St. Lawrence University Geology Newsletter

Transcription

1 St. Lawrence University Geology Newsletter Winter 2016 pg. 1 of 8

2 Message from the Chair, Our students, staff and faculty have worked hard over the last several months, and this newsletter is meant to highlight some, though certainly not all, of the accomplishments that have recently come out of our department. Several of our students were involved with faculty in externally (NSF, Hess) funded field research projects from the Canadian Arctic, Alaska, and Arizona to North Dakota. Following the busy summer with SLU fellows undergoing research on campus, six students and three faculty presented at the 2016 Geological Society of America Meeting in Denver. Student presenters included Mikayla Thomas '17, Helen Eifert 18, Alexandria Cerpovicz 17, Neil Seifert 17, Lisa Grohn '17, and Meg Musser 18. Altogether, SLU alumni, students, and faculty contributed with 55 presentations. Laurentian Reception, jointly organized by the Office of Laurentian Engagement and the Geology department, was held at the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery, downtown Denver. In addition to the GSA Meeting in Denver, faculty also presented their research at the International AAPG Meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Our research continues to be published in major journals, including, among others Earth-Science Reviews, Geology, Geosphere, and Marine and Petroleum Geology. The past semester was an eventful one in terms of fieldtrips, with Jeff Chiarenzelli 81 and alumnus John Kelly 86 co-leading the Colorado Plateau trip, and Judith Nagel-Myers and Matt VanBrocklin running the paleontology fieldtrip focused on the Cenozoic stratigraphy of the Florida Panhandle. Meanwhile, Alexander Stewart was busy organizing a record number of geology seminars for our Fall 2016 Geology Seminar Series. The speakers included Bruce Selleck (Colgate University; A close look at an ancient fault-hydrothermal system in the Adirondack Region), Nicolas Cowan (McGill University; Geology from top-down: the exoplanet opportunity), Laura Condon (Syracuse University; Assessing the impact of groundwater surface water interactions across the continental US), Adrienne Rygel (SUNY Potsdam, Acid mine drainage at the Stellaville Mine, DeKalb Junction, NY), Nicholas Metz (Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Lake Ontario lake-effect snow modelling/prediction), Will Amidon (Middlebury College; Cretaceous passive margin rejuvenation in eastern North America: part of something bigger? ), Christopher Junium (Syracuse University, Oceanic anoxic events in the geologic past). Students on-campus activities culminated with the Earth Sciences Honorary Society, Sigma Gamma Epsilon Eta Xi Chapter induction of four new members: John St. Deny 18, Alexandria Cerpovicz 17, Lukas Harvey 18, and Elliot Boyd 18. I hope you like this update from your geology department. As you read through this newsletter, do not hesitate to me with any comments or suggestions for ways we may improve the service we provide to our students, alumni and friends. We keep hearing from alumni about all the amazing things they're up to: grad school, cool field research, scientific publishing. We love to hear your stories, and we want to keep in touch. Finally, I want to thank you, our alumni and donors, for your generous support of our students and program. Your generosity enhances our teaching and research mission by providing expanded opportunities for field and analytical work, travel to professional meetings and summer field courses, and supports summer fellowships for our outstanding students. Best, Antun Husinec Cenote (water-filled sinkhole), Quintana Roo, Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. SLU Geology reception at Denver GSA. Front row: Brett Palmateer, Mark Erickson, Antun Husinec, Alexander Stewart, Erkan Toraman. Second row: Jennifer Gifford, Mike Ward, Krysia Kornecki, Amelia Oates, Sean Regan, Lisa Grohn, Alexandria Cerpovicz, Meg Musser, Helen Eiffert. Third row: Dan Peppe, John Miller, Colin Davis, Neil Seifert, Rudy Bentlage, and Brian Powers. pg. 2 of 8

