a total of
104 geophone channels composed of 2-16 channel
Missouri GEODES and 3-24 channel GEODES on
loan from the Incorporated Research Institutions for
Seismology (IRIS) Program for Array Seismic Studies
of the Continental Lithosphere (PASSCAL) instrument center. Our equipment allowed the students to
run seismic lines nearly 500 meters long and record
72 shots (several of them with stacked data lines)
in two days. One of the lines was located in the
area between Dallas and Derby domes, where our
two field-mapping projects on Mesozoic rocks take
place. Data from the Dallas-Derby dome connection
suggest that we imaged secondary deformation as
well as fault gouge associated with a strike-slip fault
that exists between the domes. Michael Hilmes will
use the Dallas-Derby dome interchange data for his
master’s studies here at MU. We also shot a line in
the Owl Creek range, close to the Boysen Reservoir,
in an area where Paco Gomez and some of his graduate students have been working in the last couple of
years. We shot a line there last year, when the data
suggested that we had imaged an active fault, which
was located nearly directly below what was being
interpreted as a fault scarp by Paco and his students.
Our second line in the Owl Creek Range will be used
to construct a reliable 2D velocity model so that we
can accurately estimate the amount of throw in the
high-angle normal fault that we imaged last year.
Our advanced hydrogeology option comprises four
different projects, which engage students in different kinds of hydrogeology applications: study of the
Red Canyon Creek watershed; dye-tracing exercise
in the Popo Agie River in Sinks Canyon; hydrology
of the Lander Landfill; and a slug test (evaluation of
the change in the hydraulic head of an aquifer where
water is quickly added to or removed from a well).
In addition to our faculty, we were once again lucky
to be able to count on a strong supporting staff that
allowed camp instruction to happen and for camp
facilities to run smoothly. Our fantastic TAs were:
Jamie Russell and Michael Hilmes, both MU graduate students working with Bob Bauer; Angie Van
Boening (Texas A&M); Tyler Miller (Camp Branson
student in 2011, graduated from the University of
Wyoming); Brady Lubenow (Camp Branson student
in 2011, graduated from Minnesota State-Mankato);
Randall Bonnell (Camp Branson student in 2012,
graduated from the University of Missouri). Jill
McKenzie, our cook, and Jessica McKenzie, our
cook’s helper, did a superb job of keeping us all fed
and happy for six whole weeks. Warren Ulmer and
Suki Smaglik, our caretakers, kept our camp in top
shape, and cajoled our sometimes cranky facilities
into cooperation. Thanks to all the faculty, staff,
alumni and friends whose contributions continue to
help Camp Branson move forward. We could not do
it without you.
FIELD CAMP
FIELD COURSE
Camp Branson students mapping on Derby Dome in summer 2013.
Scholarship students include, from left, Moe Testa (Austin Peay), Alica Alexander (Missouri State), Howard Loftis (MU),
Tim Robertson (MU), Teresa Avila (MU), Doug Disbennett (University of Cincinnati), Michelle Rathe (MU), Gabe Cozart
(Sam Houston State), J. J. Morman (Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Sam Glasscock (MU), Emma Rosenow (MU), Paula Lancaster
(Wayne State), Laura Perry (MU), Gretchen O’Neil (MU).
19
20
STUDENTS
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROGRAM
Undergraduate Research Program
Several ago we began a departmental Undergraduate Research Program. The program is funded from four Opportunities for Excellence in Geology Endowments (the John and Betty Marshall, Gene and Thelma Schmidt,
Walter D. Keller, and Norman E. Smith funds). Last year we funded undergraduate projects at ~ $3,000 each
that led to Senior Theses. This year, we have four students pursuing Senior Theses.
The intent of the program is to provide funds to enable undergraduates to conduct meaningful field- and
laboratory-based research as part of their MU education. There are a number of benefits to such a program:
(1)
It encourages and rewards research starting early in our students’ careers.
(2)
It is a great recruiting tool to attract students to our program.
(3)
Our students will be more competitive and better prepared for graduate school and the work force.
(4)
The program increases our department’s visibility on campus and beyond.
(5)
Integrating meaningful research into our undergraduate curriculum allows us to create a unique role
relative to other state-funded universities in Missouri.
We are extremely grateful to the donors to the Opportunities for Excellence in Geology Endowments who have
provided research opportunities for these students.
Thais Magaldi, left, presents the results of her undergraduate thesis research
at MU’s Undergraduate Research Forum. Thais’s research, “Rheological, mineralogical and geochemical analysis of volcanic samples from Fuego volcano,
Guatemala ” was advised by Alan Whittington.
21
STUDENTS
UNDERGRADUATE
Undergraduate Scholarships
Degrees
Boyd Scholar
Bachelor of Arts
Andrew Moen
Bachelor of Science
Letha Binel (with Honors)
Randall Bonnell (Honors Certificate)
James Christopher
Cody Jaeger
Derek Prokopf (with Honors)
Josh Wallace
Senior Thesis
Letha Binel
Estimating magnitudes of Quaternary extension across the Afar triple
junction
Advisor: Paco Gomez
Ronald Stuart
James Mitchell Scholars
Tyler Adelstein
Jordyn Cloud
Samuel Glasscock
Lauren Hollins
Meghan Howard
Emma Rosenow
Raymond E. Peck Undergrad Mrs. Pat Scholars (Chile)
Scholars
Jordon Beem
Teresa Avila
Cale Diehl
Daniel Gregory
Howard Loftis
Jacqueline Neufeld
Laura Perry
Michelle Rathe
Timothy Robertson
Howard Loftis
Ground-based interferometric imag- Edmond & Mary Raymond
ing of glacial dynamics: Helheim
Scholar
Glacier, SE Greenland
Timothy Robertson
Advisor: Paco Gomez
Thaïs Magaldi (visiting student
Pearl T. Sando Scholars
Jordyn Cloud
from Brazil)
Gretchen O’Neil
Rheological, geochemical and miner- Clark Thomas
alogical analysis of volcanic samples
from Fuego volcano, Guatemala
Gene Schmidt Scholar
Advisor: Alan Whittington
Laura Perry
Derek Prokopf
Constraints from fluid inclusion microthermometry on the origin of the
Morro Agudo Zn-Pb deposit, Minas
Gerais, Brazil
Advisor: Martin Appold
Gretchen O’Neil
Laura Perry
Michelle Rathe
Timothy Robertson
Emma Rosenow
Matthew Smith
Maurica Testa
Rebecca Valenzuela
William White
Karen Zelzer
Field Course Scholars
Alica Alexander
Teresa Avila
Jennifer Campbell
Gabriel Cozart
Douglas Disbennett
Joshua Elson
Sarah Smith (B.S. Chemistry) Samuel Glasscock
Viscosity and mixing in molten (Ca, Paula Lancaster
Howard Loftis
Mg, Fe) pyroxenes
J.J. Morman
Advisor: Alan Whittington
Kyle Brown
Ellen Clippard
Samuel Glasscock
Martin Shane
Meghan Patzius
Michelle Rathe
Emma Rosenow
Geology Development
Scholars (Chile)
Teresa Avila
Meghan Howard
Christina Judas
Gretchen O’Neil
Jonathan Payne
Laura Perry
Timothy Robertson
John and Betty Marshall
Scholar
Kaitlyn Compton
AAPG Austin Weeks Scholars
Samuel Glasscock
Michelle Rathe
22
STUDENTS
GRADUATE
Graduate Degrees
Master of Science
Alzubair Abousaif
Quaternary deformation in the northwestern
Wind River Basin, Wyoming
Advisor: Francisco Gomez
William Cochran
Present-day and late Quaternary crustal deformation along the southern Dead Sea Fault
System, Jordan
John Corley
Neotectonics of the Daixian Basin, north China
Emma Hansen
Geochemical studies of gold mineralizing events
in the Discovery-Ormsby and Clan Lake areas
of the Yellowknife greenstone belt, Northwest
Territories, Canada
Advisor: Kevin Shelton
Nathan Hinrichs
Fault segmentation and paleoseismicity along
the North Wutaishan Fault of the Shanxi Rift
System, China
Jeffrey Ingram
Structural geology and contact metamorphism
Panoramic view of the Tetons in summer 2011.
