Varve
2016 Varve (Winter 2016–2017) Iowa State University Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences
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Exploring the Bighorn Monocline – an ISU field camp tradition.
COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES FIELD CAMP, 2016
Students hiking to the first outcrop near Goose Egg Anticline.
The 2016 Pillowcase Award winners for best team grade for the Wind Rivers Project: (left to right) Jackie Snow (Central Michigan Justine Myers and ductilely- University), Bailey Nash (ISU), and Chris Ladd deformed quartz veins in the (ISU). Wind River Range.
Jacqueline Reber (front) helping students draw cross-sections of Sheep Mountain Anticline in the new field station classroom.
Bear claw marks in a tree in Grand Tetons National Park with Students prepare for a quick hike around Devils Jane Dawson’s hand for scale. Tower on the outbound trip to the field station. A meandering hike back to the vans after mapping at Rose Dome.
2 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES Varve CONTENTS
Varve is published once a year for the alumni, friends, and faculty Alumni notes of the Department of Geological See what your geology classmates are doing 9 and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University, an academic department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Geology in the News 16 Chair Bill Simpkins
Editors Aaron R. Wood , DeAnn Frisk Awards and Publications 25 Graphic Designer Cindy Hemingway
Please send news about yourself Faculty and staff notes and your family for next year’s See what your geology professors are doing Varve to the Editor at the 29 address below or by e-mail to [email protected]
Varve Geological Sciences Funds, Department of Geological and Endowments, and Contributions Atmospheric Sciences 42 253 Science Hall 2237 Osborn Drive Ames, IA 50011-1027 Fax: 515-294-6049
Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, sex, marital status, disability, or status as a U.S. veteran. Inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies may be directed to Office of Equal Opportunity, 3350 Beardshear Hall, 515 Morrill Road, Ames, Iowa 50011, Tel. 515 294-7612, email [email protected]
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 3 GREETINGS FROM THE CHAIR
Welcome to the Winter 2016-2017 edition of the Varve. I am halfway into my third year as Chair and, with the able assistance of our Administrative Assistant DeAnn Frisk, we have kept the department working efficiently and moving forward. Iowa State University is now home to 36,660 students, an increase of 1.9 percent over the previous year. We are pleased to be holding firm at 78 Geology and Earth Science undergraduate majors, despite the fact that employment in the oil and gas industry has not rebounded to previous levels. Recruiting and retaining new majors is a high priority, because it helps us argue for faculty positions. As graduates, all of you can help our recruiting effort by recommending students to our program. Our department’s visibility at ISU and beyond continues Bill Simpkins to increase. In addition to the great support from Dean Beate Schmittmann, who promotes our research and teaching efforts inside and outside the college, we are appearing in print and on line. As evidence of this, I cite the ISU Alumni Association’s Fall 2016 Visions magazine which features our own Neal Iverson and Jane Dawson discussing the geological evolution of Iowa. The research of my former M.S. student, Adam Davison, was featured in an article in the LAS Link Magazine on-line. That issue also contained an article about Geology major Brittany Grosskopf and her travels to Belize, Rome, and to the D-Day Anniversary Celebration as part of ISU’s Marching Band’s Color Guard. Alan Left to right: Bill Simpkins, Patricia Fobes Ronald, Bridget Scanlon and Wanamaker kept us in touch with his SIPERG research group’s Dean Beate Schmittmann during the inaugural Ronald Lectureship in efforts in Norway and Portugal (https://siperg.las.iastate.edu/ Environmental Conservation with an Emphasis in Water Sustainability. category/field-blog/) and, with faculty member Beth Caissie and Ph.D. student Maddie Mette, he presented an excellent series of public forums on paleoclimate at the Ames Public Library. The college, university, and Ames community now know that we have interesting stories to tell and great people to tell those stories. A few of these stories are included in this issue of the Varve for those of you who may have missed them. In April, our department was also on full display to the ISU community when we hosted the inaugural “Ronald Lectureship in Environmental Conservation with an Emphasis in Water Sustainability.” The lectureship was “gifted” to the department by LAS and was made possible by a donation from Patricia Fobes Ronald (’54 Sociology) and her husband Robert Ronald, both major players in the effort to preserve water quality in Lake Tahoe. Our 2016 lecturer, Dr. Bridget Scanlon from the Bureau Beth Caissie discusses geologic records of ancient climate change at “Behind the Science of Climate Change”, a series of public lectures at the of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin, presented Ames Public Library, April 2016. a talk entitled “The Future of Water: Assessing Sustainability from Space” to about 400 faculty and students in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union. She also interfaced with students in the Women in Science and Engineering Program and took part in a “Women in Science: Challenges and Opportunities” forum. Our speaker next year is Anne Castle, a former Assistant Secretary for Water and Science in the U.S. Department of the Interior and now a Senior Fellow in the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and the Environment at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her lecture will focus on the future of the Colorado River appropriations under a changing climate. Awards have also helped us to increase our visibility on campus, among professional societies, and elsewhere. At the annual LAS Convocation in September, Alan Wanamaker received an Early Achievement in Research Award, and Paul Dave Hamilton poses with wife, Mary, and son, Ted, Spry received an Outstanding Career Achievement in Research after receiving a 2016 Distinguished Alumni Reward.
4 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES FIELD CAMP, 2016
Award. Two of our Ph.D. students received prestigious research awards from the Geological Society of America. Nina Whitney received the Gretchen L. Blechschmidt Award for her research in paleoclimate, and Nathan Young received one of five student research grant awards from the Hydrogeology Division for his research on fractured till hydrogeology. M.S. students Meaghan MacPherson and Katie Tott received $5000 fellowships from the Society of Economic Geology, and Ph.D. students Diana Thatcher and Natalie Thompson also received GSA student research grants. Kristie Franz was awarded a very competitive Faculty Professional Development Assignment (sabbatical) for fall semester. In October, the department honored Dave Hamilton (B.S. 1974; M.S. 1979) of Noble Energy in Houston, Texas, with a Distinguished Alumni Award. Dave was honored Field camp students Kathryn Cleary (Central Michigan University) for his successful career in the oil and gas industry and his and Ashley Hopkins (St. Louis University) take a photo opportunity at efforts in bringing computer mapping technology, specifically Fountain Geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Z-map, into the department in the late 1980s. Finally, Paul Spry received the ultimate honor of having a mineral, Spryite, named after him. See the full story later in the Varve. In summary, we are a department on the rise at ISU, thanks to your continuing support. Although access to the David F. Morehouse fund (see page 15) has been a large boost for us, we are very appreciative of the support that all of you provide, whether financially with scholarships, field camp instruction, supervising internships, or hiring our graduates. The Carl F. Vondra field station has become one of the best facilities of its type in the nation due to your support, the support of Tom and Evonne Smith, and the additional support from Gary and Sandra Johnson. Shell Creek flowing through the “backyard” of the field station in June It is a tremendous asset and point of pride to the department. 2016. But, if you cannot see our field station first hand this year, we invite you to visit us in Ames, partake in our new Faculty/Student Brown Bag lunch lecture series, and see the visual improvements in Science Hall. A “Hallway Beautification” Committee is working hard to spruce up the hallways, we have new rock storage cabinets in the “bone room” courtesy of Apache Oil, and we now have a faculty/graduate student/staff lounge. Best of all, after some 25 years, we are modernizing the department office with new carpet, a drop ceiling, LED lighting, new furniture, and a functional supply closet. You may follow the office construction as well as departmental news and events at http://www.ge-at.iastate.edu. On a final note, I informed Dean Beate Schmittmann in early November of my desire to step down from Chair and return to A lunch break with a spectacular view of Shell Canyon in May 2016. a faculty position at the end of my three-year term on July 1. The Provost has authorized a national search for new Chair who would start in fall 2017. If you know of individuals who may be interested, please spread the word. I have enjoyed leading the department and I thank you for your support and advice during the past 2.5 years. We wish all of you the very best for 2017. With gratitude and best wishes,
William W. Simpkins Professor and Chair Smith Family Foundation Department Chair in Geology An exposure of the Pierre Shale along the Missouri River in South Dakota provided an opportunity to collect fossils on the way to the field station.
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 5 UNIVERSITY AND DEPARTMENT NEWS
for our Meteorology Program, was not approved … again. In response to the small state funding increase, the Board of Around Campus Regents – after a three-year tuition freeze – passed a spring Iowa State has semester tuition increase of $100 per semester for all students. become a large Even with that increase, Iowa State’s tuition and fees remain university – nearly significantly lower than our peer universities in surrounding overnight. We states. For example, ISU’s $8,219 for annual tuition and widened more mandatory fees is slightly less than the University of South sidewalks along Dakota and quite a bit less than the $14,224 charged at the Osborn Drive this University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. Our tuition and fees year by removing are in the same price range as such academic powerhouses as the grassed areas Texas A&M University-Kingsville and University of Arkansas between the sidewalk at Little Rock. Clearly, there is a need to generate more and the street. This revenue, hire more faculty to lower our student-to-faculty is where we set up ratio (currently 19:1) and maintain competitive salaries, while our lawn chairs for keeping our great educational value. Differential tuition has the VEISHEA parade been discussed as a means of procuring additional revenue. back in the day. Bus Some possible models have been floated as trial balloons, traffic on Osborn including higher tuition for laboratory courses and/or for and Pammel Drives junior/senior-level courses. While those discussions continued, is non-stop. Food ISU and our college somehow provided raises of 3.5 percent. trucks have appeared This was a significant improvement over the 1 percent across- Iowa State re-signed all buildings on campus the-board raise last year, and, as a result, employee morale in 2016. Science I was re-branded “Science on campus. Science Hall” and given a street address. I has been officially rose immediately on campus. Given the fiscal situation of the renamed Science university, the arrival of the David F. Morehouse gift to the Hall and given a street address (2237 Osborn Drive). Large department could not have come at a better time. construction cranes and truck traffic are also common sights. Our undergraduate major enrollment in Geology and Earth Bessey Hall is being annexed to the east with one Biological Science is steady – officially 78 (52 men, 26 women) – which Sciences building, while the Industrial Education building is close to last year’s 80 students. Our retention of majors is at Pammel Drive and Stange Road has given way to a second aided by the Earth, Wind, and Fire Learning Community, Biological Sciences building. It is quite interesting to look out led by Cinzia Cervato and Dave Flory, who helped organize a the window and see large cranes swinging house-sized objects field trip led by Neal Iverson on the Saturday prior to the start about during my Hydrogeology class in Science 175. All of of fall classes. The undergraduate Geology Club continues to this action is fueled by our spectacular enrollment growth. run field trips, host Christmas and Valentine’s Day mineral How much higher will the enrollment go? Speculation had sales, and sells pizza every other week in the foyer of Science suggested that President Steven Leath would to cap enrollment Hall. Our graduate program has risen to 29 students (15 men, at 40,000 students; however, recent reports suggest that 14 women). The uptick in numbers was made possible by the 37,000 students might be a more reasonable cap. It seems addition of a David F. Morehouse Fellowship to a Ph.D. student unlikely that we could hold 3500 more students in Ames, and a new arrangement with the Chemistry Department to because ISU doesn’t have enough space now to house all the provide teaching assistants for their introductory Chem 163 students that want to live on campus. New apartments have and 177 courses. Five new graduate students are involved sprung up across from Jack Trice Stadium and on the property in this experiment, and early feedback indicates that some of the former Ames Middle School. ISU still rents part of an adjustments in Chemistry course assignments and duties may apartment complex in west Ames and is currently converting be required in order for our graduate students to continue the hotel rooms in the Memorial Union to dormitories for ISU their involvement. Our annual all-day Graduate Student students. This is a good time to own real estate in Ames. Seminar in early March showed us the excellent research University growth does have its benefits, however. Tuition and speaking abilities of our graduate students. Nineteen dollars make up for the lack of significant new money granted students each presented a 20-minute talk – a length that we from the legislature to ISU, which was $2.2 million total may need to reconsider next year with potentially 10 more in FY17. President Leath had asked for $8.2 million in new talks in the program. Afterwards, we enjoyed a great party at money. Although, the Board of Regents approved this request, Torrent Brewing and watched the Cyclones lose to Kansas in the governor proposed a lower figure, and they settled on basketball. an even lower amount in the state legislature. By the time Our faculty additions to the department within the past that new money trickled down to our college, it was about two years, Aaron Wood, Jacqueline Reber, Betsy Swanner, $700,000. Nine new faculty positions, some of which were and Yuyu Zhou are contributing greatly to our program and outside chair positions, were approved for hire this year increasing our visibility on campus. You can read about their in the college. Our search for a Planetary Boundary Layer research and grant activity in a later section. The courses meteorologist, which was part of the Sustainability Focus Hire they have added to the curriculum are in demand by students
6 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES
both within and outside the department, and those courses have filled up! Aaron taught a section of Geology 100 (fall), a one-credit, on-line Age of Dinosaurs course (fall), and Energy Field Camp News and the Environment (spring) in simultaneous on-line and The 2014 survey of graduate schools and industry also face-to-face formats. Jacqueline taught Structural Geology showed a nearly unanimous need for a field camp experience (spring) and introduced a new course, Quantitative Methods for all geology majors – at a time when the number of camps in Geology (fall), which focuses on applications of MATLAB has declined nationally. How fortunate we are that we have a to geological problems. She is planning a student field trip newly renovated Carl F. Vondra Field Station! The impact on to Death Valley during the winter break next year. Betsy the student experience is already evident in its first year of taught Environmental Geochemistry (spring) and Microbial operation. Prior to the start of the Iowa State field camp each Ecology (fall), a course previously taught in EEOB (Ecology, year, students would usually express concern about not having Evolutionary, and Organismal Biology), and will resurrect the the right equipment necessary to “rough it” in the wilderness of Environmental Biogeochemistry with a new faculty member Wyoming. Now students arrive at the field station to essentially a small university campus, complete with dorms, a dining hall and classrooms. The accommodations at the field station allow students to focus on their studies instead of dwelling on the potential lack of comfort or privacy. Students recognized these attributes in their course evaluations at the end of camp. Word is getting out to the larger geological community and, as a result, the number of applications from students outside
GEOL 419/519 students analyze nutrients from surface waters around campus in Environmental Geochemistry. in EEOB in spring 2017. Finally, Yuyu taught a spring section of GIS for Geoscientists and a new course this fall in Applied Geostatistics for Geoscientists. We are very pleased to have the new courses added to our geology curriculum. Given all of these new courses and the new ideas brought in by the junior faculty that teach them, it seemed to be the perfect time to review our geology curriculum. Alan Wanamaker was tasked to chair the Curriculum Committee, and the review really picked up steam in the spring after Bill Simpkins attended the NSF-sponsored Summit on the Future of Geoscience Undergraduate Education in January in Austin, Texas. Following the lead of other universities and colleges who have revised their curriculum, we approached the review by mapping our courses to a skills and competency matrix, which was modelled after the 2014 NSF-sponsored survey of graduate schools and industry. After mapping the content of all of our courses in the matrix, we spent an afternoon in late October at Reiman Gardens looking at the big matrices and discussing them. It was a very productive afternoon, and the discussion continues about how to ensure our majors graduate with the best possible education. 2016 group photos of the first and second field camp cohort, top and bottom, respectively, at Firehole Canyon, Yellowstone National Park.
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 7 UNIVERSITY AND DEPARTMENT NEWS
ISU is increasing – 36 applicants from 16 states in 2015 to 64 applicants from 19 states in 2016. The station this past summer hosted 22 ISU students, 12 University of Nebraska- Alumni Gatherings Lincoln students, and four others in the “first” 6-week session of field camp. It is the “first” camp because Field Station and Honors Director Aaron Wood and his staff offered a new four-week version with a condensed project schedule immediately At the AAPG All-Alumni Cocktail Reception held on following the first camp. Because the field station is in such Monday, June 20, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Calgary, the good condition, hosting more students and using the field department welcomed alumni Lee Backsen, Ben Burke, and station longer than usual was a feasible option. Twelve Deserae Jennings, along with current students Evelyn Hussey, students representing nine different colleges and universities Serg Ishutov, Firdaus Ridzuan, and faculty member Franek formed the inaugural group in the second field camp course. Hasiuk. In September, we had a large gathering at Pints Pub Course instructors in the first six weeks included ISU field in conjunction with the GSA Annual Meeting in Denver. camp director Aaron Wood, ISU co-instructors Jane Dawson Alums Susy Ankerstjerne, Nell Bender, Alex Morrison, and (ISU) and Andrew Hutsky (formerly UNL and now George Leroy Shaser were there, joined by ISU graduate students Erik Mason University), and TAs Katie Tott from ISU and Emily Day, John Hoyt, Natalie Thompson, Nathan Young, and ISU Campbell from UNL. Alum Erik Kvale of Devon Energy and undergraduates Brittany Grosskopf, Katie Luzier, Justine Myers, Ben Burke from Fifth Creek Energy conducted the Greybull and Aditya Navale. Current faculty members Franek Hasiuk, Sandstone Prospect exercise, which has become a course Jacqueline Reber, Bill Simpkins, Betsy Swanner, and former chair favorite and an important part of the field camp curriculum. Carl Jacobson were also there, along with Cathy Simpkins and For the second four-week course, new faculty member DeAnn Frisk. We look forward to seeing many of you at AAPG Jacqueline Reber joined Aaron Wood and Jane Dawson; faculty in Houston in April and GSA in Seattle in October 2017. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were not involved. Students aren’t the only ones impressed by the new facilities. Over the past two summers, alumni from across the nation (and Germany!) have stopped by the field station on Alumni Support their travels through Wyoming. Two alumni guest lectures are currently being scheduled for next summer to cover Alumni financial support through charitable giving is helping the topics of microbial communities in the hot springs of our students and faculty by providing student scholarships Yellowstone National Park and geoscience careers in the federal for field camp, field-trip support, funds for graduate student government. The new facilities were used for the annual recruiting, additional resources for faculty research, and many workshop conducted by Geoscience Adventures, an education other items. As evidenced by the list of alumni contributors and outreach organization for Wyoming high school teachers. at the end of this issue, it is clear that you have put your In past years, the workshop was held at the field station, but trust in our ability to provide a high-quality education for all teachers stayed instead at a variety of motels in Greybull, our students. The results of your excellent support have had Wyoming, and paid peak tourist rates for rooms. By using direct effects on the program. We were able to help send many the field station, Geoscience Adventures can now guarantee undergraduates to field camp and also recruit outstanding affordable, high-quality lodging for their participants and, as graduate students that are vital to the teaching, research, and a result, enrollment in the workshop has increased. This, in reputation of the department. This year, the Bruce Bowen turn, has placed the field station on the radar of the Wyoming Graduate Fellowship and the Georgia and Carl Vondra Graduate public school system, providing Iowa State with an outreach Fellowship ensured successful offers to two Ph.D. candidates opportunity to the local community. The field station also for $16,000 above their normal stipends during their first two provided temporary lodging to students from West Chester years. These increments were critical to “closing the deal” for University (summer) and Dartmouth College (fall), and groups these students in today’s very competitive graduate student from the University of Maryland, Drake University and market. In talking to other department chairs at the January Dubuque County 4-H are planning to visit the field station 2016 conference in Austin, Bill found that we still lag behind next summer. most comparable geoscience departments which have multiple When outside applicants were asked why they chose the endowed funds (>$1 million) available to augment stipends; Iowa State geology field camp, they cited the great instructors thus, our department is seeking funds to create additional and projects, comfortable accommodations, and beautiful endowments. Endowed funds would help us leverage future scenery at the field station. Currently, enrollment for the 2017 grant proposal dollars with other alumni funds to obtain state- traditional six-week course is full at 44 students. Aaron Wood of-the-art capital equipment and would show the college that we and his staff are evaluating whether to offer the four-week are committed to innovative and cutting-edge science. As you course in summer 2017. In short, the “Build It and They Will contemplate a gift to the department this year, we ask that you Come” philosophy seems to be working at the field station. consider these endowment-level gifts as well as the many other opportunities available to help the department. Please contact Bill if you any questions about giving options to the department.
