“Our three sleeping tents were protected by an electrified bear fence. This is about as dark as it would get at night� - Abby Kelly University of Cincinnati | 1
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4..........................Letter from the Department Head 8............................................Faculty & Staff News 18......................Fieldwork on Alaska’s North Slope: A Tale of Bones and Bugs 28.......................................................Farewell 30........................................Department of Geology Graduates 2019-2020 32..........................Jean Stephens Memorial Award 32..............................2019 GSA Alumni Reception 34............................Wayne A. Pryoy-Mary Lou Motl Fellowship & Paul Edwin Potter Scholarship 38...................................................In Remembrance 40.........................................................Alumni News 60........................Department of Geology Donors & Endowments 2019-2020
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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness...” – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities When I was appointed interim Department Chair last August, it was a time of excitement and optimism. It’s part of the job to get to know your colleagues well and so last summer I held meetings with all the faculty and staff individually. I came away from those meetings so impressed with our talent and how, collectively, we are doing so many, many good things. The staff makes the Department tick: all aspects of our finances are expertly man-
Woods; AGU (back in San Francisco); and our usual series of Friday colloquium talks, impromptu get togethers over coffee and beer, and all the other activity taking place in Geology/Physics. It was the best of times. All of us now know about our worst of times. The corona virus pandemic is reaching into every corner of our personal and professional lives. The effects of the pandemic on our teaching have been far-reaching. Since we
Letter from the Department Head aged by Kate Cosgrove; Krista Smilek, our Academic Director, manages all of our students and their various programs with much empathy and expertise; Sarah Hammer manages our various labs; and Mike Menard keeps anything in the Department that runs (from vans to vacuum pumps to heat exchangers on our XRF) running. The faculty are deeply engaged in their research and committed to their teaching, not only to advance their own careers, but also to advance the Department’s long tradition of excellence. The Department’s faculty and staff make a great team. Please take the time to read their stories in the pages that follow. Let me share with you a few other stories about this past year. [BTW, the goings-on of the Department are chronicled in my Friday Field Notes (we are up to v. 2., no 18). If you are not on the mailing list and would like to be, please drop me a note.] Last fall semester was full of the things that our collaborative, supportive culture makes possible: our tribute-to-Lewis Owen dinner (Lewis, of course, guided the Department to many successes for nearly 12 years and he now is chairing his new department at North Carolina State University); our rain-soaked fall picnic in Burnet Woods; Careers Days, again generously sponsored and anchored by alumnus John Thaeler, organized by Dan Sturmer, and featuring alumni Wayne Goodman, Natashia Metz (formerly Pierce), Jason Dortch, and Tres Henn; national GSA in Phoenix, with our group of 25 strong; our graduate student-only overnight camping trip to Huston
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returned from spring break in late March, all of our classes switched to ”remote instruction”. My students and I finished up our half-semester course in thin section petrography (following optical mineralogy during the first half ) looking at videos of thin sections, exploring websites dedicated to mineralogy and petrology in thin section, and meeting in small groups, virtually, of course. This student’s perspective is a good one: “Given the circumstances, this class turned out to be really great and super helpful. I still felt like I learned a lot. With that being said, this is no replacement for the real deal of work hands-on. I say that on behalf of all my classes this semester.” As of this writing, some limited face-to-face teaching is possible this fall, but the logistics remain sketchy. Our relatively small number of undergraduate majors — at last count, we have about 80 — will help us to continue to offer high quality instruction and training for our students no matter what the mode of instruction. How we deliver our courses this coming fall semester safely and with high quality will put a premium on our innovative thinking and adaptability. What we hope will not change is the number of our majors who get involved in our research projects, in our labs and in the field. For example, undergraduates Josh Bellamy, Sam Niewierowski, and Sam Little worked this past year with Carl Brett organizing and
developing a database for the extensive fossil collections of the late Steve Felton (of Dry-Dredgers fame, who passed away suddenly in March last year). The material is being integrated into the Department’s Caster collections. In going through the material, Josh and the two Sams independently developed ideas for spin-off projects. They are presently surveying some large bulk collections of brachiopods and gastropods to quantify the frequency, sizes, and positions of predation traces, notably some of the oldest known gastropod-like drill holes on shells. The gastropod drilling is particularly interesting as there is some evidence that it records cannibalistic behavior. They are likely to produce a co-authored paper and a GSA talk. We must find ways to continue offering our students these kinds of opportunities. The research productivity of the Department is strong and won’t be stopped by the pandemic. During the past year, our faculty published over 50 peer-reviewed publications – with Carl Brett and
Brooke Crowley having had particularly good years. Since last August, the faculty have been awarded nearly $900K in external funding. Andy Czaja, Aaron Diefendorf, and Reza Soltanian deserve special recognition for each securing six-figure funding awards from NASA, the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Department of Energy, respectively. Reza and his research team has been developing the Theis groundwater observatory (located alongside the Great Miami River near Miamitown) into a state-of-the-art facility where data bearing on the physical and chemical interactions between surface water and groundwater can be monitored in real time; hence the newly renamed Theis Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Site. We will continue to publish our science and seek funding to do so and fund our graduate students. Our graduate students, as usual, have been making the Department look good. Not only are they coauthors with their faculty advisors (typically as first
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author), they have also been successful in external funding. For example, Rachel Bosch, working with Dylan Ward, continues her research on the subsurface evolution of the Mammoth Cave system with $25K of support from the National Cave and Karst Research Institute. Abby Kelly, working with Josh Miller on the Mammoth Steppe fauna of Late Pleistocene Alaska and Canada, including reconstructing Beringian bison and horse paleoecology over the last 50,000 years, submitted six proposals and had three of them funded for $4K. Abby won the Outstanding Student Research Award from the Mid-American Paleontology Society. Maddie Gaetano, also working with Josh, received a grant from the Paleontological Society as well as the Kenneth E. Caster Award...as Josh said, how apt! Catherine Nield, working with Yurena Yanes to validate land snail shell isotopes as a paleo-precipitation proxy, submitted six proposals, had half of them funded for $3K. These awards, in national competitions, are significant markers of the success of our graduate students and their advisors. Unfortunately, the pandemic has also affected our graduate students’ research. For nearly all of them, their research projects have slowed to a crawl since March: no field work, no visits to collections, no working in labs on campus or at other institutions; in short, no new data. What they can do this summer remains unclear. The uncertainty of budget cuts that will likely affect their stipends makes for a doubly tough situation. The Department will provide extra time and financial support as best we can. I hope we can do so generously. If you would like to support our graduate student stipends, you can do so by contributing to our Geology Alumni Graduate Fund [how to easily do this is described below]. The Department isn’t going to react to our current situation passively. We have already started a
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long-term campaign to upgrade and transform our teaching, so when we return to our physical spaces and the field, we will be ready to spend more time engaging our students with hands-on, experiential science. Since August, the Department has invested about $17,000 to begin to build our inventory of “multi-use” equipment and instruments: “multi-use” meaning use for both teaching and research, use by more than one faculty, and use in more than one class. We now have a state-of-the-art, digital shallow seismic sub-bottom profiler (try saying that five times) which can image sedimentary sequences below water. Tom Lowell and his students are using the profiler on mediumand small-sized lakes to support the recovery and interpretation of paleoenvironmental records, some linked to the history of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Undergraduate Joel Dublanko took some time off football practice this spring to work on a core from Higgins Lake, Michigan. The core records the deglaciation and Holocene history of the northcentral portion of lower part of Michigan and includes an interval of moss growth. The pandemic cut Joel’s work short, but this record, one of the oldest from the area located some 17 m below the present lake surface, demands explanation. Joel graduated this spring but intends to be a linebacker for the Bearcats this fall. Dan Sturmer will use the profiler in his new course in geophysics. When we get back into the field with students, Tom and Dan will take students back to work on lakes in Wisconsin and Minnesota. We also have a new water sonde capable of measuring physical and chemical properties of water (for example, pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and conductivity). The sonde will be used by Aaron Diefendorf ’s research and teaching on biomarkers in aquatic systems. This past year, Aaron had under-
graduates Jenna Trout and MacKenzie King working on his ACS-funded diatom biomarker project, identifying lakes for future sampling in the Northern Plains and Midwest. Undergrad Kyle Roberts completed a senior research project with Aaron testing out new organic solvent extraction techniques to enhance extraction, reduce sample cleanup time, and to possibly make the lab’s carbon footprint lower and solvents greener. As part of the Department’s character since it was founded 113 years ago, we have always provided opportunities for our students, both undergraduates and graduates. I hope the small stories of our students I’ve shared with you have convinced you that this proud tradition is alive and well in 2020. The next year or two will test our commitment to doing the necessary work to engage and prepare our students to make the very best of their own careers and futures. One of the pandemic’s biggest ripple effects is the negative impact on the University’s budget, which cascades across our College, which, in turn, cuts our budget (we just completed an exercise to return $100K to the College as part of these cuts). As of this writing, we do not know how big our budget cut will actually be. Your long-standing and generous contributions to our various endowed funds will lessen our budget cuts considerably, but we will be seriously affected. To do our best, we will need you
to invest in our financial future so we can continue to support our graduate students and provide upto-date instruction and professional preparation for our majors. And when the time is right, your support will help us get our students back into the field with renewed excitement and energy. The student stories I’ve presented here are just a few among many, but they give you an idea of what your support can achieve. Giving to our Research Fund in Geology gives us the most flexibility of how we can direct your support to our students. I just signed on for five years as chair. It’s been wonderful this past year to reconnect with so many of you, to make new friends, and to continue to be part of our rightfully proud tradition of Cincinnati geology.
Best regards, stay well,
Craig dietscc@ucmail.uc.edu
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Faculty & Staff News
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Photo Credit: Aaron Betts
We continue to crank along. This past year was going really well, at least up till March, when we transitioned to emergency remote instruction and I shut down the labs (that hurt). Fortunately, all my students are in a good position for research or graduation and can wait to get in the lab or the field for some time. It sure is a strange time. Although if we can learn anything from this, it’s that we must make changes now so we can prevent future catastrophes, like climate change. Science must guide this. It is critical that we teach and train our students to be strong scientists, informed citizens, and advocates for our plant. Last fall, Meg Corcoran joined my group and is working on her PhD. She arrived with her MS in hand from Buffalo and is off to a great start working on diatom biomarkers that I hope can be used to track changes in lake water hydrogen isotopes for paleohydrology applications. This work has focused on a suite of lakes in the Adirondacks that Tom Lowell, Erika Freimuth (PhD 2018), Ben Bates (MS 2018) and Alexander Stewart (PhD 2007) worked on the past
Aaron Diefendorf few years and was supported by NSF. To continue this diatom work, we received an American Chemical Society grant to explore these biomarkers in more detail. Meg is also working on plant waxes from the Falkland Islands both as a modern plant calibration and for paleohydrology reconstructions, also with Tom Lowell and his colleague Brenda Hall at Maine. Kristen Schlanser is preparing to defend her PhD this spring. She’s been utilizing the geologic record as a natural laboratory to understand how changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from the Cretaceous to the Oligocene influence plant carbon isotopes. This project was also funded by NSF and supported Kristen for much of her time here. Kristen will soon move on to a fellowship at the Federal Drug Administration forensics division office here in Cincinnati. Vinothan (Vino) Sivapalan is working away on his MS reconstructing paleovegetation, paleohydrology and fire from a lake in central Illinois that captures the last interglacial period through the Holocene. Vino will be defending his MS later this spring. Anna
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10 | The Upper Crust Schartman (BS 2019) has continued to work with Tom and I on several Adirondacks related projects and is about to have her third publication as an undergraduate student! Anna will start her PhD this fall at UC Santa Cruz. Kyle Roberts (BS 2020) worked on a capstone project that was an effort to make our lab greener. We learned a lot! Shaun Burgdorf (BS 2020), Sam Little (BS 2021), and Jenna Trout (BS 2020) prepared samples and picked lots of chironomids for Meg (thank you!). Also, in alumni news, Yeon Jee Suh (PhD 2017) has received a permanent position as Senior Research Scientist at the Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology in Busan South Korea. Erika Freimuth (PhD 2018) is an editor for the Elsevier journal One Earth. Julia Wise (PhD 2016) has moved to Los Alamos National Lab. And, last but not least, Sharmila Giri (MS 2013) is a Visiting Professor at Case Western. Photo Captions: 1. Kristen Schlanser presenting her poster at the AGU 2019 Annual Conference in San Francisco. 2. Fog rising on an early fall day near DAAP (October 2019). 3. Meg Corcoran receiving the spring 2020 UC Sigma Xi Grant In Aid of Research award. The audience is sparse the day before campus shut down for COVID-19. But Geology represented! Craig Dietsch, Arnie Miller, Reza Soltanian are seen in this photo along with Brooke Crowley, Andy Czaja, Aaron Diefendorf, and a great cohort of Geology graduate students.
