New Mexico State University
Department of Geological Sciences
Newsletter 2014
Contents
Alumni Support
Whether it’s scholarships,
colloquium, operating expenses,
a new field vehicle, or research
support, our Alumni are
essential to having a strong,
vibrant department. This is
particularly true during times
of University budget cuts and
increasing competition for
Federal funding. Please visit
<http://geology.nmsu.edu>
to find out how you can help
NMSU Geological sciences today.
Department News
Our 2014 cohort of incoming
MS students are from Colorado
State, Illinois State, Sacramento
State, U. Wyoming, and NMSU.
The average GPA and GRE
scores of our incoming classes
are increasing each year.
Hall of Fame Report
Where are they now?
Dept. Support Options
Faculty Profiles
Photos from Fall 2014
Newsletter Editor: Jeff Amato
The ~36 Ma tuffs of Knight’s
Peak in the southern Burro
Mountains. Outflow sheets of
rhyolite from the Schoolhouse
Mountain Caldera, subject of
the thesis work of Tara Jonell
(MS 2012).
Dr. McMillan has compeleted
her 25th year at NMSU. Dr.
Amato has now been here 15
years.
The Geology Faculty created
an all new 111G Lab manual
for 2014. Cover photo by Lisa
Phillips, BLM.
2014 Conferences
The Zuhl Museum celebrated its
10th year on campus.
The new laser ablation mass
spectrometer arrived in the
Analytical Geochemistry
Research Laboratory in
September.
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1.1 Ga diabase dike in a road cut
in the Burro Mountains.
Our department had a strong
showing at three conferences
this year. In April, students and
faculty gave presentations at
the Spring NMGS meeting. In
late September, six students
joined the NMGS Fall Field
Conference that took place near
Alamogordo, New Mexico. Dr.
Hampton and his student Mark
Brown presented at the Annual
Meeting of GSA in Vancouver,
Canada.
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Danny Stokes (BS ‘79) Joins the
Geological Sciences Hall of Fame
Danny Stokes joined the NMSU
Geological Sciences Hall of Fame
this month. Danny was honored
at a luncheon at the Farm and
Ranch Museum on November 7,
2014.
Danny retired in 2010 after
serving over 30 years in the
oil and gas industry where his
specialty was coordinating
drilling fluids. He spent the
majority of his career with Baker
Hughes, and had the opportunity
to work in Angola and Kuala
Lumpur, among other far flung
localities including Kuwait, Viet
Nam, and Equitorial Guinea.
During a slide show presentation
at lunch, Danny told amusing
stories that highlighted his
ability to improvise solutions to
tricky problems that arise when
working in remote international
sites.
Danny Stokes at the Alumni luncheon with his wife, Ida.
He highlighted the importance
of workplace safety. He also
emphasized to the students
that writing skills are essential
to not only getting a job in the
first place but also to effectively
communicate with your
coworkers and bosses during
your job.
Congratulations, Danny, on an
excellent career and welcome to
the Geology Hall of Fame!
Emeritus Professor Bill Seager with Danny Stokes
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Fall Conferences
More photos from the
Hall of Fame events
At the Alumni lunch, from left: Steve Harder,
Clay Russell (BS 1983), Eric Dick (BS 1987),
Caiti Keegan (BS 1984), and Keith Davis.
On the Saturday field trip to Picacho Peak,
alumni, faculty, and students investigate
volcaniclastic rocks of the Palm Park
Formation. Here, boulders up to 1 m across lie
in a fine matrix of ash and mud.
From the pre-field trip breakfast at the
Gardiner Hall lobby. From left, Hall of Fame
inductee Danny Stokes (with his grandson,
Christopher, on the left), Professor Emeritus
Tom Giordano, Judy Johnson, and Michael
Johnson (BS 1972).
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Where are they now?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Amato recently heard from alumni in the Amato Research Group and from others. If you would like to
have your status updates included in future newsletters, please send your info to amato@nmsu.edu. Also
let us know if you do not want your information included in the newsletter.