along the northwestern thermal aureole of the
Laramie anorthosite complex, central Laramie
Mountains, Wyoming
Advisor: Robert Bauer
Brooke Nicholson
Effect of increasing trimethylamine and organic
matter concentration on stable carbon isotopes
of methane produced in hypersaline, substrate
limited environments
Advisor: Cheryl Kelley
Didem Onen
Analysis of the interchange between en echelon
basin-margin Laramide folds adjacent to the
Wind River Mountains, Wyoming
Laura Senefeld
Organic matter remineralization in the sediments of two acid mine drainage lakes
Advisor: Cheryl Kelley
Mark Sutcliffe
Mechanisms for the formation of spiraled inclusion trails in garnet porphyroblasts from the
Precambrian core of the Laramie Mountains,
southeastern Wyoming
Rayan Yassminh
Seismotectonic analysis of the northern Dead
Sea fault and Arabian-Eurasian collision zone
Advisors: Francisco Gomez and Eric Sandvol
STUDENTS
GRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS
Scholarships
Boyd Scholars
Claire Beaudoin
B. Danielle Cavender
Yanying Chen
Joshua Field
Elizabeth Gammel
Sean Polun
Gleb Skobeltsyn
Lily Carter Scholar
Chen Song
Craig Russell Knotts Scholar
Ajit Joshi
Knox Geology Scholar
Michael Hilmes
Marshall Opportunity for Excellence Scholars
Yanying Chen
Elizabeth Gammel
Jiyang Ye
M. G. Mehl Memorial Scholar
Page Quinton
Davies Memorial Scholar
Jesse Broce
Miles Geology Scholar
Bjorn Held
Ethington Geology Scholar
Tara Selly
Newfield Scholar
Michael Hilmes
Freeman Geology Scholar
Sean Polun
Geology Development Scholars (Chile)
Jesse Merriman
Robert Russel
Graduate School Scholar
Joshua Field
Peck Graduate Scholar
Feng Lin
Rexroad Geology Scholar
Shannon Haynes
Staley Geology Scholars
Tara Selly
Katrina Burch
Frank Calixto-Mory
Jesse Merriman
Himmelberg Geology Scholar
James H. Stitt Scholar
GSSF Scholars
Anthony Bollasina
William Johns Scholar
Alexander Sehlke
Hal and Ruth Johnson Scholar
Alexander Sehlke
Page Quinton
Fred H. Strothmann Scholars
Shannon Haynes
M. Ray Thomasson Scholar
Katrina Burch
Walter D. Keller Scholars
Katrina Burch
Page Quinton
Keller Opportunity for Excellence Scholar
Jesse Broce
Tlapek Geology Scholar
Genevieve Roberts
Robert J. Russell
Tara Selly
Viele Geology Scholar
Bjorn Held
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24
STUDENTS
AWARDS
Student Grants and
Awards
MU Geology Development Board Outstanding Undergraduate Award
Letha Binel
MU Geology James H. Stitt Graduate
Teaching Award
Hal Johnson
MU Geology Outstanding Graduate Student Award
William Joseph Cochran
MU Huggins Graduate Fellowship
Jesse Broce
Frank Calixto Mory
Geneviève Robert
Ariana Soldati
Estwing Hammer Award
Tim Robertson
Miriam Barquero-Molina (bottom right)
introduces field camp students to the
intricacies of a debris flow in the Absaroka
Range, west of Cody, Wyoming.
Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Nature
et Technologies B2 (Bourse de doctorat en
recherche)
Geneviève Robert
Geological Society of America Student
Research Grant
Elizabeth Gammel
Michael Hilmes
National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postgraduate
Scholarship
Geneviève Robert
National Science Foundation East Asia and
Pacific Summer Institutes Fellowship
Page Quinton
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STUDENTS
AWARDS
Tim Robertson receives the Estwing hammer
from Field Camp Director Miriam BarqueroMolina. This award honors the top undergraduate student to attend field camp.
William (Joey) Cochran receives the 2012-13
Superior Graduate Achievement Award from
Director of Graduate Studies Bob Bauer.
Hal Johnson receives the 2012-13 James H.
Stitt Graduate Teaching Award from Director
of Graduate Studies Bob Bauer.
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STUDENTS
PUBLICATIONS
Student Publications
and Abstracts
Calixto, F.J., Sandvol, E., Kay, S., Comte, D., Alvarado, P., Heit, B.,Yuan, X., 2013, Velocity structure
beneath the southern Puna Plateau: Evidence for
delamination: Geochemistry, Geophysics Geosystems
(in press).
Cavender, B.D., Shelton, K.L., Husman, J., 2013,
Unusual MVT Zn-Pb-Cu mineralization in the lower
portion of the Bonneterre Dolomite, Viburnum
Trend, southeast Missouri: Geological Society of
America Abstracts With Programs, v. 45.
Ceylan, S., Larmat, C., and Sandvol, E., 2012, 3D
resolution tests of two-plane wave approach using
synthetic seismograms: American Geophysical Union
Fall Meeting.
Ceylan, S., Ni, J., Chen, J.Y., Zhang, Q., Tilmann,
F., Sandvol, E., 2012, Fragmented Indian plate and
vertically coherent deformation beneath eastern Tibet:
Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 117, B11303,
doi:10.1029/2012JB009210.