Andy Czaja My lab has continued its work on studying the early evolution of life on Earth, the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere, and the search for ancient life on Mars. In particular, this past year I have been focusing on my Mars-related work. In 2019, I was selected to be a science team member for the upcoming NASA Mars 2020 mission. This is the mission with the rover that was just recently names Perseverance. That craft will launch this July from Cape Canaveral, FL and land on Mars in February 2021. One of the main objectives of the mission is to search for evidence of ancient (fossil) life and collect samples for return to Earth on a future mission. If Mars ever hosted life, it’s most likely to have been microbial. So, my role, as a microbial paleontologist is to advise on what samples to collect that might hold evidence of ancient life. If it’s there, we should be able to find some evidence, but we might need higher magnification and more sensitive instruments to really be sure, so that’s
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why we want to bring the samples back. In August 2019, I participated in a NASA-sponsored fieldtrip to Greenland to explore a 3.7 billion-year-old unit that has been proposed to preserve stromatolites. This trip provided some practice for Mars 2020 team members, particularly those without much experience looking for ancient life, to see evidence of life in ancient rocks and try to decide if we believed it. I was also a coauthor of a 2019 paper in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science titled, “The potential science and engineering value of samples delivered to Earth by Mars sample return.” My now former Ph.D. student Andrew Gangidine successfully defended his dissertation in early March 2020. His work involved mapping trace element distributions in microbes from hot springs in modern and recent deposits (from Yellowstone National Park) as well as from fossil deposits (the Devonian-age Drummond Basin of
University of Cincinnati | 11 Australia). This work has applications for searching for life in similar deposits on Mars and was featured in a previous issue of the Upper Crust. It is also the subject of two papers published early this year in the journals Astrobiology and Life. Andrew is currently working on two more manuscripts based on his work. And on top of all that, Andrew was awarded a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship and will start work at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C. in the late summer. There he will continue his work on mapping trace elements in modern and fossil materials while using the state-of-the-art facilities at NRL. We will miss Andrew in the department, but wish him the very best! My other Ph.D. student, Andrea Corpolongo, has also had an excellent year. Andrea is working on an exciting project studying 2.5 billion-year-old fossil microbes from South Africa. She and I had a very successful trip to South Africa last summer where we collected samples from a variety of depositional environments along an ancient carbonate platform. In these samples Andrea has discovered a diverse set of fossils including intriguingly large fossil microbes that may tell us something about the rise in atmospheric oxygen that occurred just after these organisms were alive. Andrea also completed her Ph.D. qualifying exam this spring. And on top of all of that, Andrea was recently selected as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, which will fund her graduate schooling for the next three years! This is a very select program and I am exceedingly proud of her accomplishment. This will bring prestige not only to her, but to our Geology program as well! Finally, I am happy to welcome UC Geology alum Camden Goland to my lab starting in Fall 2020. Camden will join our Masters Program to work on a project to study thermal alteration of fossil organic matter in a variety of rock types. For more goings-on in my lab, please check out my website at http://andyczaja.com.
Photo captions: 1. Andy Czaja posing with a 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary unit in southern West Greenland in August 2019. 2. Andrew Gangidine posing with the secondary ion mass spectrometer at Washington University in St. Louis. 3. Andy Czaja and Andrea Corpolongo posing with sheep and goats on a hillside made of 2.5 billion-year-old stromatolites near Kuruman, Northern Cape Province, South Africa in July 2019.
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I’m amazed that it is already time to report what I have been up to since last year. We have had a rewarding year in the department. 10 new graduate students entered the program in August, and I enjoyed getting to know each of them during our Fall Graduate Research Workshop. Remember that if you aren’t already connected, please consider joining the departmental alumni network on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/ groups/6807518/). You can ask to join directly through LinkedIn or by writing to Dan Sturmer, who is the account administrator. Hopefully this will help alums stay connected with each other as well as faculty and current students.
Brooke Crowley I have also had a personally fulfilling year. I spent a good chunk of Summer 2019 in Europe with my husband, who had a visiting professorship in a little city called Halle in eastern Germany. Having now gained my sea legs as graduate director, I have been able to devote more time to outreach activities, including participating in a fun educational video series called “Science around Cincy” (https://sciaroundcincy.com/scientists/), and speaking on public radio about my research with jaguars (www.wvxu.org/post/uc-professor-helps-track-jaguars). Emily Simpson joined my lab in Fall 2019. I have very much enjoyed working with her over the past few months and I look forward to our continued interactions as she further develops her PhD projects. I was invited to participate in a workshop on emerging model organisms in Barbados in January and enjoyed a fantastic week of cutting edge science combined with a good fix of time in the ocean. Other travel was planned for Spring and Summer 2020, but most of that has been cancelled or is on hold due to the unforeseen circumstances surrounding COVID 19. Looking forward, not much is on the horizon for me other than enjoying the beautiful season change and exploring Cincinnati, continuing to chip away at my various research projects, and getting ready for Fall classes. Photo Captions: 1. Me on the shores of Lake Huron on Mackinac Island in Michigan. 2. Me and my husband Matt in Halle, Germany.
Editor’s note: Dr. Crowley recently posted a video explaining some of the basic concepts of her research. You can see it at https://bit.ly/2N7dIB9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMVPny cAwVw&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2hxV2_ 2QWedwRR2jC4TdpHgz3vVVD_MHzn6oOO7updUv9aA5K-ixKj0gA
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Geology, anthropology professor shares passion for nature through photography , research Brooke Crowley grew up at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by Boulder, Colorado’s lush green and yellow foliage. Raised by parents who were teachers, Crowley was encouraged at a young age to explore the natural world. Now, as an associate professor of geology and anthropology at the University of Cincinnati, Crowley is researching how species interact and human effect on natural systems. Collecting rocks since she was a child, Crowley earned her Bachelor of Arts in geology from Vassar College in New York. She continued her education at the University of California, Santa Cruz to earn her Master of Arts in physical anthropology and holds a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology. It was there where Crowley learned she wanted to investigate ecological interactions, the causes and consequences of recent extinctions as well as the ecological repercussions of habitat fragmentation and degradation. Crowley teaches in both the geology and anthropology departments at UC and is researching the environmental history of southwestern Madagascar. While Crowley has not been to the island in close to 10 years, her team excavates items such as bones or fossils and brings them back to Cincinnati to analyze. Through an active grant, Crowley is able to process these samples in her lab. Crowley is also looking at longer-term change in central Madagascar. The grasslands of Madagascar have created a divide in the community — there is very little natural vegetation left on the island. Some say the land was forested and then destroyed, while others say native grasslands were always widespread. Crowley said she hopes her technique of isotope ecology can help establish an understanding of how prevalent the grasslands
actually were 20,000 years ago. In northern Madagascar, Crowley also analyzes bats. “Most of the critters on Madagascar are pretty endangered at this point or threatened to be endangered,” she said. “As much as we can learn about [bats] the better. So, I have collaborators from all over the world who send me samples and then I send them data.” On top of teaching and research, Crowley was invited last December to participate in a video series to promote science and make it interesting for high school students. Released last month, an episode of Science Around Cincy showcased Crowley’s lab and her research on Madagascar. Closer to home, Crowley is examining the recent past of Hispaniola beyond Madagascar. It remains unknown whether the island was the center of rodent radiation in the Caribbean. Fifteen rodent species have recently been present on Hispaniola, and the community knows nothing about them other than their names. Enveloping herself with the natural world, Crowley has also developed a deep interest in photography. She began taking photos when she was 9 and got formal training in high school. Now, Crowley takes photos everywhere she goes. “I like that side of who I am, and I’m proud of it,” she said. “The world is a beautiful place, and so many people don’t get to see it or have strong opinions about what it’s like out there without any foundation. I’m hoping to show other parts of the planet that are really fantastic.” Source: https://www.newsrecord.org/news/geology-anthropology-professorshares-passion-for-nature-through-photography-research/article_bab255fa-161d11ea-8ef6-afcf5d6fbafb.html
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Carl Brett One of the great joys of working in academics is seeing past students and associates succeed and flourish in positions that they enjoy and nearly all 50+ previous graduate students are employed in various ways in geology/biology-natural resources research and/or education. The ability to work in collaboration with a rich network of past and present students is “icing on the cake”. In 2019, I worked with four current, and at least eight former students, many of them recent graduates of UC. Another wonderful aspect of this University is the network of amateur- really avocational- fossil collectors/ paleontologists, afforded by our association with America’s longest-standing amateur group. The Cincinnati Dry Dredgers were founded in 1942 by the late, great Professor Kenneth Caster of UC’s Geology Department and are still one of the strongest such groups in the World. I am particularly grateful for the on-going support of the Dry Dredgers and their associates (who wish to remain anonymous) for our student researchers, which has made possible even an extra student assistantship within our department. Some of these non-professionals are even partners in stratigraphic/paleontological research, as in the good old days of the “Cincinnati School”. In particular, Kyle Hartshorn, a graduate of UC’s Engineering School and software engineer, who writes and beautifully illustrates a monthly column on paleontology and who, for the past decade has been a brilliant partner and co-author on many local field projects. His work and that of many others was highlighted at the North American Paleontological Congress last June in Riverside, CA (run by former Cincinnati associates Dr. Nigel Hughes and Dr. Mary Droser), where many of our amateurs and Emeritus Professor Dave Meyer (long-time advisor to the Dry Dredgers) gave presentations on the important roles that the amateur community continues to play in paleontology. No amateurs have helped as many UC paleontology-sedimentary geology students, as Steve Felton, who was a remarkable guy with a strong Maine accent, and a trove of information about local fossils and strata, if you could extricate it, between the lines and follow the interesting train of thought. Steve received the Paleontology Society’s Strimple Award (as did current president Jack Kalmeyer, las year). Steve’s passing about a year ago lent a bittersweet aspect to the past year. Together with Dr. Brenda Hunda (Curator Cincinnati Museum) and Cameron Schwalbach (MS UC, 2017,
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now Collections Manager at the Cincinnati Museum), and various Dry Dredgers, I spent considerable time working through Felton’s extensive stratigraphic fossil collections and notes, which were sometimes as cryptic, as his droll and meandering dialogs. I often tried to conjure up his words on some particular obscure locality that he had jotted down on the back of an envelope (“Yes Cahl; that outcrop was down there past the old paint factory; you know the one that burned down; yes, and just past there and turn right at the old BP station.” I loved working with the man and learned a lot from him). I continue to work with three undergraduate students on processing and cataloging this important archive, and intend write a couple of papers co-authored by Felton to bring to light some of his important findings; we are preparing a digital catalog of his many documented fossil horizons and localities. I think Ken Caster would be proud of the continued and productive association with the group he founded. Working with Kyle Hartshorn and a number of past students and colleagues, and Dr. Ben Dattilo, PhD UC, 1994), I am completing a synthesis, summarizing the past two decades of research on the Ordovician of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana that we hope will culminate in a second book on the Cincinnatian through the Cincinnati Museum. A paper published recently in Palaeo-3, presents a fully revised sequence stratigraphy of the upper Katian (Cincinnatian) of the Cincinnati Arch (Brett et al., 2020). This effort also involved substantial fieldwork and some carbon isotope stratigraphy, with Christopher Aucoin (MS, UC, 2014), Kyle, and Cameron, to shore up uncertain aspects of this framework in 2019, especially in the highest beds of the Cincinnatian: Whitewater and
Elkhorn formations. These proved successful in testing new hypotheses about lateral facies changes and correlations. This paper builds on, updates, and revises the long-standing and seminal sequence stratigraphy of UC alumnus Dr. Steve Holland (BS 1985; University of Georgia) and his colleague Dr. Mark Patzkowsky (Penn State). In upcoming research, we will next attempt to extend this framework into the Ohio-Indiana subsurface, Tennessee, and the Mississippi Valley. PhD student Allison Young and I are continuing to work, together with alumnus Dr. Pat McLaughlin (PhD 2006) on correlation and C isotope stratigraphy of the Upper Ordovician Lexington Limestone and Kope Formation of the shallow water Lexington Platform and its transition into dark, shale-rich facies of the “Point Pleasant” and “Utica” formations in the deeper water Sebree Trough north of Cincinnati. In addition, I have been working to complete a couple of projects with Dr. Nathan Marshall (MS UC 2011) and emeritus Professor Barry Maynard and Dr. Tammie Gerke (PhD UC, 1995; Miami University) on sedimentary processes and relative sedimentation rates in carbonate-shale cycles of the Kope Formation. New PhD pre-candidate, Josie Chiarello, together with her SUNY Geneseo undergraduate mentor Dr. Jackie (Wittmer) Malinowski (MS UC 2009) are extending our detailed correlations and evaluating newly recognized biotic immigration events the Upper Ordovician (lower Katian) Lexington and Point Pleasant formations, both westward into the Mississippi Valley near St. Louis, Mo and southward into eastern Tennessee and the Nashville Dome, using a combination of event, gamma ray, chemo-, C-isotope, and sequence stratigraphy. Research on the Upper Ordovician Mohawkian Series of southern Ontario was largely concluded in 2019, with the publication of a paper in Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences with former student Tim Paton (MS, UC, 2017) completely revises the stratigraphy of the lower Trenton Group of Ontario and newly correlates it with successions in the Cincinnati Arch (Paton and Brett, 2019a, b). Tim and I also made comparative studies of hardgrounds (cemented sea floors) spectacularly encrusted by intact fossil communities from the Ordovician in Ontario, Kentucky, and Tennessee; a synthesis paper on the morphology and genesis of the hardgrounds was published in Palaios (Paton et al., 2019). I also continue to work with Dr. James Thomka (PhD UC, 2015, new at SUNY Plattsburgh) on Ordovician and Silurian echinoderms projects based in the Tri-state area. We are preparing to write a chapter on crinoid taphonomy for the new Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. This year a new research program focused on aspects of end Ordovician- earliest Silurian stratigraphic record in Ontario, in conjunction with current PhD student, Cole Farnam. Cole and I, together with Tim Paton, did
fieldwork in the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island in Ontario, to identify important linkages of depositional sequences and bioevents between the Cincinnati Arch and the Ontario platform and Michigan Basin. Pre-
liminary C isotopic studies have identified the Hirnantian isotopic excursion in strata formerly considered to be Silurian. This not only indicates that the well-known Cherokee unconformity probably lies within the Upper Ordovician and marks the sea level lowstand associated with the major phase of very late, but not latest Ordovician. This project will also have important implications for the local pattern of the great Hirnantian extinction and recovery from that event.