Amos Sanders (MS 2003) is still at Hunt Oil in Dallas, where he has been working on the Bakken Shale
play in the Williston Basin of Montana and North Dakota. He and his wife Adrianne have two kids, a boy
(5) and a girl (6), who are both “crazy and lots of fun.”
Antonio Serna (MS 2006) is at Occidental Petroleum living in Houston. They have three kids, with the
youngest born in September. Austin Shock (MS 2012) also works for Occidental.
Caleb Worthman (MS 2011) is still at Chevron in Pittsburgh, where he works as a Development Geologist.
Supposedly Joe Andrie also lives in the Pittsburgh area.
Andre Boullion (MS 2006) has been at Shell for 9 years as a Senior Production Geologist. He is now
working in Gabon, Africa for a four-year project. He and his wife, Christina, have three kids (8, 6, and 3).
Rachelle Kernen (MS 2011) also works for Shell in Houston.
Ryan Bright (MS 2012) has been traveling, having recently returned from a month in Australia. He
also took a Grayhound bus trip across the country, stopping in Ouachita National Park. He asks anyone
interested in getting in touch to contact Amato for his details.
Two recent graduates, Sarah Machin (MS 2013) and Rosie Williams (defended in September) are working
at Continental Resources in Oklahoma City. Glen Brown (MS 1982) also works there as the Senior VP of
Exploration.
Corey Diamond (MS 2012) and John Gilbert (MS 2012) both work for Chesapeake in Oklahoma.
Evan Kochelek (MS 2011) left Chesapeake and now works for Parsley Energy in Austin, Texas. His wife,
Kristen Kochelek (formerly Yetter, MS 2011) works for the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality.
Ed Bauer (MS 2011) works for Samson Resources in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Matt Jones (MS 2010) also works
for Samson but lives in Denver.
Todd Parr (MS 2012) is also in Tulsa, but works for Apache.
Aubrey Collie (MS 2012) works for BP in Houston.
Cody Buller works for RKI in Oklahoma City.
It is clear that our recent graduates have been highly successful in their job searches and are benefitting
from the increased domestic production of oil and gas. Congratulations! Consider donating to the
department, and as always, contact us with job or internship opportunities for current students or recent
graduates.
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Alumni Support Opportunities
Alumni Giving can be made through the NMSU Foundation. We are currently asking you to consider
donations for two urgent needs. The first is that graduate research is costly, and traditional avenues of
support for student research are becoming even more competitive. We have set up a new fund that will
be used specifically to fund student research, and we are calling it the “Graduate Student Research Grant
Fund.” Our goal is to raise $2500 for each of our ten graduate students for the 2015-2016 academic year.
We welcome full or partial funding, perhaps $50, $100, $250, or $500. Direct donations to the Graduate
Student Research Grant Fund online or in the memo line of check (see below).
Another urgent need is our aging fleet of Suburbans. The 1982 was put to pasture a few years ago, and
now our ‘96 and ‘99 Burbs both have >160,000 miles on them and the repair costs are starting to add
up. As you likely know, these vehicles are essential for field trips, field conferences, and student field
research. They are getting even more mileage on them now that we have instituted a mandatory field trip
for all of the 111G Intro Geology classes. A new field vehicle will cost approximately $50,000 and we have
already raised $11,000 towards this goal. Please consider helping us! Donations for this need should be
directed to the Geology Field Teaching/Research Fund (#102194).
As always, general contrubutions can be made to the Department via the General Gift Fund (#102190)
All donations are tax-deductible and can be made in two ways:
1) Online donations can be made via the NMSU Foundation at http://giving.nmsu.edu/giving.php. Please
click on the link “Tell us how you want your gift applied” and enter Department of Geological Sciences
followed by any specific fund you might want to support (see above).
2) Checks can be made out to “NMSU Foundation” and include the Department and fund number in the
memo line or in an accompanying letter.
Mail to: NMSU Foundation, Inc.