8 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES ALUMNI NOTES
Tom Bown Rio Thrust Fault and Fivemile anticlinal slowly opening the eyes of Auburn and BS 1968; [email protected] movement at the 2016 national meetings Alabama fans, but there is still more work Tom and his wife Kim Nichols of the Geological Society of America to do in that department before we move led the Colorado State University (Denver) and Society of Vertebrate again next summer. I recently received (CSU) Department of Anthropology Paleontology (Salt Lake City). my P.G. license, and I’m putting it to good Paleontology Field Course for its fourth use remediating old NASA rocket testing season in the Bighorn Basin. The course Joan Burnet Bruns sites in Huntsville, AL, and Los Angeles, offers a week of intensive instruction in BS 1977, MS 1981 CA. I also spend a good amount of my fluvial sedimentology, biostratigraphy, [email protected] office time writing extensive feasibility paleopedology, taphonomy, Joan and her husband Joe Bruns are studies, begrudgingly reliving those paleoichnology, and vertebrate skeletal currently working in Oklahoma City glory days of thesis writing. It should anatomy and paleontology in the lab at within the petroleum industry. Joan be mentioned that the regulators aren’t CSU, Fort Collins, followed by two weeks is a geoscientist at the GE Oil and Gas nearly as picky about writing style (see collecting fossils in the lower Eocene Technology Center whereas Joe is an what I did there, Neal?). On the family Willwood Formation west of Basin and exploration geologist at Huntington front, the pups (Bellatrix and Gimli) southeast of Worland, WY. Students then Energy. They have three sons currently in still keep us on our toes and constantly return to the CSU campus and participate college: Aaron (University of Oklahoma), terrorize the cat (Stewie) – some things in another week of unwrapping, sorting, Paul (University of Central Oklahoma), never change! washing, preparing, and cataloguing the and Michael (University of Central summer’s finds. Highlights of the 2016 Oklahoma). Abby (Murray) Cregger season included a visit by Joe Sertich BS 2009; [email protected] (Curator of Dinosaurs at the Denver Thure Cerling Museum of Nature and Science – the CSU BS 1972, MS 1973; [email protected] field course is a DMNS affiliate program) Not much to and recovery of: report here. I 1) a partial skeleton of the earliest horse, am working on Hyracotherium; using “bomb- 2) most of the dentition and a partial skull 14C”, the spike in of the otter-like mammal Palaeosinopa, radiocarbon 14C 3) more of the skeleton of the large due to nuclear herbivorous mammal Coryphodon that weapons testing was discovered in the 2015 season; and in the 1950s 4) more than 70 specimens of the earliest Thure Cerling during and 1960s, to euprimates and early plesiadapiformes field work in the determine the (a sister-group of the Euprimates). Turkana Basin of East year of death Africa. Following the CSU fieldwork, Tom joined for elephants Abby and Brian Cregger with their dog, Geyser. Ken Rose (The Johns Hopkins University) whose ivory has been seized by customs and Amy Chew (Brown University) officials. We use a combination of I continue to work for the now IHS on their continuing paleontological genetics and stable isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) Markit in the greater Denver, CO, area as expedition west of Worland, WY. to determine where the elephants came a senior technical advisor-geology for the Tom, Kim, Ken, Amy, undergraduate from. Otherwise, I continue to work in software products Petra and Kingdom. student Ben Rodwell (CSU field course, the western USA on long-term climate I perform technical presentations 2015 and TA in 2016) and University change during the Pleistocene and in and demonstrations highlighting of Washington graduate student Luke East Africa on both wildlife conservation functionality and optimal workflows Weaver (CSU field course, 2013 and issues and the paleoenvironments of for upstream energy geoscientists to TA in 2014; ISU Geology Field Course, early hominins in the Turkana Basin. The meet their exploration/exploitation 2014) are presenting posters on dating latter is work I started as a student of Carl needs. We primarily service exploration Vondra in 1971! and production companies, including EOG, Noble, BP, and Pioneer Natural Mitchell Cline Resources – to name a few. I’ve been BS 2009, MS 2011; with the company for over 6 years now [email protected] and can’t believe the time has passed so Kelsey, my wife, and I currently live quickly. in the Auburn, AL, area, where I serve Last year I married my husband Brian as an environmental geologist for CH2M Cregger and we are now expecting our while she completes the final year of first child together! Although Brian will Kim Nichols and Tom Bown (standing, far right) a veterinary radiology residency. My contest to Colorado State, his alum, I’m with TA Ben Rodwell (standing, behind) and the renowned love for the Cyclones has been hoping we will have a future Iowa Stater! 2016 CSU Paleontology Field Course class.
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 9 ALUMNI NOTES
We love to play recreation sports together, at ISC by being arbitrarily placed in C. S. the Chicago suburbs and studying in specifically softball and volleyball, in Gwynne’s physical geology class, because, a professional degree program for her our free time and are now really starting as a prospective chemistry major, I had Masters in Human Resources at Texas to prepare for our newest member of to take an additional science class. I A&M University. the family. Our dog Geyser, our “only soon found I preferred geology to dreary I hope that all of you that remember child”, is doing well, and we are eager chemistry labs, and the rest is history. me are doing well in your endeavors, are to see how he is going to do with a little My subsequent career can be traced to in good health and spirits, and will keep human brother or sister. He certainly the experiences I had in the course of in contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ likes his own toys and mom cuddle time. the 6.5 years I spent in the department dan-hansen-petroleum We know our lives are about to change (sandwiched around two army years drastically and are so excited! during the Korean events). It has been a very satisfying life. James Crowther I survived another year and this one BS 1956; [email protected] included cataract surgery. Perhaps too Back in the fifties, there was a rather many summers of exposure to the desert large, distinctive glacial erratic located in sun were responsible including three a wash north of Ames. The plan was to summers with the ISU field course south move the rock to the front of the Science of Colorado Springs in the 1950s and the Building to honor Dr. C. S. Gwynn for rest in central Wyoming and the Great his long tenure at Iowa State. With the Basin, but in any case I now see better help of a flat-bed truck, Dr. Keith Hussey, than I have for 20 years. I would prefer Dan Hansen (right) with his fiancée Paulinha probably Dr. Chalmer Roy, Bill Boyd, to spend today in the Monitor Range, Kuhnert and Victorino Quileba (Geophysicist, Songangol Oil Co.). Herman Schacht, myself and others 40 miles southwest of Eureka, Nevada, moved the rock as planned. There it instead of in a diminutive over-stuffed resides today, a symbolic geologic artifact. office, but my bones tell me that working Dan Hummer in the western desert is history. So, more BS 2004; [email protected] hours at the microscope poring over Greetings to my fellow Iowa Staters! collections in hand are an acceptable The past year has been a very eventful substitute. A paper in Palaios earlier one, so it’s hard to know where to start. In this year brought closure to a project the summer of 2015 I moved from UCLA in central Utah that began in 1962 and to Washington, D.C., to do a postdoc at needed all of the intervening years to the Carnegie Institution for Science (for assemble enough material. My attention is a second time). This past year I greatly focused on Lower Ordovician conodonts enjoyed working with mineralogist from Oklahoma, Utah and Nevada; these Robert Hazen on the evolution of projects will be finished eventually if my manganese minerals through geologic eyes and bones do not betray me. time and also wound up launching a worldwide search for new mineral species Dan Hansen called the “Carbon Mineral Challenge”. I BS 1976; MS 1978; [email protected] even assisted in conducting a workshop Colleagues … In June of this year I in the Azores for early career scientists retired from Chevron after a 38 year run studying the geochemistry of carbon. in the petroleum business. I attribute The big news is that this summer, I much staying power in this boom- accepted a tenure track faculty position at and-bust industry to my grounding at Southern Illinois University! It’s similar Emi, Molly, and Brennan, three out of fifteen of Jim Crowther’s grandchildren, enjoying the Iowa State, the geology professors who to ISU (just with the first two letters glacial erratic outside of Science Hall. mentored me, and the world-class field switched around) – a mid-sized state camp experience. I am still relatively university situated in the lovely town of Ray Ethington young and will be scoping out options to Carbondale, IL (highly fitting given my BS 1951; MS 1955; [email protected] continue working if opportunities arise. recent work on carbon mineralogy). My I hope all is going well for the Otherwise, I’m enjoying living outside girlfriend Amy, currently in Virginia, department. I just recalled that 70 years the “corporate culture” for first time in a plans to move here with me early next ago at this time I was preparing to enroll long time! year. I’m proud to say that I’m following at Iowa State, then known as Iowa My family news is that I am engaged to in the footsteps of my former mentors, State College, just a week after my 17th be married sometime soon to my fiancée Ken Windom and Paul Spry, by teaching birthday and for the first time venture Paulinha Kuhnert, who is Chilean. My courses this semester in Mineralogy outside the limited world-view of a farm daughter Christine is 24 years old now and Ore Deposits. After spending many boy from eastern Story County. I was and is employed as HR manager in postdoc years exclusively on research, it introduced to geology in my first quarter
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Scholarship as well as the Madison and antique tractors, antique automobiles Lyla Self Graduate Fellowship, which and parts, I found that the area from has given me the opportunity to take Thermopolis to Lovell was “ripe” for the business workshops and network with pickings for this sort of stuff – even the other Ph.D.s. A trip to Washington old Shell dump. Of course, the attraction D.C. is planned for next year to study of western vintage iron was that it was science policy at the “ground level,” rarely rusted through and had only a thin which I am very excited for! The Self weathered patina on it – certainly the Fellowship also provides me several more ideal condition that even a 30- or 40-year communications and business workshops old automobile at the time, junked or not, throughout the rest of my time at KU. Jeff was likely to have. Having our own cars will be starting his MS in geology in the at camp in 1963 certainly provided a little spring 2017 with Dr. Tandis Bidgoli at bit of freedom, so after Sunday morning the Kansas Geological Survey. He will be camp chores, there was often a chance to studying injection induced seismicity and check out the old car scene in the Basin. tectonics. Over years, in addition to providing Home life is also moving fast; Jasper autos for a 1930s-era period movie, I have is growing like a weed! We really enjoy edited a vintage automobile newsletter Kansas, but definitely miss the autumn with a circulation in several New Dan Hummer (top left) with the other organizing foliage and the lack of bugs in Iowa. England states. This in turn has led to an committee members of the 2015 Deep Carbon We miss the people most of all. This opportunity to contribute historical and Observatory Early Career Scientist workshop upcoming summer, we will be living technical articles to a national vintage at a volcanic fumarole site outside of Ponta in Houston for my internship with auto magazine. Several of these articles Delgada, Azores. ConocoPhillips. We are very excited for have received national recognition, feels great to be back in the classroom, that experience as well! I really enjoyed including a recent one on the production and even greater to have a permanent catching up with my past friends and of Ford automobiles in France during the position! I really like my new colleagues colleagues at GSA, as well as seeing all of late ‘20s and early ‘30s that earlier this at SIU and have settled in very quickly. I the things the department has been up to. year received the 2015 National Literary will be setting up a lab to study mineral I’m glad so many could make it to GSA, Award from an antique auto organization. crystallization and already have plans to and I hope to see some of you at AAPG After nearly 45 years of university visit Costa Rica next spring with my early next year! teaching and research – mostly overseas – career colleagues to study the cycling of the opportunity to step aside and refocus carbon in subduction zones. It’s all a bit my interest in the vintage car scene has overwhelming but exciting at the same been quite fulfilling. time. If any alumni find themselves in In June of this year, I had the Illinois, please be sure to stop and visit! opportunity to organize a vintage auto tour that took us from central New Deserae Jennings England north into southern Quebec. BS 2013; MS 2015; [email protected] That tour involved two vintage auto clubs After obtaining my MS degree with from along the Upper Connecticut River Dr. Hasiuk at Iowa State, I have been Valley region of New Hampshire and working on my Ph.D. at the University of Vermont in creating a local version of the Kansas with Dr. Mike Blum. My research Deserae Jennings with her husband Jeff and famed London to Brighton Veteran Car son Jasper. is on the sedimentology, stratigraphy, Run. That British auto tour, which has and fluvial geomorphology of the now just celebrated its 110th anniversary, McMurray Formation of the Alberta Gary Johnson involves a 60-mile “Run” through the Oil Sands. This has afforded me many BS 1964; MS 1967; Ph.D. 1971 opportunities to travel to the Calgary [email protected] Core Research Centre and work with My time at what was then the Iowa my Canadian colleagues from Devon State Geological Field Station back in Energy and Imperial Oil, trips to the the early 1960s presented me with the Arizona Laserchron Lab, and a trip to opportunity to sleuth out “vintage iron” the Mississippi River Valley to co-lead a in an area of the American West that Devon Energy field trip. I have many trips was relatively new to me as a potential to Saskatchewan and the Athabasca River hunting ground. As a youth, having had planned for the future! the opportunity to scrounge the area Along with these opportunities, around Sioux City, as well as near our I was also awarded the Patterson family farm in eastern South Dakota for Gary Johnson giving tour instructions during the (New) London to Brighton Tour.
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 11 ALUMNI NOTES
English countryside from Hyde Park, tourist camp west of Cody in the 1930s Joe Sabel London, to Madeira Drive, Brighton, and and 1940s. I guess that discovery closed BS 1975; [email protected] is an opportunity to view or participate some sort of Bighorn Basin circle for me After more (a lot more than I want in a road tour with a large number of at the time – although the search does to admit) than 20 years working in pre-1905 vehicles traveling along public continue. As many collectors of vintage energy, energy conservation, and the roads. Ours was a bit different. stuff agree, it’s the search that is most environmental field, I retired from federal Our “official” start was from an interesting. Not to be truly retired from service on June 30, 2016. On July 1, I automotive museum in New London, the academic world, the teaching and started my latest adventure as both the NH, with an eventual conclusion in the the research, I can still be found in my head of Energetics Inc. Building Energy Vermont town of Brighton. The small university office most days. Solutions Division and Energetics’ Chief village of Island Pond and Brighton Strategy Officer. My job here will be to State Park are that town’s combined Tim Ryan help grow the company by focusing the centerpieces. Our total trip, along with MS 1982; [email protected] efforts of our remarkably talented staff. several third-day extensions mostly in I am retired as of December 2015 Prior to coming to Energetics, I was Quebec, was a little more than 350 miles, from the 9 to 5 work week. However, the deputy of the Green Management and was almost exclusively on secondary I continue to be involved in Oil and Program at the Department of Veterans roads where we tried to keep up a 40 Gas Exploration with QC Energy in Affairs (VA). We had a lot of great roles mph pace while not having to contend Denver. I am officially their Business improving sustainability across VA’s with 60+ mph traffic. There were no Development Manager. Our goal is to energy, environment, and vehicle fleet vehicle age constraints in our own “run”, acquire mineral rights in the San Joaquin programs. In short, we developed the although we did enjoy the company Basin of California for the dual purpose strategic vision for the Secretary and of a large number of pre-WWII autos. of deep oil prospecting and shallow worked hard to continually reduce VA’s Participating in this tour were 46 people brackish groundwater sourcing and environmental footprint. I had a great and 25 vehicles dating from 1913 to 1941. desalination. We made two trips to Iowa time and feel like I contributed to making These included the following makes: this year to visit relatives and check on our government a better steward of Hupmobile, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, REO, the family farm near Iowa Falls. We also resources, both fiscal and environmental. Ford, Chevrolet, Nash, Plymouth, Buick, did a southern trip to Hilton Head, South I have to say, though, that working and Oldsmobile. Carolina, and a Colorado trip down inside the Beltway is very interesting. the San Luis Valley to the Great Sand There is a unique version of logic that Dunes. We have lived in The Woodlands, cannot be found anywhere else in the Texas, since 1998. My wife Diane (1980 Solar System and perhaps the galaxy. But ISU Field Camp Cook) and I have three in an odd way it does make sense. Or grandchildren ranging in age from 13 to maybe I have just been in the vortex too 20. They live in the Dallas area. I enrolled long! in the Master’s Degree program at Iowa If any of you happen to be in the Denver State in 1980 and received my Master’s area the first half of October 2017, come Degree in 1982 (Geochemistry of the to Peña Station – on the RTD between Basaltic Rocks of Fisher’s Peak Mesa, downtown and the airport – and visit Colorado). I was recruited by Mobil Oil in Solar Decathlon 2017. It is a public-private Gary Johnson’s 1931 Ford Convertible Sedan Dallas in June of 1982 as an exploration partnership between Energetics and the Ready for the start of the (New) London to geologist. Brighton Tour. Department of Energy through the 2019 event. In past years the competition was held on the Mall in Washington, D.C., Our (New) London to Brighton tour and in Irvine, California. The Denver was a rousing success with no significant competitions will be the best ever – mechanical or electrical troubles though I might be a little biased. Hey, why experienced by anyone. All vehicles doesn’t ISU enter a team!? Get in touch completed the tour, none were delayed, and I will tell you how. and all agreed that the champion of all participants was the Hupmobile. That 103 Jeff Steadman year-old vehicle was able to keep up the MS 2010; [email protected] 40 mph pace throughout! Jeff Steadman is in his second year as a Of course, my still frequent visits to post-doctoral researcher in geochemistry Wyoming and Colorado do require a at the Centre for Ore Deposits and search for western “vintage iron”. Quite Exploration Science (CODES), University a few years back, I acquired from a of Tasmania, Australia. He currently leads Colorado collector an automobile that Ryan and Diane Ryan at Hilton Head Beach, a multi-sponsored, global project focused had been in use as a courtesy vehicle at a South Carolina. on using the trace element geochemistry
12 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES
of pyrite as an exploration vector for and have recently taken the role of head of soon include a saline aquifer test beneath several styles of ore deposits, including our hydrogeology and geophysics section. the oil reservoir, which will demonstrate VHMS Cu-Zn, orogenic Au, sediment- Our group’s applied research program is a suite of new monitoring technologies hosted (SEDEX) Zn-Pb, and iron oxide- largely aimed at using geophysics to map designed to account for stored CO2 and copper-gold (IOCG) systems. In addition, and characterize shallow hydrogeologic test model forecasts of the CO2 fate. In Jeff continues to contribute to the frameworks. My most recent projects August, the first steps were taken to CODES-based Trace Elements of the Past include cone-penetrometer testing join with three electrical utilities and an
Oceans (TEPO) initiative, which has as to characterize glacial sediments. It’s oil refinery to explore options for CO2 its aim the construction of a paleo-ocean certainly fun stuff, but even more fun capture in another multi-year effort. geochemistry curve through geologic was the opportunity in May to help time using marine pyrite from Archean lead Neal Iverson’s group of glacial to Recent sedimentary sequences, as well students on a field trip through north- as a high-resolution sulfur isotope curve central Illinois. It was great to see Neal through deep time. Jeff has also recently and Susy Ankerstjerne and hear the begun work with the Geological Survey students tell stories about Ames and of South Australia, looking at pyrite in the department. My wife, Joan Jach several styles of mineralization across that (M.S. 2005) is now a full-time flower state. farmer, and she helps teach science at Last December, Jeff officially graduated our daughter’s Montessori school. She with his Ph.D. in Economic Geology. His is loving it. We have enjoyed helping Recent field demonstration of CO2 injection at Wellington parents were our daughter, Abby, develop her Field, Sumner County, Kansas, where both oil recovery in town for gardening and rock-hounding skills. and CO2 storage are being evaluated. In 2016, 20,000
the occasion, However, she seems to enjoy painting metric tons of CO2 were injected into a dolomite reservoir which made and bicycling a bit more. producing 6000 bbls of incremental oil and only 12% of the CO . Courtesy of Lynn Watney. it all the more 2 enjoyable. David Uhlir The old dog keeps learning new The biggest Ph.D. 1987; [email protected] tricks. This was the admonition when I change in Jeff’s I remain at Cisco Systems, Inc., leading arrived at ISU in 1968 from ISU Dean life over the a mostly Denver-based team of software and Geology Professor Chalmer Roy. Jeff Steadman and his parents after receiving his last 12 months developers. My Denver office is within Professor Roy told the new geology Ph.D. from the University of has been of a spitting distance of Union Station, which arrivals that: 1) we were here to learn Tasmania, Australia. matrimonial now features a train to and from Denver how to learn and 2) we needed to accept nature: he and International Airport. Give me a shout if that challenge and enjoy the place. I did his partner of you find yourself traveling to Denver! just that, working under mentor-ship three years, My wife, Mary Kraus, has taken on of John Lemish. I saw the new world Ms. Subira a new challenge at the University of of science through his interdisciplary Sharma, were Colorado at Boulder as vice provost and interests and the wisdom he imparted united in associate vice chancellor for undergraduate to me. I am deeply grateful that my eyes marriage on education. In June, Mary and I took a and mind were opened at ISU. May 14, 2016, memorable trip to England with our Besides work, my wife, Karen, and I at St. Luke’s daughter Katherine, following Katherine’s live south of Lawrence where we have Anglican graduation from Washington & Lee returned marginal cropland to prairie and Church in University. Our daughter, Christina, works woodland over the past 26 years. We are Jeff Steadman and his wife, Richmond, at a biotech company in Boulder. now taking more time to rest and enjoy Subira Sharma. a colonial- it all. style village Lynn Watney near Hobart. They met at CODES in BA 1970, MS 1972; [email protected] Mark Wiseman 2013 when Ms. Sharma came from India I recently celebrated my 40th BS 1975; [email protected] to commence her Ph.D. in Economic anniversary at the University of Kansas I am currently employed as a geologist Geology. The weather on the day was and the Kansas Geological Survey. Since with Allender Butzke Engineers Inc., fantastic – sunny skies and 60 degrees 2009, my research has focused on CO2 Urbandale, Iowa, specializing in (F, not C) – which is rare for May in utilization and storage in Kansas with environmental consulting. I have worked Tasmania! funding from the U.S. Department in this field since the early 1990s with of Energy. The project has entailed a a stint doing geotechnical engineering Jason Thomason regional assessment of geologic storage specialty contracting with the former Ph.D. 2006; [email protected] and a successful field site demonstration W.G. Jaques Company of Des Moines
I have been employed with the Illinois of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery, which between 1998 and 2003. I have lived State Geologic Survey for over 11 years was completed in June. The project will in the same house in Des Moines for
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 13 ALUMNI NOTES
35 years as of November. My daughters Moines, Hartford, Carlisle, and Palmyra. very few games since I graduated in 1979, are grown up and in their 30s. I have (1850s to 1910). My hobbies keep me very probably none in the last 30 years. I enjoy taught two classes at the ISU Alumni busy with historical research at the State the Varve each year but working steady Association OSHER Life Long Learning Historical Library and other sources. I’ll has not allowed me to participate in any Institute, or OLLI, during the last year be 60 in January, God willing. I have reunions for a long time, though I have and have written three books on the had ISU season football tickets and sit on talked to Dr. Vondra at OLLI. history of Central Iowa Stoneware, the top row of the stadium west side as I Moingona, Eldora, Boonesboro, Des have since the early 1980s. I have missed
FIELD CAMP, 2016
ISU students Chris Ladd, Emily Oberhoffer, and Zach Kornse watch the sunset from the top of Exercise Hill.
