News of the Profession

ASBOG 2022 Annual Meeting and Fall COE Workshop Recap

William Godwin, AEG Past President

he Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG) held their 2022 annual meeting in Wilmington, North Carolina in late October. Thirty-two state boards were represented as were several at-large members including AEG liaison Bill Godwin and several other AEG members. The fiveday event included a business meeting, an all-day field trip, two days of Council of Examiners (COE) workshops, and a Task Analysis workshop.

The COE workshops featured almost fifty subject-matter experts (SME) assembled to evaluate past and future Fundamentals of Geology (FG) and Practice of Geology (PG) examinations. The 2022 Task Analysis Survey (TAS) was wrapped up during the meeting. The TAS is designed to identify the tasks most commonly performed by geologic professionals and the underlying knowledge needed to perform these tasks. One highlighted discussion by attendees was the anticipation of the first Computer-Based-Testing (CBT) administrations of both examinations scheduled for the Spring of 2023.

Another meeting highlight was the presentation of two service awards. The Charles R. Sherman Award for meritorious service and mentoring was given to Dennis LaPoint. Former AEG President Bob Tepel received the James Hutton Lifetime Service Award in recognition of his service leading to the significant advancement of the profession of geology. Bob has attended forty COE workshops and has contributed to licensure support to AEG throughout his career.

Arguably the best experience of the meeting was the field trip. Attendees visited the Castle Hayne quarry operated by Martin Marietta to observe exposures of Eocene-age limestones and biomicrites. Also exposed was a conglomerate of the K-T boundary (only the Paleocene section was missing in the quarry wall), which attendees were allowed to sample. Following a catered lunch on the retired battleship USS North Carolina, moored across the Cape Fear River from downtown Wilmington, the group visited a nearly completed reverse osmosis (RO) treatment facility of the Brunswick Regional Water and Sewer (H2GO). Wrapping up

Tthe day was a most enjoyable visit to Kure Beach on a spit of land just north of Cape Fear. The visit was timed to take advantage of low tide, which exposed the only known outcrop of rock on the North Carolina coastline (see photo). This outcrop is part of the Cape Fear Coquina, a cemented Pleistocene deposit that technically is referred to as a sandy pelecypod biosparrudite.

Field trip attendees on the beach at Kure Beach Coquina outcrop with a close-up above