Quaternary Geologist & Geomorphologist Newsletter of the Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division http://rock.geosociety.org/qgg June 2014 Volume 55, No. 1 LEFT: The Big Blue Bear welcomed the 125th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, October 2013. Right: Bears are always curious. What’s for lunch? 1 Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division Officers and Panel Members – 2013/14 Officers – 6 Members, three of whom serve one-year terms: Chair, First Vice-Chair, and Second Vice-Chair; and three of whom serve two-year terms: Secretary, Treasurer, and Newsletter Editor/Webmaster. Management Board – 8 Members: Division officers and the Chair of the preceding year; also includes the Historian as an ex officio member. Chair: Alan Nelson Historian: U.S. Geological Survey P. Thompson Davis Central Region MS 966 Professor, Geology & P.O Box 25046 Climatology Denver, CO 82005 Dept of Natural Sciences [email protected] Bentley University Waltham, MA 02452-4705 1st Vice-Chair: [email protected] David Dethier Dept of Geosciences Student Representative: Clark Hall, Rm 303 Rachel Valletta Williams College PhD Candidate Williamstown, MA 01267 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences 2nd Vice-Chair: University of Pennsylvania Anne Chin 251 Hayden Hall University of Colorado-Denver Philadelphia, PA 19104 Geography & Env Sciences [email protected] P.O. Box 173364 Campus Box 172 Past Chair: Denver, CO 80217-3364 Jim O’Connor [email protected] U.S. Geological Survey 2130 SW 5th Avenue Secretary: Portland, OR 97201 Sarah Lewis [email protected] College of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences Oregon State University PANEL MEMBERS 3200 SW Jefferson Way 2012-2014 Panel Corvallis, OR 97331 Meredith Kelly [email protected] [email protected] Sara Gran Mitchell [email protected] Amanda Schmidt [email protected] Treasurer: Scott F. Burns 2013-2015 Panel Department of Geology Amy Brock-Hon [email protected] Portland State University Andrew Wilcox [email protected] PO Box 751 Gregory Hancock [email protected] Portland, OR 97207-0751 [email protected] 2014 JTPC Representatives: Newsletter Ed./ Webmaster: Alan Nelson Dennis Dahms David Dethier Department of Geography ITTC #215 GSA Councilor Liaison – John Holbrook University of Northern Iowa QG&G Division Liaison – Wesley Hill Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0406 (Both appointed by the GSA President) [email protected] 2 -- Message from the Chair -- considering changing the annual renewal form to ASSUME a division membership unless a box is Alan Nelson unchecked by the renewer. If a division wants to It's time to starting thinking seriously about the 2014 help fund it, there is an option for a division Student GSA Annual Meeting in Vancouver, one of the most Award to attend a Congressional visits day in exciting GSA meeting locations in years. Topically, September. Congressional visits are always more there is much for Quaternary scientists of all successful if students attend with professional GSA persuasions. The QG&G Division is the primary members sponsor of 23 technical sessions and a co-sponsor Don't forget to vote for your division officers of 23 additional sessions. As has been true BEFORE 9 JULY (Do it today.)! throughout the 21st century, optimizing your attendance at so many high-quality sessions will require some serious prioritizing (GSA's scheduling app for mobile devices helps). Of the 27 proposed pre- and post-meeting fieldtrips, all but three focus Division Awards - 2013 on Quaternary/Geomorphology topics of potential interest to QG&G members. In particular, plan on The following awards were given by the attending the Kirk Bryan Field Trip: Glacial History, Division at our annual awards ceremony Geomorphology and Natural Hazards Along the Tuesday, October 29, 2013 Sea-to-Sky Highway (Thursday 23Oct). This year the QG&G-sponsored Kirk Bryan Fieldtrip is the day -- The Kirk Bryan Award --- after the meeting because there are so many Quaternary related sessions that mid-meeting The Kirk Bryan Award for Research Excellence was fieldtrips cannot be scheduled without creating established in 1951 & given for a publication of multiple session conflicts. Keep the digital poster distinction (within the past 5 years) advancing the option in mind; an abundance of digital posters this science of geomorphology or Quaternary Geology year will help keep this expensive option alive for or a related field. future meetings. As always, hotels are filling up fast. Our 2013 award was presented to P.K. House, P.A. Pearthree, and M.E. Perkins for their 2008 More good news is that the ABSTRACT DEADLINE paper: “Stratigraphic evidence for the role of lake FOR VANCOUVER IS TUESDAY 29 JULY, later spillover in the inception of the lower Colorado River than in many previous years. But with the fieldwork, in southern Nevada and western Arizona” family trips, long-distance biking, or