Christopher, J., Chen,Y., Ni, J., Ceylan, S. and
Sandvol, E., 2012, Upper Mantle Sn Attenuation in
Northeastern Tibetan Plateau: American Geophysical
Union Fall Meeting.
Frost, B.R., Bauer, R.L., Scoates, J.S., and Ingram,
J.S., 2013, The Laramie anorthosite complex and
its contact metamorphic aureole, in Abbott, L.D.,
and Hancock, G.S., eds., Classic Concepts and New
Directions: Exploring 125 Years of GSA Discoveries
in the Rocky Mountain Region: Geological Society of
America
Field Guide 33, p. 1–22.
Hansen, E., Shelton, K.L., Falck, H., and Pratico, V.,
2012, Oxygen isotope and lithogeochemical studies
of gold mineralization of Ormsby and Clan Lake,
Yellowknife Greenstone Belt: 40th Annual Yellowknife
Geoscience Forum, p. 17.
Joshi, A., Appold, M.S., Nunn, J.A., 2013, Numerical investigation of hydrocarbon transport by solitary
waves in the Eugene Island field, Gulf of Mexico
basin: American Association of Petroleum Geologists
Annual Meeting.
Ku, W., Sandvol,E., and Kaviani., A., 2012, Sn attenuation in the Iranian plateau and Zagros: American
Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Liang, X., Sandvol, E., Brown, L., Heit, B., Yuan, X.,
Mulcahy, P., Chen, C., and Kay, S., 2012, Delamination of southern Puna lithosphere from the body wave
attenuation tomography images: American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Liang, X., Sandvol, E., Chen, J.Y., Hearn, T., Ni,
J., Klemperer, S., Shen, Y., and Tilmann, F., 2012,
A complex Tibetan upper mantle: A fragmented
Indian slab and no south-verging subduction of Asian
lithosphere: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v.
333-334, p. 101-111.
Lin, F., and Liu, M., 2012, Formation of the Shanxi
rift in north China: The control of pre-existing lithospheric weakness: American Geophysical Union Fall
Meeting.
Liu, M., Wang, H., Ye, J., and Cheng, J., 2013, Intraplate earthquakes in North China, in Talwani, P., ed.,
Intraplate Earthquakes: London, Cambridge University Press (in press).
Gross, M.B., and Nabelek, P.I., 2012, Variation and
fractionation of lithium isotope ratios within single
tourmaline crystals in the pegmatites of the Black
Hills, SD: American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Loftis, H., Gomez, F., Stearns, L., and Hamilton, G.,
2013, Ground-based radar interferometric measurements of the terminus region of Helheim Glacier
(southeast Greenland): Geological Society of America
Abstracts With Programs, v. 45.
Guo, J., Underwood, M., Saffer, D., and Likos, W.,
2013, Apparent overconsolidation of mudstones in
the Kumano Basin of southwest Japan: Implications
for fluid pressure and fluid flow within a forearc setting: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, v. 14, p.
1023-1038.
Mauney, M.T., Tazaz, A.M., Bebout, B.M, Chanton,
J.P., Kelley, C.A., Nicholson, B.E., Detweiler, A.M.,
and Davila, A.F., 2013, Isotopic analysis of methane
bubbles obtained from Mars analogue hypersaline environments: Association for the Sciences of Limnology
and OceanographyAquatic Sciences Meeting.
STUDENTS
PUBLICATIONS
Merriman, J.D., Whittington, A.G., Hofmeister,
A.M., Nabelek, P.I., and Benn, K., 2013, Thermal
transport properties of major Archean rock types to
high temperature and implications for cratonic geotherms: Precambrian Research, v. 233, p. 358-372.
Nicholson, B.E., Kelley, C.A., Detweiler, A.M., Bebout, B.M., Mauney, M.T., Tazaz, A.M., Chanton,
J.P., and Davila, A.F., 2013, Stable carbon isotopes
and rates of methane produced in the hypersaline
environments of the Atacama Desert, Chile and Baja
California Sur, Mexico: Association for the Sciences
of Limnology and OceanographyAquatic Sciences
Meeting.
Robert, G., Andrews, G.D.M., Ye, J., and Whittington, A.G., 2013, Rheological controls on the
emplacement of extremely high-grade ignimbrites:
Geology, v. 41, p. 1031-1034.
Robert, G., Whittington, A., Knipping, J., Scherbarth, S., Stechern, A., Behrens, H., 2012, Effect
of H2O, and combined effects of H2O + F, H2O
+ CO2, and H2O + F + CO2 on the viscosity of
a natural basalt from Fuego volcano, Guatemala:
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Robert, G., Whittington, A.G., Stechern, A.,
and Behrens, H., 2013, The effect of water on the
viscosity of synthetic calc-alkaline basaltic andesite:
Chemical Geology, v. 346, p. 135-148.
Romine, W.L., Whittington, A.G., Nabelek, P.I.,
and Hofmeister, A.M., 2012, Thermal diffusivity of
Mono Crater obsidian: Bulletin of Volcanology, v.
74, p. 2273-2287.
Skobeltsyn, G., Mellors, R., Gok, Turkelli, N.,
Yetirmishli, G., and Sandvol, E., 2012, Shear wave
splitting in the East Anatolian-Caucasus region.
Song, C., Underwood, M.B., Schleicher, A., Ikari,
M., Saffer, D., and Marone, C., 2013, Influence of
protolith composition and sliding velocity on the
microfabric of fault gouge: Experimental results:
Tazaz, A.M., Bebout, B.M., Kelley, C.A., Poole, J.,
and Chanton, J.P., 2013, Redefining the isotopic
boundaries of biogenic methane: Methane from
endoevaporites: Icarus, v. 224, p. 268-275.
Tazaz, A.M., Detweiler, A.M., Bebout, B.M., Nicholson, B.E., Mauney, M.T., Kelley, C.A., and Chanton,
J.P., 2013, Methane production and isotopic analysis
from hypersaline microbial mat incubations when
sulfate reduction is inhibited: Association for the
Sciences of Limnology and OceanographyAquatic
Sciences Meeting.
Whittington, A.G., Andrews, G.D., Avard, G., Robert, G., Ye, J., 2013, Thermo-rheological feedbacks in
silicic lavas and ignimbrites: International Association
of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior
Meeting.
Whittington, A.G., Magaldi, T., Calderas, A.,
Chigna, G., Escobar-Wolf, R., Lyons, J., Mathias, O.,
Robert, G., Seaman, S., 2013, Does magma rheology
control eruption style? The case of Fuego, Guatemala:
International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior Meeting.