On other (older) fronts my New York colleagues and I are (finally) nearing completion of a long-standing project on revision of the New York State Devonian Stratigraphy and Correlation Chart, edited by Dr. Charles Ver Straeten, New York State Geological Survey. Drs. Gordon Baird (Emeritus, SUNY College Fredonia), Dr. Alex Bartholomew (SUNY New Paltz; PhD UC 2006), and Dr. Jay Zambito (Beloit College, PhD UC, 2011) and I have pre-
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Carl Brett Continued pared three manuscripts on stratigraphic terminology, re-description of units and sequence/facies analysis of the Middle Devonian of New York and adjacent regions. I also synthesized some 40 years of work on correlation
and sampling of the Middle Devonian in a 200-page report, which, for the first time, documents and updates this entire succession. These papers will be published as a part of a major volume through Bulletins of American Paleontology through PRI. Our intent is to have the text and charts published in time for the SDS Devonian meeting, we will help to lead, with Dr. D. Jeffrey Over (primary organizer and undergraduate mentor to both Cole and Josie) in Geneseo, New York State, now postponed to the summer of 2021. Gordon Baird and I are also continuing to work with the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) to assemble and fully document our combined collections made over the past four decades, from the Devonian of New York State and elsewhere. As part of this initiative, a wing of a building at PRI is being renovated, in part, to accommodate the several-ton stratigraphic collection. This effort is combined with plans for a digital atlas of Middle Devonian fossils and an extensive database of geographic and
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stratigraphic data based on these collections. This spring, in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, I was suddenly plunged into the world of on-line teaching for my stratigraphy and sedimentary geology/earth history courses. Although this was an inordinate amount of work, it seems to have been effective; among the highest overall grades and many positive and useful comments from the students. I appreciated very much that most students, though struggling themselves, worked hard and remained plugged-in. Overall, the great amount of collaboration (via WebEx), especially with current PhD students, Josie Chiarello and Cole Farnam made me even more appreciative of my interactions with students of all levels through more than four decades. I have learned so much from these students and had many exciting days on outcrops: I plan to continue the adventures.
Photo Captions: 1. Shale Hollow Park, Delaware, Ohio 2-3. Cole Farnam in hollow concretions; Ohio Shale 4-5. Grand Canyon from S Rim. GSA Trip
This past academic year has been a time full of exciting changes, new projects and students. I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. I feel very grateful and humbled to form part of the UC Geology Department, which has become a second home to me. I have kept myself busy working on several research projects on paleoclimate, archeology and paleontology using mollusks as proxies from a variety of geographical locations and depositional settings. I have taught several classes on Historical Geology, Island Environments and Environment and Culture, which gave me the chance to meet and interact many enthusiastic undergraduate students. My first PhD student, Wesley Parker, successfully graduated with a PhD in Geology in the spring of 2020. Wesley worked for the past 5 years on paleoclimate reconstruction over the last two millennia in the subtropics. I was very pleased to hear that Wesley already got an NSF-funded postdoctoral position at McGill University, in Canada, starting in the fall of 2020. Three new graduate students joined my lab group in the fall of 2019. Catherine Nield is a PhD student interested on climate change and proxy development. Ezekiel King Phillips is a PhD student focusing on foraging ecology of mollusks and its relationship to climate change. William (Reed) Sanchez is a master student working on Holocene archeological records in Morocco for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. I feel very fortunate to work with such a great group of inspiring and active students who keep me busy and motivated.
Yurena Yanes
Even though the current situation with COVID-19 has slowed down our research work in the laboratory, my students and me are still working hard in a myriad of research projects. We remain very optimistic and are looking forward to seeing how the coming semesters unfold. Photo Captions: 2019 OVUM meeting (Ohio River Valley Unified Malacologists) hosted at the University of Cincinnati in the fall of 2019. Yanes Lab celebrating Wesley Parker’s PhD defense. From right to left: Reed Sanchez, Zeke King Phillips, Wesley Parker, Yurena Yanes, Catherine Nield.
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Fieldwork on Alaska’s North Slope: A Tale of Bones and Bugs
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In August of 2019, I joined the expedition of my Ph.D. advisor (Dr. Josh Miller) along the Utukok and Coleville Rivers on Alaska’s North Slope almost 200 miles above the arctic circle. We were joined by Matt Cameron, a caribou biologist with the National Park Service. Our goal: survey the concentrations of shed female caribou antlers laying on the calving grounds of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd.
probably the bumpiest landing of my life. Nearly instantly upon leaving the plane and setting foot on the tundra, we were greeted by a blood-sucking welcome committee. I’ve been in Maine during blackfly season and lived in the tropical rainforests of Panamá, but Alaska’s mosquitos were unlike anything I had experienced. Within minutes, any exposed skin was blackened with the insects. For the next two and a half weeks, we spent our days in chest waders and bug shirts. I got so used to the protective gear that I would forget my face was covered and try to eat, or worse yet, spit toothpaste through the bug net. Unless the winds picked up, our only mosquito respite came from out tents. But getting inside without letting in scores of mosquitoes was an act of athletic prowess: first, loosening the shoes, then slightly unzipping the tent door, followed by a quick (though perhaps not graceful) swan dive into safety. Your compatriots, already in the tent, would then race to secure the door and start smashing any invaders who made it through.
Caribou are one of the world’s most incredible terrestrial migrators, traveling thousands of miles each year as they traverse the far north in search of food and safety from predators. During the calving season, the Western Arctic Herd has historically congregated north of the Brooks Range Mountains on a flat expanse of tundra called the Coastal Plain, though observational ecological data is limited. The Western Arctic Herd is hugely important for native subsistence hunters and sport hunters. But as environments shift dramatically across the arctic, wildlife managers are looking to the past to help plan for the future. That’s where Our large cook tent was antlers come in: convenienta haven of bug-free relaxly for paleoecologists, cariation. Between meals and after-dinner card games bou females grow antlers (a (with 24 hours of light, there unique trait among deer). was no circadian rhythm Further, female caribou drop assigning a bedtime), we their antlers within days of were watched the “tundra giving birth. On arctic landnature channel”. The swarms scapes, where the ground is of mosquitoes attracted frozen for most of the year, to us were, themselves, atantlers can persist for thousands of years. Thus, female tracting mosquito predacaribou antlers (which are tors. Through the screen distinctly smaller than male mesh, we watched with glee antlers) can be used to track as mosquito-eating bees caribou calving grounds and snatched our enemies out of shifts through time. Josh has the air and devoured them. used antler surveys to look We even named a particu“ I am very excited to be ready for at the connections between larly heroically ravenous bird take-off! ” historic climate variability (“Spike the Sparrow”) after - Abby Kelly and calving ground location he seemingly gobbled-up for the Porcupine Caribou Herd along the Alaska-Cana~900 mosquitos in a minute. Unfortunately for us, neida border, and this year we were collecting preliminary ther Spike nor the bees really made any noticeable imdata in the Western Arctic. pact on the swarms. From the coastal village of Kotzebue (Alaska), we flew by bush plane over the Brooks Range to our first basecamp along the Utukok River. Though this whole expedition was full of “firsts” for me, the varied modes of transportation consistently rated as the most exciting and that first flight out was exhilarating. We flew low through the Brooks Range, close enough to see the game trails leading through the mountains—apparently the caribou had moved through a couple weeks ago. Our “landing strip” was just a gravely river bar several miles upstream from our intended survey sites. Though the over-sized tundra tires accommodated the cobbles well, it was still
Getting from the landing site to the survey site was an adventure in itself. In this part of the arctic, the tundra is dominated by large grassy tussocks, 2-foot-tall mounds of grass growing out of wet sphagnum moss. Imagine climbing over slightly wobbly and squishy stairs, and then add the choice of either clouds of biting mosquitos or sweaty waders and a head net. Walking across these tussocks is not easy. Although warned by Josh, Matt and I learned this the hard way when, during one antler survey in a particularly tussocky setting, we took almost two hours to walk ¾ of a mile. So naturally, we tried to avoided tundra traversing. Instead, when possible, we
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“The view through the plane’s window as we enter the Brooks Range”
traveled by pack rafts, probably the most marvelous form of arctic transportation. These rafts are oblong inflatable glorified innertubes, equipped with a kayak paddle and seat cushion. We would balance our gear on the front and bob and twirl down the clear water with ease. Even better, the breeze on the water kept the bugs away! Rolling hills of green expanded in all directions from the river, and the banks were dotted with antlers and tufts of shed winter fur from musk ox and caribou. Even in this remote landscape, odd human detritus was present—the hulking wreck of a tundra truck left decades ago following petroleum exploration, a spare fuel tank from a plane, broken runners from a hunting sled rusting into dust. The landscape is what stays with me most from the trip. It is so foreign to be the lone people under an expansive blue sky, the biggest living things for miles in any direction save for the occasional moose, caribou and (thankfully out-of-sight) bear. Yet being there didn’t feel like being transported back in time. For my dissertation I am studying the North Slope ecology of the late Pleistocene, and I have spent hours imagining the far north in a time before humans. Mammoths, bison, horses, musk oxen, and caribou roamed these very spaces. Rather than tundra, much of Alaska may have been a more productive steppe-like environment. Would those rolling hills have been dotted with the “charismatic megafauna” of the ice age, like Africa’s savannahs today? During our surveys, in juxtaposition to all the bones on the ground, we rarely saw a living mammal. Gyrfalcons and jaegers occasionally wheeled overhead, and we saw one terrified bear scrambling for the willow bushes while flying to a site, but generally the landscape was empty save for us and the mosquitos. The one incredible exception occurred in a transition day while we were waiting for transport to our second set of field sites along the Colville River. Since bush planes are limited in their potential landing sites, we were sharing a helicopter with a group of archaeologists working in the Brooks Range. While we were waiting at their basecamp, Matt noticed that one of the distant slopes was starting to darken. As the morning wore on, the dark patch crested the hill
“Bear prints! Note those big claw marks ”
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and flowed down into our valley, slowly resolving into a herd of ~10,000 caribou. From a distance, the caribou appeared to serenely flow over the hills, but up close their movements seemed frantic. Foraging here and there along their ways, the migrants barely stopped moving as they coursed over the hills; a multitude of bodies traveling together on a journey repeated for thousands of years (as our antler collections would suggest). The field season was a broadly valuable opportunity scientifically, but the most impactful experience I took from the trip was a sense of being so small. There I stood, thousands of miles from Cincinnati, dwarfed by thousands of caribou, vast open stretches of tundra, all caught in a period of turbulent environmental change. Floating down the Utukok river was one of the most peaceful, joyful experiences of my life, yet even in the wilderness above the arctic circle, human trash littered the landscape. Caribou have survived on the North Slope through ice ages and warming cycles, yet what happens now when the tundra is literally melting (and even burning!) in unprecedented warm weather? The far north is both an illustration of the hardiness of earth’s ecosystems but also our global vulnerability to rapid change. I feel so fortunate to have had this experience. While the North Slope of Alaska seems far away from my office in Cincinnati, as geologists we understand how interconnected earth systems are. For me, this trip underscored the importance of celebrating, studying, and working to promote the resilience of our planet’s biosphere.
“The blood-sucking horde tries to penetrate Josh’s bug armor”
“Our hero, Spike, about to vanquish one of The Enemy. ”
“Our pile of gear ready to be loaded onto the bush plane in Kotzebue. Josh (left) and Matt (right) are talking to one of our pilots”
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Krista Smilek Things in the Department of Geology have certainly been interesting this past term. Since a large part of my job involves interacting with students, it has been a big change to only be able to “see” students via email or video chat. I miss not only the students, but the faculty and staff as well. I look forward to the day when we are all back together in the department. Kudos to the Geology faculty, staff, and students for modifying their lives to fit this new, though thankfully temporary, norm and to alumni and friends of the department for support during this very unique time. Back before our worlds were turned upside-down, I had the pleasure of attending the GSA meeting in Phoenix in September. I had a wonderful time at the meeting, as usual, and also took advantage of being in Arizona to look around a bit. I had never been to Arizona and neither had my husband, Dan or my eight-year-old daughter, Samantha so we decided to go on a family vacation around the northern part of the state. We visited the Grand Canyon (of course), hiked Lava River Cave, went to Meteor Crater, visited Petrified Forest National Park, spent the day in Sedona (that town was really hard to leave), saw Native American dwellings at Walnut Canyon (the cross-bedding in the Coconino Sandstone there was fabulous, too) and Wupatki National Monuments, and walked along the solidified lava flows at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. I had a delightfully nerdy week learning about the geology of the area and while my husband and daughter had a fun time as well, at one point toward the end of the week my husband pointed out that we had “looked at more than enough rocks.” I look forward to visiting Arizona again and exploring the central and southern parts of the state.
Photo Captions: 1. My daughter and me along the South Kaibab trail at the Grand Canyon 2. Family picture on the hike to Devil’s Bridge in Sedona.
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I want to offer a shout-out to our former student, Eric Baumann (BS ’13), who has taken on the job of doing all the graphic layout for this newsletter. For a number of years Tim Phillips held the position of graphic artist here in the department and was responsible for the annual newsletter layout. But then Tim retired and moved to Florida and his position was not refilled. Eric, who now works at the Cincinnati branch of the EPA, agreed to take on the task in his spare time. Eric is currently working on metals released and aerosolized when printing with 3D printers. His group is looking for what people are inhaling and the effect it could have on their health. All of us here in the department were extremely delighted when our colleague, Dr. Craig Dietsch, agreed to step forward and occupy the department Headship position following the departure of Lewis Owen to his new position at North Carolina State University. Craig is doing a marvelous job, and I’m sure many of you are on his mailing list for his weekly Friday Field Notes.
tion. Jeff is involved in the study of altered volcanic ash beds that occur in the Cretaceous Cenomanian-Turonian boundary interval through the US Western Interior Basin over tens of thousands of square kilometers. He is using strontium, oxygen, and hydrogen isotopic ratios determined by mass spectrometry, as well as trace elemental analysis from X-ray fluorescence, zircon dating and mineralogical characterization utilizing X-ray diffraction in order to properly characterize the volcanic sources. Most of his work involves samples from 30 unique ash beds collected throughout the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming and Montana. These beds represent 30 individual ash fall events that occurred during the Cretaceous from 105 – 70 Ma, spanning the Mid-Cretaceous magmatic culmination and the transition into shallow-subduction Laramide tectonics. He has published two papers from his research and several more are in the works.
