New Mexico State University Department of Geological Sciences Newsletter 2019 Editor: Jeff Amato INSIDE THIS ISSUE We now have a depart- Phone: 575-646-3017 | [email protected] Inside this issue 1 mental Twitter account. Department Phone: 575-646-2708 Message from the Dept Head 2-3 Become a follower to keep Hall of Fame Celebration 4-5 track of our activities: Front cover: View of a 7.6 Ma basalt Southern Rift Institute 6-7 dike cutting Permian limestone in Field Trips & Conferences 8-11 @NMSUGeology the Prehistoric Trackways National Faculty Profiles 12-18 Monument. Graduate student Nick Field Camp 19-21 Richard was working on this project for Photos and Degrees 22 his MS degree which he finished in 2018. Giving Tuesday 23 Doña Ana Mountains and Rio Grande in the background. Photo by Jeff Amato. Back cover: Emily Johnson at the 2019 “Space Festival”. This event was designed to educate the public about science and space-related activities. The Starry Night event is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences. This year we honored Lee Hubbard, our Departmental Administrative Assitant. Lee Hubbard is, we all agree, the STAR of the Department of Geological Sciences. There is a reason that all of the graduate students thank her in the acknowledgements of their colloquia. There is a reason that every Homecoming event happens flawlessly. There is a reason that faculty and students feel welcome in the geology office. There is a reason that the administrative functions of the department run smoothly. Lee! She is the reason! Lee started at NMSU in 1990 and joined the Department of Geological Sciences in 1996. She masterminded and implemented the Department move from Breland Hall to Gardiner Hall in 2010. She certainly is the STAR of the Department. -NJM December 3! see p. 23. 1 Message from the Department Head Be bold. Shape the Future. That is the new NMSU catchphrase. I don’t know if the upper administration was thinking about the Department of Geological Sciences when this phrase was coined, but it is an excellent description of what we do, and what we have done, every day here in geology. Our alumni shape the future of energy, of the environment, of education. You all find the resources that the world’s population needs to survive and live at the high technologic level we have come to expect. Our alumni have been bold in furthering their education, securing resources, and discovering new knowledge. Awesome! Geological Sciences sets the bar for success at NMSU. Every day is busy in the department with teaching, learning, research, exploring new ideas in the field, in the lab, and in computer models. 2019 has been no exception! Here are some highlights. Dr. Brian Hampton received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor. In addition, Dr. Frank Ramos earned promotion to Full Professor. These are major milestones in the lives of academic geologists…..congratulations to both professors! 2019 is the second year that ExxonMobil has included our students in their Tucson Recruiting Hub. This year three graduate students and one undergraduate were invited to attend the hub; we are still waiting to see if any of them will be offered internships. The department is exploring ways to work more closely with ExxonMobil. We are also increasing our outreach to Las Cruces. Dr. Emily Johnson led the department’s participation in the Las Cruces Space Festival. She led a field trip to Kilbourne Hole that included a live art installation that celebrated NASA’s use of Kilbourne Hole as a training site for astronauts. We also collaborate with the Las Cruces Museum of Nature and Science to offer Teen Science Café experiences for local high school students. New Mexico State University geology.nmsu.edu 2 The Department collaborated with the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences to present an experiment on soil permeability to fifth- graders from a local grade school during NMSU for a Day. The list of department activities goes on and on, as you will see as you peruse the newsletter. Our productivity depends on resources, and you, our alumni, are our most valuable resource. We would love to have you participate in the Energy Exploration Institute if you would like to give a short course on your area of expertise. We would love to see you at homecoming, and if you have a particular place you would like to go on the field trip, just let us know! Please contact me at [email protected], 575-646-5000, or [email protected]. Giving Tuesday is 3 December 2019. Please consider supporting our efforts in shaping future geologists and future ideas in geology. Areas of need include: • Geology Field Teaching and Research • Geology Lab Teaching and Research • Geological Sciences Department (general fund used to meet greatest needs) • Southern Rift Institute We’ll be in touch with more details. Thank you for considering a gift of support! Nancy