140812 2014 2 MGPV Newsletter V6
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MGPV Division Newsletter August 2014, Vol. 5, No. 2 Newsletter of the GSA Mineralogy, Geochemistry, Petrology, and Volcanology Division Message from the Chair Volume 5, Number 2 August 2014 Greetings MGPV Members! In this issue: I know it’s still summer but this year’s GSA meeting Message from the Chair ............ 1 in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be here before Frey 2014 MGPV Award ........... 2 you know it. I hope you are planning to attend. Student Research Grants .......... 3 Vancouver GSA 2014 ................ 5 Because of our large membership and diverse areas MGPV at Section Meetings ........ 8 of interest the Division and its associated societies Membership and Finance .......... 9 are sponsoring 67 technical sessions, even more Announcements ......................... 9 than last year’s meeting in Denver. There are also Division Management Board .... 11 many great field trips and short courses to consider. Election - information ............... 12 Election - ballot ........................ 15 It should be a great meeting – more details are included in the rest of the newsletter. As we move deeper into a world of social media, watch for MGPV to start using GSA’s Connected Community. You are automatically a member already. Check it out at <http://community.geosociety.org/home/> and be one of the first members to use it. GSA Council is ready to move on making more publications open access. Income from publications has historically been one of the most important revenue sources for GSA, but it has been dropping as individuals have stopped subscribing to print journals. The model being proposed calls for authors to pay a fee upfront. More details will be released later. GSA is also seeking new book proposals and devising ways to grant digital access to these important publications. I’m grateful for the ready support we have received from many of you to serve on division committees. We still need your help in finding a newsletter editor and a web site manager. Also we encourage you to nominate a colleague for a GSA award, fellowship, MGPV career award, or for our new MGPV early career award. These career awards honor those who have made outstanding contributions by taking a multidisciplinary geologic approach, with a strong field component to their research. Students are an increasingly important part of our Division. With the GSA decision to give students one free division membership, 60% of our members are students. Four http://www.geosociety.org/divisions/mpvg/ page 1 MGPV Division Newsletter August 2014, Vol. 5, No. 2 students received MGPV research awards this year, chosen with difficulty from many great proposals. Be sure to read about the work they are doing. True to our multidisciplinary n ature, student awardees are using tools from all of these disciplines. Tom Benson, a winner of one of this year’s student awards, has agreed to represent the Division on the newly formed GSA Student Advisory Council. We are also developing the ground rules for a student travel award that will be announced soon. I hope to meet many of you at our Business Meeting, Sunday, 19 October 2014, 12:30- 1:00 pm or at the Joint Reception with the Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical Society, Tuesday, 21 October 2014, 5:45-7:45 pm. We will honor this year’s recipient of the MGPV’s Distinguished Geologic Career Award, Dr. Frederick Frey of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Read more in the newsletter. Prepare now to meet in Vancouver – use this checklist to make sure you get through customs quickly: http://community.geosociety.org/gsa2014/vancouver/travel/checklist. Finally, please vote on the new ballot issues – incoming members of the management board and proposed changes in our bylaws to allow for student representation. Eric H Christiansen, 2014 Chair, MGPV Division Brigham Young University 2014 MGPV Division Distinguished Geologic Career Award to Frederick A. Frey Frederick A. Frey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the 2014 Distinguished Geologic Career Awardee. The award will be presented at the Reception during the 2014 GSA Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada following a session in his honor: T117. Magmas and Their Sources: A Tribute to the Distinguished Career of Fred Frey Dr. Frey is cited for a remarkable and pioneering career in analytical geochemistry and trace element modeling of geologic phenomena, his appreciation of field observations and, in particular, the geologic context in interpreting magmatic processes. Fred Frey's early career centered on the use of neutron activation methods for the analysis of rare earth elements (REE) in rocks. This led to numerous seminal papers on the contents of REE and the significance of REE patterns in basaltic rocks, tektites and ultramafic rocks. This work resulted in an early understanding of the LREE-depleted signature of mid-ocean-ridge basalts that came to be known as MORB's, and the significance of that signature for Earth’s geochemical evolution. Understanding