Students verifying their paleocurrent Checking out the Yellow Mound paleosol at Badlands National Park in July 2016. measurements during the Greybull Sandstone Project.
Flowers and fossil hunting at Badlands National Park in May 2016.
Jessica Kronenwetter (University of Maryland) and Allen Tevyaw (University of Rhode Island) mapping from a high vantage point at Poverty Lunch and a lecture at Fremont Lake, northeast of Pinedale, Wyoming. Flats.
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Morehouse gift will have significant, positive impact on Geology program
David Morehouse (geology, Halligan, who received her M.S., ’70) spent his life B.S. in Geology from the devoted to federal civil University of Nebraska- service. A scientist with a Omaha, was the first passion for the environment, recipient of the fellowship. he spent the majority of his The department hopes to be 37-year career working for able to offer two one-year the Department of Energy’s Morehouse Fellowships in U.S. Energy Information future years and hopes to Administration as a senior apply Morehouse funds to petroleum geologist. subsidize international field A Charles City, Iowa, trips. native, his training at Iowa The remaining 30 percent State University prepared of funds comprise the him for a fruitful career Equipment Fund, from developing, managing and which durable laboratory contributing to innumerable equipment or field equipment analytical products produced may be purchased. Geology by the DOE, the EIA, and faculty may submit proposals various interagency alliances annually for funding in covering the full spectrum of the range of $50,000 for upstream oil and gas, both equipment. Simpkins, along domestic and global. He with Neal Iverson, Paul Spry was always learning, and he and Alan Wanamaker from was always sharing his new Theresa Halligan, the first recipient of the Morehouse Fellowship the department, make up the knowledge. Morehouse Committee to “Dave was in charge of future of our geology graduate students appropriate the funds. keeping track of thousands of oil wells and will improve our faculty’s research “We are grateful to David for the across the nation,” said Carl Jacobson, capabilities.” significant, positive impact his gift emeritus professor of geology and former Two accounts were established by is making on the Geology program,” chair of the Department of Geological and the ISU Foundation to hold funds from Simpkins said. Atmospheric Sciences. “He was a critical the estate of David F. Morehouse. The David Morehouse advised the person when it came to trying to figure Scholarship Fund comprises 70 percent of University of Oklahoma’s Petroleum Data out petroleum and natural gas reserves for the estate gift and will be used to provide System from 1975-1986, represented the United States and the world, which scholarships and fellowships to promising EIA at the American Gas Association’s was not a trivial matter.” students of geology. Beginning Fall 2016, Committee on Natural Gas Reserves from Morehouse shared his passion for the geology program will use the annual 1991-1995, and worked with the National meeting the world’s natural gas needs proceeds from this fund to provide half- Critical Infrastructure Task Force’s Energy with his passion for quality research and tuition scholarships to all Geology M.S. Group from 1998-2002. He was the DOE education. He stayed connected with students on assistantships. representative to the Federal Geographic ISU’s Department of Geological and “As many of our alums know, ISU does Data Committee (which formulates Atmospheric Sciences, leaving a generous not waive tuition totally for M.S. graduate national spatial data policy) from 1997- gift to the Geology Program upon his students, but instead provides a half- 2011, and its Homeland Security Working passing in 2014. tuition scholarship to them,” Simpkins Group from 2001-2010. He co-authored “The Morehouse Fund has made a said. “Morale soared among our geology the oil and gas resources portion of a substantial impact on graduate student M.S. students when they learned that they National Petroleum Council study on funding, recruitment and faculty would no longer have to pay the other future indigenous North American oil and research,” said Bill Simpkins, professor half of the tuition that is not covered.” gas supply capabilities, and spent nearly of geology and chair of the Department In addition to the tuition scholarship, a decade with the National Laboratories’ of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences. the geology program established a one- Energy Research and Development “The gift has brightened the educational year Morehouse Fellowship to recruit Working Group (LERDWG). outstanding Ph.D. students. Theresa
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 15 GEOLOGY IN THE NEWS Clean, Safe, Sustainable By Jess Guess Editor of the Link LAS Alumni Magazine
Photo by Will Stone On a muggy summer morning, months for the river water to arrive in this Cube with each block having a hydraulic hydrogeologist Bill Simpkins has just part of the aquifer. Then, groundwater head value at its center,” he said. “We finished raising pressure transducers from flows from this site southwestward in the contour those values to interpret the seven wells hugging the west bank of the Ames aquifer toward the downtown well direction of groundwater flow, both at South Skunk River in Ames. Tethered field. the water table near the surface, and to black Kevlar rope, the transducers – Simpkins, professor in the Department three-dimensionally in the subsurface. narrow, weighted brass cylinders about of Geological and Atmospheric To demonstrate confidence in our model seven inches long – and dataloggers inside Sciences and Smith Family Foundation results, we match known water levels in the cylinders have recorded the past Departmental Chair in Geology, has been wells to the model-generated ones to create eight months of groundwater levels and researching the physical and geochemical a calibration curve. temperatures. The data is sent through an interactions of groundwater with lakes “If there is a good match, we can use the optical interface to a laptop propped open and streams in Iowa’s glacial materials model to predict, for example, groundwater on top of a black plastic milk crate in the for nearly three decades. His work is flow patterns in the future; to identify back of Simpkins’ car. unique because it combines the physics drawdown effects of new municipal wells; “Low-cost transducer technology has and geochemistry of groundwater to to predict the spread of contaminants from revolutionized the monitoring of water understand and model groundwater flow. a spill; to simulate aquifer sustainability levels and temperature,” Simpkins said. He said the process of groundwater under the effects of global climate change; “At this location, transducer data show flow can be described mathematically, and to estimate the age of groundwater at that the water level (stage) in the river is thus allowing groundwater systems to be any point in the aquifer.” higher than that in the wells, indicating modeled on computers that solve these For more than 10 years, officials at groundwater flow from the river into the equations, producing values of the water the Ames Water and Pollution Control aquifer.” level, or “hydraulic head,” on a grid in Department have relied on Simpkins’ In addition to water level data, three dimensions. groundwater flow models and geochemical temperature data show it takes about five “Think of the grid as a large Rubik’s analysis to provide safe and sustainable
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drinking water to Ames citizens. His Environmental Contamination (CHEEC) to quantify the virus concentration. PCR modeling of the Ames aquifer has led at the University of Iowa. They looked for showed virus material was likely present – directly to siting the construction of a four common human enteric viruses – probably within the last two years. new municipal well field that will start Adenovirus, Enterovirus, Norovirus and Then, they used DNA sequencing next year, and his geochemical analysis Rotavirus, which all emanate from human to further define the viruses present of groundwater has provided evidence for waste – in the aforementioned seven wells by determining the serotype of the implementing more frequent rehabilitation tapping groundwater near the South Adenovirus and genotype of the HEV. of municipal wells in the aquifer. Skunk River, in the Ames aquifer below The results showed Adenovirus serotype Data collected by Simpkins’ the Ames Municipal Cemetery, and in 31 may enter the aquifer either from the Hydrogeology Research Group is raising the Ames downtown well field. They also South Skunk River or Ames’ leaky sewer awareness of contaminants lurking in sampled Ames’ sewage. system, but HEV genotype 3 – of animal groundwater and the need for vigilance They also studied the Hepatitis-E origin – could only come into the aquifer in disinfecting and treating our drinking virus (HEV), which can have human or from the South Skunk River. water. animal origins. Because viruses are very Considering the two-year lifespan of Simpkins’ research goes beyond the small and travel easily through sand and virus material in groundwater coupled city limits, though. Data collected by gravel aquifers, Simpkins was convinced with water isotope and hydraulic head Simpkins’ Hydrogeology Research Group that viruses would be found in the Ames data collected previously, the research is raising awareness of contaminants aquifer. But, his group found the sampling suggests contaminants originating from lurking in groundwater and the need for very difficult. the South Skunk River can travel to the vigilance in disinfecting and treating our “We pumped 1,000 liters of water downtown well field (about one mile drinking water. through a glass wool filter for four hours away) in two years or less. Water quality is a big issue in Iowa. to collect enough sample on the filter to “We demonstrated the vulnerability Nitrate, phosphorus, pesticides, bacteria analyze in a laboratory about 350 miles of the Ames aquifer to contamination – as well as viruses, personal care away,” Simpkins said. “My graduate and why cities need to be vigilant about products and pharmaceuticals – have student, Adam Davison, experienced some treating drinking water extracted from all been found in Iowa rivers, lakes and very long days in the back of a cargo van.” rivers and groundwater,” Simpkins groundwater. In Ames and other cities Simpkins’ group uses cutting-edge said. His group’s virus research is throughout Iowa, only bacteria and PCR analysis – the standard for criminal currently under review in the journal of viruses from that list are eliminated investigations – to identify the virus type Environmental Science and Technology through disinfection at water treatment and its subgroups present in the water and and is on track to be published next year. plants before it pours from our tap. “We are fortunate in Ames that naturally occurring bacteria in the aquifer remove nitrate in groundwater prior to entering Major Opportunities our production wells,” Simpkins said. But, not all towns are so lucky. Most do at Iowa State not have the facilities, or the knowledge, to remove all contaminants from drinking By Selia Buss water, particularly emerging contaminants LAS Communications Intern such as personal care products and pharmaceuticals. Brittany Grosskopf came to Iowa State Her dream career is to combine “The water saga in Flint, Mich. illustrates University ready to take her next step in working in the field and in the lab, why it’s important for consumers to life. She wanted to get involved as much conducting isotopic research to understand how their city treats drinking as she could, so she took advantage of better understand species and past water,” Simpkins said, also citing the state the resources the College of Liberal Arts environments in order to ensure a better of Wisconsin as an example where each and Sciences offered to add experience future environment. Grosskopf will city – not the state – determines whether and adventure to her college story. graduate this December and is ready to or not to disinfect their drinking water. Since stepping foot on campus pursue that dream. “This is not sound public health policy. as a freshman, Grosskopf, (geology When Grosskopf was president of Published epidemiological studies in that and environmental studies, ’16), has the Geology Club, she handled logistics state by one of my collaborators have participated in student clubs, mastered and planned events. She learned to be shown that people have become sick her major and traveled across the ocean more organized and how to network from drinking non-disinfected water that multiple times with fellow Iowa State with professors, and perfected her public contained human enteric viruses.” students. speaking. She loved the social aspect Simpkins’ Hydrogeology Research “For me, a lot of it was fitting in of the Geology Club because meetings Group joined the hunt for viruses in and feeling like I belonged here,” said were not always serious. Sometimes, groundwater in 2011 through a grant Grosskopf about why she chose her members got together to have movie from the Center for Health Effects of major. “The geology department is small which complements a large university.” continued on page 18
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 17 GEOLOGY IN THE NEWS
said. “Taking a trip with mostly history majors opened my eyes to the way other students see the world.” She liked that the 16 students on the trip were all able to share knowledge and learn from each other because of their varied interests. And, she said, her professors were able to give more accurate information than any tour guide could because of their strong academic background. “I did not go a day without a brand new learning experience,” Grosskopf said. “Taking a trip with mostly history majors opened my eyes to the way other students see the world.” Grosskopf, a member of the Iowa State Marching Band’s Color Guard, rounded out her summer with another amazing experience overseas. In June, she participated in the band’s trip to Normandy to perform for the D-Day Photo by Will Stone landing anniversary. She said Europeans continued from page 17 and mixed concrete to build stairs. Her were not used to the flair of a college stay was unique because she lived with a marching band, but enjoyed ISU’s and homework nights. The camping trip family in the village they volunteered in performance. the club takes at the end of each spring instead of rooming with other students. In the College of Liberal Arts and semester was a chance for club members The opportunity to live with a family and Sciences, offering plenty of adventurous to enjoy spending time together while become totally immersed in a culture is a experiences is a priority to grow confident studying geology at places like Ledges valuable experience LAS offers. leaders and global citizens. Through State Park in Boone, Iowa. “Being able to be surrounded by taking advantage of LAS’ opportunities, Although busy with the Geology Club a family and their culture was eye Grosskopf has shaped herself into a and classes, Grosskopf took on more. She opening,” Grosskopf said. “Eating their smart, world-traveling graduate who is joined Tau Beta, a band sorority, became foods and trying something new literally ready to take on her first job. a member of the Greek community by every day was fun.” “Brittany is one of those students joining Phi Beta Chi, and mentored peers “Being able to be surrounded by who has wholeheartedly embraced in the Department of Geological and a family and their culture was eye what Iowa State has to offer in terms of Atmospheric Sciences. This summer, she opening,” Grosskopf said. “Eating their undergraduate research opportunities, cleaned display cases and put up posters foods and trying something new literally leadership roles, study abroad to help geology department staff prepare every day was fun.” experiences and participation in iconic for fall classes. She learned how to work on a team campus activities like Marching Band,” “We needed someone to actually put with classmates she never met before. said Jane Dawson, a senior lecturer up the cool things they’ve done and seen. Together, students took part in cave in the Department of Geological and That’s where I come in,” Grosskopf said. swimming, kayaking and touring the Atmospheric Sciences. “I’ve had the Grosskopf got her taste for global Mayan ruins, but she said living in a privilege of watching her increase adventure during a study abroad trip in different culture impacted her most. her understanding of how the Earth 2015. Over Spring Break, she and other Grosskopf’s overseas adventures works and grow as a geologist through ISU students embarked on a service trip continued in Rome. This summer, she her classes and field and research to Belize, on what ISU calls a “Study participated in a History Global Seminar, experiences. I’m proud of her, not just Abroad Short.” She said the experience a course taught by ISU professors in as a geologist, but as the well-rounded was perfect for her because it balanced another country. Students lived in global citizen she’s become.” volunteering and exploring the country. apartments in an area similar to student “In order to understand what’s going “I wanted to explore abroad, but do it housing and explored different historical on in the world you have to experience for a rewarding reason, and that’s why sites every day. As a geology student, it for yourself,” Grosskopf said. “We were Belize seemed like a good fit for me,” she she had to study a little extra about the so ridiculously different. It was nice to said. history of the city, but said she found the see how the other students do things and While in Belize, students worked at content fascinating. to work with them even when we think the same school the entire week. They “I did not go a day without a brand so differently.” painted, re-sided, put together furniture new learning experience,” Grosskopf
18 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES
Unpacking Secrets of Ancient Earth At Canyon Lake (Huron Mountains, Michigan) By Jill Riddell Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation
On a warm June morning, the flat- bottomed rowboat that resides at Canyon Lake is packed so full of science equipment you can barely see the boat’s floor. There are sensors to measure light and pigment levels, reels of plastic tubing for water sampling, and dry ice to keep samples cold. Four scientists are ready to venture out onto the lake, but the little boat has space left for only two. It’s Sergei Katsev’s and Nick Lambrecht’s turn, (from University of Minnesota Duluth and Iowa State University, respectively) so the men step into the boat, find spots to sit among the gear, and push off. Chad Wittkop (Minnesota State University-Mankato) and Betsy Swanner (Iowa State University) watch them go. As the oars churn through the water, the dark lake sparkles. Sheer rock cliffs rise up along the lake’s perimeter. Once the researchers-turned rowers have moved out of sight, Wittkop and Swanner return to the cedar grove to swat black flies and chat about the work. Wittkop was the first member of the research team to visit Canyon Lake. He’d Canyon Lake in the Huron Mountains of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. sought it out in the summer of 2014 because he’d read about its remarkable “Only a portion of Canyon Lake’s of water, which is normal, but by the time features. “Canyon was unlike any other water mixes, and there’s a deep layer that we get down to 14 meters, the oxygen lake I’ve ever visited. I’d developed a level never mixes or is never observed to mix,” level drops to 0.1 milligram per liter. At of anticipation, so it was an exciting day Wittkop says. “Because of that, the water the very bottom, at twenty-two meters, when I actually got out here and saw it for isn’t exposed to the earth’s atmosphere.” the oxygen level is zero.” myself. Even if you don’t know anything In 1940, there was a study of Canyon The absence of oxygen makes it about the geology or microbiology, Lake done by Lloyd L. Smith, Jr., a possible to maintain high concentrations Canyon Lake already is fascinating. And professor at the University of Minnesota. of dissolved iron in the water. This was its mystery is deepened by its unusual “Unusual chemical conditions exist also true of Earth’s ancient oceans. When chemistry and connection to our planet’s throughout the year and give strong an atom of iron comes into contact with most ancient secrets.” indication of permanent water an atom of oxygen, the two rapidly meld While almost every other lake in the stratification,” Smith observed back then into iron oxide which is not soluble, so it temperate zones of the world rotate water and when Wittkop discovered Smith’s settles out. The two elements are so quick twice a year, with the water at the bottom paper, it seemed this just might be the to combine that it’s rare to have iron in a completely mixing with water at the lake Wittkop had been looking for. Less dissolved state. top, that typical turnover never happens than one percent of all lakes on earth “But Earth didn’t come out of the in Canyon Lake. The water currently – and possibly even fewer, maybe only box having oxygen,” Wittkop says. resting at the bottom of Canyon Lake has one in a thousand – are permanently “All the oxygen that we breathe and been there for at least seventy years, and stratified. take for granted today is the product probably much longer. It’s possible that Swanner explained that the research of photosynthesis. That’s why when the bottom two meters has been sitting team’s findings have already confirmed astrophysicists search for life on other there undisturbed and unchanged for Smith’s discovery. “At the surface, we millennia. measure 9 milligrams of oxygen per liter continued on page 20
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 19 GEOLOGY IN THE NEWS continued from page 19 planets, they look for evidence of oxygen. New Mineral Named in The only way to build up oxygen is for there to be organisms present that can manufacture it.” Honor of Paul Spry “Plants and algae drive the carbon cycle everywhere on earth,” Swanner says. “But there are a few remaining places – like Canyon Lake – where it doesn’t. We knew from the geological record that there was a carbon cycle going on in ancient times, well before plants and algae ever existed. So back then, there had to be some type of primitive system creating a carbon cycle. Some system that didn’t produce oxygen as its waste product. It is possible that Canyon Lake retains a photosynthetic carbon cycle driven by iron, as on the early Earth.” For the researchers, being at Canyon Lake is like finding out that some creature you thought existed only as in the fossil record actually has a living, breathing relative that’s still alive. At Canyon Lake, an ancient period of history that scientists knew existed because evidence of it appeared in stone suddenly becomes current, alive and real. What before was merely theoretical is now Spryite, (Ag8AsS6), equant crystals surrounding proustite (Ag3AsS3) crystals on Mn–calcite. Field being experienced – and sampled and of view 1.6 cm. studied – firsthand in the Northwoods. A new mineral, spryite, type compound, which is generally “Eventually, that primitive system Ag (As3+ As5+ )S , was recently known to be a fast ionic conductor or driving the carbon cycle got out- 8 0.5 0.5 6 discovered by Frank Keutsch (Harvard seminconductor. Such a compound has competed by the system we know today, University) and written up in a paper practical industrial applications. the one driven by plants and oxygen,” that appeared in the Journal of Physics Spryite, a black metallic mineral, says Swanner. “How did that happen? and Chemistry of Minerals (Bindi, L., has an orthorhombic symmetry and What was the older system like? What Keutsch, F.N., Morana, M., and Zaccarini, six twin domains (see photo). It is lived in that ancient ocean water? What F., 2016, Spryite, Ag (As3+ As5+ )S : also brittle and has no cleavage. The was its geochemistry? These are the 8 0.5 0.5 6 structural determination and inferred original submission by Bindi et al. questions we’re trying to answer.” absence of superionic conduction of the to the International Mineralogical The team’s research will bring to science first As3+- bearing argyrodite. Journal of Association, which approves the naming a clearer understanding of the large-scale Physics and Chemistry of Minerals, DOI of minerals, stated that the mineral planetary processes of the past and what 10.1007/s00269-016-0838-1). It was name “…. is for Paul G. Spry, professor impact that knowledge has for us today. named after long-time faculty member, of Economic Geology in the Department Paul Spry. Spryite was found in a sample of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences from the Uchucchacua polymetallic at Iowa State University, U.S.A., for his deposit, Cajatambo, Peru. Rather than outstanding contributions to mineralogy,
having the ideal formula, Ag8AsS6, it geochemistry and crystallography of has a more complex formula (given sulfides and sulfosalts over the last 30 above) because a structural solution of years. His geochemical studies of metallic the mineral showed that As3+ and As5+ mineral deposits (e.g., light stable isotope coexist in its structure. This represents studies, fluid inclusions characterization the first case ever discovered in either of epithermal and mesothermal gold a mineral or synthetic compound, deposits, as well as the effects of belonging to a sulfide/sulfosalt, in which metamorphism on massive sulfide (Left to right) Chad Wittkop, Nick Lambrecht, two oxidation states of As are an essential deposits) are especially noteworthy Sergei Katsev, and Betsy Swanner at Canyon part of the formula. It is an argyrodite- among economic geologists.” Lake.