Whittington, A.G., Robert, G., Andrews, G.D.,
Avard, G., Romine, W.L., 2012, Thermo-rheological
feedbacks in silicic systems: Migmatites, lavas and ignimbrites: American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Yassminh, R., Gomez, F., Sandvol, E., Ghaleb, H.,
and Daoud, M., 2013, Crustal stress across the northern Arabian plate and the relationship with the plate
boundary forces: American Geophysical Union Fall
Meeting.
Ye, J., and Liu, M., 2012, A 3-D geodynamic model
of strain partitioning in Southern California: American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
27
28
DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES
CAMP BRANSON NEEDS
July 2013 Fire in Sinks Canyon Barely Misses Camp Branson —
A Close Call Emphasizing the Necessity of a New Vehicle Bridge
Smoke billows out of Sinks Canyon from a fire that was dangerously close to Camp Branson. This photo was
taken atop the Nugget Sandstone on south Dallas Dome looking toward the northwest.
You might be aware that there was a fire in Sinks Canyon in July 2013 shortly after camp ended. It burned all
the way up to Sinks Canyon Road, but failed to jump the road and camp was spared. Situations like this one
highlight our need for a new vehicle bridge at camp, one that can accommodate Lander’s fire trucks. We have
too big an investment at camp to risk losing it to another fire in the canyon.
Those of you who attended camp recently or who attended our 100th anniversary reunion at Camp Branson
may recall driving or walking across the vehicle bridge that links our camp to the main road through Sinks Canyon. We recently engaged an engineering firm from Jackson, Wyoming to assess the structural soundness and
load capacity of that bridge. Their opinion is that the bridge’s concrete foundations are in only fair condition
and the bridge will need to be replaced in the near future.
New bridge construction at camp requires U. S. Forest Service approval and they would likely require that a new
bridge be able to accommodate heavier loads, so that, if necessary, a fire truck would be able to get into camp.
Because we have such a large investment in Camp Branson, we need to ensure its protection with access for fire
trucks. With the increasing frequency of fires in the canyon, this makes good sense.
An estimate to replace the existing bridge with one rated for higher loads is ~ $100,000. We have existing funds
to begin the process of designing a new bridge, but we could certainly use help with funds for bridge construction. We hope to have a new bridge completed before the start of the summer 2015 field camp session. We
hope that you will consider a contribution to our Camp Branson Improvement Fund to help with this effort.
Thank you!
Smoke marks the retreat of the fire that almost claimed Camp Branson. Note the destruction just on the other side of Sinks
Canyon Road from camp. Were we really lucky that camp was spared!
CONTRIBUTIONS
Investments in the Future
The Department of Geological Sciences gratefully acknowledges the financial support of alumni and friends who
promote the recognition, welfare and progress of the Department of Geological Sciences and the University of
Missouri. The University of Missouri’s Jefferson Club recognizes donors whose cumulative cash gifts or pledges
to MU, including corporate matching contributions, total a minimum of $25,000 or whose deferred gifts total
$50,000 or more.
Snow at Camp Lander (before it was Camp Branson) on June 14,
1945. Photo by Betsy Page McRae (MU ’48).
Jefferson Club Members
Ambassadors
Mrs. Norman F. Jeffries
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Weiser
Mr. and Mrs. Ed Williamson
Diplomat
Mr. John H. Marshall Jr.
Very Distinguished Fellows
Drs. Alice M. and John F. Blount
Dr. and Mrs. Tom Freeman Jr.
Dr. Herman Ponder
Mrs. John W. Tlapek
Distinguished Fellows
Mr. and Mrs. Richard G. Boyd
Mr. Donald S. Garvin
Mrs. Hugh M. Looney
Mr. Scott H. Raymond
Mrs. Walter G. Staley Jr.
Fellows
Mr. and Mrs. Jack F. Schindler
Mr. Timothy R. McHargue
Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Rayl
Members
Mr. and Mrs. David K. Baumann
Dr. and Mrs. Richard Bishop
Mr. and Mrs. Jack D. Burgess
Mrs. John F. Burst
Mr. and Mrs. Paul E. Gerdemann
Mr. James R. Frank
Mr. and Mrs. Harold E. Johnson III
Mr. and Mrs. Andy Kemmer
Ms. Amy C. (Patterson) King
Mr. and Mrs. Ernie Knirk
Mr. and Mrs. Larry M. Knox
Mr. Andrew Kugler Jr.
Ms. Jane Espy Meyer
Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Miles
Mr. Gary C. Mitchell
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen T. Phillips
Mr. and Mrs. Gene W. Schmidt
Mr. and Mrs. Robert K. Sylvester
Dr. M. Ray Thomasson and Ms. Merrill Shields
Mr. Tom Ware
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CONTRIBUTIONS
2013-14 Contributors
(through Aug. 31, 2013)
Henry W. Allen
Michael J. Bernthal
Larry C. Birkes
Alice and John Blount
Erna T. Brown
Wayne F. Canis,
George T. Cardwell
Anna Cruse
J. Torrey Curtis
Ruth Davies
John G. Elliott
Stanley C. Fagerlin
Robert L. Foster
James R. Frank
Thomas J. Freeman, Jr.
Leland C. Fuerst
Richard J. Gentile
Martha George
William Hoag
Richard Hoare
Glen Himmelberg
Bruce E. Hunter
Arthur Kasey
Robert M. Kick
David King
Larry Knox
Roger Kussow
Thomas J. Laughlin
Qingsong Li
Stuart A. Maier
Olav Malvik
Timothy McHargue
Earle McBride
Jeffrey L. McManus
Jim P. Miller
John C. Miller
Thomas R. Moore
William J. Neal
Dennis R. Ojakangas
Richard W. Ojakangas
John Opich
Henry Ott
G. L. Parman
Stephen T. Phillips
Michael W. Quearry
Scott Raymond
John Repetski
Carl B. Rexroad
Lloyd J. Schmaltz
Gene W. Schmidt
Eugene Schweig
Marjorie C. Smith
Craig A. Stewart
Lawrence Tedesco
Richard A. Tudor
Marjorie Unklesbay
Kay N. Werner
Ed Williamson
Tom Zychinski
Corporations/Matching
Contribution:
BHP Billiton
ChevronTexaco Corporation
Chevron USA Inc.
Doe Run Company
Exxon Mobil Foundation
Newfield Exploration Company
GO
MISSOURI
TIGERS!!
