Uppercrust 2013

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Cincinnati, Ohio Permit No. 133

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Letter from the Department Head. . ................................................................................. Page 2 - 3 Faculty & Student News.. ............................................................................................ Pages 4 - 25 The Earth Is His Classroom, Brett Finds The Balance.......................................................Pages 7-8 Profiles in Geology: Andrew Czaja . . ....................................................................... Pages 16 and 18 A Mystery No More ‘Lost’ Village Finally Unearthed: Ken Tankersley. . ..................... Pages 17 and 24 Colloquium & Visiting Speakers . . ........................................................................................Page 18 Bahamas Field Trip 2013.. ..................................................................................................Page 19 Spring Banquet Awards............................................................................................ Pages 22 - 23 Profiles in Geology: Harrison Gray.. ....................................................................................Page 25 Profiles in Geology: Gary Motz...........................................................................................Page 30 Arts & Science Achievement Awards.......................................................................... Pages 36 -37 Alumni News............................................................................................................ Pages 26 - 47 Profiles in Geology: Eva Enkelmann...................................................................................Page 39 Geology Donor List.. ........................................................................................................ Pages 40 Call to Action!...................................................................................................................Page 41

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Depa rtm en t

He a d

Dear Alumni,

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hope everyone is doing really well and that you had an exciting a year.

We certainly had a thrilling and eventful one. We brought in five new faculty members this past year, increasing the size of our faculty by about thirty percent. Our new faculty members include Dr. Andrew Czaja who is a biogeochemist, Dr. Eva Enkelmann who is geochronologist/thermochronologist, Dr. Dylan Ward who is a numerical modeler, and Drs. Yurena Yanes and Joshua Miller who are Quaternary paleoecologists. Please check the pages of The Upper Crust to learn more about them. These new faculty, together with our other recent hires, are helping us to greatly enhance our strengths and expand into new analytical and quantitative areas of geology. We are truly becoming a department on the cutting edge of research and teaching in the twenty first century. Of particular note are our continued strengths in paleontology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, geomorphology, low-temperature geochemistry and geochronology. A common feature of most of our faculty and our teaching is the multidisciplinary approach we are taking to the study of our planet. This is helping to attract an increasing number of bright undergraduates and graduate students. We are able to provide them with the skills to adapt to a rapidly changing world and prepare them for the great demands placed on them in the modern workplace.

This coming academic year we are bringing in ten new graduate students from distance parts of the US, and from such far away places as Turkey and South Korea.

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Our graduate students, as in previous years, obtained numerous grants from the Geological Society of America, Sigma Xi, the Paleontological Society and other sources. We graduated three masters and three doctoral students. Our graduate students continue to pursue exciting research on a whole range of diverse topics and environments taking them to such distant locations as Trinidad, Japan, Chile, Greenland, the Himalaya, St Croix and Jamaica. Our graduate students never cease to amaze me with their enthusiasm and dedication, and they are especially wonderful teachers and research assistants.

They are also actively involved in a many outreach activities including visits to local schools, participating in science fairs, and mentoring undergraduates.

Our undergraduate student numbers are high and together with the strong camaraderie with the graduate students they are helping to boost the sense of community that has developed in our department over many decades making this a wonderful place to study. As a faculty member, I really enjoying teaching our students; their enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge when you enter their classrooms is truly contagious. Our student Geology Club continues to thrive. They organize lots of fun and stimulating activities such as running booths at the Cincinnati GeoFair and the SW Ohio Science Fair, and organizing picnics and holiday parties.

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The year went by particularly quickly because we converted from the quarter to semester system. Our summer was short in 2012 and this academic year ended in late April.

We have a long summer now to work with students on our research projects and field trips. The summer started with David Meyer, Krista Smilek and Kelsey Feser taking a group of fifteen undergraduates to the Bahamas on a marine geology fieldtrip. This was a fantastic opportunity for our students to see ancient and modern marine geology side by side in a wonderful tropical setting. In July, Craig Dietsch, Brooke Crowley and our colleague, Brian Davies from DAAP will be taking a group of undergraduates and graduates to the Indian Himalaya where we will explore many aspects of the world’s greatest orogenic belt.

Our research continues to flourish being supported by numerous grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, USGS, National Geographic Society and industry.

With our new research faculty we have submitted a record number of grant proposals this past year. Of particular note is the award of a major instrumentation grant lead by Aaron Diefendorf to develop a stable isotope mass spectrometry laboratory. Aaron and his colleagues are working really hard this summer to get the laboratory up and running. We are really excited about having this new facility in our department. A measure of our research output is the extremely impressive numbers of papers we have published, particularly in high ranking journals as Nature Geoscience, PNAS, Paleogeography, Paleoecology and Paleoclimatology, Geomorphology, Quaternary Science Reviews, Journal of Geophysical Research, Lithosphere, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, and Paleobiology.

Of particular note this year, was the presentation of the Grover E. Murray National Outstanding Educator Award to Carl Brett given by the AAPG. This is truly deserved, as Carl is an exceptional educator and role model for our students and faculty. I never cease to be impressed by how devoted Carl is to seeing our students succeed, and it is no understatement to say that he knows everyone of our majors and what their needs are to help them succeed.

Our fall fieldtrip this year was lead by Paul Potter. Paul took us on a superb tour of interesting geologic sites along the southern shores of Lake Erie. We camped on the shores of Erie and were able to enjoy several pleasant evenings of stimulating and humorous discussion and banter between faculty and students. We plan to visit southeast Ohio this fall and would welcome any of you to join us.

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Our colloquium series was very successful; organized again this year by Aaron Diefendorf. Aaron did a superb job of having our students and faculty give presentations throughout the first half of the year and then having external speakers present during the remainder of the year.

External speakers included Drs. Henry Fricke (Colorado College), James Hagadorn (Denver Museum of Nature and Science), Michael Mischna (JPL), Justin Dodd (Northern Illinois University) and William Pestle (University of Miami).

Please talk with our Alumni Advisory Committee and us about what we can do to help you keep informed of our activities. You will find a page in Rolling Rocks about our Alumni Advisory Committee. We would really welcome your involvement in our Department. So please do not hesitate to contact me to find out more about what we have been doing for our students and how you might help out.

Many of you probably already know about Rolling Rocks. But if you do not, Rolling Rocks is an informal electronic newsletter that I put together every Friday morning during the academic year. It is compiled in great haste, so please excuse the typographic and other mistakes, but it is a way of trying to keep folks informed of our activities.

Please let me know if you would like to be added to the emailing list. Rolling Rocks can also be downloaded from our Department website at: http://www.artsci.uc.edu/departments/geology/news-and events.html

As in previous years, I should like to sincerely thank Warren Huff and Tim Phillips for their dedication and hard work in compiling and producing this newsletter. Sincere thanks to all of you who have kept in touch with us and have generously supported our program throughout this and/or previous years. Your support is always very much appreciated and it allows us to continue to do many exciting educational and life transforming things for our students. Please do keep in touch with us and please drop by the department if you are in town. We would love to see you.

Best wishes, Lewis Owen

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A my T ownsend -S mall I began this academic year at the northernmost point in the United States: Point Barrow, Alaska. This was the first year of field work for the NSF-funded Circum-Arctic Lakes Observation Network (CALON) project led by scientists from here at UC as well as the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Clark University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. My role in the project is to examine climate change- carbon cycle feedbacks in Arctic lakes, including determining whether emission rates or sources of carbon dioxide and methane have changed.

Field work in the Arctic is a delight, including 24 hours of daylight, lots of floatplane rides, keeping an eye out for grizzly and polar bears, fishing for delicious grayling, interacting with local Inupiat people, and swimming in the Arctic Ocean.

I look forward to another 3+ years of working with my great colleagues on this exciting project.

I was also funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, through the Ohio Sea Grant program, to assess whether hypoxia contributes to atmospheric methane emissions in Lake Erie. Field work for this project started right after I returned from the Arctic in September 2012, along with graduate student Doug Disbennett and lab technician Becca Ransohoff, as well as Ross MacKay from Environment Canada. After our first, extremely rough, day out on the water on the R/V Erie Monitor, we got our sea legs and we all thoroughly enjoyed the experience and gathered tons of exciting data. We all fell in love with South Bass Island and the town of Put-In-Bay, and vowed to continue working on this project as long as possible! Through my collaboration with Dr. Rick Bourbonierre at Environment Canada, I hope to continue field work with Doug this coming fall. Our preliminary results were presented at the Biogeochemistry of the Great Lakes System conference this spring in Detroit.

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I also began working on a very exciting project investigating the environmental and health impacts of hydraulic fracturing in Ohio. This is a collaboration with my colleagues David Nash in Geology, Erin Haynes in Environmental Health, and Jim O’Reilly in the College of Law. We are currently seeking federal and foundation funding for this research, but we have already begun collecting preliminary data on air and water quality impacts of this process. Our project is centered in beautiful Carroll County, Ohio. Public outreach is a big part of this project, and everyone on the team has spent considerable time talking to people about the fracking process.

All of my research on methane dynamics will be enhanced by the purchase of our new isotope ratio mass spectrometer, obtained with NSF funding to Aaron Diefendorf, Brooke Crowley, Tom Algeo and myself. This instrument represents a great opportunity for professors and students alike here in the Geology department. We are all looking forward to getting it up and running and publishing lots of exciting data.

This year may represent a personal record for frequent flier miles - in addition to traveling to Alaska, I also spent a week in Langkawi, Malaysia as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Emissions Factor Database working group. I also presented two invited talks at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Andrew Schneider, Becky Smolenski, and Todd Longbottom also presented their research in San Francisco, where we had a joint dinner with their academic “grandfather”, Jim McClelland and his graduate students. Andrew, myself, and undergraduate Margaret Pryatel also presented this fall at the Soil Science Society of America annual meeting here in Cincinnati, and Maggie won an award for Best Undergraduate Presentation for her poster. q

department is delighted to welcome our new colleagues joiing us this year!

Dr. Andrew Czaja - Assistant Professor of Biogeochemistry Dr. Eva Enkelmann - Assistant Professor of Quaternary Geochronology Dr. Dylan Ward - Assistant Professor of Numerical Modeling Dr. Yurena Yanes - Fenneman Research Assistant Professor Dr. Joshua Miller - Fenneman Research Assistant Professor

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Fa c ult y B arry M aynard

We have finished our Water Research Fund project on “point-of-use” filters for evaluating household exposure to toxic chemicals in drinking water. Carafe-type filters are not much use because they do not trap particles, which can be a big source of lead exposure. Instead carbon-block filters that attach to the faucet are the best. Undercounter cartridges also work but it is extremely important to replace the elements periodically. A fortuitous discovery that we made is that “point-of-entry” filters designed to remove sediment, can remove iron particles, and if they accumulate enough iron, lead adheres to it. The amounts can in fact be quite large - see backscatter SEM photo. Now we’re working on how this lead binds to the iron, especially in galvanized pipes. q

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A ttila K ilinc

This has been an interesting and challenging year for me. Switching from the quarter system to semester system added about four more weeks to each course. My initial reaction was to train myself in slow speaking but I gave up on that idea quickly and added new material to my courses.

