2007 Newsletter - Earth Sciences
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Fa l l Department of earth SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 0 department FACULTY AND GRADUATE RESEARCH GROUPS Suzanne L. Baldwin Research Group: Jessica Terrien Alec Waggoner Paul G. Fitzgerald Research Group: Stephanie Perry Joshua Taylor Linda C. Ivany Research Group: Andrew Haveles Heather Wall Patrick Wall Jeffrey A. Karson Research Group: Andrew Horst Drew Siler sbaldwin@syr.edu jjterrie@syr.edu agwaggon@syr.edu pgfitzge@syr.edu eperr01syr.edu jtaylo03@syr.edu lcivany@syr.edu awhavele@syr.edu hlbaugh@syr.edu pdwall@syr.edu jakarson@syr.edu ajhorst@syr.edu dlsiler@syr.edu Henry (Hank) T. Mullins htmullin@syr.edu Cathryn R. Newton crnewton@syr.edu Scott D. Samson Research Group: Tathagata Dasgupta Jack Heitpas Bryan Sell sdsamson@syr.edu tdasgupt@syr.edu jhietpas@syr.edu bksell@syr.edu Christopher A. Scholz Research Group: Allison Burnett Stoney Gan Robert Gobell Robert Lyons Jessica Mantaro cascholz@syr.edu apburnett@gmail.com sgan@syr.edu rpgobell@syr.edu rplyons@syr.edu jlchappe@syr.edu Donald I. Siegel Research Group: Li Jin Jessica Meeks Soumitri (Mimi) Sarkar Constanze E. Weyhenmeyer Research Group: Allison Burnett RESEARCH FACULTY Marion (Pat) E. Bickford Laura E. Webb Bruce Wilkinson disiegel@syr.edu ljin@syr.edu jlmeeks@syr.edu ssarka03@syr.edu cweyhenm@syr.edu apburnett@gmail.com mebickfo@syr.edu lewebb@syr.edu eustasy@syr.edu ADJUNCT PROFESSORS James M. McLelland Susan Millar–Geography Donald Rodbell–Union College jmclelland@citilink.net swmillar@syr.edu rodbell@union.edu POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES James Metcalf UNDERGRADUATES Matthew Belanich Lance Billy Curtis Bixler Denise Bou Leigh Castellani Paul Chiara Andrew D. Clift jrmetcal@syr.edu Kwasi Gilbert Dan Goldstein Caitlin Keating-Bitonti Amanda Loman Christine Masters Michael McHarris Yexary Rodriguez LIBRARY–GEOLOGY BRANCH Carol Cavalluzzi–Branch Assistant Elizabeth Wallace–Librarian Ian Semple John Titus, Jr. Amanda Van Auken Jodie VanWie Tracy Warmington cacavall@syr.edu eawallac@library.syr.edu EMERITUS FACULTY Gary M. Boone Bryce M. Hand Joseph E. Robinson James C. Brower Dirk de Waard John J. Prucha STAFF Stephanie Arnold–Undergraduate/ Graduate Coordinator Sarah Barkin–GSA Editorial Assistant Peter Cattaneo–Research Analyst Michael Cheatham–Laboratory Tech. Jacqueline Corbett–Laboratory Tech. John L. Davis–Curator of Minerals Julie Neri–Office Administrator Bonnie Windey–Office Coordinator NEWSLETTER EDITOR Julie Neri srarnold@syr.edu sbarkin@syr.edu pkcattan@syr.edu mmcheath@syr.edu jphilipp@syr.edu jjneri@syr.edu bgwindey@syr.edu In memoriam Ernest Hathaway Muller,bornMarch4,1923in Tabriz,Iran,passedawaysuddenlyinHouston,Texas onOctober20,2005.Ernie,ashewasknownbyhis manyfriendsandcolleagues,wasafellowintheGeologicalSocietyofAmericaandwasrecognizednationallyand internationallyasanauthorityontheinterpretationof glacialenvironments,Quaternarystratigraphy,and geomorphology.Hepublishedwellover50scientific papersonhisresearch. ErnieservedasaSecondLieutenant/meteorologist forecastingweatherduringWWIIafterhecompleted hisB.S.inGeologyatWoosterCollege,Ohio.Then ErnieearnedhisMaster’s(1949)andDoctoratedegrees inGeologyfromtheUniversityofIllinois(1952).He wentontoworkfortheUSGeologicalSurveybefore acceptingafacultypositionatCornellUniversityin 1954.HearrivedatSyracuseUniversityin1959wherehe subsequentlytaughtfor31years.AtSyracuseUniversity hemoldedthecareersof20mastersstudentsand15doctoralstudentsandalsoservedasChairfortime,fostering aspiritofacademicanddepartmentalcollegiality. Erniewasrecognizedinternationallyforhislife-long careerinQuaternaryGeology.Hisresearchcontributions crossedaspectrumoftopicsrangingfromdetailedmaps depictingicesheetstratigraphyandtheinterpretation ofLaurentiderecessionalhistoryintheNortheastern UnitedStates,topreparingnumerousglacialgeology mapsofNewYorkStates.Thisextensivemapping efforthelpedtoprovidetheframeworkforourmodern understandingoflandscapesglaciatedbycontinental icesheets.Hisresearchrangedfromhowglacialtilland drumlinsformed,tohowcatastrophicfloodingcarved deepchannelsbetweenglaciallakes. Ernie’squietdemeanorincorporatedaconfidence bornfromanoutstandingcommandoftheliterature andfieldmethods,coupledtoaninsightfulmind.Ernie wrotesuccinct,lucidpublicationsthataddresseddifficultquestionswithscrupulousattentiontodetailand uncommonperception.Erniewasakind,supportiveand ERNEST H. MULLER 1923-2005 Emeritus Professor of Geology encouragingadvisornotedforhisabilitytobringinexamplesfromotherplacesthatnooneelsethoughtwere relevanttothediscussion.InteachingandadvisingErnie wouldbeenthusiasticaboutnewandgoodideas,while neverharshlycriticizingspeculationthathethoughtwas unwarranted.Erniewouldjustquietlysay,“that’saninterestingthought,”andyou’dknowthathedidn’tthink muchofit. Throughitall,Erniehadagreatsenseofhumorthat tiedtothesubjectathand.Hisstudentsreport,asanexample,“TowalkwithErniepastafieldoffreshlyshorn sheep,onemightsay“lookErnie,afieldoffreshlyshorn sheep”towhichhewouldreply,“atleastonthisside.” Ernie’slastfieldeffortsweredirectedtouncoveringtheelusiveevidenceoftheexpandingBeringglacier lobe.Therigorsoffieldworkinthisremoteregionled himtodeclineaninvitationtoreturnin2004with,“I lookforwardtolearningwhatyoudiscoverinmyabsence.”Andhereallydid. Ernie’sstudentsandcolleaguesheldaspecial sessionattheNationalMeetingoftheGeologicalSociety ofAmericain2002inErnie’shonorafterhisretirement fromfull-timeacademiclife.Hewillbemissed. Erniewasprecededindeathbyhislovingwife, WandaCustisMuller.Heissurvivedbyhischildren David,Katherine,andRuthAnne,andsixgrandchildren. 3 A letter from theChair the Chair s, endedupasthe DearAlumniandFriend artment,somehowIhave ep eD th in ear ey on ly Afteron lencesfromthose ulations(aswellascondo rat ng co ng pti cce lla sti helpinmaking Chair.Iam sluckytohaveplentyof wa .I st) pa he nt di rve elandofcourse whohavese ,PatBickford,DonSieg on ms Sa ott Sc m fro on wmemberofthe thistransiti eOffice.Asarelativelyne th in nie ha tep dS an ie meetingalumni Julie,Bonn muchlookingforwardto ry ve am y,I ult fac ce EarthScien eetinginDenver.We attheupcomingGSAM nt me art ep ceprogramandlook eD fth so andfriend mentoftheEarthScien lop ve de ed nu nti co he andt eprogram arelookingtothefuture hohavehelpedshapeth uw yo of all th wi es rti ge stron forwardtobuildingeven intheseefforts. us erviceasChairover ort pp su to ue andcontin tothankScottforallhiss ity un ort pp iso th ke ta theDepartment.He Beforegoingon,Iwantto taverydifficulttimefor na tio osi isp th nto di fte asdra attractsoutstanding thepast4years.Scottw eitthekindofplacethat ak dm lpe he nd ga nin run reatshapeandready haskepttheDepartment stohiseffortsweareing nk ha .T nts de stu te ua ergrad edtohavehimback faculty,graduateandund ownasChairweareexcit sd tep es sh l.A ve tle ex en esteronleave. totakeourprogramstoth joysawell-deservedsem en he as tonbacktothe me l-ti ful ce doingscien welcomingCathyNew to ard orw gf kin oo el ar ngheradministration Amongotherchanges,we eofArt&Sciences.Duri eg oll eC th of ean eD asth cultyandmajorbuildDepartmentafter8years population,manynewfa nt de stu ing row ag th edwi rroleasProfessorof TheCollegehasflourish ththeDepartmentinhe wi ted cia sso ra he ve ha reatto ingprojects.Itwillbeg . ces ,newanalyticalfaciliien Sc ry ina Interdiscipl dinghiringofnewfaculty clu sin ear wy tfe ex en llbespelledoutina Wehavebigplansforth inHeroy.Allofthesewi ace sp of ion vat no re me ndso obeabletoreportto ties,newteachinglabs,a year’snewsletterIhopet xt ne In w. no ht rig rks hewo strategicplanthatisint seareas. the inthislimitedspace, in ss gre pro youonour ningintheDepartment pe ap sh ing th eat gr the entandmomentum Itisimpossibletolistall getasenseoftheexcitem ast tle lla wi ou r,y tte sle ew efaculty,graduate butinthepagesofthisn rovideopportunitiesforth tsp an gr rch sea rre ajo ecuttingedgeofour inourresearchactivities.M eofexcitingtopicsatth ng ra ide aw ate stig ve stoin celand,thePyrenees, studentsandundergrad settingsasEastAfrica,I rse ive hd uc ds de clu in ese kaneatelesLake.We field.Overthissummerth esclosertohomelikeS lac sp lla we as lia go on dM theAegean,Wyoming,an e nalyticalequipment. wa ne me epartment.Wewouldlov so ed dd havealsoa suretostopinattheD be us, r mp ito on ca use om de rac vi Sy big-screen Nexttimeyouvisitthe ngthehallwaysandthe alo ers ost hp nd arc tsa en ese yr ud an lty,st togiveyouatourofthem themeantime,thefacu yintheHeroylobby.In usl uo SAMeeting. tin rG on ve gc en nin eD un tth wr thatisno nnualreceptiona ra ou at ou gy ein se to ard staffwillbelookingforw Allthebest, Jeff 4 from the departing Chair Dear Alumni and Friends of the department, It is rather amazing to me that I am now writing my final note for this newsletter as the former Chair of the Department! Much has happened in the department in the last year, as you will see in the pages that follow, with one of the most important events being the hiring of Dr. Jeff Karson, the departments new Chair. Jeff was formerly a Professor at Duke University before coming to Syracuse. I’ll leave it up to Jeff in his accompanying note to tell you about his research specialties (including his studies of rare fragments of oceanic lithosphere ‘beached’ onto the continents!). Stepping down as Chair is always a mixed blessing – I’ll certainly miss the day to day interactions with the department staff (although I’ve promised them at least a minimum of one visitation per week!), talking to potential new earth science majors, and trying to solve student problems, real and perceived, as best as possible. I won’t miss the seeming endless University meetings however! But with handing over the responsibilities of running the department gives me the opportunity to get back into the field and into the lab – something that proved very difficult to as Chair. I’m often asked how I enjoy being a civilian again! And to let you know some of the research my students and I are pursuing there is a short section on that topic in the pages that follow – many will be shocked to know we are collecting modern alluvium! But not to worry, I haven’t given up swinging sledge hammers at granites yet either. For Department-wide research I am please to say that the Earth Sciences Faculty continue to conduct their intriguing research on every continent on the globe, as well as now on the bottom of the sea floor!. And despite these very difficult times in terms of research funding most of the faculty continue to secure major grants from National agencies – a clear testimony as to how well they are perceived as acclaimed scientists. I even managed to crack through the seemingly impenetrable Tectonics Division of NSF this year with a major new grant – hurray! In terms of student activity in general last year was an excellent one. We had more new majors sign up than in any previous year in the past decade, as well as welcomed in a superb new group of graduate students – covering fields from paleobiology, to hydrogeology, to structural geology/ petrology and even