20 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES
Paleontologists Find North America’s Oldest Monkey Fossil along Panama Canal By Mike Krapfl Iowa State University News Service
Photo by Jason Head. A student digs for fossils in the rock exposed by expansion of the Panama Canal. This is where paleontologists found North America’s oldest monkey fossil.
It was late in the year, but Panama was History back in 2012. “It’s an amazing Florida Museum on the campus of the still muggy, and rain clouds were closing day, though, when you find an entirely University of Florida. in. A field crew of student-paleontologists new species.” When Wood uncovered that first tooth, wasn’t having much luck, but Aaron Wood, who has directed Iowa State’s he knew it was something unusual. But Wood kept chipping away at the exposed Carl F. Vondra Geology Field Station what? His initial thoughts went to the rock with a flathead screwdriver. since 2015, said workers expanding the usual suspects: fossil mammals from And then he found a tiny, black-colored canal cut back forest and exposed rock North America. The 21-million-year-old fossil tooth. to researchers. In that part of the world, rocks of the dig site formed when Panama “It’s a good day if you find a complete vegetation quickly covers any exposed was the southern tip of North America, fossil tooth – even if you already have 100 rock and evidence of Panama’s ancient separated from South America by a of them from the same species back at the past. narrow sea. All of the fossil mammals museum,” Wood said of the student field And so it was a once-in-a-century previously found in the rocks were similar work he was supervising near the Panama opportunity for a project led by Bruce to those found in Texas, Florida and Canal as a postdoctoral research associate MacFadden, distinguished professor and Mexico. for the Florida Museum of Natural curator of vertebrate paleontology at the continued on page 22
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 21 GEOLOGY IN THE NEWS continued from page 21 Western Hemisphere monkeys that Wood said. The forests could provide Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate includes squirrel monkeys. The name also the monkeys the tropical fruit and paleontology at the Florida Museum and highlights the 100-mile ocean crossing habitats they preferred. Farther north, lead author of the paper describing the the monkeys made from South America the forests featured North American fossil discovery in the journal Nature, to North America. vegetation and different foods for the was the first to suspect otherwise. Once the monkeys arrived in present- monkeys. “After a week or so of trying to identify day Panama, probably floating on rafts “These monkeys were adapted to the these teeth, Jon made what seemed at of vegetation, there’s no evidence they South American forest,” Wood said. the time a somewhat crazy and exciting moved much farther north. “And so they stopped where the South suggestion,” Wood said. “Could this “What this tells us is that physical American forest stopped.” tooth be from an extinct South American barriers, like oceans, can be overcome So yes, Wood said, it was a big find – monkey?” when talking about animals crossing from not only for science, but for the field crew. one continent to another,” Wood said. “But “It boosts everybody’s morale when we these monkeys didn’t go very far north find something at a dig site,” he said. “On once they arrived in Panama. Something that particular day, other people weren’t else must have acted as a barrier.” having much luck. But then we found The fossil record of plants indicates something unusual – we just didn’t know ancient Panama was covered by forests how unusual it was.” similar to those in South America,
FIELD CAMP, 2016
Aaron Wood holds one of the fossil teeth of Panamacebus transitus next to the skull of a squirrel monkey.
Turns out it was the latter: The first North American fossil monkey and the oldest fossil evidence of mammals traveling from South America to North America. Prior to the discovery, the oldest evidence of mammals making the trip north was the movement of certain sloths about 9 million years ago. The Isthmus of Panama formed about 3.5 million years ago, creating a land bridge for animals to freely move north and south. The National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the Florida Museum of Natural History supported the research project that produced the fossil discovery. In all, Wood and the student crews collected seven of the monkey teeth from the ancient rocks of the Panama Canal. Researchers say the fossils are most similar to the squirrel monkeys found across Central and South America today. Researchers named the animal Panamacebus transitus, denoting the discovery in Panama and a family of Jane Dawson gives a geomorphology lecture to field camp students and a few tourists on Signal Mountain, Grand Tetons National Park.
22 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES STORIES FROM THE FIELD STATION Motoring behind Barnum Brown in the Shell Valley: Was there ever a Dino in your tank? By Gary Johnson (BS 1964; MS 1967; Ph.D. 1971)
(left) 1933 Barnum Brown, Ed Lewis and Roland Bird near a rock outcrop thought to contain dinosaur remains along Crystal Creek Road north of Greybull (colorized photo from the AMNH). (right) 2003 Mike Brett-Surman (Smithsonian Institute), Erik Kvale (BS 1978, MS 1982, Ph.D. 1986), and Gary Johnson recreate the scene seventy years later.
Images of parts of rural Wyoming, the from reliable re-supply, driving a fleet of Tyrannosaurus rex, for example. According Shell Valley, and the area around Iowa Dodge Brothers town cars, and handling to Andrews, director of the AMNH during State’s Carl F. Vondra Field Station, remind all mechanical repairs by themselves, much of Brown’s tenure there, “Brown … many of us that this area to the east of seemed to me to be the ultimate adventure. discovered many of the most important and Greybull holds a significant place in the Roy Chapman Andrews, leader of the most spectacular specimens in the whole history of North American vertebrate expeditions, was perhaps one of the history of paleontology”. paleontology during the early decades of the early 20th Century adventurers that a During the time that Brown was in India, Twentieth Century - and even later. much later Indiana Jones was modeled and later Burma, from 1922-1924, the As you may recall, some thirty years ago, after. Some of the New York museum’s museum fielded the Mongolian expeditions. we all were barraged with the question, staff participating in those Mongolian Through the efforts of William Berkey “Is there a tiger in your tank?” Thanks to adventures included several young and and Walter Granger, both geologists from the clever marketing folks at Esso/Exxon, mid-career scientists who had been invited Columbia University, the major objective of we all got to know of the tiger. As it turns to join in. Many of them would continue the expedition was to try to understand the out, Esso/Exxon’s tiger was not the first on in personal careers that continued to early record of the “Age of Dinosaurs”. This, animal to grace the pages of petroliana. spark the imagination of fellow adventurer in the early 1920’s, was (and remains today) That distinction may well rest with Sinclair scientists for the next half-century. One of pretty heady stuff. The popularization of Oil and Refining Company’s DINO the those scientists was Barnum Brown. this type of research, made possible by the dinosaur. Brown was well known at that time. First and a later Second Central Asiatic The story of this logo, the Shell Valley, Since the late 1890s, and from the age of Expedition, conducted by the AMNH, set and one aspect of the history of “our” 24, Brown had been involved in many the stage for yet another great dinosaur collective part of Wyoming began in earnest of the major fossil collecting expeditions search of the American West that was to in the early 1920s … of the museum. His eventual 66-year begin several years later. Those old American Museum of Natural association with the museum spanned Whetted by the successes of the Central History films and photos from the 1920s the era of some of the Twentieth Century’s Asiatic Expeditions, the AMNH began, about the Central Asiatic Expeditions of great paleontological expeditions to the in 1928, a renewed evaluation of the the museum were amongst the first images “remote” corners of the earth. He also vertebrate fossil-bearing strata of the to perk my interest in travel to exotic was responsible for recovering many of western U.S. A principal target of this places. These expeditions, conducted over the few known, exceedingly rare, but effort became the Jurassic-aged Morrison a seven-year period, were otherworldly. complete skeletons of certain dinosaurs that Formation of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming Americans traversing the desolate plains have come to be our children’s favorites: and Montana and various related non- and deserts of Mongolia, hundreds of miles Iguanodon, Hadrosaurus, Apatosaurus and marine rock formations associated with
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 23 STORIES FROM THE FIELD STATION it. The Morrison had been the target of excavators, brought scientists, tourists, Howe Dinosaur quarry as well as adjacent earlier fossil collecting enterprises and newsreel cinematographers, the curious, outcroppings under Federal jurisdiction, had yielded many spectacular specimens, and the skeptical, snaking their way up the have continued to be worked by a variety including the sauropod dinosaurs dirt road along Beaver and Cedar Creeks. of institutions. Diplodocus and Apatosaurus. Brown’s excavation team was modest It was the Morrison Formation beds in size and drew from a variety of of Como Bluff, Wyoming, some 40 miles personal expertise. Chief among the northwest of Laramie that made dinosaur participants, were Roland T. Bird, collecting in the American west such a Brown’s new assistant, and later grand exercise. The museum’s efforts chronicler of much of Brown’s and at Como Bluff were quite successful, his own life’s work, and interestingly with Barnum Brown recovering the enough, Ed Lewis, the geologist/ first “brontosaur”. The renewed efforts paleontologist from Yale, mentioned of the museum in the Morrison beds of earlier in this article, now fresh from Wyoming during the late 1920’s and early his research work in the hills of north 1930’s would begin to complete the circle India. Over the course of several months Gary Johnson and Esther Premru examining a of Brown’s activities in this area of the the team was able to excavate the bone- Diplodocus tail at the Howe Quarry. American West, and in the Shell Valley, in bearing stratum from beneath six to ten particular. feet of cover and extended the surface Beginning in 1928, Barnum Brown led outcrop back into the side of a hill some The legacy of Barnum Brown continues. a series of reconnaissance studies further thirty feet. All told, nearly 4000 separate His relationship with Harry Sinclair and north in Wyoming and into southern bones, representing more than twenty that period of the Sinclair Oil Company’s Montana, with the intent of recovering individual dinosaurs, were excavated support of Brown’s research made a additional material from the same aged that summer and autumn from what has major impact on fossil hunting in the rock strata as that exposed at Como Bluff. now been recognized as one of the most American West during the early 1930s. Through the very generous financial important multiple dinosaur finds in Sinclair’s own personal enthusiasm for assistance provided to the museum by North America. this fossil hunting enterprise resulted in Harry Sinclair and his then Wyoming- During late 1987 and early 1988, a his completely embracing the dinosaur based Sinclair Oil and Refining Company, paleontological research museum based in as his corporate logo. From 1930 Brown began what was to become a Aathal, Switzerland, near Zurich, contacted onwards, and in some respects with a nearly decade long search for dinosaurs in the new owners of the Barker Howe ranch, nod to Barnum Brown’s discovery of a the Rocky Mountain states. seeking permission to evaluate and possibly Diplodocus on the Barker Howe ranch In 1932, while doing reconnaissance renew the excavation of the Howe Dinosaur during those early excavations funded work on the Crow Indian Reservation, quarry. Fifty-five years had passed! by Sinclair, the Sinclair Oil and Refining southeast of Billings, Montana, Brown After an initial site visit in 1988, Company changed its marketing efforts heard of an unusual outcropping of agreements were signed, and excavations to acknowledge this dinosaur. DINO, the fossil bones that was exposed on a ranch began in earnest during August of 1990. dinosaur, had his origins in the wilds of owned by Mr. Barker Howe north of Shell, During that first year of re-excavation, Wyoming’s Shell Creek watershed some some eighty miles to the southwest. Upon the Swiss paleontological team, which 147 million years ago and a resurrection investigating the site, along the upper included students from the University of of sorts at Barker Howe’s ranch in the reaches of the Beaver Creek and Cedar Zurich, managed to extend the original early 1930s. Brown and Sinclair are gone; Creek watersheds, only a few hundred Howe site further into the hill some the Howe dinosaur quarry area remains yards from the Howe ranch house, Brown ten additional feet by removing more active; and we all can continue to put found limb bone fragments from large than a dozen feet of overburden for an some of that Big Horn Basin – inspired sauropod dinosaurs weathering out outcrop length of some 75 feet. Over 400 Sinclair gasoline into our automobiles. from inter-layered mudstones and thin well-preserved bones of Apatosaurus, The on-going impact of paleontological sandstones. Howe apparently even had Diplodocus, etc., including several superb and geological research in the Big Horn several limb bones propping up one of examples of preserved skin impressions, Basin is certainly well known. We must his fences. This was clearly a site of major were recovered, mostly from the same all acknowledge that prescient decision paleontological significance. As a result, horizon that Brown had excavated. This by Professors Chalmer Roy and Keith Brown set about making plans for a major new collection included in part the same Hussey in the late 1950s to relocate Iowa museum-sponsored excavation of the dinosaurian representatives as were State’s geological field program to Shell. Howe Ranch site, and in the summer of recovered during Barnum Brown’s earlier Spanning the entire Phanerozoic, the 1934, digging began. AMNH dig – including an additional rock and paleontological record in “our” Much chronicled during the summer and discovery: an old tin can, buried during part of Wyoming continues to provide early fall of 1934, the American Museum the covering of the leading edge of the experiential learning opportunities for excavation of the “Howe Dinosaur Quarry”, original outcrop face some 56 years before. our students – opportunities that remain conducted by Brown and his team of During the past nearly 30 years, the old almost without equal.