This year I focused on publications and my co-workers and I have three submitted so far.

I also served as a member of the Bucher Medal Committee of the AGU. I am happy to report that I have been re-appointed as a member of the Executive Committee of the AGU’s Volcanology-Geochemistry-Petrology section (VGP) as well as its Press Officer. I truly enjoy participating in AGU meetings by presenting my research and being part of this organization whose membership exceeded about 60,000.

Finally, I am delighted to have new faculty added to our department. They are a very talented group and will contribute significantly to our research and teaching efforts. q

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B rooke C rowley It is hard for me to believe that I have been in Cincinnati for less than two years. This past year has been a blur. I have kept myself busy by publishing some of my recent research in Madagascar as well as developing new research projects in Trinidad, Costa Rica, India and locally.

My lab has expanded into a dynamic group of undergraduate and graduate students, each with a wealth of enthusiasm and ideas. Undergraduate Eric Baumann and masters student Bevin Kenney are using a suite of stable isotopes to reconstruct the paleoecology of now extinct proboscideans and extirpated woodland bison from the Cincinnati area, respectively. PhD student Rajarshi Dasgupta has been carefully crafting his dissertation projects. He is focusing on using geochemistry to investigate human impacts in remote and urban settings. This summer he and I will collect samples to assess pollution along a remote highway in the western Himalaya. PhD student Jani Sparks plans to investigate historic ecology, climate and resource use by early humans in Trinidad. She and I spent spring break collecting samples to establish some baseline environmental data, including the extent that sulfur from sea spray is incorporated into vegetation across the island of Trinidad. Helping develop this diversity of projects has helped me grow as a researcher and mentor. Bevin presented her research at the an-

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nual meeting for the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in April and Rajarshi and Eric presented their research at the regional meeting for the Geological Society of America in May. In addition to running my lab, I am continuing to develop new classes and to build collaborations with researchers. This summer I will co-teach two new interdisciplinary field-based classes. One in Ohio, the other in India. Next year I will offer Zooarchaeology and an introductory course called “Ice Age Mammals�. I am excited about both of these courses.

Finally, this summer, Dr. Aaron Diefendorf and I will be working on getting our new Stable Isotope Facility up and running. Aaron has been working hard designing the lab. I am thrilled that facility will soon be a reality. It will be a wonderful resource for research and teaching.

I am also attaching a photo. This is from a lab dinner that I hosted a few weeks ago. From Left to Right; Michael Karaus (undergraduate), Jani Sparks (PhD Student), Matt Vrazo (Phd Student), Bevin Kenney (MA student), myself, Eric Baumann (undergraduate) and Rajarshi Dasgupta (PhD student). q

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AAPG Explorer, March 2013

By B A RRY F R I E DMAN, E XPLO R E R Cor re sponde nt

You would expect Carlton E. Brett, one of this year’s recipients of the AAPG Grover E. Murray Memorial Distinguished Educator Award winner, to love education.

He doesn’t. He loves teaching.The distinction?

Brett, in addition to all his researching, editing and writing duties, also is the undergraduate director of geology at the University of Cincinnati. That job, he readily admits, is a necessary evil – emphasis on the evil.

“So much of it is one more stupid report,” he says. “It’s all this junk.” He administrates the duties of education, though, for two reasons: “To get back to the classroom, and to get back into the field.”

Let’s take the second first. “The possibility of direct involvement of students at all levels in new field research keeps what might become routine activities vibrant and inspiring,” Brett said. His motivation; his students’ needs.

“Every student is used to virtual stuff, but it’s the real stuff,” he continued. “They need real experience.”

It’s why he gets out of the “office” as much as possible; it’s why, when he’s in the classroom, he makes it come alive. “I still very much enjoy using traditional lectures to present the core concepts of a course,” he said, but he then combines them with hands-on and laboratory exercises, including non-conventional, multi-media approaches – everything from the chalkboard and overheads, ELMO to PowerPoint, and traditional slides to videos and websites. “I frequently have images on three screens at once,” he said, “creating a ‘three ring circus’ effect.”

A Delicate Balance.

In his juggling, Brett has found the balance – his niche.

“I do not think that my colleagues who work in purely research positions in museums or surveys have the advantage of this ongoing inspiration,” he said.

But he wants to emphasize that there is no either/or, no line of demarcation between classroom instruction and fieldwork in education. “Teaching and research are sometimes seen as antithetic activities in a university,” he said, “and, indeed, because time is limited, this could be the case. But I have never believed in this statement.”

He makes sure it’s not. He talks about how his research in paleontology, stratigraphy and modern marine environments enables him to bring novel findings and concepts directly into the classroom.

“It informs my teaching and brings a level of credibility, currency and enthusiasm to teaching that could not exist without this direct experience,” he said. They feed each other. “Some of my most productive lines of re-

search have come from seemingly simple questions raised by introductory students on field trips.”

The enormity of those questions, whether in the classroom or on the side of the road, never gets old – nor does “the realization that we do not really have answers to some of these most basic questions.”

The Busy Body

Brett has copublished five books, over 230 scientific papers and 70 field trip guides; has been a museum curator; received the Digby McClaren Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Stratigraphic Paleontology; revised the bachelor’s curriculum at Cincinnati, proposing a c o r re s p o n d ing bachelor arts program; been principal research adviser to more than 50 students.

He’s self-effacing, antsy; he also is sitting in his driveway in Ohio when we talk.

Brett, with students near Canyon City, Colo.: “There is simply no substitute for these types of field experiences ... Virtual experiences cannot take the place of the spontaneity of outcrop study and the thrill of real discovery.”

That’s important.

“Ohio is not so good,” he says, laughing, about what it has to offer in terms of fieldwork. “Kentucky is grand Continues next page

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Earth is His Classroom (continued) – I have been all over the world and there’s no place like it. Just stop the car and just get out.”

This, too: “Kentucky cops are fine.” And Ohio cops? He laughs. He’s now wishing he hadn’t made that crack about Ohio. And when he’s out in the field, whether it’s Kentucky or Morocco, looking at his students, he sees the promise in each of them, even as he sees their differences, their uncertainty. “Geology students are plugged in,” he said.

“Chemistry and engineering students not so much. It’s like, ‘You figure it out.”

Winning the AAPG Murray Distinguished Educator Award in a way affirms that, under his tutelage, many have in fact figured it out.

Brett is humbled and gratified by the award, but still overwhelmed at the challenge and its scope.

“I frequently receive notes from former students, including some who are not employed in Earth sciences, saying that they were

A aron D iefendorf

This has been an exciting year for my research group. I am proud to report that we secured funding from the National Science Foundation for an isotope ratio mass spectrometer for the department. This will be an incredible resource for the department in the coming years.

Sharmila Giri is finishing up her M.S. thesis this summer on the fate of biomarkers in river systems. After Sharm defends, she will be packing up and heading to the University of Miami for her doctoral studies in marine science. Cheyenne Hassan, Brian Simpkins, and Jon Marsh (from Miami University) have been busy preparing and analyzing samples for several current projects. This fall, Erika Freimuth and Yeon Jee Suh will be joining my group as Ph.D. stu-

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inspired by my classes,” he said.

One student wrote “ ... your enthusiasm and passion for what you do demands my utmost respect and inspires me to find a field and occupation that makes me feel the same way.” Another wrote, “I really enjoyed your class; thank you for being what a professor should be.”

What Brett likes about that last letter is he nearly failed the kid.

“He wrote this after he got a D.” In Pursuit of Honor To Brett, whose mother taught English and father taught math, teaching is – wait for it – in the blood. And teaching geology for him is nothing less than teaching about humanity – something that should be honored, protected.

“There’s an aesthetic to it,” he said. “It’s not just science. There’s grandeur. It’s not just rock knocking. That’s insulting.”

When he is on one of these field trips, amidst that inexplicable beauty – for instance, on the 10-day trip to Colorado and Utah that he hosts twice a year for his students – he says he sees, “Some of the grandest ideas ever. We are time lords.” q

dents. Erika worked the past several years at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory after receiving her B.S. from Cornell University. Yeon Jee Suh has been a junior research scientist at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology.

On the home front, my wife Emily and I are enjoying watching our son Eliot grow up. He’s a handful and keeps us on our toes. Our urban garden experiment has been going well. Last year was rough with the hot weather and poor irrigation, but we managed to have amazing lettuces, greens, and tomatoes. We just put in drip irrigation and row covers to avoid some of the pest problems we had last year. q

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C raig D ietsch

This past year has been such an exciting one with all of our new, young, hip, smart, interesting, talented, and friendly new faculty all here (those adjectives are all true!) (and should score me several cups of coffee…). And, I guess, has been one of me getting my New England mojo workin’ again (despite much administrative work as I continue as Graduate Director and service for the College on a couple of new fronts).

Natashia Pierce (M.S. summer 2013) is nearing completion of her thesis on the geochemistry and Nd isotope composition of pre-Silurian meta-volcanics in the Rowe-Hawley Zone of western New England in northern Vermont, western MA, and western CT. To measure Nd, we are now collaborating with Dr. Liz Widom of Miami University who is an expert in the measuring and meaning of isotope signatures in modern volcanics. Great to be working with you, Liz! Ray Coish of Middlebury College and I submitted an NSF proposal in January to fund this project and we will keep at it, sequester and all.

In March, Natashia, Paul Wilcox, and I drove to Bretton Woods, New Hampshire — about 1,000 miles one way — to attend the Northeastern Section meeting of the GSA. For the road, great tunes, Paul! (And thx for the playlist.) The meeting was excellent. It was held at the historic hotel at the base of Mt. Washington which opened in 1902 and which hosted the Bretton Woods monetary conference after WWII. Natashia and I spent a very cold, bright day on a pre-meeting fieldtrip to see the type localities of Marland Billings’s 1935 Paleozoic bedrock stra-

tigraphy near Littleton, including the type locality of the Ammonoosuc volcanics. Very cool! (haha) The current president of GSA, George Davis (ASU) was on the trip and, naturally, we entered into an all-day conversation. Besides learning that George is an outstanding GSA president, structural geologist, author, and storyteller, I also learned that taking optical mineralogy as an undergrad was key for his future success!

Lewis, Brooke Crowley, Brian Davies (our faculty collaborator from DAAP via his X-DEEP program [check it out!]) and I received funding from the University’s UCForward program to support our upcoming trip to the Himalaya of northern India this summer. (Thanks, Brooke, for all your hard work on this!) UC’s conversion to a semester calendar has forced us to travel in July (rather than [usually] post-monsoon September), so the adventure continues.

Coming along on the trip will be Suyoung Lee from Korea University who will begin her Ph.D. research supervised jointly by me and Lewis.

Suyoung completed her M.S. degree under the supervision of YeongBae Seoung (Ph.D. 2007).

Recommended reading: I found Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers fascinating and even inspiring (although I’m still a long, long way from my 10,000 hours of tectonic geomorphology...). I am currently about half way through James McPherson’s classic Battle Cry of Freedom — insightful American history and great writing.