brought in a student who was formerly a forensic scientist! (now being reinvented as a geochemist). The interaction between the graduate and undergraduate students has also been at an all time high, and it is gratifying to see juniors and seniors happily taking courses with new graduate students. Thanks to many of you who kindly sent in donations covering all sorts of aspects of aid for students – from field camp scholarships, to the Prucha Field fund, to the K.D. Nelson Fund in tectonics and more. The students truly benefit from your generosity. We’ve even had an offer for a significant donation towards buying a mammoth skeleton for the Heroy Lobby – and this from an SU alum that wasn’t in the department! It has been great fun interacting with many of you, either in campus visits, various GSA meetings, or just chats on the phone. Because that was so great I am getting to co-hosting, along with Jeff Karson, the Alumni reception party at the GSA meeting in Denver this year. As it will be the last time I do this I hope everyone will make an extra effort to come out and show support for the department. This party promises to be as excellent as ever – last years event was voted as the most packed room, the loudest room, and clearly the most exciting of all the concurrent parties. So much so in fact that many geologists abandoned their parties to come and join ours! I hope you can help us claim that title for the second year running – perhaps GSA should give us an award! And even though I am once again a ‘civilian’ I continue to urge as many of you as possible to come visit your alma mater, check out the current Department events, and let us show you the great laboratories and amazing research that the faculty and students are doing these days! With my fondest regards, Research SUMMARIES Suzanne L. Baldwin Subduction of the Earth’s crust to mantle depths produces high pressure and ultrahigh pressure metamorphic rocks (i.e., eclogites) at convergent plate boundaries. How these rocks return to the Earth’s surface, often at plate tectonic rates (cm/yr), remains an outstanding question of firstorder importance to continental dynamics and plate tectonics. NSF’s Continental Dynamics program recently funded our five-year, $3.59 million, collaborative proposal to investigate how the world’s youngest (8-2 my) high pressure and ultrahigh pressure metamorphic rocks have been exhumed in the Woodlark Rift of Papua New Guinea. Paul Fitzgerald, Laura Webb, and I are taking the lead on this study that involves a team of earth scientists from the US, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia, including seismologists, geodesists, structural geologists, thermochronologists, petrologists, geochemists, and geodynamicists. Our collaborative study aims to document how the Australian-Woodlark plate boundary has transitioned from a convergent to a divergent plate boundary. We are planning three field seasons in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea to map structures and collect samples for thermochronologic, petrologic and geochemical analyses. The field area occupies a volcanic and seismically hazardous region; proposed outreach activities include educating the local communities about these natural hazards during our field campaigns. Funding will provide support for graduate and undergraduate student research in Syracuse University’s Earth Sciences Department, including the research of MSc student Alec Waggoner, and BS student Leigh Castellani. We will also contribute to University of Papua New Guinea’s undergraduate curricula through lectures and short courses. This project builds on results of a previously funded NSF Tectonics grant, awarded to Paul Fitzgerald and I, that supported Brian Monteleone’s (PhD., 2007) dissertation research. In addition to engaging in exciting thermochronologic and tectonics research, I continue to contribute to the Earth Sciences curriculum by teaching courses in mineralogy, petrology and thermochronology. I’m especially grateful for funding provided by Syracuse University’s Soling program (http://soling.syr.edu) that has enabled me to incorporate a community outreach component into the Mineralogy course (GOL 314) curriculum. This required course for all Earth Science majors introduces students to the nature, origin and evolution of the minerals that form the Earth. I take a holistic approach to the study of minerals beginning with the Earth’s core, mantle, crust and finally examining minerals which form at the Earth’s surface. Students learn to identify and interpret the most common rockforming and economic minerals in hand sample. The course ends with an introduction to the techniques of optical mineralogy and petrography (i.e., the study of minerals and rocks in thin section). Fieldtrips to collect fluorescent minerals at the world famous Franklin-Sterling Top photo: Geologic fieldwork on Fergusson Island, Papua New Guinea. Middle photo: Petrology students engaged in undergraduate research in the petrography lab. Bottom photo: Mineralogy students sing for 4th grade students as part of their Soling-funded outreach mineral presentations. Hill Mine District in Sussex County NJ (http://sterlinghillminingmuseum.org), and garnets at the Barton Mine at Gore Mountain (http://www.garnetminetours. com/) are an integral part of the course. Mineralogy students use their samples to prepare and present mineral exhibits to 4th grade students in the Syracuse region. This outreach activity has received accolades from K-12 teachers, and has been the focus of several news articles in local papers. Other curriculum changes made possible from Soling funding include the development of laboratory exercises in the X-ray diffraction and SEM laboratories enabling Earth Science students to experience the excitement of research firsthand. These are just a few highlights of my recent research and teaching efforts. I’m thankful to have such wonderful colleagues and students to work with, and that our research group continues to grow. Pat Bickford Although I’ve been retired for ten years, I have found a number of things geologic to keep me busy. I still maintain my research office on the third floor of Heroy Geology Laboratory, but have added a few new activities to my daily routine. of Hf, but exclude Lu, the isotopic composition of Hf (the 176Hf/177Hf ratio) in the zircon reflects that of the source region of the magma from which the zircon crystallized, and thus allows calculation of the age of the source rocks from which the magmas were derived. For this work, I use zircons, mounted in epoxy, and previously dated by the U-Pb method with the SHRIMP (Sensitive High-Resolution Ion Microprobe). I take the SHRIMP mount to the University of Florida where he analyzes for Hf isotopic composition with a laser-ablation, multicollector inductively-coupled mass spectrometer (LA-MC-ICPMS). I have continued to publish the results of SHRIMP zircon studies of the timing of high-grade metamorphism and anatexis (crustal melting) in the Adirondacks. I collaborate with Jim McLelland (also retired from Colgate University) and former Ph.D. Student Barbara Hill. I recently traveled to Kent State University to deliver a seminar talk on “The Sask Craton: An Enigmatic Archean Crustal Fragment in the Internides of the Paleoproterozoic Trans-Hudson Orogen”. During the Spring 2007, I taught a course “Techniques of Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Analysis” that enrolled eighteen students. During Fall 2007, I had three graduate students are working with me to learn to use the universal rotating stage, an elegant ---if somewhat out-dated—method of obtaining optical data and compositions for crystals in thin sections. The same students will also do some advanced X-Ray diffraction experiments, studying the variation of the cell edge as a function of varying mole-fractions of KCl in NaCl, as well as some X-Ray methods for obtaining the composition of minerals such as olivine. Paul G. Fitzgerald It’s been a busy few years since the last newsletter. Aside from teaching the usual full complement of classes along with field trips I have been involved in field-work in Papua New Guinea, the Pyrenees, the Aegean and 6 scientific conferences. Three NSF grants have ended and two more have started. One of the new grants from NSF Tectonics is a 3 year project to work in the Pyrenees along with co-PI Suzanne Baldwin, postdoc Jim Metcalf and Josep-Anton Münoz from the University of Barcelona to use low-temperature thermochronology to constrain the cooling, and hence tectonic history associated with diachronous collision and thrusting along the range. We First, I’m serving as the Geological Society of America Science Book Editor, a job now happily shared with colleague Don I. Siegel. Don and I have an Editorial Office in Room 305 Heroy that is ably staffed by Editorial Assistant Sarah Barkin. We handle proposals for GSA books and evaluate completed volumes for publication as GSA Special Papers or Memoirs. The work is sometimes frustrating, but mostly quite fun, for it keeps us on top of much that is new and exciting in the earth sciences. We are both members of the GSA Publications Committee. Another activity keeping me busy is analyzing zircons from Colorado and the buried basement of the mid-continent for their hafnium (Hf) isotopic composition. The Hf isotope Hf 176 is the daughter of radioactive Lu 176. Because zircons take up relatively large amounts Jim Metcalf, Paul Fitzgerald, Suzanne Baldwin and Emily Feinberg in the Vall de Remuñe on the second day of sampling the Lys Caillaous pluton that straddles the French-Spanish border in the west-central Pyrenees. were delighted that Jim could join us to work on this project, following his PhD at Stanford, as he brings added new insight and expertise, especially in (U-Th)/He dating. The other grant, 5 years of funding from NSF Continental Dynamics, is to examine how rifting is exhuming the world’s youngest HP and UHP rocks from depths of ca. 100 km. Suzanne Baldwin is the PI on this grant and Laura Webb and I are the co-PIs. Syracuse University is the lead-institution on this multi-institution international research endeavor. I still have a number of other Antarctic research projects still active, one in collaboration with scientists from New Zealand using (U-Th)/He dating on samples from the Transantarctic Mountains. This project involved undergraduate Emily Feinberg who worked on these really difficult samples. Emily also joined us in Pyrenees fieldwork in June 2007. There has also been considerable progress from graduate students. Josh Taylor finished his MS on the uplift and formation of the Adirondack Mountains using low-temperature thermochronology, and we have a paper very nearly ready to submit. We were very pleased that Josh has remained at Syracuse for his PhD and is working a NSF-Tectonics funded project in Mongolia with Laura Webb. PhD candidate Erika Schwabe, who was working in the west-central Pyrenees got married and moved to Georgia where she is writing up her thesis. Stephanie Perry