24 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
GEOLOGY STUDENT GRADUATE AWARDS AWARDS (Presented at the 2016 Spring (Presented at the 2016 Spring Banquet) Banquet) Georgia and Carl Vondra Kevin Connolly Field Camp Graduate Fellowship Award Scholarship Theresa Halligan Joshua Foss Nathanael Kilburg Outstanding Teaching Christopher Ladd Assistant Award Firdaus Ahmad Ridzuan Huedepohl Geology Field (right) Camp Scholarship Erik Day (left) Katherine Luzier (left) Shafiq Shuazlan (right) John Lemish Award Sergey Ishutov (center) Carolyn Jones-Eiler Summer Diana Thatcher (left) Field Camp Scholarship Chase Anderson (not Graduate Student Seminar pictured) Top Paper Award Kelsey Barbour (left) Nina Whitney (center Shu Liu (not pictured) right) Rylan Macvey (right) Thomas Tranmer (center) Runner-up Paper Award Maddie Mette (center left) Jon Peckenpaugh Memorial Scholarship Pick-of-the-Year Hannah Ahmad Ridzuan Award Zachary Kornse (not Hsin-Wei Chen pictured) Outstanding Beck Family Scholarship Contributions Award Emily Oberhoffer (right) Firdaus Ahmad Ridzuan Shawn O’Hern (not (right) pictured) Alyssa Witt (left) Justine Myers (left)
Peter Johnson Memorial Scholarship Maegan Klus
Smith Family Foundation Scholarship Bailey Nash
Rodney Gardner Scholarship Megan Childs Trevor Van Dyke
Outstanding Undergraduate Award Nell Bender
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 25 AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
OTHER UNDERGRADUATE AND Graduate Students studying natural rock properties (Ha- GRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS AND Fall 2015 siuk); Ph.D. INTERNSHIPS Kate Frank (MS) Leung, Tania Erik Day Spring 2016 The role of iron mobility from anoxic Internship, United States Geological Geoff Gadd (MS) sediments in stimulating harmful algal Survey, Denver Libby Ives (MS) blooms (Swanner); Ph.D. Aubry Foulk Josh O’Brien (Ph.D.) MacPherson, Meaghan Goldwater Scholarship The mineralogy and origin of the Sergey Ishutov Current Graduate Students and their Kanmantoo Cu deposit, South Australia Emerging Leadership Academy, Iowa Research Projects (Spry); MS State University Ballew, Jared Madsen, Tyler Internship, Shell Oil Company, Houston Constraining hydrographic variability Evaluation of a Distributed Streamflow Preparing Future Faculty Associate, and ocean climate in recent centuries Forecast Model at Multiple Watershed Iowa State University in the northwestern Atlantic (Wana- Scales (Franz); MS Statement of Accomplishment, Reser- maker); MS Meng, Lin voir Geomechanics, Stanford University Birren, Tom Investigating vegetation phenology and Meaghan MacPherson Experimental analysis of strain transients its spatiotemporal dynamics using sat- Graduate Student Fellowship, Society of in a heterogeneous semi-brittle system: ellite remote sensing (Zhou); Ph.D. Economic Geologists Foundation Implications for tectonics (Reber); MS Mette, Madelyn Bailey Nash Bowman, Angela Investigating ocean-atmosphere interac- Frank H. and Ethel A. Spedding Scholarship Investigating evapotranspiration dy- tions and climate variability in the North in Physical Science, Iowa State University namics and the hydrologic response of Atlantic: Insights from Arctica islandica Firdaus Ahmad Ridzuan Midwest watersheds (Franz); Ph.D. shell growth and geochemistry proxy Internship, Saudi Aramco, Riyadh, Chen, Hsin-Wei records from coastal northern Norway Saudi Arabia Modeling elastic-wave stimulation of or- (Wanamaker); Ph.D. Diana Thatcher ganic fluids in porous media (Beresnev); MS Nesterovich, Anna Graduate Student Research Grant, Geo- Dakota Conn Diatom based proxy for sea ice extent logical Society of America The regional Cambrian Nairne Pyrite in the Bering and Chukchi Seas (Cais- Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, Horizon as a potential source of metals sie); Ph.D. National Association of Geoscience for metamorphosed base sulfide de- Randolph-Flagg, Jeremy Teachers posits in the Kanmantoo Group, South Stick or slip: An experimental analysis Natalie Thompson Australia (Spry); MS of strain transients in bi-modal granu- Graduate Student Research Grant, Geo- Day, Erik lar systems and applications to the San logical Society of America Application of a modified Thornthwaite- Andreas Fault (Reber); MS Katherine Tott Mather Soil-Water-Balance (SWB) Model Ridzuan, Firdaus Graduate Student Fellowship, Society of to estimate recharge in Boone and Story Quantifying the geological basis of the Economic Geologists Foundation Counties, Iowa (Simpkins); MS Iowa Pore Index (Hasiuk); MS Nina Whitney Degner, Benjamin Tarik, Saad Best Student Talk, 4th International Estimating groundwater recharge to Urban heat island and its impacts on Sclerochronology Conference buried-valley aquifers underlying the building energy use (Zhou); Ph.D. Gretchen L. Blechschmidt Award, Geo- Des Moines and Wadena Lobes in Min- Thatcher, Diana logical Society of America nesota (Simpkins); MS A multi-proxy record of hydroclimate Nathan Young Dziubanski, David from Portugal during the late Holocene Student Research Awards, Hydrogeology Data assimilation of satellite-based snow (Wanamaker); Ph.D.. Division, Geological Society of America observations for improved modeling of Thompson, Natalie Midwest watersheds (Franz); Ph.D. Sea ice decline and changing primary GRADUATING STUDENTS Halligan, Theresa productivity in the Bering Sea during Fall 2015- Summer 2016 TBA (Cervato); Ph.D. Marine Isotope Stage 11 (Caissie); Ph.D. Undergraduate Students Harbour, Thomas Tott, Katherine Fall 2015 Using CT imaging to investigate 12,000 The use of mineralogical anomalies as Sam Avila years of varved sediments from the Ber- exploration guides to stratiform Pb-Zn- Isaac Crenshaw ing Sea during Marine Isotope Stage 11 Ag mineralization in the Kanmantoo Bryan Lucke (Caissie); MS Group, South Australia (Spry); MS Eric Lupia Hussey, Evelyn Warbritton, Matthew Tze Teh Characterizing the effect of crushing on Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility Spring 2016 carbonate aggregate properties (Ha- of folded and faulted glacial sediments Andrew Allen siuk); MS of northwestern Jutland, Denmark Nell Bender Ishtov, Sergey (Iverson); MS Chonlada Chayanun 3D printing reservoir rock models for
26 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
Whitney, Nina Cervato, C, W Gallus, M Slade, S Kawaler, Sciences 112: 10635-10640. Spatial and temporal variability in M Marengo, K Woo, B Krumhart, D Flory, M Ishutov, S, FJ Hasiuk, C Harding C, and JN hydrographic variability and marine cli- Clough, A Campbell, E Moss, and M Acerbo. Gray. 2015. mate in the northwestern Atlantic (Gulf 2015. 3-D printing sandstone porosity mod- of Maine) during the late Holocene It takes a village to make a scientist: Re- els. American Association of Petroleum (Wanamaker); Ph.D.. flections of a Faculty Learning Commu- Geologists Interpretation 3: SX49-SX61. Witt, Alyssa nity Charged with Expanding Science Iverson, NR and LK Zoet. 2015. Estimating groundwater recharge to Literacy and Opportunity. Journal of Experiments on the dynamics and buried-valley aquifers underlying the College Science Teaching 44: 28-35. sedimentary products of glacier slip. Des Moines and Superior Lobes in Min- Cline, MD, NR Iverson, and C Harding. 2015. Geomorphology 244: 121-134. nesota (Simpkins); MS Origin of washboard moraines of the Des Jammes, S, LL Lavier, and JE Reber. 2015. Young, Nathan. Moines Lobe: Spatial analyses with Li- Localization and delocalization of Simulation of watershed-scale ni- DAR data. Geomorphology 246: 570-578. deformation in a bimineralic material. trate transport in fractured till using Denniston, R.F., G. Villarini, A.N. Gonzales, Journal of Geophysical Research 120: upscaled parameters obtained from till K.-H. Wyrwoll, V.J. Polyak, C.C. Ummenhofer, 3649-3663. core (Simpkins); Ph.D. M.S. Lachniet, A.D Wanamaker Jr., W.F. Kaczmarek, SE, S Fullmer, and FJ Hasiuk FJ. Humphreys, D. Woods, and J. Cugley, 2015. 2015. Faculty and Student Publications, 2015 Extreme rainfall activity in the Aus- An SEM-Based Descriptive Classification Ankerstjerne, S, NR Iverson, and F Lagroix. tralian tropics reflects changes in the Schemefor Limestone Microporosity. Journal 2015. El Niño/Southern Oscillation over of Sedimentary Research 85: 1197–1212. Origin of washboard moraines of the the last two millennia, Proceedings Liu, Y.-W., S.M. Aciego, and A.D. Des Moines Lobe inferred from sedi- of the National Academy of Sciences, Wanamaker Jr., 2015. ment properties. Geomorphology 248: 112(15), 4576-4581, doi: 10.1073/ Environmental controls on the boron 452-463. pnas.1422270112. and strontium isotopic composition of Becker, RA, B Tikoff, PR Riley, and NR Denniston, RF, G. Villarini, A.N. Gonzales, aragonite shell material of cultured Arc- Iverson. 2015. V.J. Polyak, C.C. Ummenhofer, M.S. tica islandica, Biogeosciences, 12, 3351- Reply to “comment on ‘Preexisting Lachniet, A.D Wanamaker Jr., W.F. 3368, doi:10.5194/bg-12-3351-2015. fractures and the formation of an iconic Humphreys, D. Woods, and J. Cugley, (2015) McFarland, J, Y Zhou, L Clarke, P Sullivan, American landscape: Tuolumne Mead- Reply to Nott: Assessing biases in J Colman, W Jaglom, M Colley, P Patel, ows, Yosemite National Park, USA,’ by speleothem records of flood events, J Eom, S Kim, GP Kyle, P Schultz, B Jeffrey P. Schaffer”, GSA Today 25: 34. Proceedings of the National Academy of Venkatesh, J Haydel, C Mack and J Bindi, L, CJ Stanley, and PG Spry. 2015. Sciences, 112(34), E4637, doi: 10.1073/ Creason. 2015. Cervelleite, Ag4TeS: solution and de- pnas.1513354112. Impacts of rising air temperatures and scription of the crystal structure. Miner- Gao, J, A Zhang, SK Lam, X Zhang, AM emissions mitigation on electricity de- alogy and Petrology 109: 413-419. Thomson, E Lin, K Jiang, LE Clarke, JA Edmonds, mand and supply in the United States: Bindi, L, CJ Stanley, and PG Spry. 2015. GP Kyle, S Yu, Y Zhou and S Zhou. 2015. a multi-model comparison. Climatic New structural data reveal benleonard- An integrated assessment of the poten- Change 131: 111-125. ite as a member of the pearceite-polyba- tial of agricultural and forestry residues O’Brien, JJ, PG Spr, GS Teale, SE Jackson, site group. Mineralogical Magazine 79: for energy production in China. GCB and D Rogers. 2015. 1217-1227. Bioenergy 8: 880-893. Major and trace element chemistry of Bowman, AL, KJ Franz, TS Hogue, and AM Grant, C, P Antonenko, AR Wood, and BJ gahnite as an exploration guide to Bro- Kinoshita. 2015. MacFadden. 2015. ken Hill-type Pb-Zn-Ag mineralization MODIS-based potential evapotranspira- 3D scanning of fossils for middle and in the Broken Hill domain, New South tion demand curves for the Sacramento high school students: Science teachers Wales, Australia. Economic Geology Soil Moisture Accounting model. Jour- and students’ perspectives. Research 110: 1027-1057. nal of Hydrologic Engineering 21. Highlights in Technology and Teacher O’Brien, JJ, PG Spry, D Nettleton, X Ruo, GS Bristol, SK, PG Spry, P Voudouris, V Melfos, Education 2015: 97-104. Teale, SE Jackson, and D Rogers. 2015. RD Mathur, AP Fornadel, and GA Sakellaris. Haxel, GB, CE Jacobson, and JH Wittke. 2015. Random forests as a statistical method 2015. Mantle peridotite in newly discovered for distinguishing gahnite compositions Geochemical and geochronological con- far-inland subduction complex, south- as an exploration guide to Broken Hill- straints on the formation of shear-zone west Arizona: initial report. Interna- type Pb-Zn-Ag deposits in the Broken hosted Cu-Au-Bi-Te mineralization in the tional Geology Review 57: 871-892. Hill domain, Australia. Journal of Geo- Stanos area, Chalkidiki, northern Greece. Hejazi, M, N Voisin, L Liu, L Bramer, D Fortin, chemical Exploration 149: 74-86. Ore Geology Reviews 66: 266-282. M Huang, J Hathaway, P Kyle, LR Leung, O’Brien, JJ, PG Spry, GS Teale, SE Jackson, Cervato, C and D Flory. 2015. HY Li, Y Liu, P Patel, T Pulsipher, J Rice, T and AE Koenig. 2015. Earth Wind & Fire: a learning community Tesfa, C Vernon, and Y Zhou. 2015. Gahnite composition as a means to approach to build ties between degree pro- Climate change mitigation exacerbates fingerprint metamorphosed base metal grams in a geoscience department. Journal water deficits in the United States. deposits. Journal of Geochemical Ex- of Geoscience Education 63: 41-46. Proceedings of the National Academy of ploration 159: 48-61.
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 27 AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
Reber, JE, LL Lavier, and NW Hayman. 2015. Anderson, KJ Franz, and R Dey. 2015. tive Reasoning in STEM education at Experimental demonstration of a semi- Hierarchical stochastic modeling of large ISU, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. brittle origin for crustal strain tran- river ecosystems and fish growth across 2014-2019, $1,200,000. sients. Nature Geoscience 9: 712-714. spatio-temporal scales and climate mod- Cervato, C. (co-PI), Reichert, C, C Cervato, D Niederhauser, and els: Missouri River sturgeon example. A STEM Neighborhood: Using service M Larsen. 2015. Model Fusion: Integrating Environmen- learning to improve students’ science Understanding atmospheric carbon tal Models to Solve Real World Prob- and math literacy. Morrill Faculty budgets: teaching students conservation lems. Riddick, AT, H Kessler, and JRA Award, Iowa State University. 2015- of mass. Journal of Geoscience Educa- Giles (eds). Geological Society, London 2016, $11,000. tion 63: 222-232. Special Publications, 408. Gallus, W. (PI), C. Cervato (co-PI) and D. Spies, RR, KJ Franz, TS Hogue, and AL Wildhaber, M, R Dey, CK Wikle, EH Moran, Flory (co-PI) Bowman. 2015. CJ Anderson, and KJ Franz. 2015. A Severe Weather Tool to Expose Stu- Distributed hydrologic modeling using A stochastic bioenergetics model-based dents in Science Learning Communities satellite-derived potential evapotranspi- approach to translating large river flow to Authentic Research. Miller Faculty ration. Journal of Hydrometeorology 16: and temperature in to fish population re- Fellowship, Iowa State University. 2015- 129-146. sponses: the pallid sturgeon example. In- 2016, $14,000. Steadman, JA and PG Spry. 2015. tegrating Environmental Models to Solve Iverson, N.R. (PI) Metamorphosed Proterozoic Zn-Pb-Ag Real World Problems: Methods, Vision Testing hypotheses for drumlin forma- mineralization in the Foster River area, and Challenges. Riddick, AT, H Kessler, tion at Múlajökull, Iceland. U.S. Na- northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Eco- and JRA Giles (eds). Geological Society, tional Science Foundation. 2015-2016, nomic Geology 110: 1193-1214. London Special Publications, 408. $35,485. Swanner, ED, W Wu, L Hao, ML Wuestner, Wood, AR and NM Ridgwell. 2015. Jacobson, C.E., M Obst, DM Moran, M McIlvin, M Saito, and The first Central American chalicothere Collaborative Research: A detrital A Kappler. 2015. (Mammalia, Perissodactyla) and the zircon record of California Arc magma- Physiology, Fe(II) oxidation, and Fe paleobiogeographic implications for tism. U.S. National Science Foundation, mineral formation by a marine plank- small-bodied schizotheriines. Journal of 2014-2016, $35,879. tonic cyanobacterium grown under fer- Vertebrate Paleontology 35: e923893. Jacobson, C.E. (PI) ruginous conditions. Frontiers in Earth Wu, JY, TW Stewart, JR Thompson, RK Significance of Newly Discovered Sub- Science 3. Kolka, and KJ Franz. 2016. duction Complex, Including Partially Velez-Juarbe, J, AR Wood, C De Gracia, Watershed features and stream water Serpentinized Mantle Peridotite, South- AJW Hendy. 2015. quality: A causal analysis of linkages west Arizona. U.S. National Science Evolutionary Patterns among Liv- in a Midwest urban landscape, U.S.A. Foundation, 2014-2016, $66,268. ing and Fossil Kogiid Sperm Whales: Landscape and Urban Planning 143: Reber, J. (PI) Evidence from the Neogene of Central 219-229. Experimental analysis of strain tran- America. PLoS ONE 10: e0123909. Zhou, Y, M Hejazi, S Smith, J Edmonds, H Li, sients in a heterogeneous semi-brittle Vreeland, NP, NR Iverson, M Graesch, and L Clarke, K Calvin and A Thomson. 2015. system: Implications for tectonics. U.S. TS Hooyer. 2015. A comprehensive view of global potential National Science Foundation, 2016- Magnetic fabrics of drumlins of the for hydro-generated electricity. Energy & 2018, $186,000. Green Bay Lobe. Quaternary Science Environmental Science 8: 2622-2633. Spry, P.G. Reviews 112: 33-44. Zhou, Y, SJ Smith, K Zhao, M Imhoff, A Major and trace element studies of Wamboldt, J.M., A.D. Wanamaker Jr., and Thomson, B Bond-Lamberty, GR Asrar, X ferromagnesian silicates and oxides J.E. Morris, 2015. Zhang, C He and CD Elvidge. 2015. as exploration guides to metamor- Commercial Diets in Phase I Palmetto A global map of urban extent from phosed massive sulfide deposits in the Bass, Morone saxatilis × M. chrysops nightlights. Environmental Research Kanmantoo Group, South Australia. Production in Plastic-Lined Ponds: Letters 10: 054011. Geological Survey of South Australia, Fertilizer or Feed?, Journal of the Zoet, LK and NR Iverson. 2015. $23,059. World Aquaculture, 46(5), 490-504, A double-valued drag relationship for basal Wanamaker, A. (PI) doi:10.1111/jwas.12111. sliding. Journal of Glaciology 61: 1-7. Exploring the role of oceanic and Weckström, K, A Miettinen, BE Caissie, C atmospheric forcing on Arctic marine Pearce, M Ellegaard, D Krawczyk, and A Faculty Research Grants in 2015-2016 climate from newly developed annual Witkowski. 2014. Caissie, B.E. shell-based records in coastal Norway. Sea surface temperatures in Disko Bay OCE-RIG: Refining a diatom-based U.S. National Science Foundation. 2014 during the Little Ice Age – Caution sea ice proxy for the Bering Sea us- – 2017, $472,708. needs to be exercised before assigning ing water, ice, and sediment samples Wanamaker, A. (Co-PI) Thalassiosira kushirensis resting spore to improve the robustness of sea ice Reconstructing Holocene Dynamics of as a warm-water indicator in palae- reconstructions. U.S. National Science the Indo-Pacific Tropical Rain Belt us- oceanographic studies. Quaternary Foundation. 2015-2016, $99,776. ing Australian Stalagmites and Coupled Science Reviews 101: 234-237. Cervato, C. (co-PI), Climate Models. U.S. National Science Wildhaber, M, CK Wikle, EH Moran, CJ Infusing Active Learning and Quantita- Foundation, 2016-2019, $62,409.