And Lincoln? Saw it twice. q

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Andy Czaja

I was very pleased to join the Department of Geology in August of 2012. With a string of new hires, including several who joined at the same time as me, it has been an exciting time to be a part of this wonderful department and university. As a new faculty member, I have spent most of my time this year settling into my new position, meaning setting up a lab, developing collaborations, developing courses, and finishing up projects left over from my postdoctoral position.

For those who don’t know me, I am a Precambrian Paleobiologist, meaning I am interested in searching for the earliest evidence of life on Earth as well as the evolution of life through the Precambrian. I attack this from two fronts: 1) collection and study of fossilized microorganisms via microscopy and organic geochemical techniques, and 2) isotope geochemical analyses of sedimentary rocks that preserve some evidence of ancient microbes and how they made a metabolic living.

My lab will be designed to address #1, and for the time being at least, I will collaborate with others to address #2. When completed my lab will be based on microscopy and spectroscopy.

Studying Precambrian microfossils, particularly the really old ones (~3.5 billion years old) requires quite a bit of evidence to establish that the features found in rocks were in fact living organisms at one point. The first step is optical microscopy to locate the features of interest and to determine that they appear to have a biological morphology and population structure.

In addition to standard optical microscopes and digital cameras, my lab will also house two instruments relatively new to paleontology: confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and Raman spectroscopy. CLSM will be used to produce fluorescence images of microscopic features with sub-micron resolution, which will

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Ne w s allow me to document the 3D nature of petrified microfossils. This in turn provides even stronger evidence of a biological morphology. Raman spectroscopy allows me to document the organic (carbon-based) nature of the fossil structures, providing evidence of a originally biological chemistry. So far I have had my lab space cleaned and organized, and purchased microscopes and the CLSM, the latter having been delivered and installed recently. I plan to purchase a Raman spectrometer later this year and am in the process of researching various models. I am excited to get started!

I have started a few collaborations this year that are beginning to develop. These include studying 1.6-billion-year-old microfossils with a colleague in Australia, studying 1-billion-year-old microbial structures with colleagues in Wisconsin, studying 1.4-billion-year-old lucustine deposits with a colleague in Canada, and studying possible microbes in ancient halite fluid inclusions with alumnus Jay Zambito. More on those next year when we have some results. I also have plans to go to South Africa this summer for field work to study and collect samples of 2.5- to 3.2-billion-year-old microfossiliferous cherts. This work will be done in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. This is part of a larger NASA project to study evidence of life on the ancient Earth that is headed up by my colleagues at UW-Madison Being a new faculty member, my teaching duties were relatively light this year. I taught a course called Astrobiology: Life in the Universe. It is a lower division course for nonmajors, although I was quite pleased to have several geology majors take it. The course introduces student to astrobiology, which is a multidisciplinary field that studies the possibility of life outside of Earth, how to look for it, and where to look. The field requires knowledge of geology, biology, chemistry, astronomy, and planetary science, among others.

Because most of the students in the course are not science majors, I think they gain from a (Continues next page)

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Fa c ult y Eva Enkelmann

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This was a busy and exciting year for me.

Busy to finish up my work at the University of Tübingen and dissolve my life in Germany, and exciting to start a new job and life in Cincinnati on January 1st, 2013. During the first weeks I very much enjoyed the hospitality of Amy Townsend-Small who made my start in Cincinnati so much easier with helping me to find an apartment, a bike, a car, and much more. All my new colleagues in the department have been very welcoming and help me to get familiar with the U.S. school system, and understanding the administrative ‘food-chains’. In particular Craig Dietsch was very helpful getting me started with the departmental system and teaching administration. I taught Structur-

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al Geology and Tectonics in the second half of the semester, sharing a class with Attila Kilinc who taught Igneous Petrology in the first half of the semester. Starting next spring I will teach a full-semester course on Structural Geology and Tectonics and I am excited to combine this class with a field trip to the southern Appalachian. The past months I also spend with setting up my office, making the first purchases for the future Thermochronology lab, and submitting papers and grant proposals. I am looking forward to set up the lab and get students excited to work with me together on tectonic projects. q

Andy Czaja (continued)

broad overview of all of these sciences, and I also try to emphasize the scientific method. If they remember nothing else from the course, they might at least be better able to evaluate scientific claims. Future courses I am planning include an upper level course on the early (Precambrian) history of life and coevolution of the biosphere and surface environments, and one on microbial paleontology.

In January 2013, I had a paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters on some work I did as a postdoc. We found iron isotope evidence for the activity of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria in a 3.8-billion-year-old banded iron formation from Greenland. Not direct evidence for life at that time, but not bad. I was happy also that this got written up by New Scientist, a science news outlet. You can find a PDF of this paper on my website, as well as link to the New Scientist article. q

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Warren Huff

Those of you who were here prior to 1963 will remember that the University ran on the semester system. In 1963 it switched to the quarter system for a number of reasons that seemed to make sense at the time. All the State supported colleges and universities in Ohio did the same. Well, in 2012-13 the old gave way to the older and we returned to the semester system. This was a challenge for us all since we had to completely redesign (an thus re-think) all our courses. But we did it and all seems to be running smoothly under the new system. I continue to teach intro courses in both face-to-face and online formats as well as clay mineralogy.

I currently have two MS students, Yinal Huvaj, who is here from Turkey supported by a Turkish National Petroleum Company scholarship and is working on the clay mineralogy of some cores from the Black Sea Coast, and Jim Milawski, one of our own undergraduates who is doing a project on soils from the Mayan culture region in Guatemala. This is a joint project with Geography and Anthropology and it represents the type of interdisciplinary research that is becoming increasing common in this department.

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My own research is divided between some collaborative studies with a Chinese colleague on Proterozoic and Lower Paleozoic bentonites along the margin of the North China Craton and an ongoing project in Sweden with Swedish and German colleagues regarding the nature and stratigraphic correlation of Ordovician and Silurian K-bentonites recovered during some drilling in the Siljan Ring, a Devonian impact structure in southcentral Sweden.

One of the questions that has been in the back of my mind for some time is how best to deal with the boxes and file cabinets of old departmental records. I’ve been concerned that much of our history will be lost to posterity if we don’t find a better way to preserve it, so this past summer I spent some time scanning a lot of departmental documents and posting them on a web page.

You can see the status of this project at http:// littleurl.info/35u. I suspect that more will be added from time to time, and I’m happy to have any comments, suggestions or, for that matter, contributions that you wish to make. q

Dave Meyer

My recent trip to San Salvador Island, The Bahamas, was with a UC Geology Department field course called “Ocean Margins: The Bahamas”.

This is a for-credit course taught in the summer term for undergrads in Geology, Biology, and Environmental Studies. We had 20 students in the course and this time we had two artists along from DAAP, Catherine Richards and Emil Robinson (25 in all). Catherine is interested in doing a book for children on coral reefs and they went along to experience the tropical environments of the coral reef, sea grass beds, and mangroves, plus the terrestrial environments of the Bahamas. On this trip we explored shallow water coral reefs, the “dropoff” where a submarine wall starts at about 40 ft depth and continues to depths of thousands of feet very close to shore. We also visited beaches, rocky intertidal sea cliffs, tidal lagoons, seagrass beds, and mangrove forests. On the island we visited limestone caves, rugged karst topography, fossil coral reefs and sand dunes, blue holes, and inland ponds and lakes where the salinity can vary from normal sea water to hypersaline. We hiked, snorkeled, and some did SCUBA diving. Students were able to assist in ongoing research of mine on

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the reefs. The trip is very strenuous as the climate is tropical and the terrain and vegetation harsh and unforgiving. The group stayed at the Gerace Research Centre, a campus of the College of the Bahamas in renovated facilities that were originally a US Navy base dating to the 1950s. GRC can accommodate up to 200 visitors and during our stay about 7 school groups were there, with the campus close to capacity. Groups get around the island (5x12 miles) on flatbed trucks driven but the faculty. We enjoyed great weather, with highs in the mid-upper 80s, upper 70s at night, with good breezes and little rain. The course was organized by Krista Smilek, Academic Director for the Dept. of Geology, and planned and taught

by Krista, Kelsey Feser, a UC Ph.D. graduate student, and me (my role was “sage and kibitzerin-chief”). Our students have been going on Bahamas field trips since the 1980s, originally in collaboration with Miami University, but since 2010 as our own field course. The Ocean Margins field course alternates between trips to the Bahamas, polar regions, and the Himalayas. q

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P aul P otter

Let’s start with scholarly activities.

In 2012-2013, I gave a 12-minute paper to a packed room on the global Miocene and its newly recognized link - via seismic tomography - to mantle dynamics at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte and the regional GSA in Kalamazoo as well. I attended the AAPG meeting in Pittsburgh, and published a paper, “Flow Diagram Relates Major Earth Surface Processes to the Deep EarthInsights from the Global Miocene” in the Houston Geological Society Bulletin, a society with over 4000 members. Peter Szatmari of Petrobras is my coauthor. I continue to help Barry Maynard and Mark Bowers of the Advanced School of Structures prepare some publications on mass wasting in the Greater Cincinnati area. I also helped Ron Counts finish his Ph.D. thesis.

With much important help from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources I led, on short notice in September, the Fall Field Trip to the western end of Lake Erie, where we camped in a state park near the lake. This fall field trip differed greatly from all earlier ones, because we concentrated mostly on environmental processes. We saw a beautiful freshwater estuary and

its museum, both modern and raised beaches (inshore wave power as a control on erosion versus deposition), cliff erosion, two glaciated limestone surfaces, Silurian and Devonian outcrops, and the sinkhole district near Lake Erie. We had a short talk on anoxia in Lake Erie (fortunately no black muds have yet been reported on its bottom). We also heard Dr. Scudder Mackey, head of the Lake Erie Division of the Ohio Geological Survey, discuss his activities and his varied career after dinner one evening. Finally, I am proud of the fact that we returned to Cincinnati as promised in the early afternoon on Sunday.

About myself, I had my right knee replaced in January, so now I have replacements of both knees, a hip, and a reconstructed pelvis. All went well and I am back to walking 5 to 7 miles again each week. I made some minor contributions to raising money for the department and also qualified as a life contributor to the UC Foundation.

And, as usual, I visited Canada and Brazil.

Plans? Keep my health so I can, continue to have an active, creative life. q

P. Potter photo from 4-Day Field Trip. Looking eastward across a “blue hole” sinkhole at the State Fish Hatchery, Erie Co., OH

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Fa c ult y Lewis Owen

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During the last year I have continued my research and teaching that focuses on the Quaternary geology and geomorphology of tectonically active mountain belts and their forelands.

