& NEWS I Department of Geology and Geophysics Spring 2010

On the other end of the faculty spectrum, Mark Pagani was recently promoted to Professor with tenure, effective January 2010. Professor Pagani is a geochemist who focuses on paleoclimates and in particular on the record of carbon dioxide over the Cenozoic. As many of you know well, this last November was the Yale Geology & Geophysics Alumni Reunion, which was in every sense a resounding success. Attendance by students past and present was phenomenal, with both graduate and undergraduate alumni joining us in good numbers. The two-day event entailed talks and panels on various topics of geoscience to which our many alumni have contributed, including Earth’s deep interior, climate dynamics, energy resources, and the history of life, to name a few. Many thanks go to Elisabeth Vrba who chaired the reunion committee, as well as the Chair’s Students in G&G 100, “Natural Disasters”, investigating volcanic fumaroles, Assistant Becky Pocock, and Julia Downs from the Valley of Desolation, Dominica, during Spring Break, March 2010. Faculty AYA, for organizing this event. After considerable members David Bercovici (far right), Maureen Long (far left), and Frank Robinson (2nd from right), led the field trip. feedback from our alumni, the department is in discussion for holding another reunion within the Chairman’s Letter next 5 years. Starting this spring and going through next fall, David Bercovici ([email protected]) the department will be running three symposia on Dear Friends and Alumni of Yale Geology & future directions in geoscience, in preparation for Geophysics, considering where we are going in the next 10 to 20 years. This May will be our first symposium on I’m once again very happy to report on activities, Frontiers in Paleontology and Geobiology. In the changes and growth in our department. Fall we will have symposia on Frontiers in Crustal As mentioned in the last newsletter, this Geoscience and another on Earth-Atmosphere academic year we saw two new faces on our faculty, Exchange. Mary-Louise Timmermans and Trude Storelvmo. Finally, as I’ve noted in previous newsletters, our Dr. Timmermans is an oceanographer and she department has been leading the effort since 2007 began her position here as an Assistant Professor continued on page 2 July 1, 2009. Dr. Storelvmo is an atmospheric physicist who started her position as an Assistant Inside this Issue Professor January 1, 2010. This coming July, William Boos will be joining our faculty as an Assistant Yale Expands ...... 2 Professor. Dr. Boos’s PhD is from MIT and he is Investigating the Dynamics of the Arctic Ocean ...... 3 currently finishing up a postdoctoral position at Regional Climate Studies in G&G ...... 5 Harvard. His research involves the effect of global climate change on regional circulation such as the Faculty News ...... 8 monsoonal cycles. The addition of these three new Recent Awards ...... 8 faculty members will make our atmosphere, ocean Alumni News ...... 10 and climate dynamics group one of the largest groups in the department. Alumni Reunion ...... 15 Geology & Geophysics News Spring 2010

Letter continued from page 1 the effect of climate change on salt-marsh ecology, to build the new Yale Climate and Energy Institute, urban development, vector borne diseases and designed to integrate science and engineering with stability of ancient and current societies. Its major social sciences throughout Yale on critical problems initiatives include carbon storage in basalts and other of climate change, and a clean energy future. mafic minerals in a partnership with the University The YCEI is currently in full swing with a spate of of Hawaii and Schlumberger, development of an activities. The Director is Rajendra K. Pachauri, whom Energy Research Center on the Yale West Campus, many of you know as the Chair of the IPCC which and an adaptation/mitigation response team for received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 along with developing countries. The YCEI also has an ongoing Al Gore. I stepped down from being interim Deputy regular seminar series, and on April 23 will host the Director in January and Professor Gary Brudvig first YCEI Annual Conference, this year on Clean from Chemistry currently fills that role. Moreover, Energy Innovation, which follows the recent Yale Dr. Juliana Wang (PhD F&ES 2009) is the full-time Alumni in Energy Conference (March 5) that many Assistant Director. The YCEI has a standing Steering of you attended. The G&G Department continues to Committee, which I currently chair, that oversees play a crucial role in moving the YCEI forward and major initiatives and provides advice to the directors I (and future chairs) will continue to report on its for ongoing decisions; the institute also has a large development in this newsletter. However, ongoing Executive Committee made up of 25 faculty from activities can readily be found on the new YCEI across Yale, which acts as a representative advisory website www.climate.yale.edu. committee, and is chaired by the Deputy Director. It is, in the end, a pleasure to report on the The YCEI has funded seed grants and workshops events and progress in our department. I hope this on activities ranging from innovative biofuels, newsletter finds you well, and I wish you all the best development of cookstoves for Bangladesh, and for the coming year.

Yale Expands The new 136-acre West Campus. The view looks easterly, with New Haven in the distance, and I-95 on the extreme left. The building in the foreground was Bayer’s main administration center; the next two buildings back are new research labs, and all the other buildings house a mixture of facilities and storage. The West Campus already houses a lot of Peabody Museum’s vertebrate fossil collection, and most of the rock collections from Geology and Geophysics. The ultimate use of all the space is still being planned.