extreme ice- published in Rehies, M.C., Hershler, R., and Miller, climbing expeditions that you've planned for this D.M., eds, Late Cenozoic Drainage History of the summer, it may be easy to lose track of a mid- Southwestern Great Basin and Lower Colorado summer deadline. To avoid this problem, SUBMIT River Region: Geologic and Biotic Perspectives. YOUR ABSTRACT EARLY (maybe even in June!). Geological Society of America Special Paper 439, In other news, the QG&G Division has nominated p. 335, doi: 10.1131/2008.2439(15). our very own Scott Burns (current Division Treasurer) for the Division Liaison Member of GSA Citation: Gordon E. Grant and Jim O’Connor Council (the governing body of GSA). The chairs of Years ago, while lecturing his Geomorphology GSA divisions are voting this month for one class, Reds Wolman sternly admonished us with nominee to recommend to Council for this liaison the injunction that he had received from his advisor, position. QG&G is ahead of most other divisions in Kirk Bryan: “I never want to catch any of you already having a student representative (Rachel running away from a flood!” Both Bryan and Valleta) on their management boards. Rachel is Wolman would be proud of this year’s recipients of also our candidate for the GSA Council student the Kirk Bryan Award: Kyle House, Philip representative who will advise Council on matters Pearthree, and Michael Perkins for their 2008 GSA of interest to students. The Soil Interest Group has Special Paper: Stratigraphic evidence for the role been approved and is very proactive in figuring out of lake spillover in the inception of the lower how best to interact with QG&G and other divisions. Colorado River in southern Nevada and western Council declined to approve the request to form a Arizona. For the authors of this paper have not only new Karst Division. About half of all GSA members raced towards a flood, they’ve discovered several do not belong to a division. GSA Headquarters is 3 new ones, and used this and other evidence to paint joy of discovery throughout. It’s clearly a an insightful, dramatic, and compelling story about distinguished geomorphic contribution worthy of the the evolution of the lower Colorado River. Their Kirk Bryan Award. work is a testimony to how careful field mapping and stratigraphy can lead to profound insights into Earth’s history. They leverage new observations against long-standing but incompatible models of how the Colorado River established a through- going passage to the Gulf of California. Observations are weighed against models until a compelling scenario of downstream-directed integration by basin filling and catastrophic spilling remains the only hypothesis standing. Though focused on a specific place, this report has great significance both for understanding landscapes of the Colorado Plateau and southern Basin and Range Provinces, and interpreting general Citationist Gordon Grant with KB Awardees Kyle House mechanisms of drainage integration. Cogently and Phil Pearthree. Awardee Mike Perkins not pictured. written and beautifully illustrated, the paper is a model for how to use the particular to illuminate Response by Kyle House & Phil Pearthree: broad insights into surficial processes. Thank you, Gordon Grant, for your kind words, for We’ve known for some time that the Colorado nominating our paper, and for your enthusiastic River traversed the Colorado Plateau by the mid interest in the development of these ideas over the Tertiary, but how it finally connected to the sea last several years. It is an inspiration to know that through the lower Colorado River valley in the our efforts have piqued the curious mind and Pliocene was unknown. Two main hypotheses have garnered the professional respect of an esteemed been proposed: (1) subsidence, marine incursion, colleague. and headward tributary erosion captured the It is with great surprise, and humility that I accept Colorado River; and (2) downstream directed this award for my coauthors and myself. To be integration by lake spillover ultimately led the honored in this way and by this organization is truly Colorado River to the Gulf of California. House and a peak professional moment for each of us. colleagues show that the distribution, There are many colleagues we would each like to sedimentology and geochronology of deposits in thank, but first, the essentials: our parents, Cottonwood and Mohave Valleys reveal a history of spouses, kids, and other major players in our lives late Miocene closed basins accumulating locally who have borne shades of financial and familial derived sediments, only to be cataclysmically burden created by our intense interest in studying inundated by water as divides were breached, and and roaming the American desert for all these far-travelled sediments of Colorado River years--and for accepting the fact that such roaming provenance arrived. They reinterpret evidence for will continue for as long as we can manage.