J. McMillan Department Head, Geological Sciences New Mexico State University geology.nmsu.edu Homecoming 2019 The 2019 NMSU Geology Hall of Fame Honoree is Dr. Jeff Grigsby (MS ’84). Jeff has pursued a dynamic career in academia, serving Ball State University as Professor, Department Chair, Director of the PhD in Environmental Sciences, Associate Dean, and Interim Dean. His thesis research with Dr. Greg Mack on the Hayner Ranch and Rincon Valley Formations sparked a life-long interest in sedimentary petrology. Congratulations, Jeff! We are proud of you! Dr. Jeff Amato led the Alumni Homecoming Field Trip to Bishop Cap. As usual, everyone enjoyed a beautiful October day and a lively discussion of sedimentation, structure and tectonics. Dr. Bill Seager joined the trip to share his amazing volume of knowledge of the area. 4 2019 NMSU ALUMNI FIELD TRIP Here are some additional photos of our Homecoming Trip, which was led by Jeff Amato. The attendees went to Bishop Cap, south of the Organ Mountains, to look at faulted Paleozoic strata and a barite mine. Top left: Faulted Mississippian strata. Top right, small offsets in chert layers in limestone. Middle left, Jeff Amato. Below left, Brian Hampton. Above: Bill Seager. 5 SOUTHERN RIFT INSTITUTE NEWS The Southern Rift Institute (SRI) was formed in 2017 to support interdisciplinary field-based student research in the southern Rio Grande rift. Our location in one of the premier examples of a narrow continental rift enables work on important questions about rifting processes and the evolution of the Rio Grande rift. Thanks to funding from department alumni and friends, the SRI continues to support student research projects. The big news from 2019 is that the SRI sponsored a well-received session at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Phoenix. This theme session included seven posters on Sunday afternoon, including two by NMSU graduate students. Dani Vitarelli presented on her research at Kilbourne Hole, and Mike SRI also started a tradition of sponsoring Wyatt discussed his project on the Schoolhouse Mountain caldera, a Colloquium each semester. In Spring which is outside of the rift but relevant to our interests on the 2019 we sponsored NMSU Geological relationship between extension and magmatism. Sciences Alumni Hall of Fame member Caiti Keegen’s talk on “Relating The following day was an oral session with twelve talks, including Organofacies/Oil Classifications to invited talks by faculty at UNM, NM Tech, and UTEP. Jeff Amato, Depositional Environments in Extensional the SRI Director, gave a talk on Nick Richard’s work on rift-related Basins” and in Fall 2019 we supported basaltic magmatism in the Robledo Mountains. Graduate student USGS Geophysicist Justin Rubinstein’s Shay Ridl presented on his work on the drainage evolution of the presentation on “Induced Seismicity in ancestral Rio Grande, and graduate student Ron Sholdt discussed New Mexico”. his ongoing project on using photogrammetry to investigate Late Quaternary deformation across the southern Rio Grande rift. Part of the mission of the SRI is to eductate Overall it was a great meeting. students on issues relating to the Rio Grande rift, and these talks are great opportunities for other scientists to share their knowledge of rift-related science to our department. Your donations will help further student education and research on these important topics. See next page to learn how you can support the SRI. Left: The SRI faculty outside of their technical session on the geology of the Rio Grande rift at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Geolocial Society of America. From left: Hampton, Amato, Burgette, Johnson. 6 SRI News, continued: Two SRI students finished their theses this year. Michelle Gavel successfully defended her NSF-funded research with Dr. Amato, using helium in apatite thermochronology to assess the timing and rate of deformation in the Rio Grande rift and its relationship to extension in the broader southern Basin and Range province. She is now working for the Alaska State Survey (DGGS) in Fairbanks, Alaska. That’s quite a change from the Chihuahuan Desert to the Arctic! Nick Richard, who was working at the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument (see cover photo), defended in the Spring 2019 semester. He is now in the Ph.D. program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Photo: Michelle Gavel and Amato’s dog Tela exploring the Cookes Range at the edge of the Rio Grande rift. We welcome the scientific challenges associated with conducting research with our students in the Department of Geological Sciences at NMSU, and we ask you to please consider becoming involved by supporting ongoing and future field-based student projects in New Mexico. And many thanks to those who have already donated! Donations are tax deductible and can be made online or by check/credit card.