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ENDOWMENTS
Endowed Scholarship Funds
Raymond E. Peck Undergraduate Scholarship
William Burrows Allen Field Camp Scholarship
Raymond E. Peck Graduate Fellowship
Mr. & Mrs. Richard G. Boyd Endowment Fund
Edmond A. & Mary L. Raymond Scholarship
John F. Burst Graduate Fellowship in
Industrial Minerals
Raymond Outstanding Achievement Fund
David K. “Dai” Davies Memorial Scholarship Fund
Carl B. Rexroad Geological Sciences Endowment
Raymond Ethington Geology Student Scholarship Fund
Pearl Todd Sando Geology Scholarship
Endowment Fund
Tom Freeman Geology Student Scholarhip Fund
Schmidt Undergraduate Scholarship Fund
Richard P. Frey Memorial Paleontology Fund
Steyaert Family Geology Scholarship Fund
Donald S. Garvin Geology Field Camp Scholarship
James H. Stitt Memorial Scholarship Fund
Geology Student Support Fund
Fred Strothmann Perpetual Geology Scholarship
Leonard D. Harris Scholarship
W.A. Tarr Scholarship
Glen Himmelberg Geology Student Scholarship Fund
Dr. M. Ray Thomasson Graduate Fellowship Fund
Wallace B. Howe Fellowship in Geology
John W. Tlapek Geology Student Scholarship Fund
William Johns Geology Student Scholarship Fund
George Viele Geology Student Scholarship Fund
Clayton H. Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund
George W. Viele Memorial Geology Field Camp
Scholarship Fund
Hal and Ruth Johnson Fellowship Fund
Walter D. Keller Scholarship Fund
Unrestricted Endowment Funds
Craig Russell Knotts Scholarship Fund
Lily Marie Carter Endowed Geology Fund
Knox Family Geology Scholarship Fund
Geology Endowment Fund
Maurice G. Mehl Memorial Scholarship in Field Geology
Walter D. Keller Opportunities for Excellence
Miles Family Geology Scholarship Fund
John & Betty Marshall Opportunities for Excellence Endowment in Geology
Mitchell Family Endowment Fund
James G. Mitchell Memorial Fund in Geology
Ernest J. Palmer Memorial Scholarship
Mrs. Pat Scholarship for Geology Students
Endowment in the Geological Sciences
Gene & Thelma Schmidt Geology Endowment
Norman E. Smith Opportunities for Excellence in the Department of Geological Sciences
Walter and Katherine Staley Fund in Geological
Sciences
32
NEW FACULTY AWARDS
John M. Ware Memorial Geology Endowment
Bequests
Williamson Family Geology Endowment
Blount Opportunities for Excellence in the
Department of Geological Sciences
Other Endowed Funds
E.B. Branson Professorship
Camp Branson Endowment
Camp Branson Improvement Fund
Cache Creek Exploration Co. Scholarship Fund
Norman & Shirley Jeffries Graduate Fellowship
Robert W. Quearry Scholarship Fund
Geology Faculty Enhancement Fund
Carl R. Swartzlow Memorial Geological Sciences
Endowment Fund
Geology Faculty Rentention Award
Robert and Sue Weiser Bequest
Mitchell Family Camp Branson Fund
Ed and Connie Williamson Bequest
R.E. Peck Professorship
Charitable Remainder Trusts
A.G. Unklesbay Travel Award
John & Betty Marshall Opportunities for Excellence in the Geological Sciences
Robert J. Waldram Camp Branson Endowment
Jack & Mildred Schindler Geological Sciences Endowment Fund
Undergraduate students Nolan Walla and Kyle Brown (foreground)
measuring foliations and bedding in the Archean Miner’s Delight Formation in South Pass, Wyoming during the advanced structural geology
project in the sixth week of field camp.
Geology Faculty Enhancement and Retention Funds
We are fortunate to have loyal alumni and friends who have supported many aspects of the academic mission of
our department (e.g. student academic scholarships and Camp Branson). Our department is stronger than ever.
Our students’ lives have also been shaped by caring faculty mentors in the classroom, in the laboratory, and in the
field. To continue this legacy, we ask you to help us recognize and maintain the high quality of the faculty of our
department.
Toward this end, two new funds have been established through lead gifts from members of our Geology Development Board: (1) the Geology Faculty Enhancement Endowment and (2) the Geology Faculty Retention Awards
Fund.
It is possible to donate to either the principal or distribution side of these endowments. An advantage of a gift to
the distribution is that your gift is available for immediate use. Additionally, this past year, the College of Arts and
Science provided matching funds for awards that we made from the distribution portions of these endowments, allowing us to increase the number of faculty who received awards. Part of these funds came from a gift by Arts and
Science alumnus Kent Kreh. We are extremely grateful for his support of the college and our department.
I am pleased to announce that this year, we were able to make awards from these funds to seven of our faculty
members: Profs. Martin Appold, Paco Gomez, Mian Liu, Ken MacLeod, Eric Sandvol, James Schiffbauer and
Alan Whittington. We are proud of their accomplishments and we hope that they will remain at MU for many
years to come.
We hope that alumni and friends will recognize the value of supporting our faculty and contribute to these funds.
Geological Sciences Faculty Enhancement/Retention Awards
Mian Liu
Eric Sandvol
Alan Whittington
Kent Kreh Faculty Enhancement Awards
James Schiffbauer
Francisco Gomez
Raymond Faculty Enhancement Award
Ken MacLeod
Ed and Connie Williamson Faculty Retention Award
Martin Appold
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BOARD MEMBERS
Geology Development Board
Membership, 2013
Gary Mitchell, Chair
Consulting geologist
Highlands Ranch, Colorado
Matthew M. Laughland
Nexen Petroleum
Plano, Texas
Michael W. Quearry, Vice Chair
Chevron
Houston, Texas
John H. Marshall Jr.
Marshall Energetics Inc.
Plano, Texas
Savas Ceylan
University of Missouri
Timothy R. McHargue
Chevron (retired)
San Ramon, California
Mary S. Clark
Department of Natural Resources (retired)
Jefferson City, Missouri
David Fulton
Burke, Virginia
Martha George
WesternGeco
Midland, Texas
Bjorn Held
John M. Opich
Chevron Energy Tech Co.
Houston, Texas
Scott Raymond
Marathon Oil Co. (retired)
Littleton, Colorado
Gene Schmidt
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Harold E. Johnson III
Carey Bridges
Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Geological Survey Program
Rolla, Missouri
Larry M. Knox
Southwestern Energy
Houston, Texas
Ed Williamson
BP Amoco (retired)
Houston, Texas
Geology Development Board members Scott Raymond (left) and Gary
Mitchell (right) enjoy Lois Shelton’s
hospitality at the spring 2013 board
dinner at the Shelton home.
FROM OUR BOARD CHAIR
From our Geology Development Board Chair …
This is the last letter of my two-year term as Board Chairman. It has been very enjoyable working with the Geology Development
Board members, the professors, the staff, the students and especially the spouses of all those mentioned previously. I certainly hope
to remain on the Board as a “regular” member, if I can be “regular” at something.
The Board welcomes the newest member of the Department, Professor John Huntley. We look forward to getting to know John
and indoctrinating him properly into the Mizzou geoscience community. It is always tough being the “new kid on the block”,
especially with all of us “old” kids hanging around.