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Investigating the Dynamics of the Arctic Ocean By Mary-Louise Timmermans ([email protected])

Mary-Louise Timmermans, who our ongoing field research is to from the Atlantic-derived deep joined the department in July understand what mechanisms water but from incoming solar 2009, is studying the dynamics and cause storage and release of large radiation through open water variability of the Arctic Ocean to volumes of fresh water and ice and thin ice. While one of the better understand how the ocean in the Arctic Ocean on seasonal, most significant recent changes impacts Arctic sea ice and climate. interannual, and decadal time to occur in the Arctic Ocean has scales. been a further warming of the Recent observational evidence Ocean heat is a critical factor Atlantic-derived deep water, this suggests changes to the Arctic in the growth and melt cycle is only of consequence to sea ice climate system; records show of sea ice. Unlike in the lower where it is possible for the heat increasing atmospheric and ocean latitude oceans, the temperature to be transported to the surface. temperatures, ocean freshening, of the Arctic Ocean increases For this reason, the maintenance rising sea levels, and stability of the melting permafrost halocline are of and declining sea- utmost significance ice area. for the preservation Fresh water of sea ice. is stored in the Recent advances Arctic Ocean in our understanding in the form of of the dynamics of water that is the Arctic Ocean less salty than have been made average, and sea using autonomous ice. Under certain ice-based atmospheric instrumentation. circulation These instrument regimes, fresh systems combine water is released suites of different to the North sensors mounted in Atlantic Ocean the drifting Arctic where it impacts ice pack, providing, the global ocean via satellite, year- circulation Fig. 1. Map of the Arctic Ocean showing tracks of drifting Ice-Tethered Profilers (ITPs). round automated Schematic of an ITP system. and climate. measurements of Our recent analysis indicates with depth. A cold stratified layer the ocean, ice, and atmosphere. an unprecedented increase of (the halocline) near the surface The use of such automated fresh water in the Arctic Ocean’s effectively insulates the overlying instrumentation is indispensable Beaufort Sea (Fig. 1). We have sea ice from the heat in the for Arctic Ocean research. further found that exchange of underlying warmer and saltier Standard observational practice, heat and fresh water between Atlantic-derived water. It is well which has been to sample in the Arctic Ocean and the North known that the heat contained in August-September (when the Atlantic depends upon both the Atlantic-derived deep water, if sea-ice coverage is at its seasonal dynamical processes associated transported to the surface, would minimum and the Arctic is with the atmospheric circulation be sufficient to completely melt accessible by research icebreakers) over the Arctic Ocean, and on the Arctic sea-ice cover. Since and in April-May (when the sea ice seasonal sea-ice melt and growth. the halocline acts as a barrier is sufficiently strong and there is This leads to complex seasonal to upward heat transport, the adequate daylight to use aircraft), variability in fresh-water storage source for most of the ocean- does not capture seasonal and cycles. One of the main goals of to-ice heat transport comes not continued on page 4

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ARTIC OCEAN continued from page 3 ITP measurements over the entire shorter time scale variability, Arctic Ocean, spanning several and provides only limited spatial seasonal cycles. coverage. Much of our research is The observed general therefore based on measurements freshening and strengthening from automated drifting ocean of the stratification of the profiling instruments—Ice- upper Arctic Ocean is likely to TetheredYou are Profilers warmly (ITPs, invited Fig. to1), a special weekend in New Haven forbe alumni associated of the with important year-roundgraduate mooredand undergraduate instrument programs in Geology and Geophysicsfeedbacks. A more strongly systems, and summer/spring ocean stratified ocean will provide even measurements from icebreaker and more resistance to upward mixing aircraft surveys. of deeper ocean heat. On the In October 2009 a recent Yale other hand, the surface ocean layer graduate in American Studies in contact with sea ice appears (Alex Kain ’09) participated in to be thinning in recent years; our yearly Arctic field program ocean mixing is concentrated Fig. 2. Researchers deploying oceanographic over a thinner layer. This raises aboard a Canadian Coast Guard instrumentation in the permanent sea ice ice-breaker (Fig. 2). The purpose of the Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort Sea. The the possibility that higher ocean of the month-long expedition to Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S. St- mixing may eventually compensate Laurent stands by in the background. Photo for the stratification increase, the Beaufort Sea was to deploy by Alex Kain. oceanographic and sea-ice leading to more heat being instrumentation and take seawater different model runs to bring new stirred up from below. Detailed samples. Alex’s role was to report dynamical insights to the eddies investigations of the surface ocean on the research and coordinate observed in the field data. He is layer have been made possible in educational outreach associated testing forcing scenarios (wind recent years by the deployment of with the expedition. Scientists and and ice acting on the surface large numbers of ITPs that measure the public were able to follow the ocean) and analyzing the resulting ocean properties. Graduate student latest research findings from the model eddy field compared to Aaron Judah is analyzing these Arctic through Alex’s captivating ocean observations. Georgy’s work new Arctic Ocean measurements web dispatches and photographs, demonstrates the potential for to understand properties and uploaded daily via satellite. understanding the dynamics in the dynamics of the surface ocean Ocean eddies are common Arctic halocline through idealized layer. Aaron’s analysis indicates dynamical features that can lead numerical experiments constrained unexpectedly large spatial and to disruption of the halocline, by observations. Our numerical temporal variability in surface enabling heat transport from and observational approaches ocean layer properties, which may deeper layers to the surface ocean complement those of Professor be of considerable consequence and sea ice. Using measurements John Wettlaufer and his group, to sea ice. from ITPs, we have identified a who are using laboratory models new class of shallow eddies that to investigate halocline processes. are prevalent in the halocline in Any process that draws the Arctic Ocean. Even in the deeper, warmer water closer to the Arctic mid-winter, we have found surface is likely to be of significant evidence of bottom melt of Arctic consequence to the surface heat sea ice overlying ocean eddies. budget. Recent Arctic data have Our ongoing analysis of new data revealed cases of localized ocean aims to quantify the net impact of upwelling that are believed to be these eddies to the surface ocean caused by storm events and shear heat. In a related study, graduate motion of the overlying sea ice. student Georgy Manucharyan is Undergraduate Sarah Dewey’s ’10

developing a numerical experiment research involves observing and Fig. 3. Sarah Dewey (left) and Mary-Louise (configured to represent Arctic characterizing these important Timmermans discuss the latest Ice-Tethered conditions) and performing processes through an analysis of Profiler measurements from the Arctic Ocean.