3 Guten Tag, I can report on a slightly quieter fall semester After successfully going through my mid-pro review in the spring, I am now working intensely towards tenure. This fall I taught for the first time in St. Lawrence s First Year Program (FYP), the flag ship of our Institution. In the context of my FYP class Dinosaurs, climate change and mass extinction I had the opportunity to closely guide a group of freshman through their first semester here at SLU, and expose them as much as possible to our Geology Department. As a result almost half of the class expressed an interest in taking more Geology classes. The other class I taught was the second round of my Conservation Paleontology class, which, again, turned out to be a lot of fun. I am in the final throws of preparing my first field trip to Florida during the winter break. I will be taking 10 students to see the Cenozoic sediments and fossils of the Florida panhandle. I am looking forward to a few days of warmer weather and a lot of good fossil hunting. My research is also keeping me busy. I finished up much of the data analysis of the project on measuring bias of undergraduate students compared to professionals, which so many of you supported during SLUGAC. Neil Seifert 17, presented some of the dataset at GSA in Denver and we will be finishing the write up of the results this spring. Our results show that you professional did a great job measuring snails, but undergraduates, if interested in the subject, do also a scientifically acceptable job as well. This is good news for researchers at undergraduate institution like ours who work with students as research assistants in our scholarly activities. I am looking forward to the spring semester I have my work cut out for me with record enrollment in Paleontology (22 students) and almost 40 students in Historical Geology, a testament to our growing Geology major! I wish you all a Happy New Year! Cheers Judith Nagel-Myers Merhaba Geo Folks! It is hard to believe another semester (and a year) has passed! Overall, it has been a great fall semester for me; a lot of field/ class work with students, catching up with the latest research developments in geosciences during the annual GSA meeting, and a very productive lab work at the University of Arizona geochronology labs. Last semester I taught Structural Geology and two of the labs for the Dynamic Earth. I must say the location of our campus makes it very easy to teach these courses as we have access to great rocks/ structures in a short distance. This year GSA was in Denver, CO and it was great to meet some of you in person during our traditional gathering. At the end of the semester, I had a chance to join Dr. Chiarenzelli and two senior students (Alexandria Cerpovicz 17 and Neil Seifert 17) to use the state-of-art geochronology labs at the University of Arizona. We dated many samples collected from various parts of the Adirondacks but my own work focused on the of zircon, apatite, and titanite grains from the spectacular mylonites of the Carthage-Colton Shear Zone. Hopefully, you ll be hearing the results of our work soon so stay tuned! Best Wishes, Erkan Toraman Geology students Neil Seifert 17 and Alexandria Cerpovicz 17 joined faculty members Dr. Chiarenzelli and Dr. Toraman in dating zircon, apatite, and titanite grains at the UA Geochron Lab. Neil Seifert 17 and Alexandria Cerpovicz 17 have received SLU Student Research Fellowship to go the Geochron Labs at the University of Arizona. Both students have helped faculty members Dr. Chiarenzelli and Dr. Toraman in zapping zircon grains separated from rock samples collected from the Adirondacks. Collecting samples for conodonts and stable isotopes at the Wilson M. Laird Core and Sample Library, Grand Forks, ND. From left to right, Dr. Antun Husinec, Peter Moutevelis 17, and Lukas Harvey 18. pg. 3 of 8

4 This past summer and fall were quite productive working with students from Iceland to Alaska and the Adirondacks. In the late spring, Dr. P. Jay Fleisher 61 and Matt VanBrocklin and I took nine students to Iceland for a Glacial Field Methods course. You might not believe it, but it rained only one day we had sun and 75 for most of it! Directly after our trip to Iceland, Helen Eifert 18 and Meg Musser 18 and I met with Dr. Trent Hubbard 94 (AKDGGS) in southcentral Alaska for some tree-ring-related field work on the Tonsina Hill. Helen s effort involved tackling the mass-movement record in the trees, while Meg dealt with collecting data on the climate signal recorded by the trees. Tentative results are showing a relationship between the emplacement of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline and the initiation of slope failure (think of the unbelievable increase in construction traffic along this only roadway to Valdez during its construction). Climate wise, we are teasing out an 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle, which has been recognized in coastal Alaska. This project should be submitted to a journal soon. In addition, Helen, Meg and I presented work on Women in