This has involved fieldwork with students and colleagues in Alaska, Scotland, Mexico and Southern California, and laboratory work in our geochronology laboratories. This past May, my doctoral student, Ron Counts, successfully completed his doctoral thesis on the Quaternary geology of the lower Ohio River. Ron is now on

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a Mendenhall Fellowship at the USGS working on paleoseismology. It has been fun continuing to work with my other graduates, Harrison Gray, Kate Hedrick and Jeanette Arkle. Kate and Harrison should graduate in the next few months or so. I have continued to work with post-doctoral researcher Madhav Murari on several dating projects. Madhav is doing some exciting work on paleoseismology and glacial geology. I also had the pleasure of teaching four new courses this year, which has been great fun and has kept me pretty busy in addition to my duties as head of department. In the past fall, I was very fortunate to be a recipient of the Clair P. Holdredge Award, which is presented to authors of a publication that in the past five years has been judged to be an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the profession of engineering geology. This was for work on active tectonics around the Panama Canal. I was pleased to finally publish a treatise on tectonic geomorphology in April and also five papers in journals during the past year. This coming year promises to be great fun with fieldwork planned for the Himalaya, Canary Islands and Trinidad. q

Sampling for thermochronology in Alaska with colleagues from Virginia Tech.

D o you have any recollections of field

trips, social events, classroom experiences or other experiences during your UC days that you would like to share with

and we’ll include them in next years’ issue.

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Yurena Yanes

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I am delighted to have joined the Department of Geology of the University of Cincinnati.

I moved from Spain only a few months ago.

Although I have been in the Department for a short time, I already have accomplished several research objectives in 2013 while in Cincinnati.

I have dedicated part of my time to organizing my mollusk collection. This includes thousands of fossil and modern land snail shells (from the Mio-Pliocene to recent) from many localities around the world. I was lucky to be part of a field research trip to Trinidad with UC faculty from the Departments of Geology, Anthropology, Geography and Biology in March. Thus, I have recently expanded my collection with newly collected shells from Trinidad.

Apart from land snails, I am also increasingly interested in freshwater and marine mollusks from shell middens and fossil sites. As a result, my mollusk collection includes some marine and freshwater mollusk shells from various locales.

During these past few months I have published several articles on Quaternary land snails from the Canary Islands, the Iberian Peninsula and the Bahamas. I am preparing new research articles on modern, archeological and fossil mollusks to be submitted to scientific journals in the near future. I have dedicated much of my time to grant writing in collaboration with other UC faculty. I expect to submit several grants this summer and next fall.

I am looking forward to conducting fieldwork next May with Prof. Arnie Miller along an urban to rural gradient here in Ohio. We will collect land snails following standard procedures to quantify potential variations in taxonomic and geochemical composition and identify possible environmental, ecological and anthropogenic causative factors.

I am also excited to work with undergraduate student Nicole Little and Prof. Amy

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Townsend-Small this summer. We will look at temporal variations of nitrate concentrations in coastal seawaters from the Canary Islands and spatial variations of nitrate content in stream waters from Trinidad.

My summer research plans go beyond Ohio.

I plan to conduct fieldwork in the Azores in collaboration with faculty and students of the University of Azores.

I was also invited to give a plenary talk in the 2013 World Congress of M a l a c o l o g y, which will be celebrated in July 2013 at the University of Azores. After that, I plan Yurena Yanes with a giant South American to travel to the land snail shell (Megalobulimus oblongus) Canary Islands recently collected in Trinidad. to collect some more samples in collaboration with other UC faculty. I am also organizing a field research trip to the Canary Islands in December in which multiple UC faculty and students will participate. My ultimate goal is to establish an international long-term field research program between Cincinnati and the Canary Islands.

I feel very fortunate to be here in Cincinnati and to have joined such an active and vibrant Department. You will be hearing from me again soon! q

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PROFILES IN GEOLOGY ANDREW CZAJA

fter moving across country from Connecticut to California to Wisconsin, Andy Czaja found a new home as an assistant professor in the geology and chemistry departments at UC.

Growing up in a small town in Connecticut, Czaja was ready to embrace the state school, the University of Connecticut. He began as a biology major then switched to environmental science with a focus in biology. A paleobotany class caught Czaja’s attention and his passion for fossils grew from that. For a part of his senior honors thesis, he participated in research with a professor in the ecology department. Czaja won an award for his research within the department,

leobiology. Getting to travel to all of these places around the world to search and collect fossils was amazing,” said Czaja.

But more than that, at UCLA Czaja was a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute where groups at universities and other research facilities collaborate to search for life outside of Earth. This is exactly the kind of stuff Czaja is interested in.“Astrobiology covers my love of space and microbial paleontology,” said Czaja.

After graduate school, Czaja went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison as a postdoctoral researcher to work with their NASA Astrobiology Institute group. There he broadened his studies by switching to stable isotope geochemistry where no fossils were involved.

After touring UC, he realized this is where he wanted to be. “Astrobiology is by definition interdisciplinary and that sort of science is what drew me to UC. I knew I could work with the chemistry and geology departments. When I came here and visited, I had a fantastic time, everyone was friendly and welcoming. They just seemed like great departments, a lot of high quality scientists work here,” said Czaja.

He also enjoys all of the “new blood” at the university since there have been multiple people hired within the past few years in both the geology and chemistry departments. “Whenever there are new people, there are new ideas, it’s kind of dynamic,” said Czaja.

which involved a book and a cash prize. The book picked by his honors thesis advisor was by J. William Schopf about the subject of Precambrian paelobiology.

“At the time, I knew nothing about the subject. I don’t know how my advisor knew that I might like this book, but I loved it,” said Czaja.

It inspired him so much that he ended up going to graduate school at UCLA to work with the author himself. He had a dream of working for NASA and becoming an astronaut, but while at UCLA, Czaja realized that wasn’t the route for him at that time.

“In order to become an astronaut, I was advised to get a Ph.D in what I love and what I’m passionate about so that I will do well at it. So I fell in love with Precambrian pa-

Since beginning his term last August, he has taught Astrobiology focused on geology and life on Earth and how people could search elsewhere for it. Czaja is excited to bring new information to the class since this is an everchanging subject. Next year, he will be teaching a class on the early history of life and will discuss the evolution of life and the surface of Earth.

In addition to teaching, Czaja has spent his time this year setting up his lab, doing research, working on grant proposals, and recruiting graduate students for fall semester.

An article was written recently about his research in New Science magazine about his work in discovering evidence for a form of photosynthesis that may have been prevalent 3.77 billion years ago, 370 million years earlier than origi-

Profiles: Czaja (continues on page18)

By: Ali Stigler, Office of Marketing & Communications,McMicken College of Arts & Sciences.

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Jenny Tankersley (BS ‘81)

Written by John Johnston Nov 17 cincinnati.com

MARIEMONT — At the village swimming pool, on a bluff high above the Little Miami River, an Ohio Historical Marker recognizes one of the most important archaeological sites in eastern North America.

It’s long been known that American Indians buried more than 1,000 of their dead at this place, which archaeologists call the Madisonville site. The historical marker says it is “the largest and most thoroughly studied” site of the late Fort Ancient culture, which spanned the years from 1450 to 1670.

And yet, since 1879, when physician and archaeologist Charles Metz began excavating the burial grounds and identified an earthwork built by the Indians, major mystery has lingered: Where, exactly, did those people live?

Two weeks ago, on the flood plain below the bluff, students of University of Cincinnati anthropology professor Ken Tankersley dug up what they believe is the answer.

“Holy smoke, we ran into the lost village,” Tankersley said. “I’ve been trying to find this since 1972.” And it lies in the path of a proposed highway.

Drawings released this year by the Eastern Corridor project show that officials are considering relocating Ohio 32 through Mariemont’s Gardens and Trails Park, where the newly discovered Indian village is located. The Eastern Corridor is a massive transportation project, still in the planning stages, aimed at improving the connections between downtown Cincinnati and western Clermont County.

Mariemont Mayor Dan Policastro doesn’t want the highway in his village and hopes the new discovery prevents that from happening. “We have an obligation to save this area for the future,” he said.

Ohio Department of Transportation spokeswoman Sharon Smigielski said it’s too soon to say what effect the discovery might have on the proposed route. “We would in all likelihood bring in our own archaeologist to examine the site and assess it,” she said. It was Policastro who, after learning of the proposed Ohio 32 relocation, contacted Tankersley. Each year the professor and students in his public archaeology class take on a preservation project involving a threatened historic resource.

Tankersley, 57, was a high school student 40 years ago when he first began looking for the Indian village. He explored plowed fields but found nothing. He didn’t know that the village was buried beneath layers of silt from the Little Miami River. He returned to the area off and on over the years. In 2007, using modern technology, he discov-

ered earthwork that abuts the Madisonville archaeological site is a serpent mound. Although portions of the mound have been lost to erosion, it runs for nearly 3,000 feet along a ridge that follows Mariemont’s Miami Bluff Drive.

The mound is made of sand that Fort Ancient Indians hauled from the Little Miami flood plain.

Some experts had theorized that the Indian village must have been on the hill near the mound. But no artifacts turned up when modern homes were constructed in the area.

Weeks of searching finally bear fruit In late September, Tankersley’s students began searching in the flood plain below the hill. They dug with shovels, then screened the dirt through mesh. After almost five weeks, all they had found were bits of asphalt and glass, and some railroad slag. Then, two weeks ago, Mike Forbes, a fifth-year archaeology major from Covington, found a piece of chert, a rock used to make stone tools. “Then I found bone, and I got really excited,” he said. q The next day, third-year geology major Michael Karaus from Oakley discovered an arrowhead that Tankersley said dates from the 17th century.

“You’re holding it, thinking, no one has held this for hundreds of years,” said Joe Shaffer, an archaeology graduate student from Lebanon.

Soon more artifacts turned up, including shell-tempered pottery, the same type that earlier researchers had found buried with bodies in the cemetery on the bluff.

It all “pointed to this being a habitation site,” Shaffer said.

Artifacts found by the team, including pieces of pottery, tools for skinning animals and arrowheads, are typical of the period from 1600 to 1700, Tankersley said.

Much to be gained from further exploration Penelope Drooker said in an email that she was “very excited” to learn of the discovery, adding, “the potential for learning from this expanded archaeological site, using modern methods, is tremendous.”

Mystery (continues on page 20)

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Di sti nguished Col lo q ui um & Visiti ng Sp ea kers 2012 - 2013 D r . H enry F ricke

Colorado College New Ways of Studying Old Dinosaurs: What Geochemistry Can Tell Us About Their Biology & Behavior.

D r . J ustin D odd

Geology and Environmental Geosciences Northern Illinois University Oxygen Isotope Values of Diatom Silica: A Refined Understanding Silica-Water Fractionation and Implications for Paleoclimatic Interpretations.

D r . J ames H agadorn

Denver Museum of Nature and Science Death of Megapredator.

D r . L isa T ranel

Illinois State University Evaluation of Erosional Processes Controlling Topographic Evolution in the Teton Range.

D r . M ichael M ischna

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Curiosity: Early Results from the Mars Science Laboratory.

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D r . M aria G. P rokopenko

University of Southern California Being a Walrus in the Warming World: Application of O2/Ar Ratios and Oxygen Triple Isotope Composition of Dissolved O2 to Determine Factors Controlling Carbon Export Production in the Spring Blooms on the Eastern Bering Sea Shelf.

D r . S elvaraj K andasamy

Associate Professor State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science.

College of Earth and Ocean Sciences Xiamen University, China East Asian Monsoon Climate in Subtropical Taiwan During the Holocene and Asian Monsoon Controversy.