Warren Huff
I continue as an associate editor for two journals, Clays and Clay Minerals and American Mineralogist. Although the word “clay” refers to fine-grained layer silicates, the world of nanoparticle science has emerged to the point that the journal is essentially about fine-particle science. I also continue as secretary of the Clay Minerals Society. Since the Society office is in Chantilly, VA, just outside of Washington, DC, we hold our annual executive committee meeting there at the beginning of each year to discuss plans and procedures for the coming months. Those meetings are a particular pleasure for me because part of my early childhood was spent in that area. What was a rural community back then is all suburban housing now, but I can still remember how things looked in those days.
Hannon, J.S., Huff, W.D., Sturmer, D.M., 2019, Geochemical relationships in Cretaceous bentonites as inferred from linear discriminant analysis: Sedimentary Geology v. 390 p. 1–14. Hannon, J.S. and Huff, W.D., 2019, Assessing the preservation and provenance of Sr and Nd isotopic signatures in cretaceous volcanic ash beds: LITHOS 346–347, p. 1-16.
It’s been a particular pleasure to work with Jeff Hannon as he approaches the final stage of his doctoral disserta-
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out in the field this summer or fall. His M.S. work will be submitted for publication this summer. Adam presented his work at GSA last fall and he is scheduled to present a poster at AAPG in Houston. Nick Ferry is wrapping up his M.S. project looking at the Blue Diamond mega-landslide outside of Las Vegas. For this project, Nick analyzed the landslide deposit by evaluating various facies within the deposit and completing clast counts throughout the deposit, all to better understand the landslide source and emplacement mechanism. He will defend this summer. Nick presented research at the AEG, GSA, and Eastern Section AAPG meetings last fall. Nick has been awarded the Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship at the University of Kansas to complete a PhD working with Mike Blum. He has also been selected to participate in the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy’s Mickey Leland Fellowship Program this summer. Ultimately, Nick wants to work in the oil and gas sector.
Dan Sturmer Well…what a year it has been! Working from home for the last 6 weeks have been interesting and challenging. Our daughters Ivy (3) and Eliana (1) have adjusted to being home all the time well, though they miss going to school. Eliana took her first steps a few days ago. We are really enjoying taking walks when the weather is good. Sarah has continued to work as a lab manager for Dr. Amy Townsend-Small and teach online courses in the Environmental Studies program UC. Adam Jones successfully defended his M.S. thesis last summer, and he decided to stay for a Ph.D. He will be working on late Mississippian sandstones in Nevada. He will be assessing sedimentology and U-Pb detrital zircon geochronology of the Scotty Wash quartzite in Nevada as a potential termination for the continent-wide drainage systems that developed in Mississippian time. We will continue collaborating with Tandis Bidgoli at the University of Missouri. Adam will hopefully get
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I had two publications that were released in the last year and three that are in press, including studies on the Cretaceous bentonites (Hannon et al., 2019, Sedimentary Geology), physical modeling of deep-water depositional processes (Koo et al., 2020, Sedimentology), carbon isotope stratigraphy of the Ely-Bird Spring basin (Sturmer et al., in press, SEPM special volume), structural geology of the Buck Mountain area in central Nevada (Whitmore et al., in press, SEPM special volume), and paleogeographic reconstruction of Nevada throughout the late Paleozoic (Sturmer and Cashman, in press, Geological Society of Nevada 2020 symposium volume). Several other manuscripts are in revision, re-
view, or preparation. In addition to the student projects mentioned above, I have several projects that I will be working on in the coming year. The large-scale landslide project is coming along. I am working on adding known landslides to the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology MyHazards web application, and the USGS landslide database later this year. In March, I went to the University of Nevada, Reno to deploy Refraction Microtremor (ReMi) passive source seismic lines using 3 component nodes borrowed from the PASSCAL consortium. This was done with the help of John Louie and Chris Kratt at UNR and their Applied Geophysics class. ReMi is a method to assess 1D and 2D shear wave velocity profiles. The goal here was to assess whether buried landslide deposits can be differentiated using ReMi. Unfortunately, the planned deployment overlapped with research being shut down, so we were only able to get a portion of one line (instead of two full lines) deployed. Hopefully, we will be able to borrow the nodes sometime in fall or next spring to collect the rest of the data. Another potential upcoming project is with Wanda Taylor (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) and Tandis Bidgoli (University of Missouri) to
Structural Geology and Surface Processes/Freshman Seminar. As you may know, we moved those classes fully online after Spring Break. It has definitely been interesting trying to teach structure labs online! Next fall I am scheduled to teach our first Applied Geophysics course. We are also planning to have the Career Days event in September, though we don’t know yet if it will be able to hold Career Days in person. If you are interested in participating, please let me know! Events for this summer are still fairly up in the air. I will be writing several manuscripts and grant proposals. I probably won’t be at AAPG this year (if it is not cancelled), but I plan to return to AAPG for ACE 2021. If you are planning to go to AAPG this year, please go visit Adam Jones at his poster. I am planning to participate in GSA this fall, which is scheduled to be held in Montreal. I am looking forward to a very interesting year. I hope all of you are well and please feel free to reach out! Photo Credit: 1. Dan Sturmer at the Washoe Valley ReMi deployment. 2. Node deployment in Washoe Valley, NV. 3. Nick Ferry evaluating the Blue Diamond Landslide deposit.
use multiple techniques to evaluate the processes that led to the demise of the Sevier hinterland plateau in southeastern Nevada and southwestern Utah. The XRF lab has been busy this year! In the summer and fall I worked on several projects with Mark Krekeler and Claire McLeod from Miami University. In fall I ran roman glass samples from Israel to assess silica sourcing for a PhD student in the Classics department. I am also working with many graduate students, including Jeff Hannon, Andrew Gangidine, Emily Simpson, Cole Farnam, and Tom Uhl. Look for more exciting work to come out of the XRF lab in the next year. Last fall I taught Careers in the Geosciences as a hybrid course for the first time (it was about 80% online). Beginning next fall this class will be moved earlier in the curriculum and will be fully online. This spring I taught
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Reza Soltanian Last year was a great year for me here at UC. My group started to grow, I received some research funding, published several peer-reviewed papers, and organized conference sessions among other things including the birth of my second son William Kamran Soltanian.
Dr. Corey Wallace from the Ohio State University and Dr. Faranak Behzadi from UC’s Environmental Engineering department joined my group. Tyler McGarr joined my group as a master student. In addition, Wanli Ren from Jilin University also joined my group as a visiting student. A significant portion of my research last year focused on enhancing the CV Theis Groundwater Observatory (CVTGO) with the goal that it will be a nationally-recognized test site for monitoring and modeling processes related to groundwater and surface water interactions. Corey Wallace and I spent a lot of time at the CVTGO to plan and install new sensors. Tyler McGarr also helped a lot with installing the sensors. The installation of new sensors allows for measurement of a wide range of ecosystem parameters in the river (e.g. stage and temperature), above the ground (e.g. vegetation activity and weather information such as wind speed and rainfall), and in groundwater (e.g. time-lapse electrical resistivity and redox sensing). My PhD student (Reza Ershadnia) continued working on his exciting project on understanding methane fate
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and transport in groundwater systems through developing complex multiphase and multicomponent flow and reactive transport models. Reza began his PhD research in 2019 and has already published two meeting abstracts. He just submitted his first manuscript produced from his work.
My group was also awarded a small grant from Confluence (i.e. a water technology cluster in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana) through Water Research Consortium Grant Challenge Award. In this project we collaborate with the Universal Technology Corporation (an Ohio-based provider of scientific and engineering services to space and defense customers, including US Air Force) to install Micro-GC (gas chromatograph) system in two of our monitoring wells at the CVTGO. The project will provide preliminary data on how groundwater and river water interactions affect the fate of 1, 4-dioxane (an emerging contaminant that has been detected in a number of public drinking water supply wells in southwest Ohio) and several volatile organic compounds.
My collaborative project with Subsurface Insights and Los Alamos National Laboratory was funded by the DOE Office of Science. In this 2-year project we will develop a hydrogeophysical monitoring and decision support system which would enable users without modeling knowledge to use advanced computing codes for environmental and energy applications. This work is motivated by the fact that there is an ever-increasing demand on subsurface resources for water, agriculture, and energy. Faranak Behzadi is currently working on this exciting project.
Photo Captions: 1. Geology PhD student Reza Ershadnia, NSF postdoctoral fellow Corey Wallace, and Reza Soltanian in GSA annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, September 2019. 2. NSF postdoctoral fellow Corey Wallace, and Reza Soltanian at the CV Theis Groundwater Observatory. 3. Geology master student Tyler McGarr soldering wires at the CV Theis Groundwater Observatory. 4. NSF postdoctoral fellow Corey Walace and geology master students Tyler McGarr and Katrina Jackson working on installing electrical resistivity electrodes at the CV Theis Groundwater Observatory. 5. NSF postdoctoral fellow Corey Walace installing redox probes at the CV Theis Groundwater Observatiry. 6. Geology PhD student Reza Ershadnia, NSF postdoctoral fellow Corey Wallace demonstrating basic concept of groundwater flow to UC Science Day visitors in August 2019.
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Farewell The Geology Department held a going-away farewell party for Lewis on August 22nd at Dusmesh Indian restaurant on Ludlow Ave. There was a buffet style dinner and the opportunity to say a few words about Lewis.
“Check out Mike Ragsdale!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTGSOUD4UTE&f eature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3KbPlnYqS41k5eqAd2Kw tX2We1FK7ct_KWWYSCpq34-cLXN3CD6ZEVNJk
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“Check out David Nash!” As he does each year, David has again posted a video of his 2019-2020 office window view at: https://bit.ly/2zvCGpd
Department of Geology Graduates 2019 -2020 Congratulations to all the Graduates of the UC Geology Department! Undergraduate Students
Graduate Students
Fall 2019
Fall 2019
Jacob Ashley, BA
Jeanette Arkle, PhD
Taylor Meister, BS Steven Ransom, BS
Spring 2020
Jessica Bowling, BS
Andrew Gangidine, PhD Wesley Parker, PhD
Spring 2020 Joel Dublanko, BA
Summer 2020
Joshua Bellamy, BS
Nathaniel Bootes, MS
Shaun Burgdorf, BS
Nicholas Ferry, MS
Davidson Garway, BS
Vinothan Sivapalan, MS
Rachel Lurz, BS
Kristen Schlanser, PhD
Jenna Trout, BS
Jeffrey Hannon, PhD
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In 1999, the University of Cincinnati athletics department lost one of its most loyal, dedicated staff members, Jean Stephens. Two years later, to recognize and promote the qualities Stephens exemplified in her 15 years of service, the Jean Stephens Memorial Award was instituted to recognize a Bearcats student-athlete for their high integrity, high ethical standards, respect for all persons and commitment to both Bearcats athletics and the University of Cincinnati.
Previous Winners 2018-19: Loretta Blaut, Women’s Track & Field 2017-18: Gary Clark, Men’s Basketball // Ana Owens, Women’s Basketball 2016-17: Lauren Bellinger, Women’s Tennis 2015-16: Pedro Diaz, Men’s Soccer 2014-15: Meg Gulmi, Women’s Lacrosse 2013-14: Kayla Cook, Women’s Basketball 2012-13: Shanay Portis, Women’s Basketball 2011-12: Oliver Book, Men’s Cross Country, Track & Field 2010-11: Shelley Bellman, Women’s Basketball // John Goebel, Football 2009-10: Stiofan Cunningham, Men’s Swimming & Diving 2008-09: Alex Ramsey, Men’s Track & Field 2007-08: Jenny Custer, Volleyball 2006-07: Jake Richards, Men’s Track & Field // Sarah Bires, Women’s Golf 2005-06: Mark Muscenti, Baseball 2004-05: Karen Berling, Women’s Cross Country, Track & Field 2003-04: Christopher Smith, Men’s Track & Field 2002-03: Laura Schnieder, Women’s Rowing 2001-02: Tamara Douglas, Women’s Basketball 2000-01: Nicole Luse, Women’s Soccer
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How to Give If giving by check, donors should make their check payable to The University of Cincinnati Foundation and in the memo portion of the check, write-in “Research Fund in Geology” or “Geology Alumni Graduate Fund”. Please send your donation to The University of Cincinnati Foundation PO Box 19970 Cincinnati, OH 45219-0970 If online, donors should go to https://foundation.uc.edu/give Once on the website, under the “Select Area to Support”, click on the “UC Colleges/Units” button. There will be two drop downs. On the left drop down, they will select “College of Arts & Sciences”. On the right drop down, they will scroll down and select “Research Fund in Geology” or “Geology Alumni Graduate Fund”. University of Cincinnati | 31
2019 GSA Alumni Reception Kristen Schlanser
Ron Parsley
Jay Zambito
Merrill Essex
Mario Caputo
Carl Brett
Kyle Hartshorn
Chris Atchison
James Thomka
William Dalness
Rick Fluegeman
Chris Berg
Tim Paton
Craig Dietsch
Ana Londono
Cole Farnam
Sean Cornell
Andrea Corpolongo
Ian Castro
Ashley Manning-Berg
Richard Martin
Krista Smilek
Justin Wilkins
Jeff Hannon
Rachel Bosch
Phil Novack-Gottshall
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WAYNE A. PRYOR-MARY LOU MOTL FELLOWSHIP & PAUL EDWIN POTTER SCHOLARSHIP (Administered by the Greater Cincinnati Foundation) AND…WHAT PROFESSORS PRYOR & POTTER HAVE MEANT TO U.C. GEOLOGY The Wayne A. Pryor-Mary Lou Motl Fellowship was established by Professor Wayne A. Pryor (1928–1997) and his wife Mary Lou Motl shortly before his death from prostate cancer. The two most recent full-tuition awards were made in April 2020, providing financial support for two students. In the past 23 years, the Pryor-Motl Fellowship, which receives generous donations from many loyal U.C. Geology alums, has awarded more than $245,000 toward tuition for 37 undergraduates majoring in Geology at U.C. Wayne Pryor was born in Bellevue, PA, and reared in Sewickley, near Pittsburgh. He left home as a teenager and worked in New York City, then served briefly in the U.S. Merchant Marine and, still underage, joined the U.S. Army and served with the occupation forces in Germany. Returning home after World War II, he received a B.S. from Centenary College (LA) in 1952 and continued his academic foundation with a M.S. degree from the University of Illinois-Urbana and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, awarded in 1959. While completing his academic program, Wayne worked for the Illinois State Geological Survey as an associate geologist/hydrologist, where he first met and collaborated with Paul Potter on several projects. It was at the Illinois Survey where Wayne began a long pathway focusing on subsurface geological studies using electrical and mechanical logs, particularly as they related to the energy industry. After completing his Ph.D., Wayne worked
several years for Gulf Oil Corporation in Pittsburgh. Wayne joined the University of Cincinnati Geology faculty in 1965. During his 32 years at U.C., Wayne was honored to be appointed as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Heidelberg and later as the Crosby Visiting Professor of Economic Geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wayne’s broad array of geological interests, remarkable accomplishments, and international recognition included work in sedimentation and stratigraphy, clastic petrography, petroleum geology, ichnology, and shale research. During his U.C. career, he taught 21 different courses and was the advisor for 19 Ph.D. dissertations and 53 Master’s theses. Wayne influenced and inspired many hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students, who learned from him through his broad accomplishments as a geologist and educator. Thousands of other budding geologists used one or more of his books and research articles in a variety of peer-reviewed journals as part of their geological training. His research included vanguard studies on all three classes of sedimentary rocks: carbonates, sandstones, and shales. He was a pioneer in ichnology, the study of trace fossils, and published many benchmark works showing the broad biologic influence on sedimentation. Never one to turn down an adventure, in the late 1970’s, Wayne accepted an invitation from the Pakistani government to consult about oil and gas resources in the remotest parts of Pakistan. His small group of explorers trekked through Rudyard Kipling’s rugged territory, their band protected by armed local tribesmen. Over the years, he consulted with 26 clients and companies.