Dove Hall, Room 212
1305 N. Horseshoe Dr.
PO Box 3590
Las Cruces, NM 88003-3590
Let us know if you would like to be
recognized for your donations in a
future newsletter. As always your
support is greatly appreciated.
Please contact Jeff Amato (Chair of
the Alumni Relations Committee)
by email (amato@nmsu.edu) or
phone (575-646-3017) if you have
questions.
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Faculty Profile: Dr. Jeff Amato
Amato continues his work on
the Precambrian geology of
New Mexico and the Mesozoic
evolution of the Arctic region.
The recent GSA Special Paper
on the geology of Seward
Peninsula, Alaska, featured
three chapters on which he was
either first author or a co-author.
He is finally wrapping up his
manuscript on a suture zone
Ryan Bright (MS 2012) had his
research published in Lithosphere in
June of 2014, and his photo of 1.1 Ga
diabase dills in the Salt River canyon
of Arizona was chosen for the cover.
This is the second Lithosphere
cover for a student-authored paper
in Amato’s group, following Evan
Kochelek’s (MS 2011) 2011 article
on the Valdez Group.
in eastern Russia. He is working
with his former graduate
student Tara Jonell (MS 2010);
on publishing her work on a
Paleogene caldera in the Burro
Mountains. His remaining
time is spent trying to write
up mountains of unpublished
U-Pb zircon ages from projects
spanning the last 10 years.
In April, Jeff ran his first
marathon at Big Sur in California.
Stephanie works at the Asombro
Institute for Science Education,
a local non-profit, and also ran a
marathon this year, in Las Cruces.
Their daughter, Sofia, is in 1st
Grade and will turn 7 in January.
Wesley is now 4 years old and
is the unofficial talisman of the
geology intramural soccer team
(see below).
Zircons!
Bright, R. M., Amato, J. M.,
Denyszyn, S. W., and Ernst, R. E.,
2014, U-Pb geochronology of
1.1 Ga diabase in the southwestern
United States: Testing models for
the origin of a post-Grenville large
igneous province, Lithosphere,
v. 6, p. 135-156.
In other Amato Research Group
Alumni News, Eric Gottlieb (MS
2008) is nearly finished with his
PhD at Stanford University. He is
currently an intern at Exxon in
Houston.
Tara Jonell has spent two field
seasons in the Himalaya as part
of her PhD research at LSU.
Sean Gaynor is working on his
PhD at UNC-Chapel Hill.
In August, Amato attended the
wedding of former graduate
student Matt Bogar (MS 2005) in
beautiful Taos. Although Matt is
no longer working in geology, he
is gainfully employed and enjoys
climbing and telemark skiing.
See page 4 for more ARG Alumni
News.
Amato played on the co-ed soccer
team, started last year by Gabby
St. Pierre (BS 2014). This year, the
team has scored in each of their four
games, and last week managed a
resounding 6-0 victory, the first ever
for the Continental Drifters.
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Faculty Profile: Dr. Reed Burgette
Dr. Burgette enjoyed a good
first year at NMSU. He enjoyed
starting to learn some local
geology from the Precambrian
to Quaternary through teaching
Survey of Geology, Tectonic
Evolution of North America,
and Neotectonics. A highlight
of the Neotectonics class was
a field trip to survey a portion
of the Alamogordo fault scarp
along the rangefront of the
Sacramento Mountains. Chris
Crosby from UNAVCO joined the
class to demonstrate the use of
a terrestrial light detection and
ranging (LiDAR) instrument.
They surveyed several million
points over two days and used
the high resolution topographic
data to assess the fault scarp
morphology and age.
Reed’s research in neotectonics
has expanded into southern
California where many active
faults pose a major seismic
hazard to a large population.
He is funded by the Southern
California Earthquake Center to
measure uplift rates associated
with active faulting in the
western Transverse Ranges
over the past century using tide
gauge and leveling observations.