28 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES FACULTY & STAFF NOTES
Suzanne Ankerstjerne, Stable Isotope large appetites of college students in the is dictated by acceleration, earthquake Lab Manager and Instructor field, and the limited resources at some ground motion is measured in the units This year has been another busy campsites were a few of the challenges we of g (acceleration of gravity). How many one in the stable isotope lab. We have overcame. The students did a great job of g’s can the strongest possible seismic been running almost continuously pulling together, helping out, and making event produce? Prior to the 1971 San and generating lots of carbon, this a great trip. Fernando, California earthquake, the hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen isotope Finally, in June I attended the seismological community was convinced measurements. The lab continues 4th International Sclerochronology that the peak acceleration could not to provide services to various ISU Conference hosted by Dr. Wanamaker in exceed half of g. That belief was shattered researchers while expanding our Portland, Maine. This was my first visit to as, during the ensuing 40+ years, ground customers outside the university. In New England. It was great to meet other accelerations nearing or exceeding 2 2015, we ran more than 9000 samples of researchers doing climate studies and g were recorded, most notably during materials that included water, carbonates, learn about the different proxies they use the 1994 Northridge, California, and fish, soil, and wood. for climate reconstructions. The coast is 2011 Tohoku, Japan, events. Also, beautiful and, of course, the fresh seafood most surprisingly, even a “modest” is a major attraction for this native Iowan. (magnitude-6.3) 2011 Christchurch I also visited parts of Massachusetts earthquake in New Zealand caused a including Boston, Concord, Salem, and vertical movement of the ground at the Rockport. value of 2.2 g. A natural question has been, then, whether the trend to greater and greater accelerations continues as more data are collected, or whether there is a computable theoretical limit that cannot be exceeded. I approached this question on the Susy Ankerstjerne and graduate student Maddie basis of the representation theorem Mette give the mass spectrometer its annual of elasticity, which allows computing tune-up. seismic radiation from ruptures given With another record student a theoretically prescribed form of slip enrollment this fall, online courses on the fault. The plausible values of slip remain a popular option for many have been constrained by decades of students. My role as an instructor seismological observations. To make includes administering two online sure the algorithm works, I first tested introductory geology courses that are it on reproducing the famous records offered every Fall, Spring, and Summer at the Lucerne station during the semester. In the Spring, I taught the 1992 Landers, California, earthquake, classroom section of the introductory uniquely observed only 1.1 km from a course Geological Disasters and Hazards. magnitude-7.2 rupture. I then calculated I also assisted Dr. Alan Wanamaker Lobster Bake at the 4th International the ground accelerograms from plausible with his stable isotope course providing Schlerochronology Conference (Portland, scenario earthquakes and discovered Maine). students with a hands-on lab experience that, indeed, it did not seem that modern understanding of seismic sources could by helping them prepare their own Igor Beresnev, Professor warrant ground accelerations on bedrock samples for isotope analysis. Between teaching my usual courses exceeding approximately 3 g. Does that My department-related travels this (GEOL 201 Geology for Engineers mean that the worst has already been year included three events. I attended and Environmental Scientists in the seen? Another, quite counterintuitive, the GSA conference in Baltimore, MD, fall, and both GEOL 457/557 Seismic conclusion suggested by the calculations last November to help with graduate Methods in Geology, Engineering, and was that the maximum ground motion recruiting. I enjoyed meeting prospective Petroleum Exploration and MTEOR 432 near an earthquake indeed was nearly students and connecting with those Instrumentation and Measurements independent of magnitude, in accordance alumni attending the conference. In May, in the spring), I continued the line with the observational experience. I have I accompanied Dr. Neal Iverson and his of research aimed at establishing the summarized the findings in two articles, class on a field trip exploring the glacial maximum possible level of earthquake one on the validation of the method geology of the upper Midwest. My job was shaking during an earthquake. and one on the prediction of maximum to make sure 25 people were well-fed for Understandably, an answer to this possible ground motion, already six days. I borrowed the unofficial Marine question has important implications for submitted for publication. Corps slogan of “improvise, adapt, and seismic-proof structural design. Based The past year also marked the eventual overcome” during this trip. The torrential on the fact that, by Newton’s second publication of another study, this time rains of the first 2 days, the unexpectedly law, forcing on engineered structures
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 29 FACULTY & STAFF NOTES on the uncertainties in the theoretical to value my position as an affiliate I got to teach a graduate level description of seismic-wave propagation in professor in Geology at ISU because of oceanography seminar last fall, which fluid-saturated porous media. Those of you my personal and professional contacts was really fun. I balanced this out close to seismic exploration probably know in the department and throughout the by continuing to teach Geol 101 that the classic theory of elastic waves in university. I am mostly involved in Environmental Geology to 250 students rocks is due to Biot. The description is collaboration with non-profit policy in the spring and doing crazy things intimately based on the parameter called organizations in the role of translating like bringing soil to class so they could “tortuosity”, whose meaning has only been hydrologic research results into all identify the different horizons found loosely understood, despite decades of narratives useful for policy analysis and under their feet. Our annual Geol 102 the theory usage. Based on the reading of development. This role has allowed me Historical Geology field trip to Rockford recent literature, I found a way to calculate to expand my understanding of research Fossil and Prairie Park was on a warm, the tortuosity, which led to the results in colleagues’ fields related to water sunny day that made us all want to stay contradicting what this parameter was resources, an invigorating process. My longer. commonly thought to be. It turned out work with the Des Moines Waterworks, We joined the Phycological Research that tortuosity is a frequency-dependent the IIHR- Hydroscience & Engineering Consortium, a group of folks who like quantity that can be unpredictably and the Iowa Policy Project is particularly to identify diatoms and soft algae, for complex and nearly impossible to compute interesting as it is at the heart of two writing/microscope retreats at the for any realistic porous structure. Since discussions to rejuvenate Iowa policies Iowa Lakeside Lab on the shores of Lake complete predictions of wave propagation that could lead to protection of water Okoboji. In addition to helping each based on Biot’s theory rely on this resources. Judy and I spent much of our other with taxonomy, we’ve worked on a parameter, do such conclusions mean that time traveling again this year including few outreach projects. We sponsored an accurate predictions are nearly impossible? a trip to the Japanese “Alps”, northern algae day with open labs that allowed the It was not difficult to foresee, in that Europe, and the Big Island of Hawaii. community to come out to the lab, collect regard, that an article spelling out such algae from the lake, and look at it under gloomy inferences would not find an easy Beth Caissie, Assistant Professor the microscope. If you visit SCIOWA, way into the hearts of the researchers Over the past year, the folks in the check out the cool paper maché models in the field. Indeed, since the first Marine Sediments Lab have put our noses of protists hanging in the café. Students submission in 2013, it has been declined to the grindstone to get some serious work at Drake made these, but the Phycological for publication by eight (!) journals, before, done. We’ve gotten one paper published, Research Consortium helped fact check finally, being accepted by and already in one in review, and three about to walk out their descriptions and taxonomy. My lab print in Pure and Applied Geophysics. the door. My two Ph.D. students have both has also given interactive presentations to In the past year, I also published a just completed their third years. Anna high school students from Science Bound joint study with the colleagues from the Nesterovich has discovered not only a and the Program for Women in Science ISU Department of Civil, Construction, new species of diatom from the Chukchi and Engineering. We’re looking forward and Environmental Engineering on the Sea, but a new genus! Naming it has been to coring the ice in Lake Okoboji this applications of ground-penetrating radar quite an adventure. I’ll let you know winter with Science Bound students and to the assessment of road quality (J. Hu, what it’s called once it’s official. Natalie introducing them to the algae living in P. Vennapusa, D. White, and I. Beresnev, Thompson has added a new organism to the ice. Pavement thickness and stabilised her toolbox – foraminifera. She is using My family is doing well. Amy is still foundation layer assessment using ground- them to create a new age model for her enjoying the places and people her job coupled GPR, Nondestructive Testing and cores and will be presenting at GSA and takes her to as a reporter for Harvest Evaluation 31, 267-287, 2016). AGU this fall. A new master’s student Public Media based at Iowa Public Radio. I continue to work with my graduate joined us this fall: Thomas Harbour from Elias started middle school this year as student, Hsin-Wei Chen, who is James Madison University in Virginia. He a bus rider for the first time. We only developing a computer code, based on wrote his undergraduate thesis using the ventured out on short weekend trips the Lattice-Boltzmann simulation, to SEM to distinguish if sea ice or glacial ice around Iowa this summer – camping at model seismic waves in fluid-saturated transported quartz grains. We’re excited Maquoketa Caves and in Decorah. media under the effect of vibrations. to have his experience in our lab. He This is intended as a predictive tool for will be focusing on CT scans of a 12,000 Cinzia Cervato, Morrill Professor and a developing technology of enhanced year interval of varved sediments from LAS Senior Faculty Fellow petroleum production through the use of the Bering Sea. I’m excited to see what Another academic year has just started, acoustic action. we can learn from these 3D depictions and the campus went overnight from of sedimentation. We also have two almost deserted to be teeming again with Michael Burkart, Affiliate Professor undergraduates working on projects in life and students. The life of a faculty (retired) the lab: Bailey Nash is learning to count member is marked by two seasons: a Judy and I made a big move during diatoms and Kate Staebell is working to hectic one that lasts nine months and the summer of 2016 – back to Iowa disentangle what grain size means in our leaves us with the sense of not having City after a 24-year absence. I continue cores. accomplished much, followed by three
30 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES
months when we have entire undisturbed Compostela in northwestern Spain with Relations Coordinator, and I continue days, that go by way too quickly, to the logistic assistance of Francesca. The to be impressed with your generosity dedicate to creative activities. Camino Ingles was the most amazing towards the department and our students. My teaching load has settled: one and positively transformative experience When I meet with prospective students section of Geology 100 Earth, Geology/ that I have ever had, even if my calves and their parents, I always mention how Astronomy 106 Earth and Space Science and knees hurt for a week afterwards! We our students benefit from the strong for Elementary Education Majors, and then returned to Italy for two weeks of support we receive from our alumni. Meteorology/Geology 112 Geoscience beach and family time. I taught Geol 315 Mineralogy and Orientation in the fall, and Geology/ I also had a productive research Geol 101 Environmental Geology last Astronomy 106 and Meteorology/Geology summer, with three manuscripts fall and am doing the same again this 113X Earth, Wind & Fire Orientation in submitted and three more handled as fall. Currently, both classes have high the spring plus GEOL 290, a freshmen associate editor of the GSA Bulletin. This enrollment (34 in mineralogy and 370 in research experience course. This is plenty fall a new graduate student, Theresa environmental geology), which is keeping of classes, especially on a half-time Halligan from the University of Nebraska, me on my toes! A number of engineering appointment. We nearly doubled the Omaha, is beginning to work on her students are taking mineralogy, which enrollment in GEOL 106 to accommodate Ph.D. under my supervision. Her initial helps keep enrollment high. Last spring, the growth in the number of elementary research will involve analyzing the I taught igneous component of Geol 365 education majors; we could do so thanks evolution of risk tolerance in the students Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology and to additional resources provided by the who took Geology 100 Earth last fall. both sections of Geol 100 Earth, and I college, and to the flexibility of Diana Francesca graduated from Ames High expect to do the same again this spring. Thatcher and Natalie Thompson, the two at a beautiful and moving ceremony at I was able to teach the Wind River TAs who agreed to teach lab sections that the end of May. After continuing her exercise at both field camp classes this are 50% larger than traditional ones and internship in forensic science at Ames Lab past summer, and it went smoothly both are split into two adjacent rooms. The through the summer, she started at the times. While camping at Colter Bay in Earth Wind & Fire learning community University of Iowa where she is majoring the Tetons during the traditional six- is thriving. in biology with a minor in criminology. week field camp, we took advantage of a My work with the Provost included And she has a part-time job as swimming public outreach program at the nearby again the New Faculty Orientation in instructor. I still can’t believe that the little University of Wyoming/National Park August with another large group of girl who came to Ames when she was three Service Research Center and enjoyed an faculty, and series of workshops, seminars years old is now a freshman in college. evening barbecue at their facilities on and activities to support early career She is not sure that having two parents the shore of Jackson Lake. Afterwards, faculty, lecturers and adjunct faculty and who are faculty and advisors is such a we heard an interesting presentation ensure that they are successful at Iowa good thing, but I now look at my first-year from the organization Working Dogs State. The writing accountability groups students with more sympathetic eyes. for Conservation, which uses dogs to have become very popular and in the Ian is now in 5th grade, or a senior detect invasive species, illegal ivory, etc. spring we launched five groups led by in elementary school, as he likes to Something different than the usual field four new faculty coaches. To learn more put it. He has decided to focus his camp lecture! about higher education administration, extracurricular activities on soccer, and At home, Bob and I moved into our I participated in the yearlong Emerging for the sake of our schedule and sanity remodeled farm house last winter and are Leaders Academy at ISU and the has decided to stop playing the piano enjoying it very much. We continue to American Council on Education Regional and basketball. He graduated from cut down trees, clear brush, and establish Women’s Leadership Forum in Detroit, SwimAmerica in the spring. He will lawns and gardens on our new acreage. I MI, in April. In May I completed my play the clarinet in the school band, but do like this kind of work, but I can’t wait third year with the Provost, and have those lessons are during school time. His for the day when all I have to do is just just started a one-year 25% appointment unfailing enthusiasm and good humor maintain it all! as Senior Faculty Fellow for Strategic are filling the house now that Francesca Initiatives in the LAS College. My main is gone. Kristie Franz, Associate Professor task will be the coordination of the Time flies: this will be my 16th year Greetings! strategic planning process that is taking at ISU. It is nice to hear news of former Well, I just finished my tenth year place this academic year. advisees and students - I hope time and at Iowa State. There was no special I took advantage of the break between life are being kind to you as they have certificate, or pin, or gold watch – just a my two part-time administrative been to us. realization that ISU must be a great place appointments, and the end of my year to work if ten years can go by so fast. In of surgeries (seven in 13 months), to Jane (Pedrick) Dawson, Senior some ways I still feel quite new here, and catch up on travel. After returning to Lecturer then I look at how much I have done and Sanibel, Fl, in early June, Paul, Ian, and Hello alumni! I’ve had the privilege of how much the department has changed I walked in six days the 118 kilometers corresponding with many of you over the and I realize that I am quickly approaching of the Camino Ingles to Santiago de last year in my new capacity as Alumni senior status. YIKES! It sounds cliché, but
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 31 FACULTY & STAFF NOTES the students are really what I remember is one of the few students I have advised DeAnn Frisk, Administrative when I think back. It has been especially that has managed to get out into a river Specialist fun to watch my graduate students move on a semi-regular basis. He has been Greetings! I’m not sure what I can say on and build awesome careers. collecting flow measurements throughout that I haven’t said in the last decade or This summer I experienced a strange the watershed to use in evaluating the so in writing these blurbs. As usual, I’m turn of events when one of my former streamflow model. We had a pretty dry pretty much always busy and always graduate students, Logan Karsten (MS spring and summer, so he hasn’t been behind. I keep trying to get caught up but Meteorology, 2011), became my teacher. In stream gaging as much as we would there is never enough time. I do the best preparation for my Fall 2016 sabbatical, I have liked. The dry weather also caused that I can to stay current with most of went to Colorado to visit a colleague at the some problems for Brad Carlberg (Ph.D. what I do. National Center for Atmospheric Research Meteorology) who is investigating the use With new faculty in the department, (NCAR) to learn about how to set up his of ensemble QPF (that is, precipitation I’ve been busy helping with the processes model, the WRF-Hydro, here at ISU. forecasts) for hydrologic forecasting as to get labs up and running by processing As you may recall, I do a lot of research part of his dissertation work. The goal purchase orders, CyBuy purchases and focused on streamflow prediction. The was to generate streamflow predictions in P-card transactions. To make the process WRF-Hydro is now being tested by real time, but there have been few events even more fun, the university decided it NOAA’s new Office of Water Prediction of significance in our study watersheds. wanted to consolidate all startup funding for forecasting streamflow at the national He will still be able to do analysis on for each faculty into one account which scale. This will be a good model to historical events, and “hope” for floods meant that I had to move all purchases become familiar with it as it might work next spring. to the newly established account number well into my research. Anyway, back to Last, but not least, I am co-advising for each person. Let me tell you, I was not my story. Logan works for the person Patrick Edmonds (MS Meteorology) with thrilled with that at all! I think it’s finally who developed WRF-Hydro and has far Andy VanLoocke (Assistant Professor all straightened out and should work well. surpassed me in the realm of working in Agricultural Meteorology). Pat spent Steve has been retired for over a year with these type of land surface models. the summer collecting field data around now and settled into somewhat of a So, he spent some time orienting me to prairie potholes that he will then use to routine. This winter he moved snow the basics of the model and will be my compare against a crop model to see the for the church and during the warmer point person for questions as I work on it effect of standing water on the vegetation weather he’s still mowing several places. over the next couple months. processes. This is a new area of research He has figured out a few chores to do Students currently in my research for me and I am excited to learn more around the house regularly and that group are also doing great things. This about the possible ways that we can tie helps me out a lot! He’s stayed healthy so year David Dziubanski (Ph.D. Candidate my hydrologic interests with Andy’s we’ve been able to go camping more this in Environmental Engineering and interests. We have already collaborated summer than the past few years. Geology) published his first article on on a couple proposals. I’ve just recently given up my second assimilation of satellite-based snow We have reached a major milestone at job (City Clerk of Randall, IA) that I’ve water equivalent data in the National home, Elia started kindergarten this fall. had for over 17 years. I decided that it Weather Service snow model. This was Knowing that the kids are growing up was time to resign and have some more based on his Masters work. His Ph.D. fast and that my husband sacrificed a lot free time so Steve and I can do more work is progressing very well too; he over the last ten years as I worked away, things together. I’m still training my now has a working socio-hydrology I decided to spend extra time with family replacement so the reality hasn’t set in model of the Squaw Creek that we are this summer. We did a lot of traveling. yet. using to explore the impact of complex We spent two weeks in southern I hope all is going well for you and human decisions on the hydrology of California visiting family. My sister-in-law yours. If you are in Ames, stop by and this Midwest watershed. Angela Bowman threw a huge birthday party for Elia (5 visit! I always enjoy catching up. (Ph.D. Candidate, Geology) is finishing years old) and Max (3.5 years old) with up her investigation of satellite-based tons of family and, of course, presents. Chris Harding, Associate Professor potential evapotranspiration data as Needless to say, they have a very positive My general research interests are in input to streamflow prediction models. opinion of southern California now. In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Although the results of using the satellite July, we took our camper to Colorado for Geographic Information Systems (GIS). data haven’t been as good as we had three weeks and hung out. They had a lot I’m supervising a HCI graduate student, hoped, we feel her work is shining light of fun jumping around in the mountain Jim Koopman, on how listening to the on the limitations of the current National streams and collecting rocks (two audio description of a route can be used Weather Service forecasting models. geoscientists in the making). We also to create and measure the cognitive maps In related work, Tyler Madsen (MS made several trips to Wisconsin to visit of this route. Geology and Environmental Science) is family. I thought we would be pushing On the GIS I am co-supervising a MS working on validating the forecast models the limits of tolerance for the kids, but student, Abhinav Venkatraman. Together for small scale watersheds using the they did great. with Professor James McCalley from Squaw Creek as the test watershed. He Electrical and Computer Engineering,
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we are working on GIS planning tools for Geology class where he ran a mock into dressing in tights data that we have the long-term (30+ years) development Imperial Barrel Award. gathered on drumlins – streamlined hills of Iowa’s Transmission Infrastructure, Firdaus Ridzuan, MS student, is that form at the bases of glaciers. During specifically accounting for Iowa’s growing working with me to research the four field seasons in Iceland, we have wind energy production. geological basis for the “Iowa Pore learned that modern drumlins exposed I’m working with Dr. Franek Hasiuk on Index”, a test the Iowa Department of in front of the receding surge-type glacier, a project called 3D TouchTerrain, which Transportation uses to grade crushed Múlajökull, formed under distributions allows users to select a region on a Google rock for use in highway concrete. We are of stress and strain in the glacier’s till Map and download it as multiple “tiles” using helium and mercury porosimetry bed that are the reverse of what has been (digital 3D files). The tiles can be printed along with light and SEM petrography to advocated in most theories. The challenge out on a commodity 3D printer and better understand how the complex pore has been to prepare a paper that presents glued together to form a 3D terrain map. systems in natural carbonate rocks are these facts concisely and convincingly. A prototype of the web application can being captured by the Iowa Pore Index Congratulations to Reba McCracken be found at: http://www.public.iastate. test. Firdaus won the graduate student (M.S., 2015) for finishing her M.S. thesis edu/~franek/TouchTerrain/ poster competition at ISU this spring. on this subject in August of 2015 and In the fall semester, I teach Geol Evelyn Hussey joined my research serving as lead author on the resultant 452/552 GIS for Geoscientists and group to work on an aspect of the Iowa paper in Quaternary Science Reviews. HCI/Geol 558 Introduction to the DOT rock typing project as well as Tightly tied to these measurements is 3D Visualization of Scientific Data. begin new experiments at our Foram a new mathematical model of drumlin Next spring, I will teach HCI 574 Farm. Evelyn comes to us from the State formation that I am developing and Computational Implementation and University of New York – Geneseo, so she presented last year at meetings of the Prototyping, a course on using the is no stranger to Paleozoic bedrock. American Geophysical Union in San programming language Python in a My family continues to enjoy Ames Francisco and European Geosciences human-computer interaction context, and Living, though we lost our 15-year-old Union in Vienna. I need to publish the Geol 488/588 GIS for Geoscientists II. dog to old age this spring. Britta, my wife, model, but until I can get it clad in tights continues shift-leading at the outdoor rather than an ulster, I will hold off. Franek Hasiuk, Assistant Professor pool in Ames. My two kids (Lena, age 8, This project also supported studies I am continuing my two research foci: and Lucas, age 6.5) continue at Meeker of the origins of two smaller landforms carbonates and 3D printing. I received Elementary. Hopefully, Science Hall will that drape the drumlins of Múlajökull: grants from the Iowa DOT to study the join the ranks of newly renovated Ames rectilinear ridge networks and flutes. Geoff pore systems in Iowa aggregates and buildings in the near future! Gadd (M.S., 2015) showed that the former from Saudi Aramco to 3D print artificial developed when subglacial till squeezed porosity models for flow experiments. into orthogonally oriented crevasses With Ian Saginor, a colleague from that extended to the glacier bed. Libby Keystone College, Pennsylvania, I Ives’s (M.S., 2016) work on flutes – flow- convened a poster session on 3D printing parallel ridges of till that form subglacially at the annual meeting of the Geological – demonstrated that they require water Society of America in Baltimore in pressure fluctuations at the bed to grow. October 2015. Congratulations to Geoff and Libby I taught Geol 368 Sedimentary Geology for writing great theses last year. And for the third time, Geol 102 Historical welcome to new graduate student, Matt Geology for the fourth time, and taught Warbritton; he and I traveled to Denmark my second iteration of Geol 444X this summer to initiate his thesis work on Petroleum Geology. Apache Corporation duplexed thrusts and associated folding again donated $10,000 to help purchase a in sediments deformed by the once great new set of cabinets for the Bone Room. Scandinavian ice sheet. Serg Ishutov, Ph.D. student, is working I remained begrudgingly on the with me on building artificial models proposal-writing treadmill this year, which of porous rocks using 3D printing. We consumed several solid months. Former received a grant from Saudi Aramco Franek Hasiuk reels in the big ones at Ada post-doctoral advisee Luke Zoet – now to fund this work. Serg completed the Hayden Park. on the faculty at UW-Madison – and I Preparing Future Faculty program at submitted two proposals to NSF this year. ISU as well as the Emerging Leaders Neal Iverson, Professor One of them is to study experimentally Academy, which pairs graduate students In Life on the Mississippi Twain wrote, the rheological behavior of melting ice, with university executives for leadership “Always dress a fact in tights, never in an with the goal of improving efforts to workshops and mentoring. Serg interned ulster” (if like me, you need a refresher on model the flow of fast-moving Antarctic over the summer at Shell in Houston. the meaning of “ulster,” it is a loose-fitting ice streams. The other project would Serg also taught the lab for my Petroleum overcoat). A lot of effort last year went involve using a terrestrial laser scanner