Although it seemed to be a somewhat quieter year for the Development Board than in the recent past, we were quite busy supporting the Department and have developed new plans for the future. We currently have eighteen members on the Development
Board, including two graduate student members. We continue to search for new members that can add to our expertise in expanding the ability of the Development Board to assist the Department in their continued excellent job of preparing geoscientists
for the challenges of a much different world than what many of us knew in our university experiences. If you have an interest in
participating on the Geology Development Board, please contact me or Kevin Shelton to learn more about the Board and how you
can contribute your expertise and experience to the improvement of our efforts.
Our most recent projects at Camp Branson are complete and we now need to concentrate on replacing the automobile bridge that
leads to camp. There have been recent fires in the canyon that could have been a disaster for Camp Branson if we had needed to
get firefighting equipment into camp, as the current bridge cannot support modern fire trucks.
We have started the initial work of planning for the bridge and Forest Service approval. We have funds in hand for the planning
stage, but we need to raise funds for bridge construction. We estimate that bridge construction may exceed $100,000, so we need
to reach this monetary goal as soon as possible. Please consider making a donation to the Camp Branson Improvement Fund to
support this effort.
Thanks to everyone for past and continued support for the Department of Geological Sciences. We continue to be a positive force
within the University of Missouri and as a result, we are most proud of the Department of Geological Sciences, which continues to
be a leader in the preparation of new, highly skilled geologists and geophysicists for finding resources and solving earth problems in
our complex society. Because of the excellence of the leadership of Kevin Shelton, the professors, staff, students and alumni, we are
becoming well known not only around the United States, but all around the world. We know what “the present is the key to the
past” means, but we must develop a new saying, “the present is the key to the future” for the Department of Geological Sciences at
THE University of Missouri.
Tapadh leibh a h-uile duine a-rithist agus a h-uile beannachd duibh.
Thank you everyone again and every good blessing to you.
Best wishes to all,
Gary C. Mitchell
Chair
Letha Binel receives the 2012-13 Geology Development Board Outstanding Undergraduate
Award from board chair Gary Mitchell.
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ALUMNI
NEWS
Alumni News
Christopher Adams (FC ’93, BS ’95) Back in
late 2004 I switched gears and went full-time
into Information Technology work, which I had
done on the side for several years. I have worked
for IDEOLITY, a small IT consulting firm, since
2007 as a network engineer. My wife, Sharon,
and I live in Lee’s Summit, Mo., with three crazy
cats. We are happy and content.
Hank Allen (FC ’49, BA ’48, MA ’49) Recently
moved to Utah from Arizona. Recently revisited
Brice and Zion National Parks. At Zion on my
94th birthday I learned we are the same age!
Now living with son Bruce, a mining engineer
graduate in early ‘80’s from Rolla, now plant
Manager of USG’s Siguard Plant.
Doug Babcock (FC ’78, BS ’78) Still semiretired, helping my brother with the family
business in the morning and gentleman ranching in the afternoon and weekends. Became a
first-time grandfather last October. Dana and I
will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary this
summer. Life is good.
Clifford Balster (Grad student ’50-’51) I’m still
alive and reasonably active for a 91 yr. old. Trying to emulate W.D. Keller.
Bill Berthold (FC ’84, BS ’85) Rita and Bill are
happily married and want to volunteer at Camp
Branson when they retire.
Joseph Born, Jr. (Masters student ’69-’70) Still
living and consulting as a petroleum geologist in
Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been at this for more than
40 years and still enjoy the challenge of attempting to second-guess Mother Nature. I’m exploring in Oklahoma and S. Louisiana.
William Bridges (FC ’55, BA ’56, MA ’58) Doing fine.
Randy Cox (PhD ’95) Still in Memphis. Drive
through Columbia every year on July 6th in the
middle of the night, coming back from field
camp.
Rev. Torrey Curtis (FC ’67) My wife Joyce died
July 25, 2012. My daughter Laurin Townsend
is expecting my first grandchildren, twin girls in
July, 2013.
George Davis (FC ’86, MS ’89) 20 years with
MoDOT and still looking forward to work
daily! Active in AMG, AIPG, AEG, GSA and
review now for ASCE’s publication Journal of
Performance of Constructed Facilities. Last year
involved in 3 biggest pipe ram jobs in the US as
adviser or designer. Still publishing and enjoying
that, too! Currently involved in rockfall analysis
for safer Missouri highways!
Andrew Diefendorf (MA ’73) Spouse, Jinx, plans
on retiring this summer. We will probably move
to Cincinnati, where son, Aaron is a geology faculty member at University of Cincinnati. I have
been helping Aaron build both organic biogeochemistry and stable isotope labs, playing lab rat
and learning paleoclimatology.
Dennis Duewel (FC ’52, BA ’53, MA ’57) Enjoying retirement in Oregon. Good fishing and
weather is good. It only rains about 32-36 inches
a year in southern Oregon. I log onto Tribune
sports to keep up with Tiger news.
John Elliott (FC ’74, BS ’73) I’m semi-retired
now, but doing a bit of volunteer work with
USGS in post-wildfire debris-flow assessment.
Bike riding. XC skiing and chasing a young
Husky-Lab mix puts me on the move. Lynnie
and I travel to Scotland this fall.
James Evans (FC ’56, BA ’59) Mostly retired
professional photographer. Still married to Gale
(Block) Evans after 53 years. We have 2 daughters, 5 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.
Made the major (for me) change from 99% film
to 99% digital. Still miss the darkroom after 67
years.
Stan Fagerlin (FC ’75, PhD ’80) Took a great
trip down the Danube under the auspices of the
Missouri Alumni Association in 2012. This summer I took a 3+ week road trip to the northeast
US. I enjoyed the opportunity to visit Bruce
Hunter and to meet his wife Sandy after all these
years. Also spent time in the Boston area visiting
a former student and north of Philadelphia visiting friends from a trip to Iceland.
Robert Foster (FC ’60, MA ’62, PhD ’66) Mapping the Stonehenge Au-Mo prospect, Lander
Co., Nevada.
James Frank (FC ’75, BS ’76, MA ’79) All is well
in Houston, Tex.
Alice Fuerst (MA ’80) Been teaching 16 years
(part-time) at the community colleges in Kansas
ALUMNI
NEWS
City, and I clearly stated that I would never teach
after being a TA in graduate school.
Richard Gentile (FC ’56, BA ’56, MA ’58) A
very successful year in retirement. Once again,
I taught a vertebrate fossil collecting class in the
Badlands, SD; received a $25,000 grant from the
Kemper Foundation to plan and supervise an exhibit on the Geology of the Kansas City area that
was featured in the Box Gallery, Commerce Bank
Bldg, downtown KC March 1-May 31.