This project involved a trip
to Washington D.C. over the
summer to gather data from
the national archives. Reed is
also starting a project to better
measure the late Quaternary slip
rate of the Sierra Madre fault,
which bounds the northern edge
of the LA metropolitan area using
high resolution topographic data
Reed Burgette with his son Rowan, hiking in Tasmania in 2014.
and modern dating techniques.
This project will be the focus of
Austin Hanson’s M.S. thesis. He
looks forward to applying these
techniques to study active faults
in the southern Rio Grande Rift
and elsewhere.
Field trip to the Sacramento Mountains.
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Faculty Profile: Dr. Brian Hampton
2014 was a busy year for the
Basin Research Lab at NMSU.
Hampton published some recent
findings from MississippianPermian strata of the Farewell
subterrane of southwestern
Alaska in the journal Lithosphere
with former graduate student
Matt Malkowski (currently
pursuing PhD at Stanford Univ.).
Matt was first author on this
paper and one of his Alaska
field photos was selected by the
editors for the October journal
cover.
Current graduate students Kraig
Koroleski and Mark Brown have
been making some solid research
contributions with their MS
projects. Kraig completed a nice
sedimentologic and provenance
summary of Silurian-Devonian
strata of the Farewell terrane. He
recently defended his thesis and
will be graduating in December,
2014. Mark is getting started
on the second year of his project
and presented some new
provenance data from the MesoNeoproterozoic Keweenawan
Supergroup at the 2014 GSA
Annual Meeting in Vancouver,
Canada.
The Basin Research Lab
welcomed a new graduate
student (Cody Stopka) this past
August. Cody will be working on
deciphering the sedimentology,
stratigraphic architecture,
and provenance from Upper
Cretaceous strata of the Sevier
foreland basin in southern
New Mexico. Prior to arriving
at NMSU, Cody spent part of
the summer helping Hampton
with field mapping and sample
collection from Upper Cretaceous
strata in the northern Talkeetna
Mountains of southern Alaska.
Brian’s research was featured in
the 11/13/14 LC Sun-News (see
p. 14.
Above, October Lithosphere cover.
Right, field mapping and sample
collection in the northern Talkeetna
Mountains of southern Alaska. View
to the SW toward the Alaska Range.
Mt. McKinley/Denali (20,320’) is the
highest peak on the horizon.
Left, Summer 2014 base camp in
the northern Talkeetna Mountains of
southern Alaska. View to the southwest toward the Alaska Range. Mt.
McKinley/Denali (20,320’) is the
highest peak on the horizon. Brian
Hampton and graduate student Cody
Stopka spend several weeks this summer working on Upper Cretaceous
strata that are exposed throughout the
Talkeetna Mountains.
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Faculty Profile: Dr. Emily Johnson
Dr. Emily Johnson has enjoyed
her first year at NMSU. This fall
she taught Volcanology, which is
a new course offering in the Department of Geological Sciences.
She and her students had fantastic field trips to look at the sequences of rhyolitic tuffs exposed
in the Organ Mountains and the
surge deposits and mantle xenoliths erupted at Kilbourne Hole.
Dr. Johnson is currently developing
research projects on the volcanic
rocks exposed so beautifully in
southern New Mexico. She and her
Masters student, Jenna Lente, are
investigating the storage conditions
of the rhyolitic magmas erupted
from the Organ Caldera. They are
hoping to provide the first analyses
of the pre-eruptive gas contents of
these magmas and to use these data
to provide constraints on the depth
and vertical extent of the magma
chamber prior to eruption.
Additionally, Dr. Johnson
maintains her research interests
in the magmatism and volcanoes
of the Cascades in the Pacific
Northwest. This summer she
introduced her son, Rowan, to
volcanic rocks and the fun of
fieldwork at Blue Lake maar
crater in the Oregon Cascades,
where she is mapping and
quantifying the deposits of this
recent (~1500 BP) eruption.