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 33 FACULTY & STAFF NOTES to measure in detail the topography of just moved to Pennsylvania, outside for a month of that time. Mostly I worked former glacier beds exposed by receding of Philadelphia. The intervening year in the argon lab, which Marty oversees, glaciers in the Swiss Alps. These data and has gone well. We miss Ames but enjoy although I also spent some time in the ancillary laboratory data would be used in being closer to our sons and daughters- ICP-MS lab at UC Santa Cruz. This is a 3D numerical model of glacier sliding to in-law. This area is also convenient where Marty and I now do our zircon derive basal boundary conditions for ice with respect to Carol’s job. She works U-Pb dating. In addition, Mark Mathison sheet models and to assess their sensitivity for a software company that supports came out for a week with Nell and to conditions at glacier beds. Luke and I the pharmaceutical industry. Many Brittany (mentioned above) to follow up also continue to publish the experimental pharma companies are located in on some of the work that they did at ISU. data on sliding that he gathered as a Pennsylvania and New Jersey, so travel Between the move to Pennsylvania postdoc at ISU. is much easier than from Iowa. We live and the time at Stanford, I wasn’t able I taught Geol 479 Surficial Processes last in a townhome in a development that to get out to the field last year. This year fall, which included the usual mapping opened five years ago; we got one of I will be going out twice, once in early exercise and camping in south-central the last units to be completed. There November and once in early January, Minnesota, to a great group students. In are 136 total units arranged in blocks for a total of about a month. Both trips the spring I taught a course (Geol 306) on of three to five. We have a middle unit, involve the Orocopia Schist in southwest the glacial geology of northern Illinois and but the walls between each unit are a Arizona. southeastern Wisconsin that culminated foot thick, and we’ve never heard the This past summer I spent a bit over in a six-day field trip. Many thanks to the neighbors. They’ve never pounded on a week at field camp as a volunteer department’s Susy Ankerstjerne (M.S., the walls when I play banjo, so I assume instructor. I led several of the mapping 2010), Jason Thomason (Ph.D., 2006) of the they don’t hear us either. There’s a strong exercises – north nose of Sheep Illinois Geological Survey, Luke Zoet, and sense of community among the residents Mountain, Goose Egg, and Rose Dome. Dave Mickelson (emeritus, UW-Madison) and it’s been very easy to get to know I’m sure many of you remember those for helping to make the trip a success. people. The development is along a major well. As always, it was great to be at two-lane road that connects several camp. The new facilities are super. towns. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Since I’m no longer in Ames I don’t get Highway 69 between Ames and Ankeny. to see the various alumni who stop by the We’re between towns. There are other department over the course of the year. I developments (townhome and single look forward to seeing some of you at the family) nearby, but also a golf course, a alumni gatherings at GSA and at the next county park, and a nature preserve, so it’s field camp reunion. In addition, if any of mostly pretty low-density right around us. you pass through the Philadelphia area, As I also mentioned last year, I am an let me know ([email protected]). Neal Iverson lecturing at Devil’s Lake Wisconsin “honorary professor” in the Department during the Geol 306 field trip. of Earth and Space Sciences at West Mark Mathison, Teaching Laboratory Chester University, which is part of Coordinator Kathy accompanied me to Vienna Pennsylvania state university system. ISU Field camp involved two courses for the EGU meeting, where we played alumnus Martin Helmke, who is Chair this past summer with 33 students in tourist and sampled heavy Austrian food. of the department, was instrumental in the first session and 12 in the second Our son, Joe, is now in his third year as making this happen. ISU let me take my “experimental” session. The second a graduate student in physics at Caltech, desktop PC and petrographic microscope session was only 4 weeks long, making and our daughter, Ellen, is in her senior to Pennsylvania, and I have those set up it hard to fit everything in! Erik Kvale year as a biology major at the University in my office at West Chester. I attend the and Ben Burke were out this summer of Chicago. They joined us for a 10-day departmental weekly seminars and have to continue their Greybull Sandstone trip in southern Utah, where we enjoyed been tagging along on class field trips. exercise, one of the students’ favorite camping and hiking but vowed never to Very importantly, I have full access to the projects. Carl Jacobson, Jacqueline return to Zion National Park in summer, departmental facilities. This has been a Reber and Jane Dawson also joined us where the crowds were immense. We great help for preparing mineral separates to help in the operations of camp. This were acutely saddened when in May Tom for my ongoing Ar/Ar work with Marty was Aaron Wood’s second year at camp Hooyer (Ph.D., 2000), my first graduate Grove at Stanford. (Big thanks also to as academic director, and things are advisee at ISU, died of ALS. He was a Jane Dawson and Mark Mathison, along working extremely well with the running good friend and long-term collaborator. with undergraduates Nell Bender and of the camp. It was great using the new We extend our deepest sympathy to his Brittany Grosskopf, for handling much facilities this year, and we are continually young family. of the sample prep work at ISU, both for making improvements at camp. This year argon and zircon analyses.) we replaced the fence on the north side Carl Jacobson, Emeritus Professor Last February-March I spent six weeks end of camp and hope to do the west When I wrote my profile for last year’s at Stanford as a visiting faculty fellow. side next season. We would also like to Varve it was a month past my official Carol was able to join me in California add solar panels to the camp to make retirement date, and Carol and I had
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it greener! Aaron and I are looking into experience. My, and probably also the trying to make this happen. students’, favorite part of the course was a three day field trip to Baraboo, Jacqueline Reber, Assistant Wisconsin, where we saw the doubly Professor plunging Baraboo syncline and the Great My first year at Iowa State passed Unconformity. We had excellent weather, super-fast and it was a blast! After my good food, and a great group of people start at ISU got slightly delayed, due which made the trip a success. I taught to some now fortunately resolved visa two weeks at the second session of the issues, I started in September 2015. In field camp this summer. It was my first my first semester, I had teaching release time at the field camp and in Wyoming, so that I could get my new lab up and and I have to admit it is gorgeous. I was running. Together with the engineers simply amazed by how nice the station is. of the Ames Laboratory, I designed a I definitely hope this is the first of many new experimental shear machine. This times teaching out there. machine is a custom built one-of-a-kind shear apparatus. It allows for distributed Bill Simpkins, Professor and Chair simple shear where I can measure The year 2016 found me finishing my distance and force evolution during the second year and moving into my third deformation. I feel this might need some and final year as Chair. The challenges more explanation as it might not be were new and different this year, which obvious how this all relates to geology. kept me on my toes at all times. As In my research I focus on the impact of New graduate student Tom Birren in the process always, Associate Chair Kristie Franz and complex rheologies on fracture nucleation of preparing an experiment where he deforms DeAnn kept me honest and let me know and propagation and how this impacts a rock analog material (hair gel) with similar immediately when I got out of line. properties to mid-crustal rocks to investigate strain during deformation. As it is rather the conditions under which fractures form. The Hydrogeology Research Group hard to measure these parameters on (a.k.a. Team Hydro) continues to pursue an actual rock sample (they are just too students are doing a tremendous job, and research on groundwater recharge strong and would require really small I’m looking forward to report their first through till aquitards to buried valley samples and rather heavy machinery) I’m findings in the next issue ofVarve . aquifers, characterizing the effect of using rock analogs for my experiments. During the spring semester I also had till fractures on contaminant transport These analogs have similar rheological an undergraduate, Ian McGee, helping at the watershed scale and estimating properties as real rocks under certain in the lab. Besides helping with setting groundwater recharge in central Iowa. pressure and temperature conditions but up a small pressure cell to fracture M.S. student Alyssa Witt (B.S., Geology, are softer and can therefore be deformed different materials with pressurized Minnesota State University-Mankato) at faster speeds. I’m using rock analogs air, he ran a series of experiments spent a second summer working as an that range from silicone to clay and investigating different parameters that intern for the Minnesota Water Science sand to polymers, and I’m always on the might impact the spacing of crevasses in Center (USGS) on her state-funded lookout for new interesting materials. marine terminated glaciers. During the projects on buried valley aquifers near It took us over nine months to finish summer my lab was rather busy with Litchfield and Cromwell, MN. In April, the new shear machine, but fortunately a visiting undergraduate student from she presented a poster at the Minnesota it was ready when my first graduate Carlton College, Emily Ross, who did Groundwater Association Conference, student, Thomas Birren, arrived in experiments for her senior thesis on the and I presented her work at the North- June to get an early start on his thesis. transition from the locked to the creeping Central GSA meeting in Champaign, IL. For his master’s thesis Tom is working section along the San Andreas Fault. I She will hopefully finish her thesis this on a project funded in spring by NSF. also had two Ames high school students fall. New graduate student Ben Degner He is investigating how the opening of for two months in the lab during summer (B.S., Geology, University of Wisconsin- fractures impact stick-slip and creep as part of an outreach program and to Eau Claire) will participate in Phase II movements and how this relates to slow attract more underrepresented minorities of the project and sit on a drill rig next slip and earthquakes. My second graduate to the STEM fields. This was an amazing summer at two new sites. student, Jeremy Randolph-Flagg, arrived experience, and, with the help of Tom, M.S. student Erik Day (B.S., Geology in August. His project focuses on the the students investigated the potential of and Environmental Science, ISU) took impact of grain sizes in a purely granular new experimental materials for future use on a new project when Phase II of the system on strain transients during simple as rock analogs. Minnesota project was delayed. He is shear. In other words, he wants to know My teaching experience at Iowa State applying the USGS Soil-Water-Balance if it is possible to get ductile deformation started in the spring semester with Geol (SWB) Model to estimate groundwater in a granular system depending on the 356 Structural Geology. It was my first recharge rates in Story and Boone grain size distribution. Both my graduate time teaching an entire course, and it Counties. The SWB model has become was a great and sometimes exhausting
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 35 FACULTY & STAFF NOTES the de facto standard for estimating meeting in Boulder, CO. I will miss my for Environmental Journalism pursuing groundwater recharge and Erik’s GIS friends on the Council but am pleased an M.S. in journalism. Cathy rode with background is well suited for this task. to let go of the work involved with her to Boulder during the first week in Erik had the great fortune to work at the committees. I was pleased that GSA has August and helped her to unload the POD USGS in Denver this summer for Don a new Code of Conduct and has recast contents into her apartment a couple days Rosenberry, well known for his work their Diversity Statement, all as a result later. Kelsey seems to be adjusting nicely to on groundwater-stream interaction. of my work on one committee. I am now great scenery in Colorado and has already Although Erik spent most of his time in a member of the Finance Committee. been to Sacramento for a journalism the lab simulating flow into and out of an Along with attending the North-Central conference. experimental seepage meter, he did get GSA meeting in Champaign and the Despite how busy I seem to be all the out of the lab to do some measurements AAPG meeting in Calgary, I attended time, I invite you to please stop in, say hi, in White Bear Lake in the Twin Cities. He GSA in Denver and sat at the graduate and see the changes in the department, in hopes to finish in spring 2017. recruiting booth a few times. Cathy and particular DeAnn’s newly renovated office! Ph.D. student Nathan Young (M.S., I came out a day early and exercised my Wright State University) passed his lack of GSA Council responsibilities on Paul Spry, Professor preliminary exam during the summer that Saturday by renting a car and driving Over the last two years, I received and has made progress CT scanning till to Rocky Mountain National Park to see two grants from the Geological Survey to characterize fracture networks, with the fall colors. Having GSA in Denver in of South Australia (GSSA) to evaluate the end goal of upscaling and modeling September has its advantages! the composition of minerals spatially nitrate transport in the Walnut Creek For teaching, I taught Geol 414 Applied associated with metamorphosed copper- watershed. He is taking advantage of the Groundwater Flow Modeling to nine lead-zinc mineralization in the Cambrian Dakota Access pipeline trenches (some undergraduate and three graduate students Kanmantoo Group, South Australia. 20 ft deep) on ISU land south of Ames to in the spring. This class is experiencing As a result of the first grant, Meaghan map fractures and obtain large samples much more interest from undergraduates. MacPherson and Katie Tott, traveled with suitable for column tracer tests. Nathan This fall, I have 24 students in Geol 411 me to South Australia in 2015 to collect also presented a poster at the Minnesota Hydrogeology (23 undergraduates and samples for their respective M.S. projects. Groundwater Association meeting in one graduate student) – about ½ Geology Meaghan Macpherson’s project involves April and, in September, received one of majors and ½ Environmental Science the major and trace element composition five Student Research Awards from the majors. We will again run two Civil Action of silicates and oxides spatially associated Hydrogeology Division of the Geological mock trials in December on back-to-back with the Kanmantoo copper-gold Society of America at its Annual Meeting nights using juries of Geology 201 students deposit, the largest copper deposit in the in Denver. Only two of my former (mostly engineers) on the first night and Kanmantoo Group, whereas Katie Tott is students, Tim Wineland and Martin Geology 100 students on the second night. evaluating the mineralogy of the St. Ives, Helmke, have received this prestigious Based on class evaluations, the students Wheal Ellen, Angas and Scott’s Creek award. still enjoy this event, particularly the now Pb-Zn-Ag deposit. To complement their traditional post-trial review at Welch Ave mineralogical studies, we are also doing Station in Campustown. a collaborative research project on the In family news, Cathy, Scott, Kelsey and Pb isotope composition of sulfides from I had a great vacation in late June and early the deposits that they are studying with July to Washington and Oregon, where colleagues from Geoscience Australia we visited Cannon Beach, the jetties at (i.e. the Australian equivalent of the U.S. the Columbia Bar, Cape Disappointment, Geological Survey). Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, The second GSSA grant was to help and the Newberry Volcanic Park. Son cover the logistical and analytical costs Scott continues his Ph.D. work in of a research project with new master’s computational biology at the University of student, Dakota Conn, who came to ISU Minnesota and visited a lab near Tokyo, from the University of Georgia. Dakota’s Japan, for two weeks this summer. He project focuses on the trace element spent late September and early October composition of pyrite in pyritic schists, in Ukraine with a female friend who has including the regionally extensive Nairne been working overseas since last spring. Pyrite Horizon (NPH). These pyritic units We advised him to stay away from the contain minor amounts of Cu, Pb, and Nathan Young poses with Bill Simpkins after receiving a GSA student research award from eastern border, Crimea, and Chernobyl! Zn and, in two locations, the NPH hosts the Hydrogeology Division. Daughter Kelsey parlayed her writing for two Pb-Zn-Ag occurrences, Mt. Torrens her music blog, the Aural Premonition, and Talisker. The aim of the study is to I finished my final year on GSA Council into a graduate research assistantship determine whether the pyritic units, which and received a nice plaque and engraved at the University of Colorado Boulder, occur near the base of the Kanmantoo glass award for my service at the April where she is a grad student in the Center Group, could be the source of the metals
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in base and precious metals in the deposits Iron Range, Cu-Ni-PGE deposits in the the Spring 2016 semester. A highlight for that Katie and Meaghan are studying. Ely area, the Duluth layered mafic igneous me was the mini-research projects the Dakota had the dubious pleasure during rock complex, and the North Shore graduate students in the class completed his trip to Australia in July-August of this volcanic rocks. and presented during a class potluck on year of hanging out with my family who Please continue to keep in touch by our last day. Posters from their projects live near the project area. He and I also phone at (515) 294-9637, by e-mail are currently displayed on the third floor attended an Australian Rules football game ([email protected]), or just drop by the of Science Hall. Sümeyya Eroglu, a Ph.D. with 55,000 screaming Adelaide Crows Department to say hello. student from Germany, who I have been fans!! mentoring, received a Fulbright Fellowship Elizabeth Swanner, Assistant and spent January through July in Ames. Professor She and I worked on publishing her iron My first fall semester at ISU involved isotope and X-ray absorption spectroscopy a lot of time cleaning out and setting datasets on a late Archean carbonate up office and lab space. I had help from platform. While she was here she helped Markus Maisch, a master’s student from me complete a feasibility study at Lake Germany, who spent September-December McCarrons, Minnesota, for a proposal in Ames. Together we designed some key currently in review, which involved more components of the Geobiology lab: gas sediment coring in inclement weather. We lines and special glassware for culturing analyzed samples together at the Stanford environmental microbes. He also wrote Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource in his master’s thesis (under my advisement) June. Undergraduate William McNamara New graduate student Dakota Conn with drill while here. As a Christmas present I worked in the lab all spring, helping core from the Nairne Pyrite Horizon in the South received a grant from the Iowa Water to calibrate our microelectrodes. I also Australian Geological Survey Core Facility, Center to study the role of sedimentary mentored first-year honors student Adelaide, Australia. iron release in stimulating harmful algal Megan Greenlee, who developed a 2-day I continued my on-going research blooms. Markus, undergraduate Cristina workshop on nutrients in surface waters activities with Panos Voudouris (University Santana and I went up to Lakeside for the 4H Youth Conference in June. of Athens) and Vasilios Melfos (Aristotle Laboratory in October to assess the As a graduate faculty member in University of Thessaloniki) on the geology feasibility of using the Okoboji lakes as the Microbiology, I took on rotation student and geochemistry of ore deposits in field site for this project. One memorable Nick Lambrecht in April. In June we Greece. This resulted in the preparation moment involved taking our first lake traveled to two anoxic and Fe-rich lakes – of three papers that appeared recently in sediment core from a boat in horizontal Brownie Lake in Minneapolis and Canyon the Society of Economic Geologist Field rain. Lake in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan. Trip Guidebook 54 “Eocene to Miocene Nick officially joined the Geobiology lab hydrothermal deposits of northern Greece as a Ph.D. student over the summer and and Bulgaria: relationship between has generated a lot of geochemical and tectonic-magmatic activity, alteration, and microbiological data. We are investigating gold mineralization.” We are also currently Fe-dependent photosynthesis in these working on two papers on the mineralogy lakes as an analog for primary productivity of ore deposits in northern Greece. before the appearance of oxygenic This year I was honored by having photosynthesis on Earth. We have the mineral “spryite” named after me by submitted several proposals to continue mineralogists from Harvard University, this work. University of Firenze (Italy), and Leoben A recap of my scholarly activities University (Australia). The mineral is a includes seminars given at University silver sulfosalt from the Uchucchacua of Iowa, Northwestern University, and polymetallic deposit, Peru. My son, Ian, University of Minnesota. Markus and I liked that the mineral name was “the presented a poster and talk, respectively same” as the name of his favorite soda! at the Midwest Geobiology Meeting In 2015, I taught Geol 105 Gems and in Indianapolis in October. Sümeyya Gemstones, Geol 316 Optical Mineralogy, and I traveled to Galveston, Texas, in Geol 420/520 Mineral Resources, Geol 365 February, where I chaired a session and Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology (with she presented a poster at the Gordon Jane Dawson), and Geol 507 Midwestern Markus Maisch and Betsy Swanner retrieve a Geobiology Conference. In June I traveled Geology Field Trip. Last year’s Geol 507 sediment core from West Okoboji in October to Yokohama, Japan, where I chaired a field trip went to northern Minnesota with 2015. session and gave a talk at the Goldschmidt 20 undergraduate and graduate students, Geochemistry Conference. where we looked at Precambrian granites I began teaching the Geol 419/519 On the personal front, my husband in the St. Cloud area, iron mines in the Environmental Geochemistry course in
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Joe Smith and I bought a house in Ames Thatcher who is studying the hydroclimate adding an online section of Geol 324 in October, and have spent many hours of Iberian region during the Holocene. She Energy and the Environment and a updating it. Ginger started walking shortly has just submitted her first manuscript on second session of field camp. Geol 324 after we moved in, and has assimilated this work. is very satisfying to teach, because it to Iowa quite well. She prefers her sweet Other graduate students include Ph.D. encompasses many relevant topics to corn raw, thank you very much! Joe began students Nina Whitney, Hannah Carroll, society and increases students’ scientific working as a product engineer at Danfoss and MS student Jared Ballew. Nina and literacy about environmental issues and in February, and we enjoyed a few camping Jared are working on shell growth and Earth’s energy resources. The course also trips as a family over the summer. geochemistry records from the Gulf of draws in many non-majors with a diversity Maine region. Hannah is studying the of backgrounds, and in some instances, Alan Wanamaker, Jr., Associate paleo-ecology of the upper Midwest during I learn just as much from them as they Professor the Holocene using soil and sediment do from me. The intent behind an online Hello from the Stable Isotope Paleo cores. Undergraduate students Katie Luzier section was to provide more opportunities Environments Research Group (SIPERG; and Aubrey Foulk conducted independent for students to engage these important https://siperg.las.iastate.edu/). SIPERG is research projects in sclerochronology. concepts, especially folks who need a currently home to five graduate students, Aubrey did an exchange at the University flexible course schedule due to their full three undergraduate student researchers, of Hawaii in the spring semester to get time jobs, internships, etc. Overall, 187 and several work-study helpers. Susy more experience in the marine sciences. students completed the online section in Ankerstjerne manages the stable isotope Additionally, Aubrey was named a addition to the 207 students in my on- laboratory. Goldwater Scholar last year. We are all very campus section. Although I was initially It was an exciting year. I was the proud of her. concerned there would be no bilateral primary organizer for the 4th International My teaching duties last year included discussion in the online section, many of Sclerochronology Conference, which Geol 108 Introduction to Oceanography, students stopped by my office to chat or was held in Portland, Maine, June 2016. Geol 426/526 Stable Isotopes in the initiated email threads to further discuss Approximately 100 delegates from 15 Environment and ENSCI 404/504 Global course material. One-way communication countries attended the meeting. Based Change. With the addition of several new that often happens in stadium-sized or on a lot of feedback, attendees found colleagues in our department, it feels like online courses can drain an instructor’s the meeting both fun and scientifically we have a lot of momentum and energy enthusiasm, and I am glad that was not the stimulating. Additional information to deal with the many challenges that our case for Geol 324. regarding the conference and the program planet is facing. I am thankful to Susy In short, the second session of field book is available at https://isc16.las. Ankerstjerne and technical guru Mark camp was an unequivocal success. As iastate.edu/. I had a lot of help planning Mathison for their continued support you may recall from the last issue of the and running the meeting from my co- and hard work in keeping the isotope lab Varve, our initial projections of 2016 organizers, but with that said, I especially operating. enrollment from ISU and the University had a great deal of support from members My family (Ellen, Jayna, and Jack) and of Nebraska – Lincoln indicated that we of the SIPERG and ISU during the last I are very well. Jayna is a 10th grader at may not be able to accommodate students year. Thanks! Ames High School and Jack is a 7th grader from outside institutions. To remedy this, As part of our research in Finnmark at Ames Middle School. They both are very the field station team, with the benefit of (Exploring the role of oceanic and busy with school and their many activities. alumni advice, designed a 4 week version atmospheric forcing on Arctic marine Jayna has started playing the guitar, and of field camp with a lower student-to- climate from newly developed annual Jack is now skateboarding. Ellen continues faculty ratio and a condensed schedule shell-based records in coastal Norway), to enjoy her work at Ames Public Library. of projects used in the traditional 6-week I made my fourth trip to the Norwegian The city of Ames is an exciting place to camp. Twelve students representing nine Arctic in August 2016 with Ph.D. candidate be these days. With more than 36,000 schools from across the nation formed our Maddie Mette. We were fairly successful students, there is always something inaugural cohort for the 4-week camp, collecting additional shell material from happening! If you are in Ames, please feel and these students learned the same the deep waters (>150 m) and we found free to stop in for a visit. I wish you and concepts, mapped the same localities, and some large Arctica islandica shells on yours a safe, fun, and healthy year. collected the same field data as students the modern day beach of Ingoya. We in the 6-week version. Despite the tight also cored a small isolation basin on the Aaron R. Wood, Lecturer and Director schedule, working closely with a smaller island to expand our paleoclimate and of the Carl F. Vondra Geology Field number of students allowed us to explore sea level work. Collaborator Mike Retelle Station topics to a much greater depth. Although it along with his undergraduate students Hello Alumni! My second year at Iowa is unclear whether we will offer a 4-week from Bates College led this effort. After State is now coming to a close. It is hard to camp in 2017, what we have learned from leaving Norway, we travelled to a cave in believe, but I suppose time does fly when this experience concerning logistics and Portugal to install temperature, pressure, you are having fun. field instruction on an expedited schedule and relative humidity sensors and collect In terms of teaching, I tried a few forms a model for success for future water samples for Ph.D. student Diana new things this year, most importantly courses at the field station.