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Regional Climate Studies in G&G By Ronald Smith ([email protected])

T-REX GV Flight Track

Fig. 1. Racetrack flight track of the NSF/NCAR Gulfstream-V research Fig. 2. The NSF/NCAR Gulfstream-V research aircraft during T-REX in aircraft during the 2006 T-REX Project over the Sierra Nevada Range 2006. Left to right are Bob Allen, Bryan Woods, and Ron Smith. (left) and the Inyos (center) in California. move along at about 12 m/s, taking almost two days While global climate issues have drawn much to reach the east coast. The cause of the wave- attention recently, our understanding of regional like precipitation was determined from Yanping’s climates is also advancing. Regional climates are harmonic analysis of temperatures at the 500 hPa controlled in part by latitude, but in equal measure level in the atmosphere (i.e., about 5 km above by local processes arising from coastlines, ocean sea level). There she found pulses of warm air (or currents, land surface properties, and terrain. These potential vorticity) formed by daily heating over can be studied using a combination of observations, the Rockies, carried eastward by the winds aloft. computer simulations, and the principles of fluid These traveling pulses trigger daily thunderstorms dynamics. Here are five examples of recent regional as they pass overhead. This discovery adds to our projects involving students and faculty at Yale. understanding of North American weather and climate. Thunderstorms east of the Rockies Yanping Li is now a postdoc at the University Summer precipitation over the Great Plains and the of Hawaii. Midwest is caused by thunderstorms occurring in unstable air masses that slide northward from the Buoyancy waves in the stratosphere Gulf of Mexico. The triggering of these thunderstorms The generation of upward-propagating buoyancy has remained a mystery, but a clearer view may waves in the atmosphere by steep mountains has follow from the recent PhD thesis and publications of been recognized and studied for 50 years or more. Yanping Li G ’09 ([email protected]). Yanping These waves amplify as they propagate into the more used a 24-hour harmonic (i.e., sinusoidal) analysis of rarified layers of the upper atmosphere and when hundreds surface weather stations to derive the time they break down, they supply momentum and energy of day (i.e., the phase) of maximum thunderstorm to the upper atmosphere. Much of the stratospheric precipitation. The result was surprising. West of circulation is driven by these waves. With the intent 105°W (the Front Range) and east of 80°W (the of quantifying buoyancy wave estimates, a Yale group Appalachians), precipitation occurs mostly in the participated in the 2006 Terrain-Induced Rotors late afternoon caused by local solar heating of the Experiment (T-REX) over the Sierra Nevada Range in earth and lower atmosphere, triggering convection. California (Figs. 1, 2) The project was funded by the Between 105°W and 80°W however (the Great Plains National Science Foundation and directed by Vanda and Mid-west), the precipitation occurs in eastward- Grubiši´c G ’95 ([email protected]). Former moving waves, ignoring local heating. The waves continued on page 6

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Fig. 3. Yanping Li working onboard the NSF/NCAR Gulfstream Fig. 4. Four panel display of vegetation and surface temperature during T-REX in 2006. response to the Heat Waves of 2003, in a small section of central France. Data is from the ASTER sensor. Upper panels show the drop REGIONAL CLIMATE STUDIES continued from page 5 in NDVI. Lower panels show the increase in surface temperature. Pasture land shows a strong drop in NVDI (−0.35) and rise in temperature (+20°C). The large forest patch shows no change in graduate student Qingfang Jiang G ’01 (jiang@nrlmry. NDVI and less temperature rise (from Zaitchik et al., 2006). navy.mil) was also involved. The Yale group included Yanping Li ’09, Bryan Woods ([email protected]) into the future of global warming. Two Yale graduate (graduate student), Bob Allen G ’09 ([email protected]), students, Ben Zaitchik G ’06 ([email protected]) and Ron Smith (faculty). Project scientists used the and Alison Macalady (a student of Forestry and new NSF/NCAR Gulfstream-V research aircraft with Environmental Studies), decided to dig further into a full set of fuselage and wing-mounted instruments. this remarkable event. Working with ASTER images at With improved GPS and static pressure measurements, the Yale Center for Earth Observation, they mapped the aircraft could determine the direction and out the spatial detail and extent of the heat wave and magnitude of wave energy flux: an indicator of wave examined the role played by land-surface feedbacks propagation direction. Flying at an altitude of 9 km (Figs. 4-6). The surface temperature anomalies in in the upper troposphere, they found the expected France were very tightly controlled by land use long-upgoing waves generated by the mountains. category. City and forest surfaces showed modest Surprisingly, they also encountered shorter downgoing warming while pastureland and rainfed farmland waves on almost every flight! The explanation of this showed nearly 20°C of warming! This amplification phenomenon was undertaken by Bryan Woods. Using was caused by the mid-summer exhaustion of complex wavelet analysis and computer simulation moisture and the shut-down of evapo-transpiration he is gathering evidence that the downgoing waves from shallow-rooted plants. Without this evaporative are generated during the breakdown of the primary cooling, a higher fraction of the sun’s radiation upgoing wave. goes into heating the lower atmosphere. The Bryan Woods hopes to finish his PhD thesis by excess heat from these regions is carried to nearby August of 2010. Vanda Grubiši´c is now Professor at populated districts by warm winds. Their results have the University of Vienna. Qingfang Jiang is a research implications for future climate change. scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey. Ben Zaichik has just finished a climate-related Bob Allen is a postdoc at UCal Irvine. internship at the U.S. State Department and will join the faculty at John Hopkins University in Spring 2010. Land-surface feedbacks during the European Heat Alison Macalady is now a graduate student at the Wave of 2003 University of Arizona. The European Heat wave of 2003 was a devastating climate event responsible for tens of thousands of premature deaths in France and surrounding countries. It is viewed by climatologists as a possible glimpse