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36 | The Upper Crust Wayne was an accomplished, dynamic, and engaging lecturer on a broad range of geological topics and his courses were “must-have’s” for undergraduate majors and graduate students pursuing research in sedimentology/stratigraphy, paleontology/paleoecology, ichnology, geochemistry, and geomorphology. His students remember his unfailing emphasis on field trips and field investigations as a crucial component of one’s ongoing education as a geologist. His field trips to west Texas each Autumn and to Florida Bay in the Spring are often cited by U.C. Geology alums as cornerstones of their academic training and high points of their college years. Local cultures and cuisines were explored and endured; lifelong friendships were built at campsites. Appropriately, Wayne was posthumously named as the first awardee of the U.C. Geology Department’s Teaching Excellence Award. His excellence as a teacher was further recognized by the AAPG, for whom he traveled widely and delivered many programs as a Distinguished Lecturer in 1982. Wayne, a Certified Petroleum Geologist and long-time active member of the AAPG and SEPM, provided a key link between the U.C. Geology Department and the private sector, notably the energy industry. During the North American “energy boom” period of the 1970’s and first half of the 1980’s, his many connections in the energy industry made U.C. a “must-stop” for recruiters representing major multinational energy companies and large U.S. independent companies. His collaborative efforts with Dr. Paul Potter in obtaining industry support were instrumental in the establishment of the H.N. Fisk Sedimentology Laboratory at the Department in the mid-1970’s. Many of Wayne’s students went on to have productive and distinguished careers in the energy industry, state geological surveys, while several others followed his lead as outstanding professors in academia. Wayne’s time at U.C. also included a long stint as Director of Graduate Studies. This important role gave him the opportunity to connect with, and mentor, a great number of graduate students across all geological sub-disciplines. He was a true champion of the dedicated student and was especially supportive of students whose potential was still unrealized, but ready to bloom. This commitment ultimately led to his creation of the Pryor-Motl Fellowship with wife Mary Lou Motl, whose 40-year career was in science and educa-
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tional publishing. This scholarship was designed to benefit motivated, hard-working students who needed to work while in school and accordingly may not have had academic results fully reflecting their potential. The Pryor-Motl Fellowship annually provides financial support for one or more U.C. undergraduate majors. The award typically provides a full year’s tuition support to at least one student; additional lesser awards offsetting tuition are often made. Eligible students must formally apply for the award through the U.C. Office of Student Financial Aid, and their required input includes a short statement of their geological goals and background. The Paul Edwin Potter Scholarship was founded in 2014 by U.C. Geology alumni/alumna William B. Harrison, Linda A. Harrison, and Wayne Goodman to honor Professor Potter (1925– ) for his career as an outstanding geological researcher and educator. It provides a stipend to an outstanding U.C. Geology graduate student who is pursuing scholarly research in the so-called “Potter Disciplines,” including sedimentation/stratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy, stratigraphic geophysics, sedimentary petrology/petrography, basin analysis, and paleoecology. The fund made its first award in 2015 and has made a total of six awards through 2020. The awardee is determined by nominations from select U.C. Geology faculty in the “Potter Disciplines” and subsequent dialogue with the scholarship representatives. Paul’s early roots were in southeastern Ohio. He was born in Springfield, OH, and his family soon thereafter moved to Cincinnati, where his father operated a shoe store until Paul was age 9. His father then bought a farm east of Cincinnati and Paul attended a 2-room rural school with no indoor plumbing and a cow pasture for a playground from Grades 5-8 while assisting his father on the family farm. His high school education took place in an adjacent rural county with a graduating class of 27. After a stint in the U.S. Army starting in 1944, Paul entered the University of Chicago, where he was exposed to an array of post-war “think tank” scientists across a broad spectrum while pursuing his craft of sedimentary geology. He received his Ph.D. from Chicago in 1952 and then worked, with Francis Pettijohn at Johns Hopkins University, as a post-doctorate scholar. Concurrent with and after his time at
University of Cincinnati | 37 Chicago, he served for 9 years at the Illinois State Geological Survey at Champaign-Urbana, focusing on scholarly applied research in coal resources, Pleistocene geology, sandstone petrology and sand body geometry, and subsurface mapping using electrical/mechanical well logs. The latter exposed Paul to the energy industry and formed the life-long foundation of Paul’s interest and expertise in that industry. While at the Illinois Survey, he and Wayne A. Pryor connected for the first time and collaborated on several highly regarded research papers on Illinois geology that also served on a broader scale to advance concepts in sedimentology. During his time with the Illinois Survey, its close and ongoing association with the University of Illinois allowed Paul to complete a M.S. in Statistics and broaden his scientific interests and curiosity in other areas as well. In 1961, Paul joined the faculty at Indiana University, where his interests broadened from his long-time expertise in clastic (and carbonate) geology into megatopics, including cratonic geological evolution, the impact of “big rivers” on basin and continental evolution, and global geology. While at Indiana, he collaborated with Pettijohn and Raymond Siever on the iconic Sand and Sandstone and with Alan Horowitz on Introductory Petrography of Fossils. Ten years later, in large part due to the considerable influence of former Illinois Survey colleague Wayne A. Pryor, Paul came to Cincinnati as a member of the U.C. Geology faculty. The powerful sedimentation/ stratigraphy tandem of Potter and Pryor, soon thereafter joined by the outstanding geochemist J. Barry Maynard, made sedimentary geology a cornerstone of the internationally renowned U.C. Geology Department for several decades. This recognized expertise was further abetted by the strength of Paleontology at U.C. under the leadership of Kenneth E. Caster, geomorphology and landforms as led by 1970’s Department Chair Larry Lattman, and noted clay mineralogist Warren Huff. This talented array of sedimentary geologists ultimately led in 1976 to the Department receiving a large U.S. Department of Energy/ Geological Survey grant of $465,000, then a very sizeable sum, over a 4-year period to study the Devonian/Mississippian black shales of the Appalachian Basin. Paul was the nominal administrator of the project and its budget and supervised several graduate students, while Professors Pryor and Maynard had many additional graduate student advisees at work on this ambitious project.
Ultimately, the grant yielded 15 papers, 8 theses, and the Potter-Pryor-Maynard collaborative book, Sedimentology of Shale. In many ways, this work set the standard for the successful economic exploitation of gas shale reserves, and eventually crude oil reserves, in many U.S. sedimentary basins in the current century—an economic gamechanger for U.S. energy independence in recent years. It all started at the University of Cincinnati! Paul retired from the Department (officially, at least) in 1992, and spent most of the next seven years teaching and conducting research in Brazil. He returned to Cincinnati in 2001 and has continued to pursue scholarly research on his life-long geological topics ever since. During this period, Paul also published two works on the urban geology of the Greater Cincinnati region. This has led Paul into a broader connection with urban planners, economic/civil geologists, and civil engineers all committed to helping the Cincinnati region grow in better harmony with its challenging near-surface geology. (And foster a broader public understanding and appreciation for its interesting, and complex geology.) Paul’s distinguished and broad-reaching geological career has brought him considerable recognition. In 1992, he received the Pettijohn Award for Excellence in Sedimentology from SEPM. That was followed by: the Mather Medal for outstanding contributions to Ohio geology by the Ohio Geological Survey in 1999; the AAPG Eastern Section’s Outstanding Educator Award in 2007; the John T. Galey Memorial Award for excellence in geology to the benefit of society in 2007; and the Sidney Powers Medal from the AAPG in 2016. The stories of Wayne A. Pryor and Paul Edwin Potter are integral to understanding the ongoing growth and excellence of the Department of Geology at the University of Cincinnati. In a Department that has been and is punctuated through its history with iconic giants of our science, these two great educators and researchers provided new benchmark foundations for the Department that sustained and grew it in the latter part of the twentieth century and further established areas of focus and excellence that continue to proliferate with today’s outstanding faculty and students.
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Ping-fan Chen (MS ’57) 1914 - 2018
in remembrance
Morgantown, WVa Dr. Ping-fan Chen, scientist, entrepreneur, author, and poet, died on Saturday, May 19, 2018. A centenarian, he lived a few days past his 104th birthday. He received his PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute after completing his Master’s degree at the University of Cincinnati. He excelled at creating complex maps, designing his house, and planning projects. He was just as comfortable with a blueprint as a geological map. He traveled throughout the state conducting geological surveys and used the data to produce detailed and multi-layered West Virginia geological maps. After a lifetime producing works of precision, he opened the Red Rose Chinese Restaurant with his wife and retired to enjoy carefree days where time on an ocean liner was not measured. He mentored countless WVU students, co-founded the WVU Chinese Student Association and the Association of Chinese Professionals in West Virginia, and organized the Sister City partnership for Morgantown and a city in Taiwan. Ping-fan loved holidays. He sought out international students, inviting them to his home to spend holidays with his family, where the sound of music and laughter, and tickling of ivory keys mingled with the ping and pong of balls bouncing on the ping-pong table, soon chased away holiday blues. He enjoyed nature, gardening, visiting parks, and playing hacky sack in his youth. A prolific writer, he authored scientific articles, books, and poetry. He dabbled in the arts as a musician and draftsman. He took pride in his extensive collection of classical and modern music, laboriously compiling playlists by hand. Long before “thinking outside of the box” became a household phrase, he did it. Whipping out his white shirts and a brush, he created brush drawings on the fabric for Halloween, much to the delight and wonder of his children. Ping-fan instilled his work ethic and love of music and writing in his children. He lived a life well-lived through hardships and pain. Inspired by the beauty of the world, his words touch our hearts. He is survived by his second wife, Esther Fu-Mei; daughters, Jane, June, and Julia; and grandchildren, Michael, Matthew, and April. In addition to his parents, he is preceded in death by his first wife, Tsing-fang Chen, his brother, sister, and nephew.
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William John Witt Jr. “Bill” and “Odad” (BS ’50, MS ‘51) Born in Detroit, Michigan on November 2nd, 1926 Departed on January 8th, 2020 and resided in Littleton, Colorado Bill Witt was born in 1926 and raised in Detroit and Cincinnati where his father was a minister in both cities. In 1944 he was drafted by the U.S. Army and while on a troopship crossing the Pacific, the war ended. Bill was then stationed in the Philippines, where he worked in an Army field hospital which was still transporting the injured back to the United States. Following the war, he returned to Cincinnati, where he attended the University of Cincinnati and receive both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Geology. Immediately following graduation in 1950, he married Eileen Meckstroth from St. Marys, Ohio, and the two of them honeymooned as they drove to Texas where he began his first job with Chevron. His oil career with Chevron moved Bill and his family to many cities in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. In 1971 he was moved to Perth, Western Australia where he enjoyed a three-year term with Western Australia Petroleum until 1974. He and Eileen then moved to Littleton, Colorado where he eventually retired. Bill and Eileen were active in the First Presbyterian Church of Littleton. They were avid travelers across the United States on back roads enjoying the scenery along the way. They were also extensive world travelers visiting 6 continents. What a team they were! Bill is survived by his wife Eileen of 69 years, his son Bill of Winterthur, Switzerland, Lorie Loar (Michael) of Littleton, Colorado, Nan Waugh (Jim) also of Littleton, and Ellen Filley (Thomas) of Deer Park, Illinois. He was dearly loved by his grandchildren Jesse Loar (Sierra), Tim Loar (Jen), Matthew Loar (Taylor), Abigail Loar, Eleni Filley and Nathaniel Filley, and 4 great grandchildren. He was a selfless, loving and generous man. All who met him remarked on his kindness. Dad always had a wanderlust and taught us all to appreciate the world around us. We would take an extensive road trip each summer back to visit the grandparents in Ohio, in our station wagon, with daily picnics on the tailgate. One of our fondest memories when we were taking any trip, was Dad explaining the geology of the rock formations we were passing. Our favorite line crossing bridges was “Is there quicksand in that river?” Bill was a very beloved patriarch of the family, known for his wisdom, his humor, his love of music (Johnny Cash and John Philip Sousa) but most of all for his unconditional love. His legacy is his family, and he is greatly missed. Memorial service at First Presbyterian Church of Littleton with burial at Fort Logan cemetery, with date to be determined. One of Dad’s favorite sayings was “As you ramble on your journey, whate’er be your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole”. Memorial services were held Saturday, February 15th at 11am, at First Presbyterian Church of Littleton.