Geosciences from a liberal arts perspective at the annual GSA meeting in Denver. This work, we are planning, is to be submitted to a GSA Special paper this summer. Also, previous field work with Dr. Trent Hubbard 94 and Catherine Heinrich 14 is in press as we speak (Dendrogeomorphic evidence of mass wasting Northway Junction, AK). This fall was productive with 100-level geology lecture and lab (4 lab sections this year) and geomorphology (GEOL211). In addition, Helen Eifert 18 and Elliot Boyd 18 started working with my colleagues from University of Cincinnati (UC) and myself on my NSF grant looking into leaf waxes as palaeohydrological proxies. We sampled a few lakes in October and will be back out for a week or more this January when it s cold and the ice is thick! Both Helen and Elliot will roll this project into summer fellowships and lab time at UC; all supported by the NSF. This coming Spring, I will be offering 100-level geology with lab and 300-level Hydrology/Hydrogeology. In addition, I am offering another trip to Iceland through our Center for International and Intercultural Studies program with Dr. Eileen Visser (Biology) and Meg Musser 18 as our TA. If we are lucky, Meg will be receiving a SLU Fellowship to allow her to collect data while we are in Iceland for a senior-thesis project (thanks to Dr. Fleisher, we are thinking Gígjökull jökulhlaups). I ll also be preparing for a busy summer with international meetings in South Africa and Estonia; field-and-lab work for the leaf waxes and another trip to Alaska with one or two students to begin a tree-ring project at Treasure Creek near Fairbanks reopening a gold mine these days requires a bit of ground work! Dr. Alexander K. Stewart Henry Knox, 4.75 years This fall seemed to fly by and we are gearing up for the Spring semester I was fortunate to have 24 students in Mineralogy and I imagine Petrology will be a large class this spring. Cycles seem to be the way of our major, with those both internal and external to campus controlling how many students we are working with at any one time. Speaking of cycles, this fall we have learned about a number of our alums who have either just started a career in energy or have had a lengthy one, only to find that their jobs have been eliminated. Let s hope they all land on their feet and find other meaningful work. The skills we learn in geology translate well to almost any other field and throughout my career I ve had a chance to apply mine to very diverse problems from human health to the fate and transport of environmental contaminants to hydrology. This summer I worked with Dr. Marian Lupulescu of the New York State Museum mapping the Witherbee 7.5 quadrangle near the former iron mining district near Lake Champlain. We were joined by students Lisa Grohn 17 and Larissa De Santana Do Nascimento. Larissa is an exchange student from Brazil who joined us for some summer training. She and Lisa participated in a number of different activities including some isotope work at Carleton University in Ottawa. I sucked it up and did my annual trip up Algonquin with my summer students. I believe it may have been the highlight of everyone s summer as we had a crystal clear day and limited traffic on the mountain. Perhaps the highlight of my Fall teaching duties was co-leading another trip to the Colorado Plateau with alumni John Kelly 86. John was a history major at St. Lawrence but has expanded his definition of history to include geology. From the End of the Road Ranch in New Castle, Colorado we traveled far and wide across the plateau ending our trip with a stay at Devil s Garden in Arches National Park. Along the way we learned enormous amounts about the rocky backbone of the plateau, its human history from ancient Pueblos to John Wesley Powell, resource extraction, and how life works in an arid environment where water cannot be taken for granted. John has my admiration and thanks for his generosity with his time, his ranch, and his knowledge. Eight students made the trip and enjoyed it immensely. No one even complained about the loss of our tents on the first night camping along the Colorado. After final exams this winter I traveled to the Arizona Laserchron Center my colleagues Erkan Torman (our visiting structural geologist), Marian Lupulescu, and students Neil Seifert 17 and Allie Cerpovicz 17. We had a chance to collect some excellent data in support of a number of ongoing projects. As I likely have mentioned in the past my students and I have made annual trips to the Laserchron Center over the last ten years or so. It is truly an excellent experience for all involved. My best to you in 2017 and thanks to all of you who wrote, called, ed or otherwise kept us in the know about you, your families, and careers. Jeff Chiarenzelli pg. 4 of 8