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Fig. 5. Typical landscape in the region from central France shown Fig. 6. The research team on the European Heat Wave Project. Left in Figure 4. Pastureland and forest respond differently to heat and to right are Alison Macalady, Ron Smith, Larry Bonneau, and Ben drought. Zaitchik

Orographic precipitation in the tropics Airmass drying over the Coast and Sierra Nevada Ranges The idea that mountains force air to rise, cool Moist air masses moving northeastward from the adiabatically, and generate precipitation goes back more tropical Pacific lose much of their water vapor as than 100 years to the first theoretical developments in they cross the mountainous west coast of North atmospheric thermodynamics. Over the past 40 years America. The proportion of the water lost from the these ideas have been tested in several atmospheric air by orographic precipitation is called the Drying science field projects in mid-latitudes: e.g., the Alps, Ratio (DR). Improved estimates of the DR would Wasatch, Sierra Nevada, Cascades, and New Zealand contribute to a better understanding of North Alps. For various reasons, no such tests have been done America’s dry continental interior. If linked with in the tropics. Expectations were that the precipitation isotope ratios, this information might extend our mechanisms might be the same as in mid-latitudes or knowledge of continental dryness into the past. For that diurnal heating might have more of an influence. A this dual purpose, undergraduate Anthony Didlake first attempt at a tropical mountain project was done ’06 ([email protected]), grad student by a Yale group in Dominica in the eastern Caribbean. Brett Tipple G ’09 ([email protected]), and Dominica (15°N) is a forested volcanic island with Flint postdoc Alison Anders ([email protected]) peaks rising to 1,400 m sitting in the steady easterly compared rain gauge and balloon DR estimates with tradewinds of the Atlantic Ocean. The Yale team water samples from two 2007 transects of northern included postdoc Daniel Kirshbaum (d.kirshbaum@ California. Both transects (June and September), both reading.ac.uk), undergraduate Phillip Schafer ’06 water sources (stream and stem water), and both ([email protected]), and Ron Smith. Using a network of isotopes (deuterium and oxygen-18) gave DR values in rain gauges and radar data from the adjacent islands of the range 35 to 45%, in agreement with conventional Guadeloupe and Martinique, a new conceptual model of data. This intensive analysis will serve as a reference orographic precipitation in the tropics was developed. point for paleo-climate and paleo-elevation studies. According to this model, the air approaching the island Alison Anders is now an Assistant Professor at the already contains humidity fluctuations which, when University of Illinois (UIUC). Brett Tipple is a postdoc lifted, trigger shallow, closely packed, and energetic at the University of Utah. Anthony Didlake is finishing convection. This repetitive triggering brings large annual his PhD at the University of Washington. rainfalls (e.g., 7 m) to the high ground of the island REFERENCES while the lee-side descent prevents precipitation from Smith, RB ; Schafer, P; Kirshbaum, DJ; Regina, E, 2009: Orographic Precipitation reaching the lee slopes. Daily heating plays no role at all! in the Tropics: Experiments in Dominica. J. Atmos. Sci., 66, 1698-1716. Kirshbaum, DJ; Smith, RB, 2009: Orographic Precipitation in the Tropics: Large It remains to be seen if this mechanism is active in other Eddy Simulations and Theory. J. Atmos. Sci., 66, 2559-2578. tropical regions. Zaitchik, BF; Macalady, AK; Bonneau, LR; Smith, RB: 2006. Europe’s 2003 heat wave: a satellite view of impacts and land-atmosphere feedbacks. International Dan Kirshbaum is now a Lecturer at the University Journal of Climatology 26 (6): 743-769. of Reading in the UK. Phillip Schafer is now a graduate Woods, B.K.; R.B. Smith: 2010, Energy Flux and wavelet diagnostics of secondary mountain waves, J. Atmos. Sci., In Press. student in Physics at Pennsylvania State University. Li, Y.; R.B. Smith: 2010, The detection and significance of diurnal pressure and Potential Vorticity anomalies east of the Rockies, J. Atmos. Sci., In Press.

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FACULTY NEWS Welcome to Trude Storelvmo ([email protected])

Trude Storelvmo is an expert on aerosol-cloud interactions and their effect on the earth system. She joined the Department in January 2010 and hails from far Dolf Seilacher at his farewell lecture, in the main lecture hall, Kline Geology northern Norway— laboratory, December 8, 2009 (photo taken by his son Peter). Narvik, to be specific—where Adolf Seilacher Retires her family roots When Dolf Seilacher joined the Yale faculty as an Adjunct Trude Strorelvmo, March 2010. are long and deep. Professor in 1987, he was already one of the most distinguished She is a graduate of the Geophysics paleontologists of his, or any other, generation. The eminence Program at the University of Oslo (Ph.D. of his reputation was confirmed in 1992 when the Royal ’06), has been an exchange student at the Swedish Academy awarded him the Crafoord Prize. He is University of Washington, Seattle, and has the only paleontologist to have received this seminal honor. worked as a postdoc at the Institute of Every year since 1987, Dolf has spent half the academic year at Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, ETH, Yale teaching both graduate and undergraduate classes and Zurich, Switzerland. directing a number of Ph.D. theses. Dolf’s final term at Yale For those interested in the origins of came to a close in December 2009 and he entertained us all names, Storelvmo records the farming with a final lecture expounding some of his controversial ideas. location of one branch of her family—it means His years at Yale were exciting and challenging. We will miss his “Big river hill.” inquiring mind and provocative questions.