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Alumni
Alumni News 40 | The Upper Crust
Ed O’Donnell (MS ’63, PhD ’67) NRC is using me for a Facebook item for earth science next week. The picture of the left was taken in the 1990s at the low-level radioactive waste disposal site at Hanford, Washington and the one on the right was taken outside my cubicle last week. You can see the red roof of MacDonalds on the Pike at the lower left part of the window.
Phil Clymer I hope you can appreciate the attached picturemy very first “window”. i made a sun catcher of a frog, decided to put him on a lillypad, he needed a companion (i didnt have any more green glass), then started adding flowers and background. then squared it offto fit in a window in my apartment. this was 1974. a couple years later i grew ashamed of the work quality and was going to salvagethe solder (i estimate there are four to five pounds, should be no more than two). but a friend liked it and traded an oak coffee tablefor it. the window hangs today in his kitchen in Middletown.ya dun good on the newsletter. i would be surprised if it didn’t measure up to your usual high standards. i hope you produce manymore!
Linda Fulton (PhD ’77) In 2017, I sold the Fulton family farm in Brown Co., OH where I had spent the past 15 years and relocated to Holland, MI where I am retired from everything except feeding the cats! Holland is home to Hope College, my alma mater, and it seemed a logical choice. Not too big, not too small. And it’s much like where I was raised in western NY near another Great Lake. And I’ve been surrounded by Dutchmen all my life (most of my ancestors, wore wooden shoes), so what’s different??!! I do continue to fill in on the organ bench, especially in the summer months. I taught a one-session class on hymnody from Gregorian chant to present day and also did an organ recital at Grace Episcopal Church using music based on hymns. And I affiliate with a “lifetime learning” group at the college, taking several classes each year. Once in a while, I get lucky and they offer a geology class. Although I miss driving past all those Upper Ordovician exposures, geology frequently gets in the news here because of all the shoreline erosion due to high lake levels. If anyone feels the need to view tulips, my door is always open the first 10 days in May! BYOWS (bring your own wooden shoes!)
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Wayne Goodman (MS ’76) A little photo to start the new week. We are in Orange Beach, AL for a brief escape from northern Michigan Winter. Last night, we met fellow 70’s M.S. alum Dr. Richard Martin, and wife Denise, for dinner. I’m on the left with my wife, Marty, behind me; Richard is on the right with wife, Denise, behind him. Richard has recently retired from the faculty at Georgia Southern University and lives near Savannah. And I’m still hanging around in the work force, working on oil & gas projects and carbon sequestration applied research in northern Michigan. (Yes, that’s a Western Michigan University shirt I’m wearing…after sending 2 children there for 3 degrees, I feel like I kind of own a little of the place! And my younger son works there as Associate A.D., so I occasionally get bling at Christmas time!)
Igor Effimoff (PhD ’72) Igor Effimoff has over 45 years of upstream technical and managerial experience internationally and domestically. He is founder and principal of E&P Consulting, a firm providing geological, geophysical and engineering consulting services to evaluate investment and business development opportunities for various international and domestic clients. Previously, Dr. Effimoff served as Chief Operating Officer for Teton Petroleum Company from 2002 through 2005 and President of Pennzoil Caspian Corporation from 1996 through 2001. He served on the board of Harvest Natural Resources, Inc. and TruStar Petroleum Corporation, as well as several nonprofit boards. He started his career with Shell Oil. Dr. Effimoff has a doctorate degree in geology from the University of Cincinnati and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program. He is a fellow of the American Association of Petroleum Geology, Geological Society of America, Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Houston Geological Society.
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Gary Taylor (MS ‘74) Gary and his musical partner T.C. Smythe have a new website at: Bit.ly/2STE1gC http://www.smytheandtaylor.com/?fbclid=IwAR 2Ky1CuSQDd2WnpfU6JjLdIP-dWYKDzRO2lPp1xpG2BeMk23mdYqrSwBqU
Tim Carter (BS ’74) As many of you know, Tim has made a lifetime career with his Ask The Builder website (https://www.askthebuilder.com). In addition to an online general store, Ask the Builder has a free weekly newsletter that offers building and home improvement information you can trust from award-winning builder and nationally syndicated columnist Tim Carter. Each week you’ll receive: •
DIY Tips
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tool reviews
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project guides
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before & afters
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discounts, giveaways & much, much more.
Victor Van Beuren (BS ’76, MS ’80) American Diabetes Association® Answers the Question “What Can I Eat?” PRESS RELEASE PR Newswire Oct. 28, 2019, 07:35 AM ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- In conjunction with a session at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo (FNCE), the American Diabetes Association (ADA) is releasing a new resource to help people living with diabetes answer one of the most common and challenging questions: ‘What can I eat?’ The new resource is free and available to download here. Experience the interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8443152-american-diabetes-association-what-can-i-eat/ “As a dietitian working with patients living with type 2 diabetes, I saw firsthand how critical the food we eat is in managing diabetes,” said Shamera Robinson, MPH, RDN, Associate Director of Nutrition for the ADA. “Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion and misinformation in the news about nutrition. That’s why the ADA is excited to offer a new resource to help people living with diabetes understand the science behind nutrition, so they can make better choices and truly thrive.” The new resource will help consumers better understand the information provided in the ADA’s recent nutrition consensus report, which provides clinicians with evidence-based guidance about individualizing nutrition therapy for adults with diabetes and prediabetes. The nutrition consensus report was published in the May 2019 issue of Diabetes Care. Robinson will present an overview of the major topics covered in the report in a session at the FNCE. Also, at FNCE, ADA’s Director of Book Operations, Victor Van Beuren, MS, will accept honorary membership from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, an honor traditionally received by health care professionals. Van Beuren will be recognized for his 30 years devoted to scholarly communications and nearly 15 years dedicated to translating basic nutritional research into practical publications for the nutrition and diabetes clinical communities. The ADA is committed to providing the more than 30 million Americans living with diabetes and the 84 million with prediabetes with the tools they need to thrive, whether they’re in the kitchen or the clinic. To learn more visit diabetes.org/nutrition. About the American Diabetes Association Every day more than 4,000 people are newly diagnosed with diabetes in America. Nearly 115 million Americans have diabetes or prediabetes and are striving to manage their lives while living with the disease. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is the nation’s leading voluntary health organization fighting to bend the curve on the diabetes epidemic and help people living with diabetes thrive. For nearly 80 years the ADA has been driving discovery and research to treat, manage and prevent diabetes, while working relentlessly for a cure. We help people with diabetes thrive by fighting for their rights and developing programs, advocacy and education designed to improve their quality of life. Diabetes has brought us together. What we do next will make us Connected for Life. To learn more or to get involved, visit us at diabetes.org or call 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383). Join the fight with us on Facebook (American Diabetes Association), Twitter (@AmDiabetesAssn) and Instagram (@AmDiabetesAssn). Contact: Alex Day, 703-253-4843 press@diabetes.org View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/american-diabetes-association-answersthe-question-what-can-i-eat-300945915.html SOURCE American Diabetes Association
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Almério França, (Ph.D. ’87) I am still a visiting professor at the Federal University in Curitiba, Southern Brazil, after retiring from Petrobras. We have four beautiful granddaughters, as you can see in the picture: Clara, 8; Cecilia, 7; Julia 5, and Marina 2. Last December, I joined a group of friends in a trip to the Patagonian Argentina. We drove 13.000 km (a little over eight thousand miles) in five cars. We crossed the Uruguay River entering in Northwest Argentina, then west to the Andes. We followed the Eastern side of the Cordillera, all the way to El Chalten, a beautiful small town at the Andes Foothill with nice glaciers. We drove through beautiful landscapes, vineyards, tasting one of best Malbec wines in the world, near the city of Mendoza. Not talking about the best meat in the world – Chorizo – how the Argentinian proudly call their beef. Geology is fascinating as well. For my friends in the USA, driving along the Andes is somehow a combination of Wyoming, California and the Arizona Desert, without cactus. Enjoy the pictures. In the way back home we drove North along the Atlantic Coast – such a great contrast with the Andean Region. Editor’s Note: Almério has a hobby of making videos out of his travels. Here is one he made of a family trip with friends to Argentina. shorturl.at/uV029
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Beth LeaMond (BS ’84) Since my early retirement from the Federal Government (USGS and EPA) in 2015 I have been working as a community composting coordinator and in the composting business. During 2019 I worked for the State of Virginia Department of Corrections implementing on-site food waste composting at their 18 prison farms. I started “Onsite Compost Consulting” in 2018
Robert Gaines Bob has an endowed chair at Pomona, is Dean of the College, and was recently made interim VP. I’ll draw your attention to the “interim” part. My aim is to be back in the classroom in 1 year.
(https://onsitecompost.com). Richard Schultz (PhD ’91) Richard has created a National Parks Story Map that has been accepted into the Esri Living Atlas collection. These are a series of 3D video guides to America’s National Parks: http://bit. ly/2k0x1QO
Jeffrey Spencer (BS ’80) Linda and I just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. Daughters are doing well. The oldest is in healthcare in Raleigh, NC and the youngest is a mechanical engineer in Houston. Working the western Anadarko Basin with some old friends. Bored with retirement, we formed a partnership, Sentinel Petroleum. Working mostly from home with this COVID mess. I generally go into our office once a week or so, when I need a paper log or well file that I don’t have digitally. I also do a little expert witness work for a law firm, researching and writing oil field history reports. Editor’s note: The following T-shirt image was contributed by Jeff and on our departmental history website there is a link to the history of Old Tech at: https://bit.ly/31oIuwF Kenan Cetin (PhD ’92) Thank you much for the updates, Warren. And thank you for the link to Upper Crust. Super happy for you that you remain active in the department and teaching. Here is a summary of our last couple of years. After moving to West Virginia in 2011 for my wife’s residency training, and subsequently upon her gradation moving to Newport News, Virginia for about 20 months, we came back to Pittsburgh, PA, in March 2017. We did the move upon a job offer to my wife at the University of Pittsburgh (where she learned English back in 2001-2002) where she now is a psychiatrist at the Student Health Center. When we were moving to Pittsburgh, WV Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), where I had been working since October 2014 in an environmental remediation specialist capacity, has moved my position to Wheeling, WV, from Charleston. Since then, DEP went thru an internal re-organization and I have been moved and become the acting RCRA CA program manager nearly two years now. I find my involvement in remediation work satisfying and rewarding despite the demoralizing anti-science atmosphere being pushed upon the environmental regulatory community. I figure these times will pass if not soon, it will be soon enough. My daughter, Kezban, has started high school this Monday at Pittsburgh CAPA (Creative And Performing Arts) High School, and I see another high paced year in my horizon with lots of shuttling around from one rehearsal or performance to another. She had to do her first 8 grades in 4 different school in 3 states, and so going to another school for high school should not be much of a challenge for her. However, after all the tiresome moving we had to do we intend to stay put until at least she finishes high school.
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Stephen Reidel (MS ’72) & Tod Roush (BS ’74) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IjLO9ABKYU I was poking around – watching a mountain dulcimer YouTube when I saw this in the margin. Very enjoyable lecturer. I was pleasantly surprised when the presenter – Nick Zentner of Central Washington University – gave credit for much of the original work to one Steve Riedel. He didn’t mention that Steve is a UC alum. Steve was getting his MS when I was an undergrad. We were pretty good acquaintances. He was mapping the cryptoexplosion area at serpent mound. Here’s a young Steve at the republic iron mine on a Koucky two-week field trip. !971 I believe.
Katherine Glover (MS ’04) Dr. Glover wrote about her Kankakee Paleo project at https://bit. ly/2s48LkP Gokce Ustunisik (PhD ’09) Gokce and Roger Nielsen were married on April 17, 2020 in Ringwood, NJ.
Nate & Jessica Utrup
As a postdoc, I find that a single day’s to-do list often visits past, present and future work. There is the project you are hired for and new skills to learn, repackaging dissertation work for publication, and conceiving new research for grant proposals and job talks. This time last year, I was immersed in my first grant proposal to the National Geographic Society Early Career Program. This program supports new investigations, with a high proportion of the budget devoted to fieldwork expenses. Changes to the program in the past few years have included expanded funding, and there is now no age restriction. Complementary programs, particularly in Geography Education, can support your outreach and external capacity ideas. Once funded, there are extensive resources available within the NGS community, including an online community, webinars, events for Explorers to showcase their work and network, affording valuable networking and research opportunities. It was November when I received the good news that I’d been funded and saw these words on the attached contract for the first time: “Principal Investigator”.
Alex Rogaski (BS ’17) I am happy to announce that I have accepted a position as a Staff Geologist with Avocet Environmental. In the next few weeks I’ll be packing up my car and making the move out to Orange County, CA to begin my career. I’ll miss the seasons and the cheap gas, but my National Park pass will be getting ample use!