She is also investigating alongarc trends in the geochemistry
of mafic magmas erupted in the
Cascade arc, and she presented
results from this work in a talk at
the GSA fall meeting in
Vancouver, Canada.
Dr. Johnson and Dr. Burgette
are enjoying watching
their son Rowan explore
the beautiful deserts and
mountains around Las
Cruces. Rowan already loves
rocks and camping, and was
a dinosaur for Halloween…a
love of geology clearly runs
in the family!
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Faculty Profile: Dr. Nancy McMillan
Research, teaching, and
administrative work kept Nancy
McMillan busy in 2014. She
taught the usual Mineralogy and
Optical Mineralogy courses, and
added a graduate level course
in Geoscience Communication,
which covered not only writing
but also construction of efficient
graphics, poster presentations,
and oral presentations. Her
research continues to focus
on geologic applications of
Laser Induced Breakdown
Spectroscopy (LIBS). LIBS is an
optical spectroscopic technique
that uses a laser to ablate and
excite the sample. She has three
graduate students working on
tourmaline provenance (John
Curry), correlation of ashflow tuffs using LIBS spectra of
sanidines (Trent Haskell), and
corrosion on bridges (Carlos
Montoya). She also has four
undergraduate researchers
doing LIBS projects on calcite,
zircon, and tourmaline (Arianna
Chavez, Richard Gonzales, Sky
Hays, Shoshauna FarnsworthPinkerton). Perhaps the research
highlight of the year was taking
a backpack LIBS (pictured here
on undergraduate Arianna
Chavez) to Fort Stanton Cave,
NM, to distinguish between
bacterially-produced calcite and
inorganically crystallized calcite.
What could be better than
backpack analysis in a cave?
She is also working on analysis of
highway aggregates with Chesner
Engineering (NY) and on sources
of temper in pottery from the Four
Corners area with Anthropology
Professor Fumi Arakawa and
graduate student Molly Murphy.
Nancy is also pursuing more
traditional petrology with graduate
student Cory Paliewicz, who
is working to understand the
petrology and significance of the
latest Eocene E-W dike swarm in
Faulkner Canyon.
Below, Arianna Chavez analyzes a
cave wall with backpack LIBS.
Cave formation in
Fort Stanton Cave
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Faculty Profile: Dr. Frank Ramos
It has been a very busy year for the
Ramos Research Group. Firstly,
Sidney Pinkerton (aka Pinky)
joined the group this fall. Sid joins
us from Sacramento State University and brings his wife, Shoshauna,
an undergraduate Geology major in
the department. After doing TIMS,
EMP, and SIMS work in his first
month, he is already crushing rocks
and preparing his own whole rock
and mineral separates for his MS
research project, which focuses on
young basalts erupted in the RatonClayton volcanic field in northern
New Mexico. He will focus on
olivine-hosted melt inclusions and
try to track the effects of crustal
assimilation in the genesis of continental basalts that contain quartz
xenocrysts.
Nic Slater is finishing his work on
Bandera Crater olivine-hosted melt
inclusions and hopes to defend in
January 2014. Although intended
as a simple project looking at mantle signatures of basalts from the
Malpais volcanic field (the Bandera
basalt is highly magnesian and has
thus been previously interpreted
as originating directly from the
mantle), the project has expanded
to include tracking the effects of
crustal assimilation of Proterozoic
materials especially in regards to Sr
and Pb isotopes. Nic has his work
cut out for him and his project is
very exciting and should tell us
which isotopes systems are compromised by crustal assimilation
and which are not.
Second year student (and GSA
grant awardee) Jacob Buettner
has been very busy tracking the
signatures of whole rocks and
potassium feldspar crystals from
Changbaishan volcano. Although
Americans are less familiar
with this volcano, Changbaishan
is likely responsible for the
largest eruption on Earth in
the last 2000 years (very likely
exceeding the volume emitted
from Tambora in 1815 AD) and
maybe the last 10,000 years. Jake
flew to Beijing in September to
present his findings to date on
the youngest eruptive products
of the volcano, trachytes likely
<1000 years old. He was the
only student that presented
in a group of 11 international
researchers at the second
international conference on the
volcano sponsored by the China
Earthquake Administration. He,
and advisor Ramos, spent 5 days
at the volcano interacting with
scientists, and some rookies,
looking at comendite and
trachyte deposits.