Lee Gordon (MA ’82) Carrie and I are continuing to enjoy life at the very fringe of St. Louis
with room to have critters and enjoy the wildlife.
Have been with Parsons for 22 years and am getting the opportunity to work on some interesting
projects. Looking forward to our younger son’s
senior year of high school. Our older son and
daughter are out of college and on their own and
are doing well.
Richard Hagni (PhD ’62) Dick is retired from
Missouri University of Science and Technology (MS&T), but he continues to be active in
research, publication, and oral presentation of
professional papers. During the past year he
presented three geological research papers. Two
papers dealt with the occurrence and origin of
platy galena crystals in the Viburnum Trend. The
third paper dealt with field relationships of the
fluorspar deposits in Namibia and was given at the
49th Annual Forum on the Geology of Industrial
Minerals in Kingston, Jamaica.
Stanley Harris Jr. (Visiting Faculty ’48-’49)
Visiting Professor (associate) Geology 1948-49
thanks to Professor Unklesbay. My first University teaching experience; preparing me to establish
Geology major in (then) Department Geology
and Geology at Southern Illinois University at
Carbondale.
Larry Heflin (FC ’59, BA ’59, MA ’61) Spending less time with geotechnical engineering and
more time enjoying the Potomac River and the
bordering C and O Canal Park.
Dana (Downs) Heimes (MS ’84) Still doing hydrogeology in northern Arizona (Flagstaff). Stop
in and say hello if you are ever here or the Grand
Canyon.
Tom Hesemann (FC ’76, BS ’77, MA ’79) Alive
and well in Erie, Colorado. My wife, Maryann,
took a job with the Rockies. Two free tickets to
every home game. Life is good!
William Hoag (MA ’57) The secret to life is
to always inhale after you exhale! Also, he who
has the most birthdays lives the longest! Isn’t
it amazing what you can learn at the geriatric
birthday card rack at the drug store. Vaya con
Dios, amigos.
F. D. Holland Jr. (MA ’50) Retired 24 years;
working (in desultory manner) on Cretaceous
shark teeth in ND. Travel whenever possible.
Just returned from drive to Gulf of Mexico to see
Whooping Cranes in natural habitat.
Togwell Jackson (PhD ’68) “Retired” at end
of 2010 but continuing to work full-time as
a Scientist Emeritus. Mostly working on the
publication of scientific papers based on as yet
unpublished research data, mainly concerning
biogeochemistry of mercury isotopes and effects
of heavy metals on microbial communities.
Art Kasey (Grad student ’65-’70) Starting my
43rd year of teaching Earth-Geoscience and
Geology at Fox High School. I still love the
challenge of teaching! I am very happy that our
district is adopting the next generation of science
standards (NGSS), which gives parity to the
Earth-Space Sciences (to that of Chemistry, Physics, and Biology) for Elementary, Middle and
High School!
George Kastler Still active in Association of Missouri Geologist and other professional organizations.
David King Jr. (PhD ’80) I continue to work on
impact structures and impact stratigraphy in the
US and central America. Have been working for
some time on Mesozoic and Cenozoic Stratigraphy in Belize. New paper will come out this
year on the Manganet Creek Formation of Belize.
Hello to all old friends.
Harold Levin (FC ’50, BA ’51, MA ’52) I
retired in 2007 and returned to teach a course
dealing with dinosaur paleontology for a few semesters. Just finished the tenth addition of “The
Earth Through Time”, and almost complete with
a co-author of the tenth addition of a historical
geology laboratory book. Fondly remember Pro-
37
38
ALUMNI
NEWS
fessors Unklesbay, Keller, Peck, and Johnson.
Fred Lohrengel (MA ’64) All is well in Cedar
City. Still teaching and enjoying life!
Patrick McClung (FC ’93, BS ’94) Selling lots
of safes and Carhartts. Dungarees.net is 80% of
what I do and the rest of my time is split between
the other companies and properties.
Arthur Merkle (PhD ’67) Fall semester is underway. Teaching 3 classes: Earth Science, Natural
Disasters and Physical Science. Been doing this
at NWFSC for the past 14 years. Recovery from
9 hours of back surgery has not been an easy procedure. Walking 15 miles a week is good therapy.
Try it!
Bob Miles (FC ’74, BS ’75, MA ’77) Lisa and
I are doing great and enjoying Houston’s hot
real estate market, driven by the energy industry.
Both our daughters live in the area and are doing
well. All the best to the ’70’s gang and Geology
Dept. overall!
John Miller (FC ’65, MA ’68) Published a new
novel “Dead Not Dead” in mid-summer. Available on Amazon. Trips this year include Machu
Picchu/Galapagos and long trip to west coast in
travel trailer.
Arthur Moore (FC ’67, BS ’67, MA ’69) After
27 years in the oil and gas business and 9 years
in the financial industry working with IRA’s and
401K’s in the Denver area, we have retired to the
Olympic Peninsula of Washington. We have the
mountains on one side and the ocean on the other
side. Mild temp and winters. Kayaking, hiking
and working at the local radio station. Life is
good.
Thomas Moore (MA ’81) Exco Resources is
moving their technical staff to Dallas. I’m not going by choice, but right now I am not sure what
comes next. Something different; perhaps something very different. I’ll let you know. Perhaps a
short sabbatical first.
Amy Morrissey (BS ’09) I am in the process of
writing my dissertation on Paleoclimate and Rift
Sedimentation. I hope to graduate in the spring.
Jim Muckler (FC ’02, BS ’03) University of
Georgia-Athens, M.S. in hydrogeology in 2010.
William Neal (MA ’64, PhD ’68) Our biggest
news of past year is the birth of great grandchild
#4…a boy! Bill is still writing (see coastalcare.
org) and attending meetings- GSA Charlotte,
AAPG Pittsburgh, and regional GSA meetings
in San Juan and Kalamazoo. In late August we
vacationed in Alberta; Badlands & Rockies.
Richard Ojakangas (FC ’55, MA ’60) Long retired but busier than ever! Current main project
is Archean glacial deposits of Dharwan Craton,
south India.
Mark Petersen (FC ’74, MA ’77) Retired in
west-central Missouri.
Mike Quearry (FC ’72, BS ’73, MA ’75) Yepstill at Chevron, working Latin America and west
Africa. Life is good in Houston! See you at the
next Camp Branson reunion!
Scott Raymond (FC ’71, BS ’72, MS ’74) Lotsa
changes going on, what with the adjustment
to the SEC, the upcoming retirement of Brady
Deaton. The Geology Development Board keeps
chugging along, trying to help the DOGS wherever possible. Keep the faith.
Arthur Reesman (FC ’59, BA ’59, MA ’61,
PhD ’66) It has been several years since my last
check in! Still kicking but not so high. If in the
Nashville area, come on over.