RECENT AWARDS

Penrose Medal of the Geological Society Paleontological Society Medal of America Jeremy Jackson G ’71 Clark Burchfiel G ’61 ([email protected]), the ([email protected]) Schlumberger Professor of Geology at MIT, was was awarded the 2009 awarded the 2009 Paleontological Society Penrose Medal Medal. Jeremy is the of the Geological Director of the Center for Society of America. Marine Biodiversity and Clark received Conservation, and also the the award for his Mary B. Ritter Professor of seminal studies Oceanography at Scripps on the origin, Institution of Oceanography. development, and Jeremy was recognized for his structural evolution work on the ecology of coral reef communities, of the continental on the mode of speciation in the sea, and most crust. recently for his research on the long-term Clark with the medal; Jean Bahr ’76 impacts of human activities on the oceans. President ofthe Geological Society of America presented the medal.

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RECENT AWARDS

Catching up for some recent awards we missed: Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award Congratulations to Steven M. Stanley G ’68 ([email protected]) for the following awards: Rowan Lockwood ’93 ([email protected]) received the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award in February 2009 from the College of William and Mary. The award, which is a tribute to the several members of the faculty who influenced and encouraged the young Thomas Jefferson, is intended to recognize today’s teachers on the faculty. It is made annually to a younger teaching member of the College community who has demonstrated, through concern as a teacher and through character and influence, the inspiration and stimulation of learning to the betterment of the individual and society as exemplified by Thomas Jefferson.

Rowan writes, “Since graduating from Yale in 1993, I completed an MSc in biology at the University Steve reminiscing at the recent alumni Reunion, November 2009. of Bristol (as a Marshall scholar) then a PhD in • Mary Clark Thompson Medal, National Academy evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago. of Sciences, for contributions to geology I accepted a position at the College of William and and paleontology (2006) Mary in 2001 and am now an Associate Professor • Paleontological Society Medal (2007), for in the Department of Geology. My research focuses advancement of knowledge in paleontology on the evolutionary and ecological effects of mass extinctions and climate change in the marine • Twenhofel Medal, Society for Sedimentary Geology invertebrate fossil record. My husband, daughter (SEPM) (2008), for outstanding contributions to (age 2), and I live in Williamsburg, VA.” sedimentary geology

Steve is well-known for his Predation Hypothesis to explain the evolution of novelties during the Cambrian explosion. He proposed that predation stimulated prey animals to evolve defenses such as shells, rapid swimming, and burrowing. These strategies also opened new avenues of evolution through functional shifts. Hard shells allowed for filter feeding, and deep burrowing allowed animals to gain new access to food resources.

Rowan communing with a giant clam on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (Summer 2004).

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We would especially like to hear from you. Alumni News Please send your news to [email protected].

in the Italian Alps and on the Big Island of Hawaii. Susannah started working as her father’s field assistant when she was seventeen; they spent that summer on the upper slopes of Mauna Kea studying the volcano’s eruptive history and ice- cap glaciations. She subsequently assisted him, while a Yale undergraduate, in his paleoclimate studies in and on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Steve Porter with his daughter Susannah on Although Susannah majored a remnant of ’s Great Wall along the southeastern margin of the Ordos in mathematics at Yale and began (Summer 1997). graduate studies at Harvard with Hannes in the field; Liverpool land, Greenland. the intention of becoming an ’59, G ‘64 inspired me to apply entomologist, she was drawn to geochemistry to my work and, in paleontology with its long-term particular, taught me the usefulness record of biotic evolution. She now of isotopes. The result is that I studies and teaches Neoproterozoic cannot claim to be a geochemist, or and Cambrian paleontology at structural geologist, or petrologist. the University of California, Santa But I can blend them, particularly Barbara. Susannah credits those as I get older and my field of vision summers with her father as helping expands (even as details begin to to make her eventual career choice: escape). I’ve retired from teaching she always loved traveling to remote at Queens College of CUNY, after 40 parts of the world and hiking in years! I continue to do research at beautiful settings. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Steve and Susannah would like of Columbia University, where I to coauthor a paper some day but am an Adjunct Senior Research admit they have not yet resolved Steve and Susannah Porter on the Li River Scientist. I still study mountains and, while traversing China’s famous tower-karst how to mesh their very different in particular, how crust and mantle region. professional interests. interact during continental collision. Stephen C. Porter ‘55, G ’62 I’ve never been as productive as ([email protected]) Hannes K. Brueckner ’68 (hannes@ now, and I hope to keep working Susannah M. Porter ’95 (porter@ ldeo.columbia.edu) writes, “How until I am told, once again, to leave.” geol.UCSB.edu) subtly I was influenced by the faculty and fellow graduate students G. Warfield “Skip” Hobbs ’69 Spanning the Geologic Column at Yale between 1962 and 1968 ([email protected]; and skiphobbs@ from Neoglaciation to Neo- when I was informed I had to get ammoniteresources.com) proterozoic in Two Generations my PhD and leave (What? And Skip was installed as President- With a father whose research and face the real world?)! Matt Walton Elect of the American Geological teaching career at the University of got me interested in petrology, in Institute at the annual meeting of Washington primarily focused on particular the evolution of rocks the Geological Society of America in Neoglacial and Pleistocene alpine within mountain systems. John Portland, Oregon, in October 2009. glaciation, much of Susannah’s Rodgers G ’44, my advisor, gave He will serve until 2011. childhood was spent traveling me the opportunity to work in Skip is the Managing Partner abroad. In addition to Steve’s the mountains of Norway where of Ammonite Resources, a global sabbatical leaves in New Zealand, Ed Hansen G ’63 taught me field petroleum and mining geotechnical England, and Norway, the Porter techniques and structure. Karl and business advisory firm which family also spent summers with him Turekian and Dick Armstrong