D r . W illiam G ilhooly III

Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis Isotope Systematics of Mahoney Lake, British Columbia.

M r . W ayne G oodman

University of Cincinnati, Geology Alumni North Chester 5: An Interesting Evolving Case History of a CO2 Tertiary Flood of a Silurian Reef Oil Field in Michigan.

D r . W illiam P estle

University of Miami Megafauna, Mobility, and Munchies: Archaeological and Geological Applications of Stable Isotope Analysis.

Profiles: Czaja (continued from page 16)

nally thought. It has long been known that some of the world’s oldest sedimentary rocks contain units composed of layered iron oxides, so he and his colleagues questioned where they came from. He analyzed the isotopic compositions of the oxidized iron layers and decided that there were two possible means by which the iron could have been oxidized: interaction with oxygen produced by photosynthetic bacteria, or direct oxidation by anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria. Based on modeling of the system, he suggests that anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria are responsible because only a small amount of the dissolved iron was oxidized. Oxidation by free oxygen would be inconsistent with essentially all other geochemical evidence for what the surface was like from that time in Earth’s history.

This summer Czaja is traveling to South Africa to follow up with postdoctoral research he began in Wisconsin. He will be researching the rocks he collects that may contain 2.5-

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to 3.5-billion-year-old microfossils. South Africa is one of the two best locations for collecting well-preserved rocks of this age.

Despite being at UC less than a year, Czaja is already a faculty advisor for the Geology Club and has attended numerous workshops put on by the New Faculty Institute on campus.The atmosphere in the geology department and at the university is one of Czaja’s favorite aspects of UC. The mentor program has been particularly helpful in his opinion.

“Barry Maynard is my official senior faculty mentor and was also who picked me up from the airport for my interview. He’s been very proactive with his advice, and a big help throughout the past year,” said Czaja. “I feel very welcomed here and I feel that people appreciate the contributions I make and will make to the department and university,” said Czaja. q

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Krista Smilek, Academic Director

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This past May I had the pleasure of taking a fantastic group of students to San Salvador Island, Bahamas for a two-week field trip to study modern and ancient marine environments for the Ocean Margins field course.

The group included an interesting mix of people; I along with Kelsey Feser, a paleontology PhD student co-led the trip, Dave Meyer provided his expertise on echinoderms and corals, and we had 18 geology students, two environmental studies students, and two instructors from the DAAP School of Design. Kelsey and I created a rigorous schedule that kept everyone busy from sun up to sun down. Our field excursions involved a lot of snorkeling where we observed and compared the marine communities present on the coral reef, in the seagrass beds, within the mangrove roots, in the intertidal zone, and on the sand flats. We also conducted a transect from the sand flat to seagrass bed to exam-

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ine changes in mollusk communities from one substrate to another. To investigate the carbonate and paleontological history of the island, we drafted numerous stratigraphic sections at road cuts, in quarries, and along the shore. The students also conducted beach mapping and profiling to see how currents and storms create a dynamic shoreline. On top of all of that, we explored caves, tromped through inland saline lakes, snorkeled in a blue hole, and jumped off a cliff into the sea for a little added thrill. After being in the field all day, we would then gather in the classroom in the evening for a recap of the day’s activities and for student presentations on a variety of topics from stromatolites to color variations of reef fish. Though it was a busy (and sometimes exhausting!) two weeks, we had a great time and the students learned a lot about field techniques and past and present life in and around the ocean! q

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Graduate Degrees since the Summer of 2012

Name, Degree Current Location

Zhenzhu Wan, PhD....................................PJ International Corp - Canada Esteban Sagredo, PhD . ...........................Universidad de Chile

Sarah Kolbe, PhD......................................Illinois Wesleyan University

Jeff Hannon, MS........................................Wyoming State Geological Survey

Zach Mergenthal, MS...............................Nomac Drilling – Chesapeake Energy Todd Longbottom, MS .............................Baylor University PhD program Tanya del Valle, MS...................................Working in Cincinnati Gianna Evans MS......................................Working in Colorado

Nathan Marshall, MS................................Utrecht University PhD program Tom Schramm, MS....................................LSU PhD program

Ron Counts, PhD.......................................Postdoctoral fellowship with the USGS in Reston John Nealon, PhD......................................Thelen Associates – Geotech Co.

Paul Wilcox, MS .......................................University of Alaska Fairbanks PhD program

Matt Jones, MS.........................................Working in Cincinnati

Kent Walters, MS .....................................AmeriCorp in the Appalachians of western Maryland

Jim Milawski, MS......................................Wincom, Inc. in Blue Ash, OH

Julia Wise, MS...........................................Continuing at UC for a PhD

Mystery (Continues from page 16) Drooker, curator of anthropology emerita for the New York State Museum, wrote a book about excavations of the Madisonville site, including those conducted by Harvard University until 1911. Artifacts from the site are housed in major museums all over the world. The Madisonville site – so named because the village of Mariemont didn’t exist when it was discovered –was occupied into the early 1600s, she said, and appears to have been an important trade center. More study will be needed, she said, to determine if people occupied the newly discovered village at the same time.

Tankersley said the villagers survived by hunting wild game, gathering wild plant foods, and growing maize, squash and beans. “You can imagine people up there building that earthwork,” he said, pointing to the ridge above the floodplain, “while people down here are farming.”

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As he spoke, his students used an instrument, shaped like the letter H, called a gradiometer. By measuring changes in magnetic signals, “it literally allows you to see beneath the earth.”

That will give the team a good idea of where to dig, which they plan to do before the area floods next spring.

“The idea is not to excavate this whole site,” Tankersley said. “Just a small sampling will give us everything we need.”

By next month, Tankersley said, he plans to nominate the new site to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Both the Madisonville site and the Mariemont serpent mound are already on the register. The nomination will include the names of the students who dug up a slice of history. After all, he said, “They are the heroes.” q

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A Full-Day Celebration of all things, Dave Meyer!

On October 5th a celebration was held at the Cincinnati Zoo in honor Professor Dave Meyer, paleontologist extraordinaire. Dave formally retiried—sort of at the end of the 2011-2012 academic year. Actually, he’ll still be on staff for the next several years in a part-time capacity as a McMicken Professor.

The included in on-campus symposium consisted of speakers: Bill Ausich (Ohio State), Tom Baumiller (University of Michigan), Danita

Brandt (Michigan State University), Carl Brett (University of Cincinnati), Bob Elias (University of Manitoba), Mike Foote (University of Chicago), Ben Greenstein (Cornell College), Steve Holland (University of Georgia), and Pete Holterhoff (Hess Oil and and Texas Tech University). We are also hoping to include Ghislaine Llewellyn (World Wildlife Foundation, Australia) and Chuck Messing (Nova University).

Many Alumni, in particular Dave’s former students, joined us for the celebration! q

Transforming the Teaching of Geoscience and Sustainability Eos, Vol. 94, No. 25, 18 June 2013

The geosciences have an important role to play in addressing whether humans can live sustainably on Earth. From water to energy, from climate change to natural hazards, geoscience is central to solving a wide range of problems. Two projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) support faculty in incorporating aspects of sustainability in their teaching: the Interdisciplinary Teaching of Geoscience for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate) Center in the Geosciences and the On the Cutting Edge Faculty Development Program in the Geosciences. The former is funded by NSF’s Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Faculty Development Program, and the latter is funded by NSF’s Transforming Under-

graduate Education in STEM Program. Sustainability is a strong organizing principle for modern liberal arts and technical education programs, requiring systems thinking, synthesis, and contributions from all disciplines—geoscientists, natural/ physical scientists, social scientists, humanists, and engineers. For instance, an introductory course developed by Brooke Crowley at the University of Cincinnati called “Humans and Nature: Living in the Anthropocene” focuses on current social and environmental issues and emphasizes the links between raw materials, waste, and products used in day-to-day life. q

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PRING Awards Banque

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2012 -2013

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R e m e m b e r a n c e

Wanda L. Osbourne (1925 - 2013)

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CINCINNATI

geo FAIR 2013

Wanda Lucille formerly of Delhi, age 88 years. Loving mother of Gary L. (Sandra M.) Osborne. Grandmother of Laura (Michael) Gillum, Ben (Megan) and Dan (fiancé Sarah) Osborne. Great Grandmother of Peyton and Taryn Osborne.

April 14, 2013 in Anderson Twp. Family will receive friends 10 AM Friday until 11 AM Service. Moore Family Funeral Home NEWTOWN. Interment Vine Street Hill Cemetery.

Published in The Cincinnati Enquirer on April 17, 2013

Undergraduate Degrees since the Summer of 2012

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Emily Mazur, BA.............................Plans to go to grad school in Museum Studies

Stormy Milewski, BA......................Will continue work at the Cincinnati Museum Center while completing an education degree

Brian Snodgrass, BA ....................Will work for a year and apply to grad school

Nick Sylvest, BA.............................Will work for a year and apply to grad school

Eric Baumann, BS .........................Will go to grad school in paleoecology

Joshua Brafford, BS......................Works in Amelia, OH

Sean Fischer, BS............................Accepted to PhD program at University of Kansas

Doug Disbennett, BS ....................Masters student at UC

Margaret Frabell, BS......................Plans to work at Fossil Butte Nat’l Monument

Eric Luken, BS................................Will work for a year and apply to grad school

Cameron Schwalbach, BS ...........Masters student at UC

Brian Simpkins, BS .......................Will work for a year and apply to grad school

Alex Borell, BS................................Nomac Drilling – Chesapeake Energy

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PROFILES IN GEOLOGY harrison gray

fter being homeschooled in a “small hippie community” in California, Harrison Gray was ready to jump into college at the University of California Santa Cruz. He took his first geology class there, Gray was hooked.

As an undergraduate student, Gray knew he wanted to go to graduate school, but not exactly what he wanted to study. He finally decided on studying a branch of geomorphology called tectonic geomorphology. After applying and getting accepted into the Georgia Institute of Te c h n o l o g y , Gray was excited to work with Professor Kurt Frankel looking at how river terraces are changed by tectonics. About one month before Gray was set to leave for school, professor Frankel passed away in a car accident. Without many options, he turned to his boss, Shannon Mahan, at his current internship with the U.S. Geologic Survey who introduced him to UC professor Lewis Owen.

Though the journey wasn’t easy, Gray is now in his last year of his master’s program at UC. Throughout his time here, he has traveled to Trinidad and Tobago with fellow graduate student Jenny Arkle to investigate the evolution of the tropical landscape. “That is one of the really awesome things about the geology department at the University of Cincinnati; there are many opportunities to do international research,” said Gray.

Since he is familiar with the California area, Gray focused his thesis on how sediments have been eroding off of newly- formed mountains in the Mecca Hills of southern California. He focuses on how the land forms we see are created and how they’ve changed over time. To do this, he uses cosmogenic isotope dating to determine how long that rock has been exposed to the surface of the earth or how fast the mountains are eroding. Gray fell into this research realizing that in order to understand how the earth’s surface is changing, one must understand cosmogenic nuclides.