joined us from SUNY(Albany) where she obtained a MS and is now working on a PhD project in Alaska looking at the uplift and formation of the central and eastern Alaska Ranges, both of which lie along the active Denali fault. Parts of this project are in co-operation with colleagues Paul Layer and Jeff Benowitz from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Stephanie was successful in obtaining some funding from the Geological Society of America to cover costs of apatite (U-Th)/He dating on a suite of samples that I had previously collected from the top-to-bottom of Mt McKinley. Working in fossiliferous early Eocene sediments exposed along the Tombigbee River of SW Alabama. From left to right, Jocelyn Sessa (Penn State), 2 undergrads from the College of William and Mary, and Linda Ivany. As regards publications, this too has been very productive since the last newsletter. We had a long paper (Fitzgerald et al., 2006) published in Chemical Geology on “Interpretation of (U-Th)/He single grain ages from slowly cooled crustal terranes: A case study from the Transantarctic Mountains of southern Victoria Land” - well received as it was the first to document single grain age variation in apatite (U-Th)/He ages, why this occurs and how to deal with it. In spring 2006 I was study leave at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University working on collaborative research that led to a number of papers: Studinger et al. (2006) in Earth and Planetary Science Letters on “Crustal architecture of the Transantarctic Mountains between the Scott and Reedy Glacier region and South Pole from aerogeophysical data”; Bialas et al. (2007) in Geology on “ Plateau Collapse Model for the Transantarctic Mountains / West Antarctic Rift System: Insights from Numerical Experiments” as well as a paper on the Basin and Range Province; Fitzgerald et al. (in review) on “The South Virgin-White Hills detachment fault system of SE Nevada and NW Arizona: The application of apatite fission track thermochronology to constraining displacement gradient accommodation along a major detachment fault”. In addition, several papers from projects that had recently ended were published, including Baldwin et al. (2007) “Thermochronology of the New Caledonia high pressure terrane: Implications of mid-Tertiary plate boundary processes in the southwest Pacific”, Redfield et al. (2007) in Geology on “ The extrusion of Alaska, past, pres- ent and future” - this later paper being the first to apply escape tectonics to the terrane accretion concept that was developed in Alaska. Another recently published paper was Fitzgerald and Baldwin (2007) “ Thermochronologic constraints on Jurassic rift flank denudation in the Thiel Mountains, Antarctica”. On the teaching front, I was delighted to team-teach “Plate Tectonics” in the spring of 2007 with Jeff Karson. I last taught this in spring 2002, but because of a shortage of faculty since then, this was the last time it was taught. Capped by a 3day field trip across the Taconic Orogeny, this course was a great success and will be taught every spring. Aside from Jeff’s diplomatic and organizational skills as the new chair, it is a fantastic boost to the department to have such an experienced colleague join our faculty. In Fall 2006 I was also appointed Director of Graduate Studies. This position, vacant for many years, entails - well - directing the graduate program in the department. We have embarked on an ambitious program of upgrade and enhanced communication. Linda C. Ivany As is always the hope, this past year for me has been one of long-standing projects coming to fruition and new ones beginning. Several years of research on Eocene climate change on the Antarctic Peninsula has resulted in manuscripts on the timing and trajectory of cooling and the response of shallow marine faunas to it. A paper in the May 2006 issue of Geology describes sedimentologic evidence for an ice sheet on the Peninsula at about the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, earlier than previously believed. This work implies that the initial onset of continental glaciation was synchronous in East and West Antarctica. If glaciers reached the far northern reaches of the Peninsula that fast, then the climate system must have responded very abruptly to the more gradual decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and/or changes in ocean circulation associated with the opening of gateways between Antarctica and South America. Fossils from the Eocene La Meseta Formation on Seymour Island, Antarctica. A) the bivalve Cucullaea raea; B) the brachiopod Bouchardia antarctica; C) the gastropod Polinices subtenuis; D) the bivalve Eurhomalea newtoni. Scale bars are 1 cm. The chemistry of these shells has revealed the details of climate cooling during the transition from a warm, forested Antarctica to one covered by glacial ice. In addition, I have submitted for publication a manuscript detailing climate change during the Eocene that led up to the beginning of ice growth on Antarctica. Here, we use stable isotopic values of mollusk shells collected through the Eocene section on Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula, to constrain paleotemperatures through time. We find that Eocene cooling is more complicated than initially presumed, with a short-lived swing to much warmer conditions in the late middle Eocene followed by a rapid shift to much colder conditions. These climate swings are associated with significant faunal turnover that appears to have eliminated many of the shell-crushing predators from the ecosystem, allowing more fragile taxa like stalked crinoids to recolonize shallow-water environments from which they have been more or less excluded since the Paleozoic. Shifting gears, I recently received funding from NSF to support work reconstructing the Paleogene climate record of the US Gulf Coastal Plain using stable isotopes of shell material and investigating its effects on paleoecological turnover of the mollusk fauna and evolutionary change in two common lineages. The grant is collaborative with Rowan Lockwood, on the faculty at the College of William and Mary, and Warren Allmon at the Paleontolgical Research Institution in Ithaca, NY, and will support PhD research by Heather Baugh Wall and provide a year of postdoctoral support for Jocelyn Sessa, currently a PhD student at Penn State. Jocelyn and I have already been working on the transition from the Paleocene to the early Eocene as recorded in the shell chemistry of Venericardia bivalves. Heather’s work focuses on the paleoecological record (see her write-up). Another collaborative project to recently get underway deals with large Permian bivalves from Southeastern Australia collected by Bruce Runnegar, director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute and faculty member at UCLA. Bruce noted similarities between his clams and those reported by a former student in the paleo lab, Devin Buick, with me in 2004. Both are large, from high latitudes, and exhibit large numbers of well-developed growth bands. We used high-resolution microsampling and stable isotope analysis to show that the growth bands are annual, and are now investigating the significance of those records for interpreting paleoenvironments during deglaciation in the late Permian. On the student front, I’m happy to report that both Heather Baugh and Patrick Wall have decided to stay on at Syracuse and pursue PhDs in the paleontology program. In addition, Andrew Haveles began Masters research in the fall of 2006 working on the unusual mollusk fauna of the middle Eocene Gosport Sand in the US Gulf Coast. They will all present aspects of their research at the GSA this fall, and Heather, Patrick and I are coauthors on a collaborative project with Carlton Brett (University of Cincinnati) on patterns of faunal turnover in the middle Devonian SU Earth Science graduate students examine columnar jointing and other features of lava flows on the south coast of Iceland during summer fieldwork. Hamilton Group in New York State. Ellen De Man, frequent visitor to the department and collaborator on Eocene and Oligocene climate change in the North Sea basin, successfully defended her dissertation this past fall at Leuven University in Belgium and has accepted a job at Exxon-Mobil in Houston TX. We wish her all the best. Caitlin Keating-Bitonti, a junior this year, has been working in the paleo lab for two years now and will begin an independent research project this fall using stable isotopes of shell material to understand climate change and ecology. The paleontology lab continues to have a small army of students helping out. In addition to Caitlin, Leigh Castellani, Cristina Story, Emily Feinberg, Justina Fedorchuk, Michael McHarris, Justin Bohling, Shea Lambert, and Tristan LeeWright have all contributed their time and expertise to ongoing projects over the past two years. Many of these students presented posters on their work at Mayfest celebrations and the Earth Sciences student symposium. We look forward to seeing great things from them all! Jeffrey A. Karson Moving from Duke University in sunny North Carolina, you can imagine that I have been asked about a hundred times: “Did they tell you about the snow here in Syracuse?” Well, they really did not have to tell me much. I grew up and went to school in northern Ohio and upstate New York, so I am well acquainted with the weather in this part of the country. Still, after last winter’s snowfall, I am in the market for a snow-blower! of the other programs in the Department. This is a terrific place to go to graduate school with the faculty, facilities, resources and attitude that can propel students into many different types of careers in the Earth Sciences. Frigid melt water from nearby glaciers cascades down a narrow gorge created by a strike-slip fault zone in one of our Iceland study areas. Even though I have been in town for a year already, I have hardly had a chance to unpack. I am thrilled to be part of the Department of Earth Sciences here at Syracuse, but research, teaching, and administrative chores are keeping me incredibly busy. The depth and breadth of research and commitment to teaching in the Department are really an inspiration to me. I have many longstanding connections to people in the Department and it is exciting to have a chance to interact with them and learn more about their research programs. The administration, faculty, students, staff and alumni have all given me an incredibly warm welcome that is deeply appreciated. Perhaps one of the most exciting things about joining the Department is becoming part of what I regard as one of the most exciting programs in tectonics and thermochronology in the US. The collected accomplishments and ongoing projects of the faculty (and students!) could fill the pages of a state-of-the-art textbook in tectonics. This part of the program is all the richer for the strength 10 By way of introduction, let me tell you a little about my background. I grew up and went to undergraduate school in