Jason Rudolph (FC ’02) Teaching Geology
and Environmental Science at Marquette High
School in St. Louis. Over the past years I have
been enjoying fly fishing throughout the US.
Raymond Schneider (FC ’59, BA ’59, MA ’61)
Retired and enjoying it. Resource utilization is
my prime interest. I live on a 20-acre lot, on the
side of a drumlin.
Eugene (Buddy) Schweig (FC ’74, BS ’75)
Sequestration continues to be very painful and
demoralizing, but our group is surviving. On the
bright side, we and our 3 kids took a great trip to
Italy and we are still loving Colorado.
Cecil Slaughter (FC ’76, BS ’76) I am working
for the office of surface mining in Washington
DC. Sara and I moved to the Washington DC
area in May 2012. Housing is very, very expensive! Living and working in the DC area has
been an experience.
Larry Trudell (FC ’52, BA ’56) I suffered a
stroke in January 2012 from which I have recovered most of my abilities. I continue to swim
and exercise at a moderate level. Don’t think I’ll
travel any more. I still have the love of my family
and friends.
Richard Tudor (FC ’62, BS ’64) I keep on keep-
39
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NEWS
ing on – health is excellent – life is good!! Enjoying the ride on planet earth!
George Ulmo (FC ’78, MA ’79) I have been employed by SM Energy full time since 2011. Midland’s oil industry is booming with all the shale oil
potential there is here in the Permian Basin. My
family is doing great. My wife, Marjorie, and I
are enjoying being grandparents with the birth of
our first, Tristan, last year.
Pat Vezeau (FC ’78, BS ’80) Me: Finished
tenure on the Examination Committee for the
American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery
after 7 years. Still practicing OMS in Sioux City/
Northwest Iowa. Continuing to do some publication and presentations in my specialty. Am a
private pilot and flying with the Civil Air Patrol.
Daughter Anne: Graduating KU Med School
in May 2013. She will be starting her internal
medicine residency at the US Naval Hospital in
Portsmouth, Va., where I did my internship…
and where she was born.
Daughter Grace: Junior in geological sciences at
Cornell University College of Engineering; emphasis area biochemistry. Seems that she would
rather do their field camp on the Big Island of
Hawaii than at good old Camp Branson.
Son Neil: Freshman in microbiology/animal science at Iowa State… also a drum line guy like his
dad. Pretty cool.
So each of the kids is, in some way, retracing
some of my old steps. Debbie (my wife) and I
can’t believe that the “kids at home” time is over!
However we are adjusting and getting a bit more
spontaneous.
Robert “Bud” Weiser (FC ’57, BA ’58, MA ’60)
Sue and I are still living on Lake Norman, NC.,
north of Charlotte. We celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary in early September. We have 3
sons, 2 daughters and 3 grandsons. I have been in
49 countries and all 50 states.
James Williams (FC ’50, BA ’51, MA’ 52) Much
time recently devoted to keeping the Missouri
legislature from elimination of geologist registration. Several anti-geology and science legislature
initiatives also harmful. Otherwise still working
on Engineering Geology of Missouri draft.
Ed Williamson (MA ’73) Still living on the great
plains of Katy, Texas and likely to remain here due
to proximity of grandchildren. Still adding to my
tektite collection, and Connie says hi to all the
old library lurkers.
In Memoriam
Jack Pennington (FC ’46, MA ’47), 92, of Houston, Tx. died April 12, 2013. Born in Dearborn,
Missouri, Jack served as a reconnaissance pilot
during WWII and was awarded four bronze stars
and a silver star. He worked as a petroleum geologist in New Orleans, New York, London, and
finally Houston.
James S. Spencer (BS ’50), 86, an educator who
oversaw the creation of a multi-campus community college district serving a 13-county region
of southeastern Illinois, died May 30, 2012, in
Burien, Wash. After graduating from high school
in 1943, 17-year old Spencer enlisted in the U.S.
Navy and served four years as a medic with the
5th Marines division in the south Pacific and
China. The GI Bill enabled him to enroll at the
University of Missouri. Armed with a new bachelor’s degree in geology, he landed a teaching and
coaching job in Troy, Mo. Later, while coaching
in the Missouri towns of Bloomfield and Sullivan, Spencer took classes at the university and,
in 1955, earned a master’s degree in educational
administration.
Grant H. Thompson (BS ’76) died August 16,
2012.
Department Contacts
Department of Geological Sciences
101 Geological Sciences Building
Columbia, MO 65211-1380
You can call our main office at:
573-882-2040 or 573-882-6785
You can visit our website at: geology.missouri.edu
www.facebook.com/MUGeology
40
Breaking News
New Study Abroad Class: Variations in Volcanism and Mountain Building
Processes in Chile is All Set to Go in January 2014
Panoramic view of Laguna Miscanti, located inside the moat of La Pacana Caldera, Chile. The cone in the center
foreground is Lascar; the pyramidal cone immediately to the left is Licancabur, the volcano that looms over the
town of San Pedro de Atacama.
Miriam Barquero-Molina and Bob Bauer are set to lead twenty-three of our students to Chile in January 2014
as part of a study abroad class. The class is being taught as a “hybrid model” in which a significant portion
of the instruction takes place this semester at MU where students are learning about Andean geology before
venturing into the field.
The class will be in Chile for sixteen days, during which students and faculty will see a variety of geology
including: world-class outcrops of magma-mixing; sheared outcrops representing the roots of the Andes; Jurassic and Cretaceous plutonic belts; Tertiary magmatic arcs; volcanic national parks; the Chuquicamata giant
porphyry copper deposit; the Altiplano-Puna volcanic complex; and the El Tatio geyser field.
Visiting world-class geology localities in Chile will be an amazing opportunity for experience-based learning in
a field setting for our students. In addition to tuition, students are required to pay for round-trip airfare from
St. Louis to Chile and for flights within Chile ($1,500 to $2,000). I am pleased to report that, through alumni
gifts, we were able to provide more than $20,000 to assist students with these costs. Lots of pictures for next
year’s Newsletter have been promised. Thank you for your support!
La Pacana Caldera is one of the largest silicic calderas in the Altiplano-Puna of Chile. The caldera-forming eruption (3.9Ma)
was 2,500 km3, 2.5 times the size of the Lava Creek Tuff, which produced the present-day Yellowstone Caldera. The lonely
rock pillar, as well as all the other solitary rock chunks around the moat are erosional remnants of the Toconao Ignimbrite,
which filled most of the caldera. They resisted erosion because they acted as volatile vents during welding of the really hot and
gas-filled ignimbrite. They are called “Monjes de la Pacana” (monks of the Pacana).

Alumni Newsletter Fall 2013 - Department of Geological Sciences

Transcription

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