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Alumni News RECENT AWARDS

originally expected that both of us depend on a job, and its lack even would have academic positions that saved her from the normal publish- would enable us to actively pursue or-perish pressures, and enabled her our respective research interests, to spend many summers in the field, while raising a well-adjusted family. working out the Upper Ordovician That is not how life worked out. paleoenvironments and fossil After a year and half as an communities of the Ottawa Valley in associate in research at Yale exceptional detail. Because of this and four years as an assistant concentration on detail, publishing professor at Northwestern has been slow, but papers are University, Radomir joined Phillips coming out faster now. Petroleum Company where he Now we are both research was a senior research geologist, associates in the Department working on geothermal processes, of Geological Sciences at the diagenesis in deep sedimentary University of Tulsa, where Miriam Skip in a President-Elect pose. basins, and scaling and formation taught paleontology for about 12 he founded in 1982 in New Canaan, damage in petroleum production. years as an adjunct faculty member. CT. He is also founder and president The work, which entailed travelling We have lived in Bartlesville, of Ammonite Corporation, an to some interesting and unusual independent oil and gas exploration places, was in both research and and production company, and development; and although some president of Ammonite Nova of it was quite exciting, most of it Scotia Corporation, a company that could not be published. Radomir’s operates two petroleum exploration retirement in 1999 has enabled licenses offshore Eastern Canada. him to return to pure research. After leaving Yale Skip studied He is presently working on the Petroleum Geology at Imperial mechanisms of fossilization (a College, Royal School of Mines, in subject on which he published in London, earning an MSc. During 2001) and on the theoretical study the 1970s he worked internationally of reactions between minerals and as an exploration geologist for aqueous solutions. Miriam and Radomir in formal Oklahoma attire! Texaco and then for the Amerada We were fully aware when Hess Corporation. Prior to his we decided to have a family that Oklahoma, since 1977, after arriving involvement with the American Miriam’s career would be delayed. with the idea that three to five years Geological Institute, Skip was an However, the poor health of our was long enough to stay anywhere, elected official at regional and daughter, Sophia, meant that the particularly Oklahoma. But life national levels of the 33,000 delay was considerably greater in Bartlesville is not as we had member American Association of than originally expected, and it expected. This city of about 35,000 Petroleum Geologists. He writes and took years for Miriam to complete people included for many years the lectures frequently on energy policy the field and laboratory work for headquarters and research facilities matters. her Ph.D. dissertation. However, of Phillips Petroleum Company. while waiting to get back to her There is an unusually large number Miriam Steele-Petrovich G ’84 dissertation, she used data in of highly educated people and ([email protected]) the biological literature to publish extraordinary facilities for a small and Radomir Petrovich G ’71 papers on aspects of brachiopod city, many of which have been (randhmspetrovich@mindspring. biology that are relevant to her financed greatly by Phillips—not com) write: “We both have Ph.Ds in studies of Ordovician paleoecology. typical at all of Oklahoma.” geology from Yale: Radomir (1971) After she received her Ph.D., a with a specialty in geochemistry permanent academic position for Henry Bokuniewicz, Jr., G ’76 and Miriam (1984) with a much her meant a commuting marriage, ([email protected]. delayed degree in paleobiology. We which was unacceptable. But edu) writes, “It’s pretty fortunately, her research didn’t straightforward, really. After

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Alumni News

research into coastal sedimentary Montana State react to any mention systems and coastal ground-water of John Ostrom and John Rodgers has taken us around with a collective hush. What better the world—Mallorca, Venice, Brazil, acknowledgment of Yale’s legacy in Maurtius, Guam, Barbados…. one ?” of these trips was a visit to the To view the Bighorn Romanian Marine Lab on the video, visit http://www.lifeonterra. Black Sea coast just after the “Iron com/episode.php?id=201 Curtain” fell. To make a long story short, we ended up adopting a ten- Jill Schneiderman ’81 (jill. year old girl from Bucharest. Our [email protected]) pictured