northern Ohio (CWRU) before heading to graduate school at SUNY at Albany. While I was at SUNYA I worked on ophiolite complexes (on-land slabs of ancient oceanic crust and mantle) in Newfoundland. I also spend a lot of time in the New England Appalachians and especially the high peaks of the Adirondacks. After a postdoc at the University of Toronto, I went to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where I began to focus on processes along mid-ocean ridges and transform faults. I joined the Department of Geology at Duke University in 1986 where I served as Chair of the Department in the mid1990’s. At Duke I continued my research on both ophiolites and oceanic crust along with a great group of graduate students and postdocs. Together we investigated such diverse places as the East African Rift, ophiolites in Morocco and tiny Macquarie Island (1000 miles south of New Zealand), the East Greenland Volcanic Rifted Margin, and Iceland. Seagoing cruises using small submarines like Alvin took us to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and giant seafloor escarpments in the Pacific. Overall, these studies center on the relationship between tectonic extension and magmatic construction in oceanic crust– or as one of my students put it: “black rocks in cold, wet places”. One of my current research projects focuses on “seafloor spreading” and transform faulting in Iceland. Graduate students Drew Siler and Andrew Horst (both here at SU) and Lindsay Morgan (who just finished her MS at Duke) are working projects in Iceland with me. With several other colleagues at other institutions, I am also finishing up a study of oceanic crust exposed in a seafloor chasm near Easter Island in the SE Pacific called “Pito Deep”. Near-future work will continue to focus on these types of investigations as well as collaborative projects with people here in the Department. I am looking forward to involving both graduate and undergraduate students in projects related to this research. Mid-ocean ridge spreading centers are the most voluminous volcanic province on Earth and a showcase of extensional tectonics. And yet, we know so little about the processes there. After a couple decades of learning how to do geology on the deep seafloor, we are at a point where we can basically make geological maps and collect samples wherever we like, even under a couple miles of seawater. The opportunity to make major contributions along these lines is just terrific right now. Sheeted dike complex exposed on the seafloor (about 3000 m) near Easter Island in the SE Pacific Ocean. Each dike is about 1 m wide and represents a small increment of seafloor spreading where magma injected the ever-widening crack beneath a spreading center. proposed an extraterrestrial trigger to the melt water flood(s) that cause the Younger Dryas Climate reversal - perhaps the best know abrupt climate change in the Earth Sciences. Our data from western Ireland clearly document that the Younger Dryas was not a single event with an abrupt beginning and end between ~ 13,000 to 11,500 calendar years ago, but in fact had three major, and as many as six minor climate fluctuations associated with it. Postdoc Jim Metcalf taking a thermochronology sample of the Possets pluton, Central Pyrenees, June 2007 As the “new guy on the block” I am very interested in meeting the alumni and friends of the Department. I hope you will stop by so I can meet you all in person next time you visit the campus. James Metcalf My first year here at Syracuse has been both busy and exciting. I arrived in August of 2006, just a few weeks after completing my Ph.D., and got straight to work. My background is in thermochronology, and I am particularly excited about the opportunity Syracuse offers to use and integrate all of the major low-temperature thermochronologic systems. I spent much of the first few months learning the ropes and getting trained to use the SUNGIRL lab facilities. My postdoc is with Paul Fitzgerald and Suzanne Baldwin, and I am working on their NSF-funded Pyrenees project. My main job is to use as many low-temperature thermochronometers as possible (e.g. apatite fission-track, (U-Th)/He, and 40Ar/39Ar) to track along- and acrossstrike variation in the timing and degree of exhumation in the Pyrenees. I was able to start working on samples Paul, Suzanne, and Ph.D. student Erika Schwabe had collected in previous year. This data is turning out to be very interesting, and I’ll be presenting the preliminary results at the December American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. This June I spent three weeks doing field work in the Pyrenees with Paul, Suzanne, and undergraduate Emily Feinberg. I have since decided that the Pyrenees could possibly be the greatest field site on the planet. Not only is the geology fascinating and well exposed, but the food and scenery cannot be beat. I also had a chance to interact with our Spanish colleague from the University of Barcelona, Dr. JosepAnton Muñoz. As excited and positive as I am about our data I hope we don’t figure everything out, I’d love to have an excuse to go back! In addition to keeping busy with the Pyrenees project, I’ve been working on computer automation of the noble gas lab, hoping to increase the speed and ease of sample analysis. I’ve been having a great time being a part of such an active research group, and am excited about all of the projects I am involved with. Henry T. Mullins I continue my research and teaching in the area of the near geologic record of climate change. Hank, along with former SU professor Bill Patterson University of Saskatchewan) and climatologist Adam Burnett at Colgate University, have a manuscript soon to be submitted to GEOLOGY that will bring a “new perspective” from western Ireland of the well know Younger Dryas climate reversal. The timing of this paper is critical in that at the last AGU Meeting scientists I am also working with geochemist Mark Teece at SUNY-ESF on a wonderful stable isotope data set (oxygen and carbon) from both carbonate and organic matter recovered in dual 11 m long piston cores at the south end of Cayuga Lake, NY. This is a high resolution of the transition between the Holocene Hypsithermal and our present Neoglacial, and should provide considerable new insight to this important paleoclimactic transition. Bill Anderson, former SU MS student, now a tenured professor at Florida International University, and I are working on a 12 m long core from the south end of Seneca Lake. It is a highly multiproxy approach, including stable isotopes, that documents multiple millennial to centennial scale climate changes throughout the Holocene in the northeastern United States, which has great implications for the current debate on global warming. Cathryn R. Newton Cathryn R. Newton, dean of The College of Arts and Sciences, announced that she will step down effective June 30, 2008, after having led The College as dean for eight years. She is the first woman to hold decanal rank in The College and will be the first incumbent in the newly created position of Professor of Interdisciplinary Sciences. As dean since March 2001, Newton has led The College of Arts and Sciences —Syracuse University’s largest school and the heart of undergraduate learning —through a period of remarkable transformation to its strongest position in its 137-year history. Undergraduate student applications have increased by more than 11 a factor of two and the quality of undergraduate students has risen markedly. Her leadership has resulted in increased quality and excellence throughout The College and increased significance and visibility nationally, all of which has allowed the entire University to grow and build on its strengths. “Cathy’s strategic investments in people and programs have made not only The College, but Syracuse University itself, a stronger, more spirited place,” says Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor. “Her leadership has been key to many of our most critical and impactful projects, such as the Life Sciences Complex, Imagining America and the Central New York Humanities Corridor, and we are indebted to her.” “Cathy has been a strong dean of Arts & Sciences, with a deep commitment to excellence in all things, whether recruiting students, evaluating faculty, building new programs or designing buildings,” says Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric F. Spina. “Our future advancement as a University will build on her strong leadership of Arts & Sciences.” “Leading The College though this time of such rapid and positive evolution has been a joy,” says Newton. “I remain strongly committed to its excellence and look forward to serving it in new ways.” One of Newton’s most lasting legacies will be the new $113 million, 210,000square-foot Life Sciences Complex, which will enable The College and the University to attract world-class researchers, foster critical interdisciplinary scientific collaborations, and remain competitive nationally and internationally in the important fields of biology, chemistry and biochemistry. The complex is slated to open in fall 2008. She led the team-based fundraising that made this project possible. Newton also led successful efforts in recent years to secure a number of highprofile research grants for The College. These include the $1 million Mellon Foundation grant to create the Central New York Humanities Corridor with 12 Cornell University and the University of Rochester, and awards from the Ford Foundation to support innovative scholarship and civic engagement in the arts and humanities. Throughout, Newton’s work has been informed by a deep commitment to thoroughly collaborative processes and respect for the faculty as the intellectual heart of The College and the University. When asked which of her many other accomplishments have been most gratifying, Newton cited several that are also highly visible -- such as the conversion of the Tolley Building into the new Humanities Center, the tremendous increase in the diversity of the faculty along all lines, including intellectual lines, the vast improvement in The College’s fundraising and development infrastructure and results, and the multi-year process of accepting administrative responsibility for the University-wide Honors Program, conducting extensive internal and external reviews, raising funds for its renaming and reinvention, and then overseeing the successful transition to the new Renee Crown University Honors Program. In each case, Newton emphasized the crucial importance of the contributions of many others with whom she has worked collaboratively. For example, in writing the proposal that led to the Mellon Foundation grant establishing the Central New York Humanities Corridor, she worked with 42 others at Cornell, Rochester and SU. But, Newton emphasized, much of what she has found most gratifying is far less visible. She led the successful effort to bring Imagining America to Syracuse, established the wonderful working relationship the University now has with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and