His department and mentor were able to assist in this endeavor. “Our geology department has world-class facilities for conducting these studies. There are few better places to learn and develop the skills of modern geomorphic researchers,” said Gray.

Many people have been role models to Gray throughout his academic career at UC. “Lewis has been an excellent mentor and key in helping advance my career by allowing me to study at UC during my time of need, ” said Gray.

“Dr. Craig Dietsch has been invaluable in helping guide my thought and giving me feedback on my sometimes ‘out there’ ideas. Emeritus Professor Paul Potter has also really guided my thinking and helped me grow as a scientist and geological thinker.

They all contributed valuable aspects to my education.”

Upon graduating from UC, Gray will continue his education at the University of Colorado at Boulder pursuing a Ph. D. After completing his doctorate, Gray would ideally like to become a professor of geology or a geologist for the United States Geological Survey. “Just anywhere that lets me be outside and do geology would be fantastic,” he said. q

Gray’s favorite class during his time at UC has been Professor Owen’s Himalayan Landscapes course where students learn about the geology in India and how some of the world’s largest mountains formed. After the course ends this spring, the class will travel to India to explore first-hand what they learned in class.

By: Ali Stigler, Office of Marketing & Communications, McMicken College of Arts & Sciences.

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From the Albuquerque Journal, January 4, 2012

Thomas A. Siwula (BS ‘52) was born in 1926 and passed away on January 2, 2012. He is the adoring husband of Mary Siwula and is survived by her, his loving wife of 61 years and his four loving children: Lynne Siwula, Tom Jr. and Terri Siwula, Betsy and Wolfgang Brandt and Jeannie and Mike Connolly. He is also survived by five loving grandchildren: Laura, Molly and Luke Siwula, and Justin and Joseph Connolly. Tom died peacefully and quickly in his home after surviving a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was born in Akron Ohio, the son of Andrew and Amelia Siwula. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in Geology. He never lost his passion for his work in subsurface Geology working in the Oil and Gas industry. He worked for Atlantic Richfield Corp, EnSearch and Yates Petroleum in Artesia, NM. He had a very successful career exploring for oil and gas in Texas and New Mexico and specialized in the Permian Basin. He retired at the age of 65 as a consultant from Yates Petroleum and moved to Albuquerque, NM in 1993.

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Tom and Mary really enjoyed taking road trips in the US, especially NM, and the West with their camper trailer. Tom served in the US Armed Services in WW2 in Germany. He also served in the Reserve Officers Training Corp during the Korean War. Tom spent many years volunteering his expertise at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, which he loved doing. Before his Parkinson’s disease he was an avid runner and enjoyed participating in 10K races. He bravely lived with Parkinson’s disease for 15 years with little complaint. He passed due to complications with the disease; however, he remained determined to fight the disease until the end. Tom was a very humble, kind and gentle man with never ending curiosity and a great sense of humor (esp. for Aggie jokes)! He will be very missed by his family and friends. Tom is a Christian believer and faithful member of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.

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Gerald (Jerry) Schaber (MS ’62, PhD ’65)

Jerry calls our attention to a recent article from the Arizona Republic newspaper (Phoenix) that appeared in the paper on Sunday 5 May (http://www.azcentral. com/travel/articles/20130504flagstaff-moon-craterastronaut-training-apollo.html).

As Jerry explains, “The reporter who wrote the piece, Sean McKinnon, drove up to Flagstaff to interview me a few weeks ago.

The on-line version of the article also includes a brief video of some of our geologist/astronauts in the crater field back in the “day.” It also shows a video of part of our Cinder Lake Crater Field being constructed with impressive blasts of (bags of) ammonium nitrate and half sticks of dynamite. You might be able to see the short video clip if it stays on-line a few more days.”

(Editor’s note: A copy of the article is also posted at http://tinyurl.com/d7dmbtw)

Ed O’Donnell (MS ’63, PhD ‘67)

Fifty years ago today (7/6/12) they detonated the nuclear device that formed Sedan Crater at the Nevada Test Site. It was part of Operation Plowshare, a demonstration project to show how nuclear detonations could be used to excavate harbors. At one time they were suggesting construction of a sea-level canal across Panama using a series of nukes.

Gerald (Jerry) Schaber replies to the above:

I have been to both Sedan and Schooner nuclear craters on the NTS when we had a geologic-training exercise for the Apollo 14 prime and backup crews (along with other astronauts) on 11-12 Sept 1970.

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I was asked to prepare (prior to the exercise) the geologic traverses and geologic objectives for that test using stereo pair aerial photograph of the craters. The Apollo astronauts who attended that exercise included: Alan Shepard, Ed Mitchell (Apollo 14 prime crew), Eugene Cernan (who would later be Commander of Apollo 16).

J.H. Engle (who Harrison “Jack” Schmitt would eventually replace as LM Pilot on Apollo 17), P.K. Chapman, Gordon Fullerton, and Bruce McCandless. Nevada Test Site advisors Paul A. Orkild and Ken A. Sergeant of the USGS Special Projects Branch in Denver acted as advisors and liaison on the NTS and during the field training exercise.

The pre-exercise traverse briefing with the Apollo 14 prime and backup crews (as well as the other astronauts mentioned above) took place in my room at the Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in the evening of 10 September 1970.

I have written up several pages of details describing that very interesting astronaut training exercise at the NTS in 1970 in my autobiography (recently completed).

It is quite an interesting story. I would be willing to send you and Warren that excerpt if you so desire. The astronaut were quite concerned (especially Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell (who has a PhD in physics) about the radioactivity still present around the craters I had planned there walking exercise around. Hell, I was sitting just off the rim crest of these craters during the exercise!! We all had been provided dosimeters at the insistence of the NTS staff. I remember that my dosimeter reached 80+ milli-Roentgens or something like that on one of those craters in just a few hours.

D o you have any recollections of field trips,

social events, classroom experiences or other experiences during your UC days that you would like to share with your alumni colleagues?

Send them to Warren Huff, email: WARREN. HUFF@UC.EDU or Dept. of Geology, UC, Cincinnati, OH 45221 and we’ll include them in next years’ issue.

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The Geological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting will be held October 27-30 in Denver, Colorado at the Hyatt Convention Center I would like to invite you all to attend and to join us for an alumni get-together on Monday, the 28th in the Mineral Hall D from 6:30 PM-9:00 PM,.

I hope to see you in Denver,.

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Bill Dalness (BS ‘64) Dear Warren:

I was most pleased to see the extensive 60’s section of the Summer 2012 Alumni Newsletter. The “Who’s Who” picture, I’m sure, is a copy of the print I sent to the “low tech” Newsletter back in the late 80’s or early 90’s.

I surmise the picture was taken in ‘63 or ‘64. I was only able to ID myself and my fellow undergrads on the print. In the summer of 1963, the four of us traveled in the Department’s brand new Jeep Wagoneer to the Yellowstone Bighorn Research Association Geology Field Camp in Red Lodge, Montana. It was my first opportunity to see western geology, and I was hooked. Subsequently, I got my Masters at the University of Utah and spent the rest of my career out west. I’m now retired and enjoying the high desert and mountains of Northern New Mexico.

Bill Dalness

John Carter (PhD ’66) Hi Warren,

Ruth and I are continuing to enjoy living near Charleston, South Carolina. We are 10 minutes from the ocean and a great beach. In general the Low Country is a marvelous place for seafood, barbecue, history and outdoor activities. One of our big thrills a year ago was when we had a bald eagle in our back yard. (Photo attached).

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I don’t remember if I mentioned this previously but in 2006 I received the Leonard Medal from the University of North Dakota for an outstanding graduate in Geology.

Currently, two of my colleagues from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History are working with me on the finishing touches on my monograph on the brachiopods on the Red Wall Limestone of Arizona.

We don’t travel any more but are always glad to hear from fellow grad students and other friends and colleagues. Best to all.

John L. Carter

Mario J. Arenas (MS ’65) Hi:

I am retired a Consulting Geologist and I live at M 106, Department 601, Tambo De Monterrico, Surco, Lima 33, Peru.

I am sorry, I could not meet you and the fellows at Charlotte.

Greetings.

Mario mj_arenas@hotmail.com

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Tom Farmer (PhD ’68)

(Ed note: Tom is the co-author of a new book on climate change) Hi Warren, I just wanted you to know that Springer and Amazon have begun to advertise my book “Climate Change Science: A Modern Synthesis.” The Springer site is www.springer. com/environ/book/978-94-007-5756-1. They also include the table of contents, which you might find interesting. I would also hope that you will share this information with the faculty teaching the Pleistocene climate courses. The book is aimed at an introductory science student population.

I wrote 22 chapters and my co-author wrote 2 of them but he contributed in many other ways. He’s a graphic artist with an undergraduate degree in physics with honors and is working toward his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Queensland, Australia. He founded the web site “SkepticalScience.com” which has become the go-to site for information on global warming and climate change in general.

I hope this finds you in good health and spirits. Many thanks for all the work you have done in the department and for the alumni over all the years since we were students together in Old Tech.

Tom

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Bob French (BS ’59, MS ’61)

GTL Energy news release, March 1, 2013:

GTL Energy and Solid Energy Announce First Production; Signed Joint Venture Agreement for Deployment of Coal Upgrading Technology First production achieved at Solid Energy’s plant in Southland, New Zealand, using GTL Energy’s coal upgrading technology

GTL Energy and Solid Energy sign an agreement to form a Joint Venture Company combining their respective assets for the commercialization of GTL Energy’s coal upgrading technology.

AUSTRALIA’S GTL Energy and Solid Energy of New Zealand have formed a joint venture to commercialise GTL Energy’s coal-upgrading technology.

Solid Energy’s Mataura demonstration plant in Southland, New Zealand, which uses the GTL technology, has now successfully achieved sustained production runs to produce high energy briquettes from lignite.

The companies are keen to build on this success with their joint venture GTLE Development.

When fully commissioned, the Mataura plant will produce around 90,000 t/y of briquettes from around 150,000 t/y of lignite from Solid Energy’s New Vale mine.

GTL’s briquetting process is a mechanical process to remove excess water. The energy content of the processed lignite briquettes is 40% higher than unprocessed lignite, with around 60% less moisture. Less fuel isrequired, so less ash is produced, and transport costs are lower. The briquettes are suitable for the thermal coal market.

GTLE Development will manage the demonstration plant, trial the briquettes on the thermal coal markets and work to develop the technology and licence it around the world. Solid Energy will have a 20% stake in the joint venture and will continue to own the demonstration plant. The company will begin to trial the product with current customers in New Zealand’s South Island.

The joint venture also has a demonstration plant in North Dakota, US, projects in Indonesia and Australia, and is reviewing other opportunities in the US and Europe.

“We will now have a production facility, engineering and operating capabilities in a single organisation. The new entity will be looking beyond a technology licensing business model and moving into project development, ownership and operations,” says GTL Energy CEO Fred Schulte.

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IN GEOLOGY PROFILES Gary Motz

fter traveling around Ohio for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Gary Motz finally made his way home to Cincinnati to complete his education with a Ph. D in Paleontology. Choosing UC was a pretty easy decision for Motz.