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Alexander Bartholomew (MS ’02, PhD ’06) Annabeth and I were on the CBS news up in Albany tonight for Tartan Day!! I am playing a jig on my practice chanter in C!! SARATOGA SPRINGS NY (WRGB) - Of course Easter and Passover come later this week, but there’s another holiday that’s celebrated today that many don’t know about. It’s National Tartan Day. Not sure what it is? Let me tell you about it. That Gaelic tune should certainly tip you off as to what heritage we’re celebrating. Tartan Day as it’s called, celebrates North American Scottish Heritage. And April 6th was chosen for a very specific reason. Don’t believe me? Let’s ask Local Scottish American Duncan Crary. “That is the date of the Scottish Declaration of Independence 700 years ago today.” says Crary. Typically, Tartan day is celebrated in big crowds. A gathering and celebration of all things Scottish... “Normally there would be lots of cheering with wee drams of scotch. Bagpipe playing. Kaylee dancing.” But this year, crowds, for obvious reasons are a no no. Like everything else, this year, Tartan Day, which by the way... before I go any further... “Tartan” is that Scottish plaid pattern we all know so well... Will be celebrated virtually. “People are recording messages and sending them into toga heritage in Saratoga Springs. They are the makers of the Toga Heritage Tartan.” And those Tartans, on full display in Saratoga Springs.... all you have to do is just have to look up. Oh, and did you know one of the Capital Regions biggest landmarks was built by Scotts? “The new state Capital was adorned by many stone carvers from Scotland. Especially Aberdeen.” Oh, and for all you fans of the movie Braveheart- Is William Wallace real? Yes! But the movie is said to have embellished his life quite a bit!
Natashia Metz (MS ‘13) Natashia continues to work in Cincinnati as an Environmental Consultant for APTIM Environmental. This September, 2020, marks her 8th year with the company. Her main line of work involves regulatory review for various clients. She is currently pursuing a second Master’s degree in Environmental Project Management in order to further her career. In her free time, she participates as a Council Member for her neighborhood, The Village of Greenhills, and volunteers with the Girl Scouts as a Mentor for their annual Leadership Conference. Natashia and her husband, Bryan, recently welcomed a daughter, Lucille Breanne Metz, into their lives on February 28, 2020. Here’s hoping she follows in Natashia’s footsteps and loves rocks and minerals!
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Alex Borell (BS ‘12)
Zachary Altman (BS ’15) Zach and Kacy were married June 22, 2019.
Brian Snodgrass (BA ‘13) I’m still working for United Rentals as a Sales Representation. I’m renting and selling equipment to construction companies.
I’ve recently taken a position with the Railroad Commission of Texas in the oil and gas division. Here I am dealing mainly with state compliance with operators on plugging inactive wells and enforcement of delinquency on this as well as failure to follow state rules on environmental policies with regards to oil field operations. I will be assisting the state in accounting for work and materials done by operators, that are funded by the state of Texas to plug these wells. Thank you everyone who was able to make it to the wedding! Kimber and I really appreciate everyone taking the time out of their schedules to join us on our big day, especially on such short notice that we gave all of you. It really means a lot to both of us. Special thanks to Rich Neilson for doing such an awesome job with our wedding ceremony. We both know how much time and effort you put into it and it was truly an awesome ceremony. And also special thanks to Gamze for being our photographer and taking amazing photos we can’t wait to see! Love you guys! Thanks!
Danielle Bullock (BS ‘16) I am currently the Safety Environmental Coordinator for Lykins Oil Company in Milford, Ohio. Here, I do all the compliance for the company, whether it is working with insurance companies, the EPA, OSHA, PUCO, or ODOT. I work with my team to make sure any environmental cleanup we might have to do is done correctly and as safe for the environment as possible. I also work with our drivers to make sure they are all trained on the environmental, hazmat, and FMSCA regulations and know how to safely and effectively complete their job every day. In my free time I am a lacrosse coach at Seven Hills and a volunteer photographer with Louie’s Legacy, which is a great animal rescue in the Cincinnati area.
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Sara Oser (BS ’10) “You’re not supposed to be up there” said a tentative but admonishing voice as I balanced a notebook in one hand and clung to a near-vertical sandstone wall with the other. Peering behind me I saw that the voice belonged to a little girl, standing on the second story overlook of the Carnegie Quarry exhibit hall at Dinosaur National Monument. “It’s OK, I’m a paleontologist” I replied, before explaining in more detail about my purpose there as a summer paleontology intern. The quarry face is one of America’s most spectacular fossil sites, and consists of a sheer rock face filled with dinosaur bones. A few weeks prior, Dr. Dan Chure had tasked me with designing and implementing a research plan to examine each accessible bone for fossil insect traces. I spent three months scaling the quarry face with a team of two others as we collected data on over 1,400 bones. This is one of the more spectacular jobs I’ve held since graduating from UC a decade ago, and I’ve been incredibly fortunate for the opportunities I’ve had to explore and research natural history. After graduating, I went to Montana State University where I received a Masters in Earth Sciences under Dr. Frankie Jackson. My thesis focused on taphonomy and dinosaur egg clutches from the Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of Montana. I then decided to stay in grad school forever and received a second Masters in Museum and Field Studies from the University of Colorado, where I studied Cretaceous eggshell from the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah with Dr. Karen Chin. During grad school I presented research at conferences in China and Portugal, hiked mountains, kayaked lakes, and jumped out of a plane or three. I also spent a summer interning in the paleo prep lab at Badlands National Park, living in one of the most iconic landscapes on earth where fossil mammals practically crawl out of the hillsides. Grad school taught me to love the chase and to always keep learning. Meanwhile, interning for the National Park Service introduced me to the sense of camaraderie and public service shared among the rangers and staff. This past summer I had the opportunity to (quite literally) broaden my horizons by joining the United States Navy information warfare community as a METOC (Meteorology/Oceanography) officer. My first stop was Officer Candidate School in Newport RI, where I spent the summer with Marine Corps drill instructors and Navy RDCs who tested all of my limits and taught me how to push past them. After graduation I commissioned as an Ensign and I’m currently stationed at Fleet Weather Center in Norfolk, VA. It’s been quite an adjustment, not only with transitioning out of civilian life but also with the paradigm shift from being a research scientist to becoming a military scientist. It’s been really satisfying to learn an entirely new field of earth science within an operational framework; not just studying meteorology but learning how to apply it towards the safety of the fleet. I’m still in training now, but I’m really excited to embark on this new adventure.
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D e pa rtm e n t of Ge ol o g y 0 2 0 C 2 O L LO Q U 9 1 0 IUM 2
Dr. Maria (Masha) Prokopenko D E PA R T M E N T
OF
G E O LO G Y
P OMONA C OL LEGE
“REDOX STATE OF THE MARINE NITROGEN CYCLE AND EVOLUTION OF EUKARYOTES DURING LATE NEOPROTEROZOIC”
The oxidation state of fixed nitrogen (N), a major limiting nutrient for marine primary production, is dictated by the ambient environmental redox conditions: in an anoxic ocean, inorganic N would be stable as ammonium, while in the presence of dissolved O2 nitrate is stable. We have developed a method of determining nitrate content in carbonates, Carbonate Associated Nitrate (CAN), as a proxy for the oceanic nitrate content. To investigate changes in the global O2 and marine nitrogen cycles through time, concentrations of CAN have been evaluated in both limestones and dolostones from multiple localities around the world, spanning the ages from ~3 Ga through modern. The highest CAN values were found as several distinct peaks in the late Neoproterozoic carbonates from two locations: Caborca in Sonora, Mexico, within a stratigraphic sequence deposited during the Ediacaran, and within the Rainstorm Member of the Johnnie Formation in the Death Valley, California, likely deposited at the onset of the Ediacaran Shuram δ13C excursion. The δ15N of nitrate in these rocks is consistent with oxidation of the pre-existing oceanic ammonium pool, perhaps driven by increasing pO2 during this time. Transformation of fixed N from the reduced to the oxidized form (from ammonium to nitrate) may have caused a major restructuring of the global ocean N cycle, potentially contributing to the diversification of the eukaryotic phytoplankton, which were forced to adapt to nitrate instead of ammonium as the major nitrogen source.
Fr i d ay, O c tob e r 4 th , 2 0 1 9 3 : 3 0 P M , Room 300, Braunstein Hall
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Snacks and Refreshments: Corcoran Served at 4:30 in Rug Room The (513 UpperGeology/Physics Crust Bldg.)
Elizabeth N. Orr (PhD ’19) Lizzie Orr- Activities since flying the Rm 616 coop In June 2019 I began a postdoctoral researcher position at the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam, Germany. I am currently part of the StRATEGy international research group, which addresses sourcesink questions under the broad theme of: ‘Surface processes, Tectonics and Georesources: The Andean foreland basin of Argentina.’ The aim of my project is to use various geochronometric techniques to test for orbitally-driven climate forcing in the Toro Basin fan record of the southern Central Andes in NW Argentina. I headed out into the field in August 2019 to begin data collection, and I am now currently processing the samples (slowly!). I have recently bought a new touring bike and so have been exploring the mountains and forests of Germany in my free time. Despite my best efforts, my German has remained consistently poor. This has led to several baking disasters where baking powder has been confused with laundry starch… It was really nice to see several past and present members of the Geology department at AGU last year! This will hopefully become a regular occurrence. I think back to my time at UC very fondly!
Stanley Schweinfurth (BS ’52, MS ’58) For the class of 1952 Hi Stalwart members of the Class of 1952, Stanley “Sam” Schweinfurth sends you greetings. I am raising my hand now because no one of you had anything to say last year in this prestigious publication. Most of us of the Class of “52, went on to get Masters-of Sciences Degrees in Geology. There was a big demand from industry for new graduates and we were a highly successful group of new employees. I suppose, most of us, still kicking rocks around, are long time retirees and enjoying basking in our successes. I am living in a retirement community called “Homewood at Frederick” in Frederick, Maryland and have been for nearly eight years. I’m here because my son, Steven, moved here and My wife, Kitty, and I followed him to Frederick when she became too ill to climb the stairs in our town house in Montgomery Village, Maryland. That was to an apartment in Frederick in October 2009. Kitty passed away the next March leaving me in the apartment by myself. Then in November 2012 Homewood invited me to move into a two-bedroom apartment in an Independent Living building here in Frederick. I continue to do a bit of geologizing locally and trying to educate my fellow retirees in the wonders of geology. However, my main interest these days is in an extensive lending library we maintain here at Homewood. I am Chairman of the Library Committee. So far, my health is good and, although now activities are severely curtailed, there usually are many kinds of entertainment to be had here. So, I hope all of you out there are also doing well and busy living to the fullest. Please, if you are so inclined, get in touch. I can be reached at stanley442@comcast.net , or 301 943 7425. Cheers, Sam
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Alex Reis (BS ’15) Alex is on a JOIDES research vessel (https://joidesresolution.org) heading from Fiji to off the coast of New Zealand in the South Pacific then to Tahiti. They are taking core earth samples from 4K below the ocean floor to study global warming over millions of years. The JOIDES Resolution is a research vessel that drills into the ocean floor to collect and study core samples. Scientists use data from the vessel to better understand climate change, geology and Earth’s history. It is a part of the International Ocean Discovery Program and is funded by the National Science Foundation.
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Annie Lagomarcino (MS ’11) Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile Determination of magnitude of Covid19 infection in Saint George school Doctors Juan Pablo Torres and Miguel O’Ryan. The study, which covers a sample of 1,400 participants using self-administered rapid diagnostic kits, has been underway since the second half of April and the first results are expected in late May. The research is led by pediatricians and infectologists Miguel O’Ryan, academic of the Microbiology and Mycology Program of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, and Juan Pablo Torres, of the Department of Pediatrics and Children’s Surgery East of the Faculty of Medicine ; It has the participation of the team of the Innovation Directorate of the campus and of outstanding academics both from this and from other institutions, and the financing of the University of Chile itself, as well as the disinterested support of individuals for its implementation. As explained by Dr. O’Ryan, who is a full professor at the campus and a full member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine, this research mainly aims to know what role children and adolescents belonging to the Saint George school play in the infection and transmission of the outbreak. that affected them as a community in early March of this year . “We are aware of the infection of approximately 50 people during the outbreak, mostly adults; From the data that we collect, we will be able to know with greater precision what is the magnitude of the infection in that complete community, including schoolchildren distributed by age groups, teachers, administrative and auxiliary personnel . In this way, depending on the positivity rates that we observe in these different groups, it will be possible to infer the role that they may have played, especially children, in the transmission of the infection. Knowing what proportion of the community was infected will also help to design the back-to-school strategy in the coming months. ” The project considers the informed consent and active collaboration of the entire community of the educational establishment, with the approval and support of its management team. For this, a sample of 1,400 participants was selected , of which 1,000 are students from preschool to middle school chosen at random from a total of 2,700 schoolchildren, and the remaining 400 include all the teachers and administrative and auxiliary staff of the school .”To make this sample, first of all, children whose parents expressed their intention not to be part of this study were excluded, as well as teachers or administrators who did not want it, and who in total turned out to be very few cases”, reports Dr. Torres, director of Innovation at the Faculty of Medicine. Easy self-application kit To all of them, as of last May 4, an envelope containing the kit for the personalized sample collection and processing has been sent to their homes, the resulting information must enter a computer platform (RedCap) created especially for that end. “The envelope received by the students’ guardians, as well as the teachers and school staff, in addition to the kit contains an infographic in which, using a QR code or following an internet address on their respective smartphones, they enter a page in which in the first place digitally consent their participation in the study. Then, they answer a brief survey of specific symptoms for the clinical manifestations of coronavirus infection and know step by step how to apply the kit, for which an explanatory video can be seen; thus, once they take the sample from a drop of blood and put it in the device, they report the results on the same platform, for which they also attach a photograph of the kit already used. And, if they have doubts, they can immediately contact the members of the research team ”, adds the academic. By verifying the movement on the RedCap virtual platform, researchers can review in real time the information uploaded by the school administrator or staff, as well as the results produced by the kit, which are subsequently interpreted by the team and validated by the panel. of infectologists from the study. “We will know how many effective contagions there were in the outbreak, with and without symptoms, and we will know, in this outbreak, what percentage of the school population was actually infected . Our hypothesis is that this number is going to be low, and that the role of children in the transmission of this infection is probably less relevant than that initially thought, but that it is greater in the age group consisting of adults. associated with the school community, so for example it would be necessary to establish measures for their management when restarting face-to-face classes, ”says Dr. O’Ryan. To this, Dr. Torres adds that the participants have successfully overcome the challenge posed by the self-application of the kit, so they have had a successful response rate of over 96%, which supports the validity of this data
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collection system. Commissioning in record time To carry out this study, Doctors O’Ryan and Torres worked against time since they conceived the project, when Saint George College reported the first five cases in mid-March. They made an initial proposal to ministerial and community authorities, but finally it was the University of Chile that committed the basic resources for its implementation during the first half of April. Thus, two days later, the researchers had the first official telemeeting with the directing authorities of the educational establishment, who expressed their agreement and support for the initiative. From then on they established the work team, the research methodology and the size of the sample to be studied; They committed the initial availability of 3,000 kits –certified by the European Economic Community and by the Brazilian and Chinese health authorities-, presented the project to the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine on April 24 and obtained their approval a week later, “with the additional difficulty that represented that all its implementation would be done remotely, such as taking the informed consent of the participants, digitally ”, explains Dr. O’Ryan. Immediately afterwards, the sending of informative emails to the school community began, followed by the distribution process of the packages - which were personally made by members of the research team - which was carried out thanks to the free cooperation provided. the Uber Flash messaging system, and which they could follow by georeferencing the addresses of the participants. Thus, on May 4 they had the first enrolled entering their data and the results of their kit on the RedCap platform; “We have had an excellent response from the participants, and we believe that we will be able to have the results in a very short time, which we will share with the school, whose authorities and community highlight the excellent willingness and interest in contributing to the best knowledge of the behavior of the coronavirus in our country, which shows its commitment to society. But we will also present our conclusions to a high-impact scientific magazine, where we expect a good reception, given how relevant we believe this information will be for the international community, “concludes the academic. The research team is made up of nurses Verónica de la Maza, Bárbara Torres and Anne Lagomarcino, from the Innovation Department of the Faculty of Medicine; the infectologist Cecilia Piñera, from the Exequiel González Cortés Hospital and an academic from the Department of South Pediatrics of our institution; Daniela Simián, research nurse at Clínica Las Condes, and epidemiologists María Teresa Valenzuela and Cintia Urquidi, who are currently members of the Universidad de Los Andes.