created the Humanities Post-doctoral Program that has brought an acclaimed new option, on a pilot basis, to the teaching of writing within the disciplines. The daughter of an oceanographer and a teacher of literature, Newton grew up in an environment of intellectual excitement and delight in ideas. At 19 -- not so different from the ages of most SU students today -- she was already an honors graduate of Duke University, headed for a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina. Later, with a doctorate in earth sciences from the University of California at Santa Cruz, she came to Syracuse as a young professor in the geology department -- in which she later became chair. In her 25-year career with SU, Newton has earned international acclaim as a distinguished paleontologist. She has won awards as the outstanding advisor in The College and as the outstanding scholar/ teacher in the University. Many of the students she has mentored have become successful faculty members elsewhere. Newton is especially admired for leading in the development of innovative programs that benefit students, such as the Freshman Forum Program, the Coronat Scholars Program and the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program. Most recently, Newton has served as the deans’ representative to Chancellor Cantor’s Cabinet since September 2006. She has also been a member of the University’s RCM (Responsibility Center Management) Budget Committee since 2005 and was a member of the Budget Revision Planning Committee that led the University-wide transition to the RCM budgeting model. Newton has also served on a wide array of critical University search committees and academic and policy planning committees. Currently, Newton also serves as a member of the Imagining America National Advisory Board and the board of Syracuse Stage. Newton joined SU as an assistant professor of geology in 1983. She was promoted to associate professor in 1989 and was named the Jessie Heroy Page Professor of Earth Sciences and chair of the department in 1993. In July 2000, she was appointed interim dean of The College of Arts and Sciences; in March 2001, she was named dean following a national search. In 1991, Newton received the University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award, which recognizes individuals who demonstrate exceptional teaching and a record of significant contributions to the scholarly life of the University. Newton has always been in high demand among graduate students as a faculty advisor and was selected by The College of Arts and Sciences as Outstanding Faculty Advisor for 1999. She has served on The College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Council and Honors Council, on the planning committee for the Freshman Forum, and as co-director of the University’s WISE program. In 1992, she served as interim associate dean for programs, curriculum and instruction in Arts & Sciences. Following her departure as dean, Newton will take a yearlong sabbatical to focus on the completion of her longstanding research project on shipwrecks, before returning to the faculty at The College, where she will pursue high-impact interdisciplinary work. Spina has indicated that he will convene a national search for Newton’s successor immediately. Reprinted from SU News Services article by Kevin C. Quinn. Scott D. Samson Although much of the time it seems impossible to get to do any research done as the Chair of a department, sometimes the impossible does occur! Thus I have managed to get some really exciting research projects started, and guided, during my tenure as Chair. This, of course, is mostly thanks to my really superb graduate students. Here is a brief introduction to what I was doing in terms of research while Chair, and where we are now going to take this research. One of my long term goals was to use the record of the ages of detrital zircon to unravel the history of orogenic belts. After all it seems only sensible that the strati- Above, Photomicrograph of typical detrital monazites from alluvium in the FrenchBroad River, North Carolina. Note the wide variation in size, color, and morphology of these crystals. Our goal is to use an ion microprobe to determine their U-Th-Pb ages. graphic record of a basin should be the inverted or ‘mirror image’ of the mountain belt that eroded, right? Sadly no. It turns out that if one wants to understand the Taconic Orogen the last thing to do is examine mid-Ordovician sedimentary rocks for their detrital zircons. Want to understand what went on during the Acadian Orogeny? Skip the Devonian sandstones. Ah, but how about the granddaddy of them all, the Alleghanian Orogeny! Surely the last continental collision to have affected the east coast of ancient North America would provide a wealth of information from Pennsylvanian-Permian sandstones? Nope. If we didn’t know lots about the Alleghanian Orogeny already we would not only miss the details but we wouldn’t even know it had occurred based on the sedimentary detrital zircon record! Why? Well we aren’t completely sure, but what we do know is that the Grenville Orogeny was one of the most productive orogenies ever in terms of the amount of zircon produced in granitic rocks. Thus the sedimentary record, be it Taconic or Acadian or Alleghanian, is dominated by detrital zircons of Grenville age. Even modern sediment collected from rivers draining the East coast are dominated by Grenville detrital zircons! The Grenville Orogeny therefore appears to have been an event that produced a numerous granitoids with vast amounts of zircon – we have coined the phrase extreme “zircon fertility” to describe what happened during the Grenville tectonic events. This false-colored image shows the thorium distribution in a detrital monazite crystal. Growth zones are clearly depicted as different sectors within the crystal. Using these “element maps’ helps identify possible portions of the crystal that might be different ages. These above results, which we have substantiated from a variety of different sandstone types and from a wide variety of locations, placed some serious doubt on the utility of using detrital zircon ages to decipher anything about the history of ancient mountain belts. This was of considerable concern as more and more geologists are using detrital zircon to try to establish provenance. What to do? After much thought, and a rare epiphany, I came up with the idea that we might learn about the deformation/metamorphic history of a region not by dating the main portion of a detrital zircon crystal, but by determining the age of secondary rims grown on the zircon during a metamorphic event – not an easy task, but worth pursuing. An even better idea is to date a different mineral that commonly forms during metamorphic events – and thus we launched our project to determine 13 Above, A cathodoluminescence (CL) image of a detrital zircon from alluvium in a tributary to the French Broad River, N.C. The main portion of this crystal is Grenville in age (~ 1 billion years old), but note the thin rim around the edge of the crystal. This rim might be a much younger metamorphic rim. By ‘tunneling’ through the outer surface of the crystal we can determine the age of the rim. the U-Th-Pb ages of detrital monazite crystals preserved in the sedimentary record. Since monazite can from under much lower temperature and pressure regimes than metamorphic zircon it might hold a better key to the orogenic history of a region (see photographs). If we can combine monazite ages with the ages of metamorphic zircon rims (where present) we should learn considerably more about past tectonic events compared to the traditional method of analyzing the main, or central, portion of a zircon. Thus this summer we set out to determine the age of detrital monazite and zircon rims from alluvium from modern rivers draining parts of the southern Appalachians – an area known to contained significant amounts of exposed crustal rocks that experience serious Taconic deformation/ metamorphism. Our adventure involved collecting alluvium from the French Broad River in North Carolina, as well as alluvium from its small tributaries which are known to drain only regions of Taconic-age metamorphic rocks. With sophisticated tools (i.e. a colander and bucket we bought at K-Mart!) we collected alluvium at a dozen sites. Amazingly, the alluvium 14 is loaded with monazite (and zircon, no surprise)! And what we have found so far is that the vast majority of zircons do have Grenville ages, but……the monazite crystals, despite huge variations in size, color, and morphology (see photograph) all have yielded Taconic ages, around 470-460 Ma!! Even more intriguing is that we have found rims on some zircons that seem suspiciously different than the cores of the zircon grains. And as good fortune would have it a few of these thicker rims turned out to be Taconic in age – thanks to being able to date them using the amazing ion microprobe at UCLA. Our next quest is to take other detrital zircons that we know have Grenville cores and determine the ages of their rims – the problem here is that the rims are only a few microns thick. Typical ion microprobe dates require areas at least 10 or more microns wide. But there is a very clever new way of getting around that – by analyzing the outer “skin” of the grains by tunneling into the outer portion of the grain using the ion beam. This astonishing technique will allow us to analyze rims that are only a few microns thick – thus rims that would be far too thin to analyze by conventional cross-section ion microprobe techniques are now viable candidates for U-Pb dating (see photograph). This might well be a brand new breakthrough in the analysis of U-Pb dating of detrital zircon for tectonic studies. So I will go back to UCLA in October with my graduate students Jack Hietpas and Bryan Sell to test this intriguing idea. So please keep your fingers crossed and stay tuned – a brand new avenue of sedimentary provenance/metamorphic history may become available to all sorts of geological studies in the very near future! Oh, and about those projects involving sledge hammers and granites… next newsletter! Christopher A. Scholz Over the past year we have seen the first results emerge from two major NSFfunded projects involving scientific drilling on Lakes Malawi (East Africa) and Bosumtwi (West Africa). One paper published in a September 2007 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that about 70,000 years ago tropical Africa transitioned from a period of extreme climate variability, that included several megadroughts, to a stable, wetter climate may have stimulated the expansion and migration of early human populations. From the studies of the lake drill cores we observed that during the most severe episodes, the lake was below 15 percent of its current level—only 100 meters rather than 700 meters deep (more than a 95 percent water volume reduction). Before about 70,000 years ago, the climate was highly variable, African lakes dried up completely