“UC is home for me. I grew up in the area so I decided to come back because I have a lot of family and friends here. I’ve got a really good fit with my adviser and the work that goes on here. UC being the number 6 school in the country for paleobiology is a pretty good bonus” said Motz.

Soon after he learned how to walk, Motz ventured just behind his house and into the creek with his grandpa to find anything interesting to pick up. His interest in fossils led to a job at the Cincinnati Museum Center while he was in high school at Moeller. Motz worked with students and other museum employees in the Dinosaur Field School where they would travel to Montana to collect fossils.

His passion led to him to complete his undergraduate degree in both biology and geology at the University of Dayton and master’s degree in geology at the University of Akron. Motz took an invertebrate zoology class during his undergraduate program at Dayton that guided his interest in mollusks, which is what he studies now.

Motz’s dissertation is original, complete with his own thought processes and questioning. He is studying “the formation and maintenance of biodiversity IndoPacific region, by studying a family of bivalves, the Venus clams, and how they react to, or how they interact with, their predators through fossil record,” according to Motz. “Their predators are mostly shell-drilling gastropods. My research looks at the defensive structures or mechanisms they develop to help them protect themselves. This will help them, not only on the short term with varying degrees of ornamentation, spines, ridges,

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and other protective structures on their shells, but may also help in the creation of new species.”

Most recently, Motz gave a talk at the Natural History Museum in London to a large crowd of mollusk specialists. A short article related to his presentation was published soon after the event. He has presented his research internationally and has been published in various media around the world.

Traveling is one of Motz’s favorite aspects of his research. Last summer, he backpacked through Europe for 6 weeks making his way to natural history museums in France, Germany, Belgium, England, and the Netherlands. This summer he is heading to Japan to do fieldwork, collect fossils, and visit museums to take pictures of specimens. Motz chose the Indo-Pacific area to study because it has been one of the most concentrated areas of biodiversity over the past 55 million years. After Japan, he is traveling to The Azores, Portugal to present at the largest international meeting of all groups interested in studying mollusks, the World Congress of Malacology.

A role model for Motz is his advisor Arnie Miller. “He’s a pretty spectacular guy in terms of his teaching philosophy and his research agenda is interesting and fascinating.

He’s published a lot of very interesting things and I really enjoy him as a person as well. He’s comprehensive, yet engaging. He teaches on a lot of different subjects and is very thorough, but not as an information dump. His teaching style is one that gets students interested and involved, which I appreciate.”

Today, Motz still finds himself with his cousins in that same creek he meddled in years ago. He’s now more selective of what to pick up and what to leave behind. q By: Ali Stigler, Office of Marketing & Communications,McMicken College of Arts & Sciences.

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R onald R eagan E xit T o G et S afety R edesign Highway at I-71 has seen several wrecks

By Leah Fightmaster, Cincinnati Enquirer 01/02/2013 After several serious wrecks during the last couple of years, a design change suggested by a retired Madeira engineer and a traffic study, Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway at Interstate 71 will get a new look.

Currently, drivers exiting onto Ronald Reagan from I-71 south who want to travel east have to come to a complete stop at the end of the exit, cross the westbound lane of Ronald Reagan, stop in the middle of a median then join the eastbound traffic.

David Lienhart of Madeira has proposed a roundabout as a solution to traffic problems on Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway and Interstate 71. At left is the intersection as it is currently built; at right is Leinhart’s proposal for a roundabout.

Many serious crashes over the last several years, one of which occurred in February of last year, forced the Ohio Department of Transportation to take an additional look at the intersection’s current design.

The idea to build a roundabout where the current exit is was suggested by Madeira resident David Lienhart, a retired geological engineer. He said that after traveling through Europe on their roads, he felt a roundabout would be a safer design and cheaper for drivers, because the almost continuous movement uses less fuel.

The roundabout “takes some getting used to, but they’re a lot safer than an intersection with a traffic crossing,” Lienhart said. “It’s never a good idea.”

ODOT was considering several solutions that ranged from closing the ramp entirely to building a separate bridge.

Joe Bassil, administrator of ODOT’s District 8 highway management department, said that the department recognizes the area is unsafe the way it is and has a potential plan to remedy the problem.

The current plan is to build a concrete median between the two eastbound lanes on Ronald Reagan before the bridge over I-71, which would funnel traffic either toward Montgomery Road or the I-71 north and south entrance ramps. This plan is similar to the westbound lane on the other side of the bridge, Bassil said.

A traffic light would then be installed at the end of the I-71south exit ramp to Ronald Reagan. Cars would stop at the light in each direction, and the light would alternate traffic so drivers won’t have to cut across a lane of moving traffic to stop suddenly in a median, Bassil said.

But the project isn’t set in stone. ODOT plans to hire an outside engineering consultant to determine whether the current plan is best, or if there’s a better idea. If the consultant agrees with ODOT, then the department will move forward with it. Bassil said he believes the current plan is the best option.

“My engineering judgment says yes (it is the best choice) unless someone else comes up with something else,” he said. “I think this will be the change that will render (the exit) safe.”

Bassil added that the project doesn’t have an official estimate yet, but he believes a plan with This accident happened in February in the westthose designs bound lanes of Cross County at the ramp to Incould cost be- terstate 71. tween $250,000 to $350,000, excluding unforeseen problems arising during engineering or construction.

Most of the funding would likely be from federal funds, he added.

Bassil said the project could begin in late 2013 or early 2014, with the latter more likely. He added that once the department has the plan and a contractor is hired, they’ll begin the project. “We recognize it’s not the best situation now and traffic has increased,” he said. “But we’ll make it safe.” For more about your community and to sign up for our newsletter, visit Cincinnati.com/ SycamoreTownship. q

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Tom Klekamp (MS ’71)

(Ed note: Tom is commenting on the rising floodwaters on the lower Mississippi) The crest of this flood is still days away from New Orleans. Still planning to get out and photograph the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway. Also hoping to get up to see the river at Natchez, MS. The last time I was there it was during low flow condition and you could actually see sand waves on the bottom on the channel!

The Corps of Engineers has done a great job of containing this flood. See their video at http://www.mvn.usace. army.mil/hps2/videos/flyover/flyover_video.asp. Sometime UC Geology should plan a combo geology, geography, and engineering field trip to see all this, that would include a Katrina trip in New Orleans. It would take at least 2-3 full days, including stops for Cajun/Creole food and beer.

Perhaps a decade ago the Mississippi was a low flow conditions. Amber and I drove to Natchez and Vicksburg where you can see the channel from atop the high bluffs.

I saw what I thought were sand waves below the water, indicating how little water was in the river. This might be a good time to visit the exposed point bars on the Mississippi. I think Pryor ran a trip there during one of those low flows.

You can play around with these Mississippi River flood stages through the Corps website. I chose the Vicksburg District.

Here are two plots of the gage at Helena, AR. The first is from 1/1/1970 to 7/14/2012 and the second is from 2000 to 7/14/2012. The red line on the x-axis is historic low.

And Tom shared the following images:

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Rene Ulmschneider (BS ’75, MS ’78)

Published in the Midland Reporter-Telegram on July 23, 2012 Devoted husband and father, Rene Joseph Ulmschneider, 60, of Midland, died on Friday, July 20, 2012. His life was cut short when he was killed by a drunk driver while cycling from Alpine to Marathon. Rene loved West Texas. He moved to Midland in 1978 and never left. Rene was born in Cincinnati, OH on April 29th, 1952 to parents Rene and Rita Ulmschneider. He was the third eldest of nine children, attended Elder High School in Cincinnati, and went on to receive both his B.S. and M.S. in Geology from the University of Cincinnati. Rene came to Midland in 1978 to work for City Services, where he met his wife of 28 years, Emily Hoffman Ulmschneider. Rene devoted his career, a span of over thirty years, to work in the oil industry as a geologist in both Texas and Russia.

Most recently Rene was one of the initial employees of a 2004 startup company that became SandRidge Tertiary. As Senior Geologist, Rene was instrumental in developing residual oil production using CO2. Rene and Emily have two daughters, Kiri, born in 1985, and Bryne, born in 1987. He provided the family a foundation on which to pursue numerous community and volunteer activities. He loved spending time swimming, hiking, camping and traveling with his family.

Another one of his passions was cycling the open roads through West Texas with the Permian Basin Bicycling Association. He is survived by his loving wife and beloved daughters, his mother Rita, and his siblings Ann, Loretta, Tom, Mary, Claire, and Jude, along with a host of nieces and nephews, all who will miss him terribly and never forget his gentle smile.

From the Alpine Avalanche for July 26, 2012:

A 60-year-old bicyclist from Midland was killed Friday afternoon and a 31-year-old Alpine woman arrested after a 2008 Kia SUV collided with him about 10 miles east of Marathon on Highway 90.

Rene Joseph Ulmschneider, a geologist, was pronounced dead at the scene after the 2:16 p.m. wreck, according to the preliminary fatal accident report by Department of Public Safety trooper David Miller. The report stated both vehicles were traveling east, but it did not state whether it happened in the lanes or on the shoulder, or whether Ulmschneider had been wearing a helmet.

However, the Brewster County Sheriff’s Office reported the driver, Lesly Allison Lammons of Alpine, was arrested and charged with intoxication manslaughter and bonded out Saturday on a $10,000 bond. She was not injured.

A social media site listed Ulmschneider as a senior geologist at SandRidge Tertiary where he’d been employed since 2004, however he was also a member of the Permian Basin Bicycling Association.

PBBA President Lisa Anderson was participating in the “Cactus & Crude” ride in Big Spring on Saturday and said she knew Ulmschneider through a weekly ride they both were a part of that started in Midland, as well as other events. His wife Emmy Ulmschneider, a Midland ISD fourth grade science teacher, also was a member of the group. For the more than 350 cyclists in the association, rides are much more rewarding than they pose a danger, but the danger admittedly still exists, whether on highways in the Big Bend area or in the increasingly high-volume traffic of Odessa-Midland. “Most drivers are very nice and considerate, but some of them aren’t. Some of them just aren’t paying attention,” Anderson said. “It’s scary.”

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G S A M I L E - H I G H R E C E P T I O N

The Geological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting will be held October 27-30 in Denver, Colorado at the Hyatt Convention Center I would like to invite you all to attend and to join us for an alumni get-together on Monday, the 28th in the Mineral Hall D from 6:30 PM9:00 PM,. I hope to see you in Denver,.

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Mike Fein (BS ’73)

Wayne Klusman (BS ’66, MS ’73)

Well, we did ok during the storm. We closed the storm shutters on the house, pulled all the cars onto the old levee on which our house built, and then heard the generator fire up at the stroke of midnight Tuesday/Wednesday.

The AC did not come on, but I was not about to go outside and reboot. About 90% of the area lost power, and we were partying in Florida when I got a call from a neighbor Saturday around 10 pm that power was back but the generator was still on. We got back around 2 pm today, and a neighbor had cut if off manually. Found out the neighbor behind me had not power either, and that there was a problem with a connection on the pole. We serviced the generator, and fired it up again, happily with the AC working this time, because it will be days before anyone with Entergy can worry about two customers. Well, if that is the worst thing that happened to us, we did ok.