Linda and Henry in a watering hole in Venice daughter, Roxana, is now 26. with her partner of 17 years (wife of on a research trip. three years in Massachusetts!) Meg Stewart and their children Caleb graduation, I joined the faculty and Tillie Stewart Schneiderman at the State University of New in front of the Josselyn residence York (now called “Stony Brook hall at Vassar College—the place University”) and I’ve been here for they called home for five years. Jill thirty-four years. is a professor of earth science at I had completed my dissertation Vassar and is delighted to report research (“Estuarine Sediment Flux that when she was promoted to Evaluated in Long Island Sound”) full professor in 2001, the first under the tutelage of Professor female geologist to attain that Bob Cruz at work in Montana. Robert Gordon (recently “retired”). rank at Vassar, Brian and Cathy I am forever grateful to him for Bob Cruz ‘79 (bobcruzjr@aol. Skinner came for the celebration! setting me on the path. Linda and I com) writes, “I graduated with Since graduating from Yale in then moved to Stony Brook, Long a concentration in vertebrate 1981 (Jonathan Edwards college), Island, NY. After having carried me paleontology. John Ostrom was Jill earned her PhD from Harvard through graduate school, Linda my advisor. However, I ended up studying metamorphic petrology. went back to finish her own degree, working as a petroleum geologist She began her teaching and while I moved into an office in in Denver, based on a recruiter’s research career at Pomona College. the University’s Marine Sciences claim that “dinosaur geology is oil After earning tenure there, she Research Center, an office I still geology.” took a postdoc at the Smithsonian inhabit. I am now a Distinguished Later, I switched to computer and metamorphosed into a clastic Service Professor of Oceanography. programming and IT consulting. A sedimentologist doing provenance I’m here in good company. Kirk few years ago I enrolled in the MFA studies using heavy minerals. She Cochran G ’79 (kcochran@notes. program in Science and Natural feels very fortunate to have had a cc.sunysb.edu), Bob Aller G ’77 History Filmmaking at Montana range of interesting opportunities ([email protected]) and State University, a challenging mix over the years including a stint as Josie Aller (former postdoc with of science, technology, art and a Congressional Science Fellow in Don Rhoads), and Bob Cerrato G writing—in a state that has igneous the 104th Congress (1994) working ’80 (Robert.Cerrato@stonybrook. provinces, thrust sheets, , for the then Senate minority edu) are also on the faculty; we dinosaurs, oil, gas, coal, etc. leader, Tom Daschle (D-SD) and were in the same cohort at G&G, I now create Earth Science- a Fulbright Fellowship (2003) at some sort of record, I’d guess. Linda related media. For the National Park the University of the West Indies is now retired after a long career in Service, I produced a video on the in St. Augustine, Trinidad. She has the Registrar’s Office of the Fashion geology of Bighorn Canyon, located edited two books: The Earth Around Institute of Technology in New York in Wyoming and Montana. For the Us: Maintaining a Livable Planet City. Museum of the Rockies, I made a (Westview, 2003) and For the Rock Although there was a brief video on the fossil Torosaurus. Record: Geologists on Intelligent (decade) sidetrack into administration What’s astounding, however, Design (University of California, as Associate Dean for Education, my is how professors and students at 2009). Currently on sabbatical, she

12 Geology & Geophysics News Spring 2010

Alumni News

I majored in geology not because I envisioned a career in the field but because it was interesting and fun. I found the faculty members to be enthusiastic and inspiring. It also helped me grow in my relationship with my father, Bob Wiese ’55, who had earned a BS in Geology at Yale before completing Jeff on the job, Oregon, 2009. his graduate work at Harvard in 1960. After a few years of minerals in geology now than I’ve been in exploration field work in Colorado, the past ten years. I’m particularly Utah, and Nevada he settled into a proud of having taught Incident Jill (left) and Meg with their children Caleb 30-year teaching career at Mount Command for Geologists, and and Tillie. Union College in Alliance, Ohio. Geology for Incident Commanders, is a Contemplative Practice Fellow I haven’t used my geology to separate audiences in the same sponsored by the Fetzer Institute. education much since leaving month. My current position is You can read some of her recent Yale, but when I drive through a Emergency Manager of Tualatin Fire writing on the subject of Buddhism , cross a river gorge and Rescue, Aloha, Oregon.” and environmental change at: or look down from an airplane I see http://www.shambhalasun.com/ aspects of God’s creation that my sunspace/?s=schneiderman travel companions can’t appreciate.”

Jeff Rubin ’82 (jeff.rubin@tvfr. com) writes, “My career has been anything but linear. After leaving Yale, I got my MA and PhD at UT Austin, working on skarn deposits in central Mexico and the Ertsberg

district (Irian Jaya), respectively, Kim and Hugh at home in Colgate. with a few years at the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology in between. Kim Waldron G ’86 (kwaldron@ The Wiese family in a photo taken several years ago: From left to right: Karen Wiese I did not actually stay in geology. mail.colgate.edu) writes, “Brian (Wellesley ‘57), Robert Wiese (Georgetown After several concurrent years as Skinner wrote in his email to me: ‘10), Ted Wiese (back - ‘81), Edward Wiese a volunteer firefighter, I took a full- “the diversity of people’s careers (front - Yale ‘12), Mary Jo Wiese (Georgetown ‘82), Bob Wiese (‘55). time position with City of Austin is intriguing.” That made me feel a Emergency Medical Services, bit more confident that a note from Ted Wiese ’81 (Ted_Wiese@ where I worked for five years as a a non-practicing geologist would troweprice.com) writes, “After field medic, Hazardous Materials be appropriate for the newsletter! graduating from Yale with a BA Captain, and mass casualty/disaster After Yale, I spent five years in the in Geology, I worked for a year planner (sowing the seeds...). UK (Manchester and Edinburgh) with a DC law firm before going to Along the way I served as Asst. studying reaction mechanisms and business school at Dartmouth. For Dean for Environmental Health & mineral microstructures. Post-doc the last 25 years I have managed Safety at UT, where I developed a life was wonderful, especially in a bond portfolios at T. Rowe Price class in wilderness medicine. I’ve place like Edinburgh, but I returned in Baltimore, including a stint been working in health-system to the US in the early 90s to take managing multi-currency portfolios preparedness on just about every a tenure-track position at Colgate in our London Office. I have been level, including a NATO Advanced University. involved in a number of industry Research Workshop in 2005. Since Teaching at a rural liberal initiatives, mostly targeted at coming to Oregon in 2001, I’ve arts college was exhausting but improving the transparency of bond been heavily involved in natural rewarding. Continuing my research, market transactions. hazards: I’m probably more involved however, was more challenging.