5 Hello friends, The school year is over and Dr. Stewart and I are back from the spring Iceland trip. It is pretty quiet around here as there are only a few geology students around doing summer work with various geology faculty and I am finishing up maintenance of equipment and picking up of lab space. As vacation nears I am spending more time day dreaming about warm weather, farm chores, fun and leisure But before I go here is a little North Country Weather Report for you all. Spring has been progressing slowly in the North Country, with a few warm sunny days breaking week long cool and damp weather. Our weather has warmed over the past few weeks, though the highs remain in the 50 s for the most part yet. Regardless of the weather, it is spring by the SLU calendar. We are now nearing the end of the last week of class and you can feel the fatigue and excitement. All seem in good spirits with the semesters end so near in sight. Even though we had an easy winter, by every standard in the North Country, the coming of spring is still a magic time of year. Most of our summer resident birds are now back, to include swallows, and the morning chorus of birds around our little farm is sweet and loud. Love watching the robins and flickers hunt for earth warms, grubs and insects in the pasture and lawn, joined by red winged black birds, starlings, and the occasional sand piper. Makes a body feel good to see and hear life after a long quiet winter. And we are greening up nicely too. Though our lawn mower still remains quiet and cold in an old barn, there have been those folks who have already mowed their lawn. Most trees have budded out by this time too, even the black walnut tree buds are swelling. Speaking of spring and budding trees, finally got started on building a sugarbush. From last October until near the end of April I could be found most every weekend in the maple woods figuring out where to run the first of 3 mainlines, hanging 12 gage wire, then hanging inch mainline on that wire and getting the line side tied and generally heading down slope. By the end of February we had approximately 7000 feet of main line up. There is 3000 feet of trunk line extending from a 2400 gallon gathering tank that ties into four nearly 1000 feet lateral mainlines that feed into the main. Still have a few more short lateral lines to put up on this mainline yet but the longest and hardest stretches are in place. We began hanging tap lines by mid-february and managed to tap in two of the four main lateral lines. By February 28 we began tapping trees and managed to put in 253 taps this season which produced around 2800 gallon of around 2% sap. Not bad considering only about a third of the taps this mainline will eventually have were put in this past season. And there will be two more similar mainlines put up before we are done. The work is slow and sometimes difficult but the view from the office is fantastic! Having an easy winter this past season really helped. Don t think we could have gotten near as much accomplished if last winter was anything like the winter before. The farm and all who live there are doing well. Have been busy with catching up on trimming the horse s feet now that the weather is more comfortable. That chore is a lot like work! But it too is enjoyable and seems like a good skill to know. Still feeding hay but, probably not for much longer. The horses tend to graze year round but rely on hay from October to well into May. Now that the grass is beginning to grow and green up it won t be long and they will turn their noses up to the hay. Have a good start on our spring fence repair and have begun cleaning up the pastures from feeding hay all winter. Will bring our two heifers home to the farm soon. Waiting for them to get bred before that happens. And so will begin the start to our new beef herd. Have a few log piles started for next winters wood, but have not yet began blocking the logs into firewood yet. Well my friends, I had better finish up a few things here in SLU Land before meeting with the seniors and their designated drivers to embark on the annual Sketchy Bar Tour. Not sure exactly what year that started, thinking it was the creation of Dr. Stephen Robinson around 2004 or so.. After Dr. Robinson left students approached me about being their tour guide to local haunts that I enjoy. Seems to have become an annual festivity since and I can only recall one maybe two groups