and then refilled, and plant and animal populations grew and died out. In particular these new The dynamically-positioned drilling barge Viphya, departing port. Lake Malawi is one of the world’s largest and deepest lakes, and along with Lake Tanganyika contains more than 80% of the surface freshwater on the African continent. New drill core evidence shows that the 700 m-deep lake was reduced by more than 500 m prior to 75,000 years ago, indicating periods of severe aridity. The day-shift wraps up at the end of the drilling program. results challenge the long-held thesis of “glacial aridity” that has prevailed for the continental tropics. Previously it was thought that the migrations and population changes of early modern humans were driven by the growth and collapse of high-latitude ice sheets, but our research suggests that instead, prior to 70,000 years ago, wet-dry cycles in Africa were driven by shifts in the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Further work on this topic by Ph.D. student Bob Lyons will be published over the coming year. Other new and exciting projects begun this year include a program funded by Tullow Oil for Jess Mantaro’s M.S. project on the chemostratigraphic analysis of exploration well cuttings from Lake Albert, Uganda. This study may lead to a better understanding of the long-term (4-7 million-year) aridification of Africa that led to the emergence of the earliest hominids. New M.S. student Robert Gobell is working off a new grant provided by the Skaneateles Lake Eurasian Milfoil Eradication Corporation, and is assessing the benthic bottom habitats of the littoral zone of this most pristine of the New York Finger Lakes. In addition to supervising these projects, this past June I once again led a rift-systems field school in the Kenya Rift Valley for Petrobras, the Brazilian National Oil Company. Field studies in the Kenya Rift Donald I. Siegel Don Siegel’s research group has been active this past year, both doing current work and planning for new projects. Don, Bette, and Li Jin, one of his PhD students, traveled to China during fall semester. Don gave an invited talk at ceremonies honoring the founding of a Groundwater Institute at Hohai University and then followed with a seminar at the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Nanjing University. After that, Don and Li visited the Department of Biology where Don, with Li translating, fielded questions from the graduate students and faculty across an assortment of hydrologic and ecological problems. Don and Li then were taken to Tai Lake, Shanghai’s water supply, where he and she looked at instrumentation in the watershed. Tai Lake is heavily polluted and Don will be preparing a multi-national and multi-university proposal to try and determine how best to characterize the contamination and remediate the waterquality problems. This summer, Jamie Ong, a SUNY-ESF/Maxwell MS student, sampled the lake and its watershed for Don to form the preliminary data base for the future proposal. book, “From Lokshen to Lo Mein: the Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food” was a finalist at the 2007 Gourmand Cookbook Awards). Don and company also reunited with his former student, Yipeng Shen (MS, 19**), the CEO and owner of GNT International Inc., an international geologic software company. Yiping took them to the famous Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant, where Don’s former and current Chinese students toasted him (picture--Li in green and Yiping in red). Li followed this trip with field work in Red Canyon Creek (Wyoming). She organized and ran the largest dye tracing tests ever done to characterize watershed-scale water exchange rates and travel times. Don’s former PhD student, Martin Otz, founder and CEO of NannoTrace Technologies (Switzerland) and in association with ERM Corporation collaborated with this research. Li and Chinese hosts brought Don and Bette to some of the finest restaurants in Nanjing where Don expanded on his Chinese culinary interest (His cookbook To the right, Li Jin (right and Yiping Shen toast their advisor, Don Siegel, who was almost under the table after too many “gambe!”s 15 Nate Krane (MS) completed his master’s degree this year under Don’s supervision. His work on using temperature to characterize water exchange between streams and groundwater will be shortly submitted with Don and Laura Lautz, another of Don’s doctoral students who now teaches hydrology at SUNY-ESF across from the Dome. Mimi Sarkar (PhD student) and Don visited the Glacial Lake Agassiz peatlands (Northern Minnesota) where Don, colleagues from four other institutions (including his former student Andrew Reeve, now teaching at Univ. Maine), and the U.S. Geological Survey recently won a multimillion dollar NSF grant to investigate how the regional hydrogeology affects methane formation. Mimi organized and led the sampling program for ground waters and peat pore waters under difficult conditions—the landscapes were only accessible by helicopter. This field trip proved particularly exciting to Mimi and Don when the helicopter’s rotors hit a tree. Don’s new student, Jessie Meeks (MS) started her research in tracing water in the Popo Agie River (WY), even before she arrived for her first graduate classes. The river disappears into a sink hole in the Madison limestone only to resurface as springs 1000 feet away—but with as much as twice the volume of water as when it entered the ground. Jessie’s tracer test, done in conjunction with the University of Missouri Branson Geology Field Camp (Prof. Linda Ivany and Don Siegel teach there), showed it took a whopping 4 hours for the water to traverse this short distance! Don and Jessie entered a recently discovered opening of the cave, only accessible during drought, and crawled 1/3 mile to see part of the river underground, and the edge of, literally, an underground reservoir of indeterminate size. Jessie also was asked by a cowboy if she wanted to round up cattle in the high country. She agreed (Don had to allow her this opportunity!), rode for 14 hours, and discovered muscles she never knew she had. 16 Mimi (white hat) and Jeff Chanton (Florida State) rush off a helicopter before the struts bury too deeply in Glacial Lake Agassiz peat. Finally, of Don’s students, Nick Azzolina (MS) graduated and now works for ERTEC, a consulting firm. Nick’s expertise in fingerprinting organic contaminants associated with coal tar is fast earning him a National reputation, even after only a short time away from his degree, which dealt with the capacity of Catskill mountain streams to buffer acid rain and whether wetland classifications in the Catskills are meaningful. He and Don will shortly have two papers on his MS work published. Don continues to provide service for the Geological Society of America and the National Academy of Science. He recently accepted a position as co-editor of GSA books and was appointed this fall as a member of the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board. He also was appointed to an NRC panel to advise the USGS how to reorganize their Water Resources Science Division to better meet the environmental challenges facing the country in the future. His current NSF grant profile includes his peatland and river science research as well as an educational grant to bring earth science to the elementary schools. Laura E. Webb I was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Tectonics program to pursue a project entitled “Collaborative Research: Strike-Slip History of the East Gobi Fault Zone, Mongolia: Modes of Intraplate Deformation, Sedimentary Basin Evolution, and Regional Fault Linkages”. We are now into year two of this three-year collaborative project with colleagues from University of Utah and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology. This is a multidisciplinary effort employing tools of structural geology, thermochronology, and sedimentary basin analysis to evaluate the timing and kinematics of intraplate deformation and basin formation in southeastern Mongolia. The results of this research are relevant to testing endmember models of continental block extrusion and continuum shortening during Asia’s history of collisions from Mesozoic–Recent. Josh Taylor, who recently finished his Master’s thesis with Paul Fitzgerald, is working on this project for his PhD. SU alumnus Matt Heumann is also working on this project for his PhD at the University of Utah. NSF’s East Asia and Pacific Group of the Office of International Science and Engineering is supporting a Research Experiences for Undergraduates supplement to the grant. Ian Semple has stepped up to the plate to undertake work on this project as a Senior is a collaborative, five-year project with investigators from four other US institutions. I will have the pleasure of visiting the region for the first time in January 2008. This project truly has the potential to shake up the Geoscience community, challenging the way we think about timescales of tectonic processes. We look forward to sharing more as the project gets underway. Overall, it is truly an exciting time to be a member of this department. We have lots of great science, education, and fellowship to look forward to over the coming years. Matt Heumann, Ian Semple, and Josh Taylor pray for a cloud during a break from field work while visiting an “obo” above a Buddhist Monastery at Ulgay Khid in the southeast Gobi. Thesis. I am thrilled to have Josh, Matt and Ian on board. In both 2006 and 2007 we spent about five weeks in Mongolia dedicated to field work in the remote southeast Gobi. If you like eating mutton and toiling in 110° F heat everyday, this is the place for you! Overall, both field seasons were very successful and we were also able to make connections with several mining companies operating and exploring in the region. One of our 2007 highlights was a viewing of “snakes on a plane” – snakes on a fault plane, that is! When Josh announced his discovery we thought he just had heatstroke. However, it appears that a paleoseismic event in a Quaternary fault zone caused a snake den and tunnel system to collapse causing the catastrophic death of more than 70 vipers. These “mummified” snakes may just help us put some additional constraints on the timing of faulting. I continue to be active in the Syracuse University Noble Gas Isotopic Research Laboratory and work closely with Professors Suzanne Baldwin and Paul Fitzgerald. We are excited to report that we have a new NSF Continental Dynamics project funded in Papua New Guinea. It Khishigee, Manchuk, Josh, Matt, and Ian enjoy a seat in the Suihent petrified forest in the southeast Gobi where trees were encased in a Late Jurassic pyroclastic surge. Constanze E. Weyhenmeyer It has been a long time since my last update from the Stable Isotope Laboratory but it seems like just yesterday! After a long instrument calibration period we have been making great progress in the lab, now analyzing ‘real’ samples. Allison Burnett (M.Sc student) and Soumitri Sarkar (Ph.D. student) have