U sing G round -B ased P hotogrammetry for F ine S cale G ully M orphology S tudies : S ome E xamples By: Rajarshi Dasgupta While high-resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) datasets have been captured through space-borne imagery to map badland landscapes at fine scales, these remain essentially top-down views of the surface and cannot adequately capture the micro-morphological features (soil pipes, hollows, earth pillars and rills) which form along the gully flanks and walls. For imaging these, thus, a ground-based, horizontal looking sensor is required, with further post-processing abilities of identifying individual aspects, stitching the images together using common points, generation of sparse and dense point clouds and final creation of meshes with overlain textures to generate viable three-dimensional representations of such surface forms. This paper uses ground-based close-range digital photography along with the structure-from-motion technique to generate high-resolution DEMs and three-dimension (3D) representations of gullies and badland landscapes, which cannot otherwise be captured even by very high-resolution imagery or available satellite-imaged elevation datasets, since these systems lack the required view angle. The structure-from-motion technique has been a recent advancement in this domain, and its mechanism and workflow are explained in detail in this paper. Examples of its implementation in gully mapping are then showcased from the Gangani badland tract in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal. Repeated photographic surveys reveal the nature of morphological changes in the micro gully features, documenting erosional activity at fine scales. The imaging and rendering of these micro features also allow information like the relative lithological hardness to be superimposed on them for a better comparative analysis. Read More at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-23243-6_12
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Timothy Agnello (BS ’82, MS ’02) Lately my time has been absorbed in putting together a distance learning program for the two courses I teach at Walnut Hills, physical science and earth science. My classroom became a time capsule on March 12th since we had to leave the school and I am now working at home. I have been forced out of my comfort zone and I am using an online “blackboard” program called Schoology to communicate with the students. After an initial ten days of ~5000 + mouse clicks per day I just about have it down. Nothing beats learning a new program than repeated mouse clicks and talking to colleagues. All this reminds me of my master’s thesis work using GIS with Dr. Nash and Dr. Lowell. Perseverance, repeated mouse clicks, and frequent backing up of your work rule in the virtual world.
Mouse clicks have been the norm for me ever since Dr. Potter with trademark bowtie walked into PNC Bank where I was working at the time in the real estate trust department. Dr. Potter repeatedly throughout a five-year period (1994-1999) would remind me that “I would always be welcomed back”. Eventually I became convinced and met with Nash & Lowell regarding completing my MS. Dr. Potter’s perseverance afforded me a rare opportunity to persevere. I have to say I got a major amount of positive mileage out of completing my masters. Dr.’s Nash, Lowell, and Maynard gave me the monthly meetings (structure is good) and encouragement I needed to finish. Although I remember well during my thesis work sitting on a log mid-slope practicing social distancing before its time and thinking “what the heck am I doing on this hillside”? Now, this questioning about…”what the heck am I doing?” has cropped up in other places in my life and looking back the struggle in hindsight has almost always been worth it considering the gains made.
Dr. Nash really got me thinking during my thesis work. One day I went in to see David and Tom and I stated that if I was charging an hourly rate for what I am doing for the city it would be about 40k. David replied (implying you fool) your report/work would be worth over 100k. Money isn’t everything though, I have many memories of the journey itself like the time I got disoriented on the hillside traversing a jumble of multiple slide features with Dr. Lowell. I had to cover my tracks, so I just summarized for him that the hillside is one big coalescing mass of sliding material. It turns out that this pretty much summarizes the western side of the Mill Creek Valley in Price Hill within my thesis area. I have since extrapolated this finding out to the surrounding tristate backed up by sporadic ground truthing. As most of you know nothing beats actually walking the landscape. Probably most broad hillsides in the vicinity of Great Cincinnati including northern Kentucky and south eastern Indiana have failed although in most cases the landslide features are smoothed over and difficult to recognize. I would go so far as to say broad slope failure from top to bottom of the slope is difficult to recognize short of installing piezometers. I discovered during my thesis work that it’s a safer bet to assume that the slope has failed and then try to prove that it hasn’t.
Backing up that line of thinking, the USGS came here in 1980 and trenched the hill from bottom to top or is it safer to trench from top to bottom (?) and found a slip surface from top to bottom. The USGS’s suggested that possibly most if not all Greater Cincinnati hillsides probably exhibit this deep failure surface. Going back to my thesis and a little history, Greater Cincinnati was deforested by 1850, leading to many shallow slides. You can reason it out but many shallow slides overloading the slope can coalesce into one large deep-seated slide. What triggered it all, you could say gravity, but human activity sped the process up. Also the railroad company cut the hillslope in the early 1900’s below Mt St Joes, not just any old cut, but a massive one. Guess what? The largest landslides have been triggered by humans (including engineered projects) in the tristate. Go figure. A fifteen-foot-high steam shovel cut one thousand feet across the base. What happened, you ask? The ground rose up 10-15 feet at the base of the slope over a two-week period. Straight up. There was no mention of this but there must have been a corresponding drop in the topography upslope. Of course we had to confirm this, by constructing a present-day east side high-end housing project (300-400k/unit) adjacent to the cut bank of the Ohio River and located near the base of a broad colluvial slope. The houses were engineered for movement. Low and behold structures are being distorted and roadway/sidewalks are disheveled. I of course don’t know all the background here but as is often the case in the tristate real estate changes hands with little awareness of the risk.
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My real estate business/knowledge nicely supported my thesis work in that housing foundations, old roadway embankments keyed me in and led me to examine the historical development record. That reminds me of the engineering firm that came to Cincinnati and assessed the hillsides in the 1980’s, Sowers and Dalrymple. Astute bunch of engineers and geologists as shown by the fine print on their landslide hazard map with the fine print disclaimer that said their assessment was “subject to the time…prior to human activity”. My real estate background also took me down another path with Barry Maynard and we had a nice collaboration in educating the real estate community and hence indirectly the public on the tristate landslide hazard. Later, this opened the door to a grant project with the State of Indiana where I led an awareness campaign across the state through the local Board of Realtors. The grant addressed high hazard private dam awareness and the poor condition they are in. Unfortunately my message got replaced with an online course. However, an online course does not have the same impact as I was modifying the presentations to the local terrain/reservoirs and the online course was highly generalized.
On another note, I have served as trustee and advisor as an engineering geologist for the Hillside Trust (http:// hillsidetrust.org) for past 15 years and just recently relinquished this position becoming a consultant for the trust. Thanks, David Nash, for putting me on to this. The Hillside Trust serves as institutional memory bank (repository) and resource on past land use and the landslide hazard across the tristate. This is a good thing because when the hillsides become vegetated and years roll by all we see is that beautiful river view property. Of note, the Hillside Trust started with the insight of a geologist (Richard Durrell). Examination of the tristate historical records combined with the observation of remnants of failed attempts to develop our slopes suggest that human activity over the past 200 years has played a significant role in reshaping our second growth forested hillsides. From my myopic perspective the Anthropocene started about 200 years ago.
As of today I am working in earth science finishing up plate tectonics (a revolution in earth science up there with E=mc2, at least that is what I tell the students) and physical science we are working on the history of discovery of something we cannot directly observe (atom). The Greeks gave us this idea that you can get down to one piece of something or an atom. Our knowledge stopped there until about 100 years ago. Now, I tell the students never before has humanity had an outline of our world and universe like we do today from the micro to the macro. For some reason that reminds me of cell phones. I suggest to my students to leave one ear bud out of their ear and not to stare at their screen while crossing roads. So teaching is good, I enjoy it.
I tell my students some long-winded science stories for some reason they are always on the edge of their seats. I specifically refer to humans as a geomorphic agent and relate how we are modifying our landscape like never before. Regarding deforestation I tell them don’t look to the Amazon, because it happened right here in the early 1800’s along with elimination of two beaver ponds in the Mill Creek valley. Not to mention the 1930’s development of the Union Terminal project leading to 200+ acres on average infilled 16 feet. I still tell my students the story Dr. Wayne Pryor told about clay flocculating in the Mississippi delta as you go from a higher energy stream to the lower energy environment. And further that the clays are 1000’s of feet thick and that if you dropped a bowling ball over the side of a boat into the Mississippi delta that it would sink through the mud for 100’s of years!
On another note marriage is good (wife Giovanna) and my daughter attends Walnut Hills as a 7th grader and is doing well. Occasionally, I still go out and walk the hillsides as a consultant to look at some ones supposed problem (e.g. sink hole-usually due to failure of pipe, cut bank erosion, slump, differential settlement). Usually the cut bank is not such a good place to build but I discovered Terrace Park has some nice imbricated gravel (uniform in size) protecting the cut bank, which functions almost as well as rock. Which reminds me, why did they build the Theodore Berry Park on the cut bank side of the river and not understand erosion = landslide? My students are well aware of this. So I think. Best regards and please say hi all in the department. Tim Agnello
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Department of Geology Endowments 2019 -2020 Thank You All for Your for Contributions to the UC Geology Department’s Continued Excellence! Sunderman H C Scholarship Fund for Graduate Student Teaching Award
Fenneman Nevin H Fund Long Eleanor T Fund
Wyckoff Bernadine H/J Walter Fund
for Support Students in Earth Sciences who might not be able to obtain a college education at the BS, MS, PhD level
Geology Alumni Graduate Fellows Fund Rieveschl Dr Geo Jr Geo Lecture Series Fund
Jenks William F Fund
for Support Annual Rieveschl Lecture Series
Durrell Richard H And Lucille Fund
for Support Student Travel and Research Opportunities
for Support Student and Faculty research
Lattman Larry & Hanna Endowment Fund
for Support Research by Faculty in the Department of Geology
Klekamp Thomas C Student Travel Fund Mark & Connie Fisher Fund
for Greatest Needs to the Department of Geology
Bucher Walter Fund
Hoholick-Potter International Field Travel Fund
Coates Houston Fund
Mr. John & Mrs. Helen Thaeler Career 101 Fund
for General Department Use
Larsen Leonard Fund
for Support of Instructional Field Trips
for Support of Annual Career Days Seminar
William & Elizabeth Hall Geology Fund
for General Support of the Department of Geology
Rich John L Fund
Paul E Potter Endowed Professor Geology Fund
for Support Faculty and Students in Geomorphology, Photogeology or Structural Geology
for Support Future Hiring of Endowed Professor of Geology
Meyer Dr Willis Geology Library Fund
John L Carter Endowed Graduate Fellowship Fund
for Support of Geology Library, Curatorial Services Acquisitions and Maintenance and Equipment
Student Sedimentology Research Fund
for Graduate Fellowships
Department Of Geology Undergrad Travel Fund for Travel for Undergraduates
Meyer Willis G Fellowship Fund
Geology Research Fund for General Support
for Graduate Fellowships
for Labs within the Department of Geology
Rawlinson George And Frances Fund
Myles Redder Memorial Scholarship Fund
Caster Kenneth E Fund Green James A Fund
for Support Equipment and Supplies
Student Field Experience Fund for Scholarships in Geology
Cook Walter & Kathryn H School Fund
for Annual Scholarship in Memory of Myles Redder
Fracking Research Equipment Fund for Support Fracking Research
Fracking Project Fund
for Support Fracking Research
Basin Dynamics Fund for Support for Position in Basin Dynamics
Warren D Huff Fund for Research in Geology
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Department of Geology University of Cincinnati PO Box 210013 Cincinnati, OH 45221-0013
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