of seniors since not getting this tour in before graduation. Destinations have not changed much over the years since becoming guide; Jocko s Bar in Degrasse, The Wayside Tavern at Whippoorwill corners in South Russell, The Last Lap main street Edwards, and finally the out of the way Golden Glow in South Edwards. The beauty of this tour is that, from the Glow I am walking distance to home. Sending love and smiles to you all and hoping each of you has a memorable, enjoyable, and easy summer ahead. Cheers Matt VanBrocklin Fall 2017 Geology field trip to the Colorado Plateau. Geology students accompany SLU alumni John Kelly ( 69) on a walk through Devil s Garden at Arches National Park. John s End of the Road ranch has been a launching destination for annual trips for the last four years. pg. 5 of 8

6 Dear Friends, Happy New Year to all. Thank you everyone who sent Christmas cards. It is always good to hear from you on paper, especially because I am never sure what I am getting when I fool around with facebook and the like. Some of this will no doubt sound like my Christmas letter which I just finished about 2 weeks ago! Sorry if it s a repeat. Not sure where to begin. I think you are caught up on my brother s various surgeries from the Spring/Summer Newsletter so I ll jump to May. I got the vegetable garden in, some in May and some in early June. Squash did poorly again, but egg plants were super and tomatos were good for a change. Peas, carrots, beets, potatos, chard, herbs etc., all did rather well b/c I watered them through the very severe drought that we had. Still using garden veggies! With Ray s help in late Summer, I replaced some of the fence posts to maintain deerproofness. Grandson Owen spent a long July 4 weekend with me at camp in VT. He got out in the boat once and was swimming a couple of times. Now he is motoring all over the place from what I can tell by the Christmas photos! His stuffed eurypterid is still a favorite. I look forward to a visit next summer. I spent much time in NJ at Glovers Pond working on the Johnsonburg butterfly garden (BG). Brothers Ray and Glenn and several 60s camp staff alumni worked 4 or 5 different times to get the best results. Butterflys were there in good numbers in July and August. When we visited on Augist 3, the BG was in full bloom, spectacular. Ray's layout of the plants worked beautifully. And the butterflies I have never seen so many at J'burg. They seemed to know it was their garden as they showed no fear when we approached. I just sat there watching them float from flower to flower. In the AM, as sun rises over the treetops and warms the BG, Tiger Swallowtails begin to glide down from the cherry tree above the garden where they have roosted over night; other species followed, appearing in a rather regular sequence. Often there were 4 species of swallowtails alone gliding around the flowers with skippers and fritillarys in addition. And then the sphinx moths began to appear clear-winged, white-lined, gallium and 2 or 3 others, some waiting until night to visit the petunias which produce nectar after dark. In daylight, the butterflies and moths gave the hummingbirds real competition for the flowers output! I can tell you this garden was an oasis in the region. They were just beautiful -- and then the deer got in again and trashed the place. Some rare species visited before that happened. Ray and I were only there for 2 pr 3 days at peak so I have no complete record of the species that came through but even in a few days we had 20 or more species. By now it is obvious that I consider this an important project, something I knew intuitively from my ecological experience, but it was reinforced by a book I bought in July when R, G and I visited the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY. Butterfly People is a set of historical biographies that carefully documents the rise of the study of Lepidoptera in the late 1700's through the early 1900's. Among other things it documents from primary sources, the amazing densities of these insects on the east coast in those days. The average citizen today has no possible way of knowing what has been lost until he/she visits something like a BG to see darkly what used to be. Never to be on the Times best-seller list, this is nevertheless a superbly documented biographical history of the citizen scientists who first studied the North American fauna when it was at its peak. June was eaten up by two mussel identification projects. One with Riveredge Assoc. was to examine the 47 sites we had not studied in the Grass River the year before. When I identified