spent long (seemingly endless?!) hours in the laboratory working on the extraction and analyses of organic compounds and water samples. Thanks to their great efforts, we are now able to measure isotopic ratios of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen compounds in water, air and soil samples with great precision. In the next phase we will set up an automated system to measure isotopic compositions of calcite, aragonite and magnesite samples. For her Master’s Thesis Allison has created an exciting dataset from a sediment core from Lake Tanganyika, Great Rift Valley, that was drilled by Chris Scholz and collaborators. The new isotope record sheds new light into the climate history of East Africa, a region for which very few climate records exist. Allison has now moved on to do her Ph.D. with Larry Edwards at the University of Minnesota. In addition to the laboratory work, I have been involved in various collaborative research projects. Most of my time was spent working with the so-called IntCal 17 WorkingGroup(IWG).IntCalstands forInternationalCalibrationandthe workinggroupconsistsof20scientists fromvariousdisciplines.Thegoalisto constructadetailedcalibrationcurvethat allowsaconversionofradiocarbon(14C) datesinto‘true’ages.Thiscorrectionis necessarybecausetheconcentrationof atmospheric14Chasvariedconsiderably throughtime.Anystudythatinvolvesradiocarbondating(archeology,sedimentology,paleoclimatologyect.)willutilizethe latestcalibrationcurve(IntCal04)todate thesamplesanddevelopareliableage chronology.So,ifyouwouldliketoknow theageofyourantiquepieceoffurniture youwillneedourcalibrationcurveto determineits‘real’age! Oneofmyotherresearchprojects involvesapaleoclimaticinvestigationof theAmazonBasinwhichiscarriedout incollaborationwithscientistsfromthe UniversityCollegeinLondon,UK.The goalistoreconstructvariationsinthe SouthAmericanSummerMonsoonover thepast22,000yearsbasedonisotope analysesinsedimentcores.Additional collaborativeprojectsincludegroundwaterstudiesinOmanandIsraelaswell researchonspeleothems(yes,stalagmites andstalactites)fromSaudiArabia,Yemen andOman.Analysesofspeleothemcarbonatesallowareconstructionofthepast climatehistoryoverthousandsofyearsat highresolution.TheArabianPeninsulais averyexcitingareatoworkinbecauseof thescarcityofexistingpaleoclimatedata –itislikedetectiveworkwithoutany priorclues! Iamsurethenextmonths/yearswillbe asbusyasthepastandIlookforward toreportingonnew,hopefullyexiting resultsfromthelabandfieldinournext newsletter. Bruce Wilkinson MynameisBruceWilkinson,andIam semi-newlyarrivedintheDepartment ofEarthSciences.Iamrecentlyretired froma3-plusdecadeacademicstintin theDepartmentofGeologicalSciencesat theUniversityofMichiganinAnnArbor, andnowholdthetitularappointmentof “ResearchProfessorofEarthSciences” atSU.IlivewithProfessorLindaIvany onasmallfarminErievilleamongst anassortmentofhorses,cats,ducks, pigeons,geese,andchickens.Ihopeto spendmanyproductiveyearswiththe finepeoplehereinDepartmentofEarth Sciences. Mypastacademicactivitieshaveall dealtwithvariousaspectsofsedimentary geology;someeffortshavebeenmore stratigraphicinflavor;somemorepetrologic.Recently,Ihavegotteninterested intheimpactofhumanbeingsonrates ofcontinentalerosionandsedimentation.Inanutshell,mountainupliftand erosionhavebeenthemostimportantof allgeomorphicprocessesinshapingthe surfaceofourEarthovermostofgeologic time,buttheirdominancewasexceeded roughlyonethousandyearsagobythe rock-andsoil-movingactivitiesofhumans.Throughagriculturalactivityalone, humanshavedisplacedenoughsoilto coverthestateofRhodeIslandtoadepth ofalmost3kilometers,ortheentireEarth landscapetoadepthofabout6centimeters.Thesignificanceofhumansas geologicagentsofchangeiseasilyappre- It’s a wonderful life on the farm! ciatedwhenexaminingthetwomapsof natural(primarilyglaciersandrivers)and agriculturaldenudationacrossthelower UnitedStates.Althougherosionfromeitherprocessoperatedacrossareasthatare almostmutuallyexclusive(naturalerosion acrossuplands;soillossacrosslowlands), thenetimpactofhumanactivitiesexceedsthatofallnaturalprocessesbymore thananorderofmagnitude. Anyway,ChairmansSamson,Karson,and theentirefacultyandstaffhavemademe feelmorethanwelcomeinthisoutstandingdepartment,andIamnowwellsettledintomycomfyofficein222Heroy, acrossthehallfromJimBrower.Ifyou areeverinthispartofSyracuse,andhave sometimetokill,stopbyandsayhello. DEPARTMENTAWARDS Graduateassistant Jessica (Chappell) MantarohasbeennamedtherecipientoftheKerryKeltsawardfromtheLimnogeology DivisionoftheGeologicalSocietyofAmerica.ShewillbepresentedwiththisawardattheGSAAnnualmeetingonMonday, October29,2007. ThedepartmentisalsoproudtoannouncethatgraduateassistantStephanie Perrywasawardedaresearchgrantfromthe GeologicalSocietyofAmericaforherproposal,“Low-temperaturethermochronologicevolutionofDenali,CentralAlaska RangeBasedon(U-Th)/HeAnalysisofApatite.” 1 in s g n i n e Happ O E H R Y Love is in the Air Thesunwasoutforthefirst coupledowntheaisle.GraduatestudentJessicaChappell andNoahMantaro,whois wrappinguphisBSdegreein structuralgeologyatSUNY OswegoworkingwithDavid Valentino(hislastsemester isFall07)exchangedvows onMay26,2007inOswego, NewYork. How I Spent My Summer Vacation Ispentmysummerstudyingtheeffectsofdeforestationon snailsinLakeTanganyika,Tanzaniaasaparticipantofthe NyanzaProject.TheNyanzaProjectisaresearchtraining programforundergraduateandgraduategeologyandbiology studentsthatprovideanopportunityforstudentstolearn throughactiveresearchonthe lake.Iwasalsowasattacked byababoon–nophotosof thateventareavailable. Caitlin mugging for the camera on Lake Tanganyika. Iamnowinmy5thyearasamemberoftheEarthSciences DepartmenthereatSyracuse.HavingfinishedmyMastersin 2006,IamcurrentlyinthesecondyearofmyPh.D.Formy Ph.D.,underthesupervisionofDr.LauraWebbandDr.Paul FitzgeraldandcollaboratingwithDr.CariJohnsonandPh.D. studentMattHeumann(SU’02,’04)fromtheUniversityof Utah,Iamusingstructuralgeologyandthermochronologyto bettercharacterizethedeformationhistoryoftheEastGobi FaultZoneinsoutheasternMonoglia. ThisyearatgraduationIhadthehonorofreceivinganew awardgiveninmemoryofDr.K.DouglasNelson.Ratherthan aformal,stuffyplaque,IreceivedDoug’soldcoffeemug.Being thatthismugtraveledwithDougallovertheWorld,itcame withmeduringmyfieldstudiesthisyearintheGobiandcan beseeninthephotototheright.Iwillbesuretocontinueto putittogouseuntilIpassitontothenextawardee. Joshua Taylor OAH MANTARO JESSICA AND N August18,2007wasanother perfectdayincentralNew Yorkforawedding.GraduatestudentsHeatherBaugh andPatrickWall,who,of coursemetwhentheyjoined thedepartmentasgraduate studentsinLindaIvany’sresearchgroup,tiedtheknot inaceremonyperformedin HendricksChapelonAugust 18,2007. HEATHER AND PATRICK WALL Nelson Dr. K. Douglas Josh Taylor 1 Left: Linda Ivany admires rippled surfaces in the Late Cretaceous Mesa Verde Formation near Hudson, WY. Students do projects on sedimentary structures and facies analysis in this unit. Photo by Bob Bauer. FIELD CAMP IN THE WIND RIVER MOUNTAINS As most of our alums will remember, a summer field course is generally required of all undergraduates completing a B.S. in Earth Sciences at Syracuse. SU does not run its own field camp, so students have to sign on to one of the many programs available through other schools. This can be a little confusing because there have been no guidelines for where people should go. We hope that this will now be a much easier decision for students. For the past several years, Linda Ivany and Don Siegel have both been on the teaching staff of the University of Missouri’s Branson Field Station, in the Wind River Mountains near Lander, WY. Field camp director Robert Bauer brings in colleagues from various disciplines to teach 1-2 week segments of the course that focus on their discipline -- Linda teaches stratigraphy and paleontology, and Don teaches hydrogeology. The camp runs for 6 weeks and is based in Sinks Canyon, on an island in the middle of the Popo Agie River, a glacial meltwater stream draining the Wind River high peaks. Students work in the spectacularly preserved Phanerozoic section exposed on the flanks of the Winds and in adjoining basins, and learn techniques ranging from facies analysis to mapping deformed rocks to stream monitoring. The course also includes a 4-day trip through Yellowstone, the Tetons, and the Beartooths. People interested in more information should visit the web site at http://www.missouri.edu/~geoscrlb/fchome.htm, and don’t forget to look at the link for photos! Left: The Popo Agie River just downstream from camp during a rare June snowfall. The river drains snowmelt from the high peaks of the Wind Rivers, and is famous for disappearing into a cavern just below where this photo was taken (the “Sinks” of Sinks Canyon) and re-emerging a quarter mile downstream. Students did dyetracing experiments during a hydrogeology project and found that it took over 2 hours for the water to make the tortuous subterranean journey. Photo by Linda Ivany. 06-07 D o n a t i o n s Mr. Martin Acaster Dr. Barbara J. Anderson Dr. Charles E. Bartberger Mr. Ronald M. Belak Dr. Marion E. Bickford Mrs. Susan Guhl Browne Mr. David Buick Mrs. Paula M. Buick Mr. George V. Bulin, Jr. Dr. Maurice A. Cucci Dr. Carlos A. Dengo Mr. George E. Duchossois Mr. James M. Eagan Mrs. Shirley Elston Dr. Anne F. Gardulski Mr. Peter G. Goodman Mr. Jeffrey G. Gould Mr. John F. Heaney Mr. Kevin R. Heaphy Right: Students standing at the unconformity between Precambrian granite and the Cambrian Flathead Sandstone in Wind River Canyon, Owl Creek Mountains. Recent SU grads Michael Tedeschi and Cristina Story are at left. Photo by Angie Van Boening. Left: Red Canyon, south of Lander on the flanks of the Wind River Mountains, where students do a project in hydrogeology. The redbeds are the Triassic Chugwater Group and early Jurassic Nugget Sandstone. Photo by Bob Bauer. Right: The women’s dorm at Branson Field Lab, with lower Paleozoic rocks exposed in the cliffs behind. A favorite hike is to the promontory at the top of the ridge, known locally as “George” and made up of the Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite. Photo by Linda Ivany. to the Department Dr. Barbara M. Hill Mr. Daniel G. Jaffe Dr. Joseph H. Kravitz, Jr. Dr. Richard L. Kroll Mr. Hannes E. Leetaru Ms. Marilyn E. Leetaru Mr. Frederick K. Mack Mrs. Ruth H. Major Mr. Milton R. Marks Mr. C. Phillip McGuire Mrs. Elizabeth S. Nelson Mrs. Nannette Nelson Mr. John M. Noble Mr. John M. Noble Dr. James F. Olmsted Mr. Theodore O. Price, Jr. Dr. John J. Prucha Mrs. Marina V. Prucha Mrs. Mary H. Prucha Mr. Stephen J. Prucha Mr. and Mrs. William D. Romey Mr. Scott T. Saroff Dr. Catherine H. Shrady Nancy E. Spaulding Mr. Robert M. St. Louis Mrs. Barbara B. Stengel Dr. Irving H. Tesmer Mr. William P. Tolley, Jr. Mr. Jack Weikart Dr. Robert W. Wellner Dr. Michael T. Whalen Dr. Michael Peter Wilson Mr. Walter C. Woodmansee Mrs. Walter C. Woodmansee Mr. Paul J. Yarka Mrs. Margaret Prucha Yarka Opportunities to Contribute to Your Department Geology Endowed Development Fund: This account is used at the discretion of the chair for any activities