As for Ramos, he spent most of
his non-teaching time last fall and
spring attending machine
demonstration visits and designing
the collector block for the new
ThermoScientific NeptunePlus,
Multi-Collector Inductively
Coupled Plasma Mass
Spectrometer, partly funded by
Michael and Judy Johnson.
Graduate student Jake Buettner at
the <2000 yr old Baitoushan
volcano in China.
This summer was used to prepare
the Analytical Laboratory for the
arrival of the machine, which
requires special power, cooling,
and venting capabilities. The
machine arrived in late August
and installation finished in
mid-October. We are currently
undertaking machine performance
evaluations for Nd and Pb
isotopes and hope to pursue
U-series and osmium isotope
measurements soon. Results look
very reproducible at this point but
the true uniqueness of this machine
will not be tested until we begin
our osmium and laser strontium
isotope measurements. We aim to
be the premiere site for undertaking
these types of isotope analyses in
the United States. As such, Ramos
will need all of his sabbatical
time to develop and undertake
the measurement accuracy and
reproducibility tests of these
techniques on the Neptune. It will
make sure that the Ramos Research
Group will be busy next year too.
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The Legend of the
Mining Cart...
You probably remember the
mining cart that sat outside
just north of Breland Hall.
We learned the story behind
that geologic treasure at
Homecoming this year. Back
in the early 1970s, a group
of geology majors were
poking around in the mines
on A mountain and found an
abandoned mine cart deep
in one of the mines. Rumor
has it that John Giberson, Jeff
Simonsen, Ray Irwin, Gail
Madsen, Bob Meyers, among
others, dismantled the cart,
hauled it out of the mine with ropes, threw it in a pick-up, and high-tailed it back to campus. The rest,
as they say, is history, and the mine cart has followed the department through its moves from Baldwin
Hall to Breland Hall and now to Gardiner Hall. Ray and John are pictured here with the cart during
Homecoming 2014. If you have any details to add to this legend, we would love to hear them! You can
email geology@nmsu.edu or call Nancy McMillan at 575-646-5000.
NMGS Fall Field Conference to the Sacramento Mountains. Back from left, Dr. Brian
Hampton, Keith Davis, Ryan Doan, Austin Hanson, Jenna Lente, Monica Mustain, Sabah Awan,
Nathanial Roybal. Front from left, Eileen Davis, Dr. Frank Ramos, Dr. Greg Mack.
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Fall 2014: Field Trips and Events Around Southern NM
Emily Johnson’s Volcanology field
trip to Kilbourne Hole
Chelsea Ottenfeld taking foliation
measurements in her field area.
Monica Mustain investigates a mine
along a Paleogene normal fault in the
Burro Mountains.
View from the summit of Picacho Peak, looking east across the Rio Grande Rift towards the Organ
Mountains. As part of a larger study of the BLM lands surrounding the new Paleozoic Trackways National
Monument, Dr. Amato and former student Gabby St. Pierre (BS, 2014) used zircons to date the rhyolite at
the summit at 36.1 Ma. They also dated the Orejon andesite, a Palm Park equivalent located near La Cueva
(light-colored rocks in the lower right of Organ Needle in the photo), which had a U-Pb zircon age of
44.3 Ma.
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NMSU professor ventures to Alaska to collect geological samples Las Cruces Sun-News,
11/13/14, profile of Dr. Brian Hampton by Isabel Rodriguez
http://www.lcsun-news.com/News/ci_26932354/NMSU-professor-ventures-to-Alaska-to-collectgeological-samples
Students in Reed Burgette’s
class use LiDAR to image
the Alamogordo fault at the
western edge of the Sacramento
Mountains.
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