38 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES
Overall, I had the pleasure of spending environmental sciences from University eleven weeks at the Carl F. Vondra Geology of Rhode Island. Before moving to Iowa Field Station this summer. Mark Mathison State University, I worked as a geography and I along with the help of five geology scientist in the Joint Global Change undergrads (Zach Kornse, Chris Ladd, Research Institute, Pacific Northwest Katie Luzier, Justine Myers, and Emily National Laboratory. Oberhoffer), opened the field station My research interests lie in the mid-May. Only 33 students attended the applications of geospatial technologies 6-week camp in May and June, despite including remote sensing, GIS, our initial projections, as seven students geovisualization, spatial analytic tools, from ISU and UNL deferred enrollment and integrated assessment modeling until 2017. Regardless, both the 6-week to understanding the problems of and 4-week camps were a joy to teach, Aaron Wood, ISU undergraduate Justine Myers, global environmental change and the and it was great to have spent quality time and UNL TA Emily Campbell stand in awe of the potential solutions. Our Environmental with 45 members of the next generation of beauty of Wyoming. Photo by Callie Tominsky. Sustainability Lab has been growing. geoscientists. I am thankful for the hard We are working on several projects on work and friendship of a great group of departments at Iowa State, including environmental sustainability, including co-instructors and TAs: Ben Burke (Fifth Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, global urbanization, urbanization impact Creek Energy), Emily Campbell (UNL), where she served as the summer advisor on building energy use and vegetation Hsin-Wei Chen, Jane Dawson, Andrew for incoming freshmen and transfer phenology, and high spatiotemporal urban Hutsky (UNL), Carl Jacobson, Erik Kvale students. Although most of her job energy use and CO2 emissions modeling, (Devon Energy), Jacqueline Reber, and responsibilities are in the Department of funded by NASA, DOE, and Iowa Energy Katie Tott. This was the first summer that Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology, Center. I have recruited two Ph.D. Jacqueline and Andrew, who finished his the geology program has accepted her as students, Saad Tarik and Lin Meng. They Ph.D. at UNL last summer, have been one of our own. Carly visited us briefly at are the first year graduate students in the instructors at the field station, and they the field station in July and brought our geology program working on urbanization did an amazing job all around! Special dog Dizzy (short for Disaster), who greatly impacts on building energy use and thanks, of course, to all the alumni who enjoyed chasing Wyoming wildlife until an vegetation phenology. continue to support the field station and unfortunate skunk encounter. For teaching, I have been teaching its students through generous donations Best wishes to all of you in the upcoming geospatial courses, such as Geol 452/552 and scholarships. We couldn’t do this year! GIS for Geoscientists in the spring important work without you. semester and Geol 468x/568x Applied Carly, my wife, and I moved into Yuyu Zhou, Assistant Professor Spatial Statistics in the fall semester. I am our new home in Ames shortly before I joined the GEAT family in Fall 2016 coordinating the department seminar and Thanksgiving last year and are slowly as a physical geographer. I received my very grateful to all the support from our making changes that make it feel more B.S. degree in geography and M.S. degree department. like “our place”. Carly, a true renaissance in remote sensing from Beijing Normal My office is Agronomy 3019. Feel free to woman, actually works in three University and my Ph.D. degree in stop by if you are in Agronomy Hall.
FIELD CAMP, 2016
Students mapping the contact between the Cretaceous Cloverly and Colin Sweeney (Virginia Tech) consults his map at the north nose of Sykes Mountain Formations at Devil’s Kitchen. Sheep Mountain.
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 39 FIELD TRIP PHOTOS
Geol 507 students listening to lecture from Geol 507 students exploring an ore truck in the former USGS geologist, Stephen Hart at WHEX pit, Cripple Creek gold mine, Colorado. Dinosaur Ridge, Colorado.
Geology undergrad Kate Staebell poses with a mammoth friend at the Ice Age Visitor Center, Horicon Marsh, Wisconsin, during the Geol 306 field trip, Spring 2016.
Earth, Wind & Fire students enjoying the post- Geol 507 students in front of a petrified Sequoia field trip BBQ at Inis Grove Park, Ames. stump at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado.
Iowa Survey Geologist Ryan Clark explains core of the Manson Impact Structure to ISU Petroleum Geology Students.
Geol 507 students in front of a monument in Students mapping during a Surficial Processes Victor, Colorado, home of the world famous (Geol 479/579) field trip in the Minnesota River Cripple Creek gold mine. Valley near Chaska, MN.
Klint Gingerich of Gingerich Drilling explains drilling operations to the ISU Petroleum Geology class at the Redfield Natural Gas Storage Field. Geol 306 group photo at Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin.
40 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES
Students exploring the relationship between Graduate student Nathan Young expounds on Dave Mickelson, professor emeritus at UW- foliation refraction and viscosity during the glacial history at Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin, during Madison, discusses drumlins on the Green Bay Structural Geology (Geol 356) field trip to the Geol 306 field trip, Spring 2016. Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the Geol Baraboo, Wisconsin. 306 field trip, Spring 2016.
Neal Iverson discussing the glacial history of the Des Moines Lobe of the Laurentide ice sheet during the annual Earth, Wind & Fire Learning Community field trip (Fall 2016).
ISU Petroleum Geology class visit with alum Dave Wonder, geologist for the Redfield Natural Gas Storage Field just west of Des Moines. Here they are arrayed next to one of the natural gas compressors. The Redfield anticline was discovered in the early 20th Century by mapping dips in the Raccoon River valley and by the 1950’s it was holding 55 BCF of natural gas.
Faculty introductions at the start of the annual Students wending their way through the rills at the Rockford Fossil Park near Mason City during the Earth, Wind & Fire Learning Community field trip annual Geol 102 fieldtrip. (Fall 2016).
DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 41 GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES FUNDS AND ENDOWMENTS
Beck Family Scholarship: Established by and beyond the stipend the student will (B.S. 1977) by his family, this fund provides Jim and Denise Beck to help the department already receive from a research or teaching a scholarship for an undergraduate student to recruit the best undergraduate students, with assistantship. attend the summer field camp. particular emphasis on providing assistance Huedepohl Geology Field Camp Quentin Schmidt Memorial Field Trip for students to attend field camp. Scholarship: Established in 2004 by Fund: This fund furnishes financial support Bruce Bowen Graduate Fellowship: This Bradley Huedepohl (M.S., 1956) to provide a for class and departmental field trips. fund was established by Bruce Bowen (B.S. scholarship for an undergraduate to attend the Rodney D. Gardner Memorial 1967, M.S. 1970, Ph.D. 1974) in 2012 to ISU summer field camp. Scholarship: Established in 1995 by support graduate students enrolled in the John Lemish Memorial Scholarship: the children of Rodney D. Gardner (B.S. geology program. Established by Dr. Ramon Bisque (Ph.D. 1959) 1962), this fund furnishes a scholarship to Carolyn Eiler-Jones Scholarship: in 1989 in honor of John Lemish (Professor an undergraduate student on the basis of Established in the memory of Carolyn Eiler- Emeritus) and was called the John Lemish scholarship and financial need. Jones (B.S. 1973) by her family, this fund Award for Earth Science. Provides a cash Ronald Lecture Series in Environmental provides a scholarship for an undergraduate award to one or more outstanding graduate Conservation with Emphasis on Water student to attend the summer field camp. students with demonstrated research ability. Sustainability: This fund was established Geology Alumni Development Fund: Jon Martin Peckenpaugh Geology to support a two-day lecture series annually Established by Geology alumni, this fund Field Camp Scholarship (2702869): in which prestigious female scholars raise provides support for travel and other expenses Established in 2010 in the memory of Jon awareness about the economics, policy, and associated with development activities. M. Peckenpaugh (B.S. 1970; M.S. 1973) science of environmental sustainability with Geology Development Fund: This fund by his family, to provide a scholarship for an emphasis on water sustainability. is unrestricted. Generally, it has been used an undergraduate geology, environmental Tom & Evonne Smith Field Station to support purchase and maintenance of science, or Earth science major to attend the Maintenance Fund: These funds will be equipment used in research and teaching, and Carl Vondra Field Camp. used to support long-term maintenance of the to cover start-up funds for new professors. Kevin Connolly Geology Field Camp facilities at the summer field station. Geology Field Camp Fund: This fund allows Scholarship: Tom & Evonne Smith Field Station Staff improvements in the facilities at the Wyoming Established by Kevin Connolly (B.A. 1987) Support Fund: Established in 2013 to Field Station. in 2008 to provide Geology or Earth Science support a staff position at the summer field Georgia L. and Carl F. Vondra Graduate majors with a scholarship to attend the Carl station. Fellowship: Established in 2000 in honor Vondra Field Camp. Tom & Evonne Smith Field Station of the distinguished contributions of Carl O’Brien-Lonsdale Endowment Fund: Improvements Fund: Established in 2013 Vondra to the Department of Geological and This fund will establish an endowed chair in to be used for capital improvements to the Atmospheric Sciences. This fellowship is to geology. summer field station. attract an outstanding incoming graduate Peter R. Johnson Memorial Scholarship: student by providing a fellowship above Established in the memory of Peter R. Johnson Contributions from 7/1/15 to 6/30/16 Bruce Bowen Graduate Fellowship Laurie & Thomas (B.S. 1963) Dirks Heather & George (M.S. 1958) Rosenfeld (2703338) June & James (B.S. 1955) Englehorn Leroy Shaser (M.S. 1978) Bruce (Ph.D. 1974) & Vicki Bowen James & Elizabeth Forsberg John (M.S. 1974) & Mary Spencer Ronald Genter (B.S. 1958) David (M.S. 1978) & Ida Stangl Carolyn Jones-Eiler Scholarship William (M.S. 1995) & Pamela Gibbons Kenneth (M.S. 1985) & Jana Tindall (1908641) Brice Hanson (B.S. 2010) Alan (M.S. 1973) & Rita Ver Ploeg James & Kristi Eiler Beth Johnson (M.S. 1995) Karen & Willard (M.S. 1972) Watney Douglas Klein (B.S. 1963) Lowell (M.S. 1984) & Janet Wille Geology Alumni Development Fund James (M.S. 1981) & Susan Kipp Larry & Barbara Willis Raymond (M.S. 1955) & Leslie Ethington Sandra & George (B.S. 1956) Kunkle Mark Wiseman (B.S. 1979) Geology Development Fund (1949512) Robert (M.S. 1979) & Brynn Ladd Richard Zingula (B.S. 1951) Chelsa Anderson (B.S. 2013) Kenneth LaSota (M.S. 1982) & Rebecca Geology Field Camp Fund (1948312) Laura & Kevin Anderson Stanhope Katharine & Lee (B.S. 1982) Ankeny Judith & Gary (M.S. 1963) Anderson Dennis (B.S. 1959) & Janice Martin Benjamin (M.S. 1985) & Robyn Barnes Alice & Lee (M.S. 1963) Backsen Ian McBrearty (B.S. 2015) William Busch (B.S. 1974) & Barbara Triplett Jacqueline & James (B.S. 1984) Beer Shawn Ohern Steven Condon (DMJ* 1973) Janet Boyd Curtis (M.S. 1980) & Laura Peck June & James (B.S. 1955) Englehorn Steven Carlson (B.S. 1981) & Jenny Stadler Marjorie & Peter (B.S. 1950) Pickford Jane Grenier (B.S. 1981) Milton (M.S. 1987) & Kathleen Pierson Joseph & Mary Gulino Keith (M.S. 1962) & Marjorie Carlson Robert (B.S. 1982) & Kimberly Powell Kenneth (B.S. 1973) & Carolyn Harpole Clint Carney (B.S. 1997) Zhaoxia Qiu (DMJ* 1993) & Ping Liu (M.S. 1992) Annamaria & Gary (B.S. 1961) Hauser Robert & Anita Cody Frank (M.S. 1964) & Elisabeth Reckendorf Carl & Carol Jacobson Rodney DeBruin (M.S. 1975) Calvin Reppe (M.S. 1981)
42 WINTER 2016-2017 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS & SCIENCES CONTRIBUTIONS CONTINUED Alumni Contributions Sandra & Gary (Ph.D. 1971) Johnson Jonathan Maifield (B.S. 1997) to Geological Sciences: Steven & Ellen Mayberry Iowa State University Leo & Jane Milleman I wish to support programs in Geological Sciences at ISU. Enclosed is my gift of: Curtis (M.S. 1980) & Laura Peck Cheryl Peckenpaugh _____$1000 _____$250 _____$100 _____$50 Other $______Virginia Quay Carol & John (B.S. 1976) Rudisill Please specify the Geological Sciences fund that should receive your gift: Leroy Shaser (M.S. 1978) _____ Beck Family Scholarship (2702124) Tracy Vallier (B.S. 1962) & Sheila Canty-Vallier _____ Bruce Bowen Graduate Fellowship (2703338) James (DMJ* 1977) & Peggy Zalesky _____ Carolyn Jones-Eiler Scholarship (1908641) Geology General Scholarship (2707142) _____ Geology Alumni Development Fund (1900040) Robert (B.S. 1986) & Teresa Carnazzo _____ Geology Development Fund (1949512) _____ Geology Field Camp Fund (1948312) Georgia L. and Carl F. Vondra Graduate Fellowship _____ Geology General Scholarship Fund (2701742) (2700426) _____ Georgia L. and Carl F. Vondra Graduate Fellowship (2700426) Carl & Georgia Vondra _____ Huedepohl Geology Field Camp Scholarship (2701147) Huedepohl Geology Field Camp Scholarship (2701147) _____ John Lemish Memorial Scholarship (1914321) Lynne Huedepohl _____ Jon Martin Peckenpaugh Geology Field Camp Scholarship (2702869) _____ Kevin Connolly Geology Field Camp Scholarship (2702214) John Lemish Memorial Scholarship (1914321) _____ O’Brien-Lonsdale Endowment Fund (1936212) Cynthia & Gerald (B.S. 1959) Hunt _____ Peter R. Johnson Memorial Scholarship (1902832) O’Sullivan Family Trust _____ Quentin Schmidt Memorial Field Trip Fund (1900138) Jon Martin Peckenpaugh Geology Field Camp _____ Rodney D. Gardner Memorial Scholarship (1900078) Scholarship (2702869) _____ Ronald Lecture Series in Environmental Conservation Mike (M.S. 1977) & Mary Kozimko with Emphasis on Water Sustainability (2704094) Cheryl Peckenpaugh _____ Tom & Evonne Smith Field Station Maintenance Fund (2703642) Marvin Taylor (B.S. 1970) _____ Tom & Evonne Smith Field Station Staff Support Fund (2703643)
Kevin Connolly Geology Field Camp Scholarship (2702214) I will request that my employer match my gift (if appropriate) to the same Kevin (BA 1987) & Kerry Connolly fund noted above. My employer is Peter R. Johnson Memorial Scholarship (1902832) Marsha & Robert Johnson ______Jill Siragusa John & Merry Spohnheimer For gifts of $100 and above you may choose to receive a 6" x 8" (landscape) Spohnheimer Giving Fund plaque cut from a plank saved during the demolition of the renowned field camp “5-Holer.” The plaque contains a metal plate with the inscription “Iowa State Quentin Schmidt Memorial Field Trip Fund (1900138) University, Carl F. Vondra Geology Field Station, From the “5-Holer” - In use Cinzia Cervato & Paul Spry 1958-2004, Certified Authentic by: [Carl Vondra’s signature]. Cheryl Peckenpaugh For gifts of $200 and above you may choose the 6" x 15" (portrait) version. Ronald Lecture Series in Environmental Conservation Your check, made payable to the ISU Foundation, is tax deductible. Please include with Emphasis on Water Sustainability (2704094) the fund number on your check, and return it with this form to: Dr. William Patricia & Robert Ronald Simpkins, Chair, Dept. of Geological & Atmospheric Sciences, Iowa State University, 253 Science Hall, 2237 Osborn Dr., Ames, IA 50011-1027 Matching funds Alliant Energy Foundation Please charge my credit card. Anadarko Petroleum _____ VISA Card #______Braun Intertec Corp. Chevron Corporation _____ Mastercard Exp.______ConocoPhillips Company Devon Energy Corporation _____ Discover NextEra Energy Foundation, Inc. Signature______Date______Shell Oil Co. Foundation Veeva Systems Phone #______Wells Fargo Foundation e-mail ______* DMJ = Double Major One Degree DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VARVE 43 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Geological & Atmospheric Sciences 253 Science Hall 2237 Osborn Drive Ames, Iowa 50011-1027
Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences Fall 2016 52 53 54 55 56 38 41 43 45 47 57 58 40 42 44 46 49 37 39 48 50 51 32 35 36 27 28 29 30 34 31 33 23 24 25 26 16 18 15 17 19 21 13 22 1 4 5 20 11 2 12 3 6 8 9 14 7 10
Faculty & Sta Post-Docs & Graduate Students Jim Aanstoos 53 Neal Iverson 56 Abayomi Abatan 19 Brandon Fisel 2 Anna Nesterovich 18 Suzanne Ankerstjerne 58 Carly Manz 37 Jared Ballew 30 Theresa Halligan 48 Jeremy Randolph-Flagg 40 Igor Beresnev 32 Mark Mathison 55 Tom Birren 42 Thomas Harbour 46 Firdaus Ridzuan 36 Beth Caissie 4 Rachindra Mawalagedara 10 Amanda Black 16 Evelyn Hussey 26 Ahmad Samman 35
Not Cinzia Cervato 9 Jacqueline Reber 57 Kierstin Blomberg 6 Sergey Ishutov 45 Brian Squitieri Shown
Not Not Not Mike T. C. Chen Shown William Simpkins 22 Angela Bowman 51 David Jahn Shown Saad Tarik Shown
Not Jane Pedrick Dawson 47 Paul Spry Shown Bradley Carlberg 12 Nicholas Lambrecht 14 Diana Thatcher 17 David Flory 5 Elizabeth Swanner 21 Kristy Carter 8 Tania Leung 13 Natalie Thompson 20
Not Not Kristie Franz Shown Carl Vondra 15 Hsin-Wei Chen Shown Wenliang Li 33 Katie Tott 25 DeAnn Frisk 49 Alan Wanamaker 3 Dakota Conn 24 Xiaoma Li 28 Nick Vertz 44
Not Not William Gallus Shown Aaron Wood 38 Erik Day 43 Xuecao Li 31 Matthew Warbritton Shown
Not William Gutowski 54 Xiaoqing Wu Shown Benjamin Degner 41 Meaghan MacPherson 39 Nina Whitney 7
Not Not Chris Harding Shown Yuyu Zhou 27 David Dziubanski 1 Tyler Madsen 50 Alyssa Witt Shown Franciszek Hasiuk 52 Patrick Edmonds 11 Lin Meng 23 Nathan Young 29
Not Sarah Fingerle Shown Maddie Mette 34