an extremely rare species, Ligumia nasuta, things became very interesting for a short while. The next project was for the St. Regis Mohawk tribal ecology office which was monitoring a dammed reach of the St. Regis River that was to be opened and lowered thus exposing thousands of mussels. No surprises this time, and the tribal workers managed to relocate approximately ten thousand live mussels to safety up river. I would not be involved with these creatures were it not for Dr. Alan M. Cvancara from UND who mentored me, as grad student, in the ways of these important creatures. Alan did the aquatic malacogeography of the entire state of ND; I did only one stream with him in 1966, but that was enough to catch the bug. Alan passed away this year. I did manage to visit Denver for the Geological Soc. of America annual meeting where I saw many former students and heard them present. I particularly enjoyed a visit with alumnus Brett Palmateer, and we had a once in a lifetime dinner at Elway's Steakhouse! Fun. It was good to see a nice group of current St. Lawrence students and their faculty mentors presenting at the meeting as well. St. Lawrence had an excellent alumni gathering at the meeting as well. This Fall, as an extension of work that Scott Carpenter and I began ages ago, I was an author on a paper in Geology that incorporated some of our isotope results for Fox Hills aquatic temperature and salinity conditions. This was derived from a PhD study put together by Sierra Petersen at U. Mich. There is still more to be done, but at least some of the data are out there. I am always gratified to have visits by phone or in person with alumns whenever they happen. This year I can remember several such with Dean Eppler as he readied himself for retirement, Brian Silfer bringing his son to SLU, Frank Karboski, Andrew Fetterman, Krys Kornecki working with Mimi Katz at RPI, Chris Stevens recently promoted at SRK in Anchorage, Hank Cerwonka, Dale Chayes, and Trisha Smrecak now in Alabama. I keep in pretty good touch with Sarah McElfresh, the Geology alumni contact person, as all alumni should. Played Langbrook Meadows golf course in Briar Hill owned by Tina Langtry but missed her by a day or so! I see Severn Brown and Sally Street fairly regularly, and they seem to be doing well. One thing I can say. It is really a pleasure to receive Christmas cards from so many of my former students! Each day for the past 2 weeks the postman, some days postwoman, brings a couple of cards with news from across the nation and around the world! Many great memories come with them. Thanks to all. There were lots of things I didn't do in 2016 as well, but I think that comes with seniority. I never got to ND although the ND Geol. Survey dedicated a major expansion of the W.M. Laird core lab and the UND Geol. Dept. dedicated a major expansion of Leonard Hall. I did not finish the shark paper nor my Ordovician paleoecology book. I didn't get a new car though I had planned to do so. I didn't get the house porches fixed either, Uuf Dah. Next year. That s enough for now. I hope you all have a fruitful and stimulating 2017, full of friends and family and much satisfaction. May we have Peace and freedom from hate, ideas which begin at home. Best always, Mark Erickson meri@stlawu.edu pg. 6 of 8

7 SELECTED FACULTY PUBLICATIONS SINCE LAST NEWSLETTER Bailey, D., Lupulescu, M., Chiarenzelli, J., and Traylor, J. P., in press. Age and origin of the Cannon Point syenite, Warren County, New York: Westernmost expression of White Mountain Magmatism: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. Chamberlain, S., Robinson, G., Walter, M., Chiarenzelli, J., Lupulescu, M., and Bailey, D., The Collector s Guide to Black Tourmaline of Pierrepont, New York. Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen, PA, 128p. ISBN: Chiarenzelli, J. R. and Selleck, B. V., Bedrock geology of the Adirondack Region. Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies, v. 21, p Chiarenzelli, J., Kratzmann, D., Selleck, B., de Lorraine, W., and Lupulescu, M., Chapter 14 Utility of Detrital Zircons in an Upper Amphibolite Facies Terrane. In Sediment Provenance, edited by Rajat Mazumder, Elsevier, p De, S.; Mallik, L., Mazumder, R., Chatterjee, P., Ohta, T., Saito, S., and Chiarenzelli, J., Sedimentation history of the Paleoproterozoic Singhbhum Group of rocks, eastern India and its implications: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 163, p Lupulescu, M., Chiarenzelli, J., and Singer, J., Rare Earth element and Yttrium mineral occurrences in the Adirondack Mountains. Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies, v. 21, p McLelland, J., Chiarenzelli, J., and McLelland, J., The intrusion breccia in the valley of Roaring Brook, Giant Mountain, Adirondack Highlands, New York: A modern interpretation. Geosphere, v.12, p Valentino, D. W., Valentino, J. D., Chiarenzelli, J. R., and Inclima, R., Faults and fractures systems in the basement rocks of the Adirondack Mountains, NY: Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies, v. 21, p Petersen, S.V., Tabor, C.R., Lohmann, K.C., Poulsen, C.J., Meyer, K.W., Carpenter, S.J., Erickson, J.M., Matsunaga, K.K.S., Smith, S.Y., and Sheldon, N.D., 2016, Temperature and salinity of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway: Geology, G , doi: /g Koch, G., Prtoljan, B., Husinec, A., and Hajek-Tadesse, V., 2017, Palynofacies and paleoenvironment of the Upper Jurassic mudsupported carbonates, southern Croatia: preliminary evaluation of the hydrocarbon source rock potential. Marine and Petroleum Geology, v. 80, p DOI: /j.marpetgeo MAPS Chiarenzelli, J., Lupulescu, M., Grohn, L., de Santana do Nascimento, L., and Walton, M., Bedrock Geology of the Witherbee Quadrangle, New York. New York State Geological Survey Open File. Husinec, A., Prtoljan, B., Fuč ek, L., Oš trič, N., Korbar, T., 2016, Basic Geological Map of the Republic of Croatia scale 1: sheet Mljet: Department of Geology, Croatian Geological Survey, Zagreb (ISBN ) FACULTY ABSTRACTS Stewart, A.K., Heinrich, C.* and Hubbard, T., 2016, Analysis of frequent mass movement using dendrogeomorphology: Alaska highway, Northway Junction, interior Alaska: Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (Denver), Abstracts with Programs, v 48, n 7. Shroder, J.F., Ahmadzai, S., McNamara, P., Sinfield, L., and Stewart, A.K., 2016, Transboundary waters and geopolitical issues in Afghanistan: Geological Society of America annual meeting (Denver) Abstracts with Programs, v 48, n 7. Toraman, E., DelGaudio, S., Wong, M.S., Constraining the Timing and Kinematics of Deformation in the Adirondacks: Microstructural Analysis of the Colton-Cathage Shear Zone, Northwest Adirondacks. GSA Annual Meeting Denver. Husinec, A., 2016, Sequence stratigraphic framework and carbon-isotope stratigraphy of the Upper Ordovician lower Red River Fm., easternmost Williston Basin, in GSA Annual Convention, Abstracts with Program, v. 48, Denver, CO. doi: /abs/2016AM Husinec A. & Read, J.F., 2016, Carbonate Platform Record of Mid-Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Events (OAE), Croatia, in AAPG International Convention & Exhibition, Abstracts Volume, Cancun, Mexico. SGE/GeoClub is selling SLU Geology merchandise. Below is a list of what we currently have in stock: Pint glasses - $5 Beer mugs - $5 Shirts - $10 (small) (medium) (we currently only have smalls and mediums) If you would like to place an order, please send us an with details of your order and send your payment (cash or check made out to Geo- Club). Any questions, please contact John St. Denny (jrstde14@stlawu.edu). pg. 7 of 8

8 STUDENTS ABSTRACTS Grohn, L., Regan, S., Williams, M., De Santana Do Nascimento, L., Zhang, S., Cousens, B., Gallagher, M., Aspler, L., and Chiarenzelli, J., Petrogenesis, age, and correlation of the Kazan Dike Swarm, Nunavut, Canada: Implication for an aborted rift origin for the Snowbird Tectonic Zone: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 7. Regan, S., Williams, M., Grohn, L., Chiarenzelli, J., Mahan, K., Cousens, B., Aspler, L., and Jercinov, M., Two transects across the Snowbird Tectonic Zone, Western Churchill Province: Exploring the continuity of the Rae-Hearne boundary and its role during the growth of Laurentia: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 7. Regan, S., Lupulescu, M., Jercinovic, M., Singer, J., Geer, P., Chiarenzelli, J., Williams, M., and Walsh, G., Geochronology of IOAtype deposits: What are we dating? Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 7. Thomas, M., Farrar, K., Tromp, D., and Chiarenzelli, J., Assessing the relationship between total PCBs, total suspended solids, and turbidity samples collected during surface water monitoring of the Hudson River Remedial, dredging project, New York: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 7. Eifert, H., Musser, M. and Stewart, A., 2016, Progress of women in the geosciences: insight from a small liberal arts school: Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (Denver), Abstracts with Programs, v 48, n 7. Swick, M., Liebelt, E., Pitre, M., Stewart, A., and Pierce, C., 2016, Mapping the St. Lawrence County Poorhouse Cemetery in Canton, NY: Undergraduate Symposium of the 85 th Annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Atlanta, Georgia (Poster). Cerpovicz, A. & Husinec, A., 2016, Gamma ray and magnetic susceptibility profiles as a tool for correlation of carbonate-evaporite strata: a case study from Upper Ordovician Red River Fm., North Dakota, in GSA Annual Convention, Abstracts with Program, v. 48, Denver, CO. doi: /abs/2016AM News from Alumni Mark Klett 74 and Emily are both photo artists and are enjoying their success. Mark has just released his 16th book, El Camino del Diablo from Radius Books. It was inspired in part by a nineteenth century book by Raphael Pumpelly, a mining engineer who taught at Harvard. Mark's daughters have both graduated from college; Lena is at grad school at ASU and Natilie is at home planning her next venture. Congratulations Mark. It is always good to hear from you! I just thought I'd get in touch and update you on what I've been up to since coming out to ISU. I moved out here in August, and the town is surrounded by mountains, with tons of outdoor recreation. I have been the TA for 101 lab and a class taught by Leif called Real Monsters, which is a critical thinking credit for non-geology majors, which includes only the cool paleontology, like dinos and stuff. School itself is busy, especially since I had one arm in a sling for the first 6 weeks of school, following a mountain bike accident and separated shoulder. I am in some pretty cool classes as well, including an undergrad/grad combined sed/strat class, since I didn't take it as an undergrad. Because I took carb sed and did a senior thesis on it, however, I am going to teach a few lectures on carbonate sequence strat in the next few weeks. Unfortunately I couldn't make it to GSA because I would have had to pay my own way. I did get the chance to go to the Exxon Mobile short course that Ben Rendall went to a few years back, which was a really cool experience, and potential opportunity for future employment, although I think I would have heard back from them already if it were to lead anywhere. My thesis work is going to be in the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico, which was suggested by Ben, and is an area that Exxon uses for field trips. There's hundreds of meters of continuous exposed carbonate, with some mixed siliciclastics, but it's pretty understudied. I will also likely have Paul Link as a co-advisor, or at least on my committee. I'll probably spend most of my summer down there, and will most likely make it to GSA next fall. I hope all is well in Canton, and I'm missing SLU, though the department here is just as welcoming. Say hi to the rest of the department for me! Cheers, Will Moynihan 16 I am a TA for two different classes this quarter. One of them is called Oceans and Atmospheres, which is for my advisor and my duties for that class usually consist of setting up and using an expensive machine created by MIT nerds called Weather in a Tank. This machine spins a large body of water on what I told my mom is a lazy Susan. This causes the water to be in stable body rotation and allows us to recreate many ocean and atmospheric processes. So far I ve recreated hurricane Matthew, eddies relating to thermal gradients, and a thermohaline experiment. The other class that I am a TA for is a non-geology 100 level class. My duties vary, but I typically grade most of the students work and create weekly reading quizzes. However I did teach several lectures on ocean processes for that professor while she was gone for a conference. I enjoyed teaching these lectures quite a bit since I was able to talk about rip currents and why surfers (and geologists) like me care about them. My research for my thesis will be on identifying the composition and concentration of different light absorbing impurities in glaciers and snowpacks. These light absorbing impurities, particularly black carbon, have huge impacts on the melt rates of glaciers, which is a big and important topic since climate change is on many geologists minds. I am currently applying to a NASA funded field course in the Canadian Rockies this winter. If I get accepted this will improve my data collection skills and techniques and will likely increase my ability to secure funding down the road. Lastly, the 2017 GSA meeting will be in Seattle. My entire department will likely be there since we re less than two hours away. I am eagerly anticipating a SLU geology reunion and I m excited to brag about the cool geology of the Pacific Northwest. Send my regards to the rest of the department! Best, Melanie Swick 16 pg. 8 of 8