the petrogenesis of ocean-ridge basalts as a source of information on the Earth’s upper http://www.geosociety.org/divisions/mpvg/ page 2 MGPV Division Newsletter August 2014, Vol. 5, No. 2 depleted mantle has been one of Fred’s major and continuing goals and much of Dr. Frey’s work has centered on mantle plumes and plume related volcanism – the HawaiiananKerguelen islands, the Ninety East Ridge, and Iceland. Although initially trained as a chemical engineer and physical chemist, Dr. Frey realized very early in his career that if he was to understand the earth’s mantle and melting processes within it he needed two approaches: first, to study mantle rocks and mantle- derived magmas within different tectonic environments; secondly, to integrate geochemistry with field and volcanological studies with petrologic, mineralogic, and isotopic analyses. Fred Frey's work on ultramafic rocks represented a great analytical challenge, performing rare earth element analysis using both instrumental and radiochemical neutron activation techniques. One of the earliest discoveries of this work was the widespread evidence for metasomatism of mantle rocks, and the resulting mystery of the origin of metasomatic fluids or melts and how they interacted with mantle minerals. Fred's interest in continental arc rocks, specifically subduction zone-related magmatism in the South American Andes, addressed questions he conceived by combining field observations and geologic context: How do along-strike and cross-strike changes in various geologic parameters -- such as crustal thickness -- affect chemical compositions, eruptive styles, and edifice sizes? His important work in the Andes resulted in a greater understanding of the relative roles of the subduction zone mantle wedge and continental crust in the generation of magmas along the southern Andean volcanic chain and in the back-arc environment. MGPV Division Student Research Grants This is the third year for the MGPV Division’s annual student research award, and the Division has been able to increase the number of awards from two to four. The 2013 awardees are: Thomas Benson of Stanford University for his project: Metallogeny of energy-critical elements in mid-Miocene rhyolites associated with Steens/Columbia River flood basalts. Tom Benson is currently a fourth-year PhD student at Stanford University working with Prof. Gail Mahood. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University in 2009, where he studied the thermal conductivity of New Hampshire granites and their feasibility as Enhanced Geothermal Energy reservoirs. He continued his geothermal http://www.geosociety.org/divisions/mpvg/ page 3 MGPV Division Newsletter August 2014, Vol. 5, No. 2 energy work as a Research Associate at MIT, working with seismologists to develop a model to relate seismic velocity to temperature. Prior to starting his PhD at Stanford, Tom was a Fulbright Scholar in Iceland, where he analyzed fluid inclusions from geothermal systems in collaboration with the Iceland Geosurvey. His dissertation research is funded by a Department of Defense NDSEG Fellowship and involves mapping mid-Miocene silicic calderas in southeastern Oregon and evaluating the volcanological, geological, and geochemical controls on the concentration of “energy- critical elements” (Li, Ga, Y, REE) in their associated magmas. Joshua M. Garber of University of California -Santa Barbara for his project: Lu-Hf Ages of Sub-Ophiolitic Rocks, Semail Ophiolite, Oman: Testing Models for Ophiolite Obduction. I would first like to thank the MGPV division and GSA for funding this proposal; these rocks are from a classic, well-studied exposure in Oman and I am excited to add to our collective knowledge about them. I am currently finishing my second year as a Ph.D. student with Bradley Hacker at UC Santa Barbara. My dissertation research is split into two different projects: one is focused on Lu-Hf dating of eclogites to study continental subduction and ophiolite emplacement, and the other uses titanite U-Pb and trace element geochemistry to look at ductile flow of continental crust and time- scales of UHP exhumation. Before coming to UCSB I worked with Sarah Roeske for my M.S. at UC-Davis, studying lower-crustal shear zones in northern Argentina. Prior to that I did a senior thesis looking at fluid inclusions in metamorphic rocks with William Carlson at UT-Austin. What I enjoy most about being a geologist is that it allows me to combine my natural curiosity with my love of the outdoors - in my spare time you can find me exploring the mountains and deserts of southern California. Rohanna Gibson of Queens University for her project: Along-strike strain variation in the Himalayan metamorphic core, west Nepal. My interest in rocks was inspired by my love for outdoor adventures, and I quickly developed a passion for geology and earth processes. Currently I am a MSc student at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada researching along-strike strain variation in the Himalayan metamorphic core, supervised by http://www.geosociety.org/divisions/mpvg/ page 4 MGPV Division Newsletter August 2014, Vol.