13 Geology & Geophysics News Spring 2010

Alumni News

After experimenting with field areas principal advisor at that time, Phil and projects, I decided to pack it in Ihinger, had just won a prestigious and try something new. I went over Packard Fellowship. Those three to the dark side: administration. post-doc years were wonderful— Eventually, I became “secretary more intellectual freedom than of the college,” a combination of I’ve ever had in any job. But reality corporate secretary and chief of sunk in as my wife Joan and I had staff. I serve as the president’s our second child and it became assistant, coordinate the university’s increasingly apparent that a legal affairs, I am secretary to “real” job was needed, and fast. the board of trustees and spend Although I had a few nibbles in considerable time trying to figure New graduate student at Virginia Tech, the academic job market, having out how complex organizations Denise Levitan ’09 (left) and her adviser to do a second or third post-doc Maddy Schreiber ’91. work. I reach for the odd Scottish in order to get to the market level cobblestone when the complex organoarsenic cycling, anaerobic of 10+ publications in order to organization acts irrationally. My biotransformation, and more land a job was out of the question. geology training translates well recently, karst . In Thus, an industry job became more to this job—logic, a systematic 2005, I received tenure and married and more attractive, though not approach, and the ability to see how Blaine Keesee, and in 2007, our without second thoughts initially. all the layers fit together. son Jacob was born. My academic A fortuitous chain of events led to Meanwhile, my husband Hugh career has been extremely fulfilling; (a Brit) and I live in an old house I have worked with wonderful on five acres, enjoy traveling back colleagues and talented graduate to the UK, and I (not Hugh) spend students. The most recent addition significant time digging in the dirt, to our group is Denise Levitan another relic of careers past. ’06 ([email protected]), who will be working on precipitation of autunite Madeline Schreiber ’91 (mschreib@ for uranium immobilization in vt.edu) writes, “Since graduating . from Yale, I have stayed in My experience as a Yale G&G The Davis family in the Green Mountains of geology, taking a slight turn from major provided a strong foundation Vermont where they have gone camping every “classical” geology to the field of for my career. Between classes summer for the past 10 years or so (from L to R: Mark, Joan, Sarah (11), and Emily (15). hydrogeology. After Yale, I worked with world-renowned faculty, field in environmental consulting on experiences in Newfoundland and my being in the right place at the Superfund remedial investigations. Montana, and most importantly right time, leading to an interview The complexities of for my research career, the and quick hire with a technical glass flow and chemical transport at opportunity to do a senior thesis company in northeast PA, only these sites were challenging in geochemistry with Tim Lyons G some four hours from New Haven. and intriguing, prompting me ’92 ([email protected]) and We relocated near Scranton, in the to research graduate programs Professor Bob Berner, I couldn’t heart of an established anthracite in hydrogeology. Brian Skinner have asked for better academic coal belt, surrounded by beautiful recommended that I apply to preparation. Many thanks to the hardwood forests and quaint farms. work with Jean Bahr ’76 at the department for all of their support The job is equally challenging and University of Wisconsin-Madison, not just of me, but of all G&G interesting—much of what I learned and thankfully, she took me on as majors!” as a geologist has helped me at a graduate student. After finishing some point. There’s considerable an MS (’95) and a PhD (’99), I had Mark Davis G ’96 (mark.davis@ overlap between igneous petrology another stroke of luck and was us.schott.com) writes, “I got and glass science—same physics offered a faculty position at Virginia my Ph.D. in 1996 in the field of and chemistry, just different Tech. My research at VT has focused crystallization kinetics of silicate motivation and starting materials!” on chemical transport, including melts and ended up staying at arsenic-mineral interactions, Yale another three years as my

14 Geology & Geophysics News Spring 2010

Alumni REUNION • NOVEMBER 6–8, 2009

The Reunion, November 6-8, 2009, was a great success. Seventy alumni (44 grad school alums and 26 Yale College alums) returned and together with faculty (current and retired), current graduate students, and postdocs, the total gathering was about 200. Two and half days of talks by alumni, divided into five theme sessions, held everyone’s attention. You can read all about it on the departmental web site, and see a large number of photos taken during the proceedings, at http://earth.geology.yale.edu/alumni/. Photos were taken by Tony Fiorini (husband of faculty member Maureen Long) and Harold Shapiro (Yale staff). The photos below are a small sample of what you will find at the web site.

Shun Karato (Fac) and Karen Fischer Skip Hobbs, Tom Cranmer, and David Bercovici (Fac)

Phil Perkins and Larry Grossman Bob Cruz, Mark Wilson, and Star Childs

Neil Williams, Joe Graf, and Danny Rye (Fac) Baerbel and Steve Schamel, Dick Bambach (right)

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Dinosaurs had Fancy Feathers

An innovating study by graduate students Jakob as bacteria in some fossilized dinosaurs might actually Vinther ([email protected]), Julie Clark G ’02 be melanosomes. Shapes of melanosomes are color ([email protected]), faculty members Richard specific. Study of a suitably preserved specimen, a Prum ([email protected]) and Derek Briggs chicken-sized Jurassic dinosaur Anchiornis huxleyi ([email protected]), together with colleagues from Liaoning Province, China, revealed enough from other institutions, melanosomes to has put some color allow the team into dino feathers. to complete You can read the a full-feather complete report in reconstruction. www.sciencexpress. Anchiornis shows org/5February that when feathers 2010/10.11.26/ appeared in the fossil science.1186290. record they were Vinther was already distinctively studying fossilized striped and colored. squid-ink under the They also preceded electron microscope flight; commented when he discovered Prum, “a more likely little sacs, called function than flight melanosomes, full of for the first feathers ink. He hypothesized was communicating that objects and signaling.” tentatively identified © 2010 National Geographic

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