that enhance the department. John James Prucha Field Research Fund: This endowment is used to help our graduate students cover the costs of their field studies. Geology Department Gifts Account: Gifts to this account are used to purchase software/hardware upgrades for our student computer lab, new maps and displays for department wall spaces, field equipment. K. Douglas Nelson Memorial Fund: An endowed memorial fund will support research/recruitment of outstanding graduate students. Contributions can be sent to: Department of Earth Sciences, 204 Heroy Geology Lab., Syracuse, NY 13244-1170 awards UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS GRADUATE AWARDS CHAUNCEY D. HOLMES AWARD NEWTON E. CHUTE AWARD (GRADUATE) (For excellence in introductory Geology courses) (Outstanding graduate student for scholarship, service to the department and professional promise) Spring 2006: GOL 102 (Dr. Scholz) GOL 103 (Dr. Mullins) GOL 105 (Dr. Ivany) GOL 242 (Dr. Wilkinson) 2007 Award Winner: Patrick Wall Caitlin Keating-Bitonti Malissa Shaw Melissa Berg Sheela Sood Fall 2006: GOL 101 (Dr. Wilkinson) GOL 101 (Dr. Karson) GOL 105 (Dr. Siegel) GOL 105 (Dr. Fitzgerald) Dale Cooper Ringham Dianna M Squillace-Manno Susanna McElligott Elizabeth Gray THOMAS CRAMER HOPKINS AWARD MAJORIE HOOKER AWARD (For the year’s outstanding thesis proposal or dissertation proposal) 2007 Award Winner: Robert Lyons BEST PUBLICATION Late Miocene-Pliocene eclogite facies metamorphism, D’Entrecasteaux Islands, SE Papua New Guinea J. metamorphic Geol., 2007 Award Winner: Brian Monteleone K.D. Nelson Prize (Most promising tectonics student) 2007 Award Winner: Joshua Taylor (Outstanding junior or senior majors in Geology) 2007 Award Winners: Michael Tedeschi & Cristina Story FAYE E. MERRIAM AWARD (Undergraduate major for academic achievement, extra-curricular contributions, and professional promise) 2007 Award Winner: Emily Feinberg CHAIRMAN’S AWARD (Outstanding Graduate Student’s Service to the Department and Professional Promise & for being an all around good sport!) 2007 Award Winner: Allison Burnett JOHN PRUCHA RESEARCH AWARDS ESTWING AWARD (Rock Pick) (Support for student field research projects) (Outstanding Earth Sciences student) 2007 Award Winners: Ian Semple, Cyprien Mihigo 2007 Award Winners: Li Jin and Jack Heitpas Jack Heitpas I am interested in detrital heavy mineral provenance studies. This past summer I was able to undertake fieldwork in the southern Appalachians having won the generous John Prucha Research grant. In the image above we are collecting river sediment from the French Broad River. From these samples we are identifying the heavy minerals and performing chemical analyses on the grains with the goal of comparing these to potential source rocks in the area. The ability to observe and collect the potential source rocks was made entirely possible through the Prucha grant. Li Jin Thanks to the Prucha Fund, I was able to travel to Lander, Wyoming to do research experiments during 2007 summer field season in Red Canyon Creek watershed, the Wind River Range of the Rocky Mountains. The question I proposed to address is that how significant the temporary water storage in watershed is affecting the hydrological system of low order streams in America West. Surface water storage in Red Canyon Creek watershed is mainly caused by the extensive occurrence of beaver dams. The ponds behind beaver dams substantially delay water movement and increase the water residence time in the system. I used the whole stream solute injection experiments to characterize the average characteristics of solute transport and storage in the stream and to investigate how the beaver dams influence water and solute movement downstream. The data I collected during the field season will be presented at the AGU fall meeting in December 2007. 21 In Memorium Ernest H. Muller Emeritus Professor of Geology 1923-2005 Ernest Hathaway Muller, born March 4, 1923 in Tabriz, Iran, passed away suddenly in Houston, Texas on October 20, 2005. He arrived at Syracuse University in 1959 where he subsequently taught for 31 years. Ernie was preceded in death by his loving wife, Wanda Custis Muller. He is survived by his children David, Katherine, and Ruth Anne, and six grandchildren. William Meredith Merrill 1918-2007 William Meredith Merrill, 88, Baldwin City, died Tuesday, March 6, 2007, in Baldwin City, KS after a short illness. He was born December 1, 1918, in Detroit, the son of James and Isabelle LeBombard Merril. He graduated from Michigan State University in 1940 and received a Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1950. He served in the U.S. Army as a lieutenant in the mechanized cavalry. He served in combat as a tank commander in North Africa, Italy and France and retired with the rank of major. He was a faculty member at the University of Illinois and chairman of geology at Syracuse University before he came to Kansas 22 University in 1963 as professor and chairman of the department of geology. He was an expert in stratigraphy and sedimentology and authored many papers and textbooks prior to his retirement in KU more than 30 years later. Survivors include four sons, Russell, Dover, Del.; Wood, San Diego; Douglas, Iowa City; and Timothy, New York. The Department thanks Randy Van Schmus, University of Kansas for the above information from Journal World. Richard (Dick) Rezak November 10, 2008 The department received notification from Dr. John J. Prucha of Dick’s passing. Dick Rezak was one of the department’s most distinguished alumni. In addition to his work in oceanography, he was widely recognized as the profession’s foremost authority on stromatolites. Dick and John were colleagues at the Shell Development Research Laboratory in Houston during the years 1958-1963. Jane Cressey Raymer ‘43 We wish to thank Margaret Raymer Lambert for the following touching tribute to Jane that she sent to the department in August. Jane Cressey Raymer was a Syracuse University summa cum laude graduate in 1943, having majored in Geology and Geography and minored in Journalism. During graduate studies she was named to Sigma Delta Epsilon, Mu chapter. Mrs. Raymer’s life-long interest in earth sciences began at the age of 4 with a visit to the lava tubes of Kilauea, Hawaii. At Syracuse Jane Cressey studied with a distant relative, Professor George Babcock Cressey. In a department diminished by WWII to a handful of students, the teaching methods were reversed: Jane prepared lectures on each area of study which she then presented to Professor Cressey. Successfully challenging the dress code which required that female students wear skirts, she argued that trousers offered more coverage and practicality on field trips. Her collecting bag always traveled behind the driver’s seat, at the ready with a rock hammer. Vacations were spent mining sapphires in Montana, picking garnets from a direct highway turn-out in South Dakota, panning gold.. and of course slowing down for particularly interesting road-cuts! Her two grandchildren were rewarded with pocket change for spotting ancient lake beds and other feather. Mrs. Raymer died 10 May 2007 in Prescott, AZ. Her ashes will be scattered at sites of geological interest. Alumni News Alumnus Spotlight Harold Whitbeck, B.S. ‘58 TheDepartmentofEarthScienceswouldliketoacknowledgeandthankouralumnus spotlightHaroldA.WhitbeckB.S.’58,forhismostgenerouscontributiontothedepartmentwhichthatwasusedtopurchasenewmicroscopesreplacingaclassroomofoutdated microscopes.Theseareusedbyourgraduatestudentsforresearchandareusedinour undergraduatelevelcoursesincludingMineralogy(GOL314),Petrology(GOL418)and Sedimentology(GOL517).Oneofthemicroscopesisequippedwithadigitalcamerathat enablescaptureofimagesandalsoprojectliveimagesintheclassroom. HeiscurrentlyCEOofRailCarAmericaInc.,acompanythatmanagesfacilitiesinSan Antonio,Tucson,Omaha,andChehalis(StateofWashington)providingfreight-carmaintenanceandrepairservices. HaroldA.Whitbeckisalong-timecollectorofRussianImperialPorcelaineggs.Hehaslectured andspokenonthesubjectandexhibitedhiscollectionatmuseumsandinstitutionsthroughout theUS.Hisbook,“RussianImperialPorcelainEasterEggs”waspublishedin2001withco-author TamaraKudriavtseva,acuratorofRussianceramicsandporcelainattheStateHermitageMuseum inSt.Petersburg. Mr.Whitbeckwasbornin1931andmajoredingeologyinTheCollegeofArtsandSciences.He ledaverybusylifewhileatSyracuseUniversity,participatingintheGeologyClub,VarsityLacrosse,SigmaAlphaEpsilonfraternityandothercampusactivities.HeisnottheonlySUalumin thefamily:Hisfather,HaroldAndrusWhitbeck,Sr.wasintheclassof1929.Hiswife,Moreland (Menz)Whitbeck’57,earnedaB.F.A.CumLaudefromtheSchoolofArt&DesigninAdvertising Design.SheisavolunteerdocentforFineArtsMuseumsofSanFrancisco.Haroldandhisfamily resideintheSanFranciscoBayarea. Stephanie (Clifford) Arnold (B.A.’99) She’sinthealumninewsagain,onlythistimeasthenewestadditiontothedepartment’smain officestaff. StephaniebeganasatemporaryemployeeinDecember2006.Shewasmadeapermanent employeeinJuly2007.Stephanie’sloveofearthscienceshaspaidoffhandsomelyforthe department.StephanieistheUndergraduateandGraduateCoordinatorforthedepartment. Shehasbeenworkingwiththedepartment’sheadteachingassistant,AndrewHaveles,on integratingGoogleEarthandGeowallforanewintroductorylab.ThenewsfromStephanie keepsgettingbetterasshehasannouncedthatsheandAaronareexpectingtheirfirstchildin March2008. StephanieisalsotheownerofSitStayPlayPetSitting,soyouknowwhotocallshouldyou needyourpetcaredfor! Adam Carey M.S.’06 AdamhassettledintoajobinNewOrleans,LAatMineralsManagementService.One ofhisprimaryfunctionsasaResearchEvaluationgeoscientististoscientificallyevaluate offshoreU.S.propertytoensurefairmarketvaluebidsarereceivedfrompetroleumcompaniesforthemineralrights.Inordertoachievethis,heinterprets2-Dand3-Dseismicdata tocreatesubsurfacemapsshowinggeologicstructure,reservoirthickness,andamplitude anomalies.Thesesubsurfacemapsalongwithelectriclogsandmicropaleontologyareused tolocatetargetareasofpotentialhydrocarbon-bearingreservoirrock. 23 Syracuse University Department of Earth Sciences 204 Heroy Geology Lab Syracuse NY 13244-1070 2007 GSA Annual Meeting & Exposition 28-31 October • Colorado Convention Center • Denver, Colorado The department of Earth Sciences will once again be at the annual GSA meeting both as presenters and as recruiters. The department will have booth space available for students to come by meet current graduate students, learn of all the exciting activities in the department and meet some of our faculty. The number one reason to attend the annual meeting is, of course, the fact that Monday night at GSA is ALUMNI NIGHT!! And once again, we will be hosting a reception for our alumni and friends of the department. The details are: Monday, October 29, 2007, 7:00pm - ?? Grand Hyatt Denver 1750 Welton Street (4 blocks from the Convention Cntr.) 17th & Welton, Denver, CO 80202 Phone: (303) 295-1234 Hope to see as many of you there as possible. 100% post-consumer paper, certified Ecologo, Processed Chlorine Free and manufactured using biogas energy.