I guess I am doing my part to drive up natural gas prices.

I continue at the East Regional Campus of Indiana University (IUE) as an Adjunct Instructor in Geology, thirty something years and counting!

Hi Dr. Huff,

I have a well starting up now, and two more in the winter, and one I thought was dead we have been able to resurrect, so there is no shortage of prospects in the Gulf. It still takes a long time to get permits, like some of the stuff we used to do in a week now takes a full six months.

Maybe that will change in late January.

Anyway, good luck with the new school year, congratulations on all the new faculty and students.

Mike

Hi Warren,

Wayne Klusman

Gary Taylor (MS ’74)

Editor’s note: In 2000 Gary and T.C. Smythe formed a folk and bluegrass duo that has continued to perform at clubs, restaurants and festivals ever since. Their website is http://www.smytheandtaylor.com.

In a recent note, Gary included a copy of their latest (9th) album, and writes, “Smythe & Taylor are doing gigs in Houston, San Antonio, New Orleans, Davis Mtns, San Francisco, London and Oxford. I started a folk festival here in Colorado (4th year coming up) and am a bluegrass music host on station KWMV.”

We do not have current mailing addresses for the following alumni.

Can you help?

Mr. Lloyd Carson

Mr. Alfred Gaither

Mr. David J. Green (MS ‘72) Ms. Jessica Kelley Mr. Glenn King

Mr. Shuguang Mao (MS ‘95) Mr. Richard V. Martin

Ms. Susan Parrett (ATT ‘81)

Mr. Terry E. Rowekamp (BS ‘65) Dr. Robert T. Russell

Mr. Paul R. Schuh (BS ‘78) Mr. Kenneth Sparks

Mr. James I. Streeter (BS ‘60) Mr. John D. Hoholick Ms. Deirdre Whitley

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Frank Ettensohn (BS ’69, MS ’70)

(Editor’s note: This announcement comes from the University of Kentucky. You can read the full report at http:// ees.as.uky.edu/ees-professor-first-kentucky-jefferson-science-fellow.)

Earth and Environmental Sciences Professor Frank Ettensohn recently joined an elite group of science, technology, and engineering scholars, who will serve a critical role in advising national policy makers. He is the first person from the Commonwealth of Kentucky to be named a Jefferson Science Fellow. The Jefferson Science Fellows (JSF) program was established in 2003 as a model for engaging the American academic science, technology and engineering communities in formulating and implementing U.S. foreign policy. Overseen by the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State, and with administrative support of the National Academies of Science, the program is a model of a public-private partnership between the U.S. academic community, professional

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scientific societies, and the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Serving mainly as advisors and educators, Jefferson Science Fellows aim to both advise and to increase understanding among policy officials, using their professional experience and cutting-edge knowledge of scientific issues and impacts on international relations.

As a Jefferson Science Fellow, Ettensohn will serve for one year at the U.S. Department of State or USAID. Throughout this year, he will live near and work in the State Department in Washington D.C. as a science consultant and consulting diplomat in the areas of geological and environmental science. After the fellowship year, he will return to UK, but he will remain available to the U.S. Department of State/USAID to serve as a subject matter expert for a minimum of five years.

In addition, Frank has also been named the 2013-14 Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor.

Field Studies

Dedication of the Court Archaeological Research Facility

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ARTS & SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT Awards

John Thaeler (MS ’79)

Senior VP, Divisional, Southwestern Energy Company

Senior Vice President of New Ventures & R2, Southwestern Energy Co. Mr. Thaeler was appointed Senior Vice President-New Ventures and R2 of the Company’s subsidiaries, SEECO, Inc. and Southwestern Energy Production Company in 2009. In 2010, he was also appointed Senior Vice President-New Ventures and R2 of the Company’s subsidiary, SWN Resources Canada, Inc. Prior to these appointments, he served as Senior Vice President of SEECO, Inc. from 2004 to 2008. He joined Southwestern Energy Company in 1999 as the asset manager of SEECO and held the position until 2001 when he was promoted to Vice President. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Thaeler held various technical and managerial positions during a 25-year career at Occidental Petroleum Company where he worked in Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, and the continental U.S. He has a master’s degree in geology from the University of Cincinnati (MS ’79) and an MBA in finance from the University of Houston.

He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

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Mr. Thaeler was appointed Senior Vice President-New Ventures and R2 of the Company’s subsidiaries, SEECO, Inc. and Southwestern Energy Production Company in 2009. In 2010, he was also appointed Senior Vice President-New Ventures and R2 of the Company’s subsidiary, SWN Resources Canada, Inc. Prior to these appointments, he served as Senior Vice President of SEECO, Inc. from 2004 to 2008. He joined Southwestern Energy Company in 1999 as the asset manager of SEECO and held the position until 2001 when he was promoted to Vice President.

Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Thaeler held various technical and managerial positions during a 25-year career at Occidental Petroleum Company where he worked in Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, and the continental U.S. He has a master’s degree in geology from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA in finance from the University of Houston. He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

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Nomination of John D. Thaeler F or t h e Art s & S c i ences 2 0 1 2 Ach i e vement Award

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Patrick Galvin (BS ’80)

(Editor’s note) Patrick stopped by on one of his periodic family visits to Cincinnati just to say hello. He lives in Dallas and works for Hunt Oil Company. Patrick sends his greetings and best wishes to all who overlapped with him during his time in the Old Tech days.

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Danita Brandt (MS ’80)

Danita writes, “my status changed this past year, from the half-time position I’ve held for many years to full-time after assuming the additional duties of Associate Chair in my department at Michigan State.”

Congratulations Danita!

Kees DeJong’s Son Mark Cincinnati Enquirer, March 2013

2013 GSA RECEPTION

The Geological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting will be held October 27-30 in Denver, Colorado at the Hyatt Convention Center I would

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like to invite you all to attend and to join us for an alumni get-together on Monday, the 28th in the Mineral Hall D from 6:30 PM-9:00 PM,.

I hope to see you in Denver.

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PROFILES IN GEOLOGY e va En k el m a n n

va Enkelmann traveled from Germany to accept the opportunity to teach here at UC. After attending the University of Freiberg for her undergraduate, diploma (master’s degree in Germany), and Ph. D, she came to the states to begin her postdoctoral research position at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Four years later, Enkelmann traveled back to Germany to accept a job at the University of Tübingen and stayed there for three years.

Her passion for teaching began while she was in her master’s program at the University of Freiberg. The students and visitors to the fission track lab in Germany made her excited about educating people which she continued doing at Lehigh.

The projects Enkelmann began during her Ph. D at Lehigh involved studying the Himalayan Mountains and Earth’s highest coastal mountain range, the St. Elias Mountains in southeast Alaska. Since beginning her research, Enkelmann has been asked to fly from Germany to the University of Fairbanks to give lectures and talks about the tectonic evolution of southeast Alaska. She also has two graduate students working on this project in Germany as well as a graduate student at UC for the upcoming fall semester.

While her project in Alaska is still ongoing, she has kept very busy at UC despite only being here since January. Enkelmann began teaching a class as soon as she arrived called Structural Geology & Tectonics and is interested in continuing to teach it in the upcoming year including to take the class on a field trip to the Appalachian Mountains.

Building a thermochronology lab will consume the majority of her time this summer and fall. This process includes the set up of a fission track lab and the facilities to prepare samples for U-Th/He dating.

So far, Enkelmann enjoys UC (now that the weather is warming up) and the people in the geology department. There is a group of 8 new faculty in the department who have been hired within the past few years at the university who share their experiences so far. “We have the same struggles, problems, and concerns. It’s also nice to have the experienced people to help as well,” said Enkelmann.

She may not be experienced at UC, but Enkelmann has more than 20 papers published in various media around the world.

Coming to the states to begin her career, she did not have anything besides a few bags. Professor Amy TownsendSmall let Enkelmann stay with her for one month until she found a place of her own.

After getting established within the community, she began to explore one of her favorite hobbies: rock climbing.

Red River Gorge is a place Enkelmann frequents to continue her passion.

By: Ali Stigler, Office of Marketing & Communications, McMicken College of Arts & Sciences.

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2 0 1 1 – 2 0 1 2 Ge olo g y D on or L i s t M r . E u g e n e J. A ma r a l

M r . R a n d a l l W. B a c o n R e x L. B a u m , P h .D.

D r . L. J o h n B e r n a r d B o w s e r -M o r n e r I n c .

M r . W a lt e r A. L a u f e r

M r . D avi d A. L ie n h a rt

J o h n L. C a rt e r , P h .D.

and

R u t h C. C a rt e r , P h .D.

M s . L i n d a C h r i s t ia n -H e r o t

A r n o l d I. M i l l e r , P h .D.

Mr.

Mr.

Mr. and

M r s . J a n e t M. E l l i o t t

Mr.

M r s . R o be rt G. E l l i o t t

and

M r . M i c h ae l N. F ei n

M r . M a r k P. F i s h e r Mr.

and

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M r s . C o n n ie M. F i s h e r

M r s . M a r k A. F o rt u n a

M r . G a ry F r i c ke

M r . W ay n e R. G o o d ma n M r . J o s ep h E. G r eave s

Mr.

M s . A n d r ea J. H aa s

and

Mr. Mr.

M r s . R i c h a r d W. H o f f ma n

W a r r e n D. H u f f , P h .D. and

M r s . J o h n E. K imbe r ly

M r s . J e n n i f e r J. K r u e g e r and

M r s . F r a n c i s E. L a M o r e

D o you have any recollections of field

trips, social events, classroom experiences or other experiences during your UC days that you would like to share with your alumni colleagues?

Send them to Warren Huff, email: WARREN.HUFF@UC.EDU or Dept. of Geology, UC, Cincinnati, OH 45221 and we’ll include them in next years’ issue.

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M r s . M a r k C. O be r d o e r s t e r

Mr. Edgar Roeser

M r . T o d W. R o u s h

E d i s o n I n t e r n at i o n a l C o mpa n y R o be rt J. E l ia s , P h .D.

M r s . D avi d M i l l e r

M r s . C o r n e l ia K. R i l e y

Richard Durrell

M r . M i c h ae l E. E f f l e r

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P a u l E. P o t t e r , P h .D.

D ry D r e d g e r s , I n c . and

n e g r o -M i l l e r

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L ewi s A. O we n , P h .D.

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and

M r s . M a r ia R. R u f e

R i c h a r d B. S c h u lt z , P h .D.

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D avi d & S a r a W e s t o n F u n d M r . W i l l iam L. M. W i l s e y

Ms. Susan Barbour Wood M s . A n g ie W o o d s

M r . A rt h u r T. W o o d s

Thank You All for your for contributions to the UC Geology Department’s continued excellence!

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A CALL TO ACTION! Gifts enable us to better serve our students, staff and faculty. They help support a wide array of programs and services, including undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships. The following funds represent the greatest needs by the Geology Department: John L. Rich Fund – Supports student travel and laboratory supplies.

Walter & Kathryn Cook Fund – Provides scholarships and fellowships to qualified incoming freshmen and upperclass majors in geology.

Kenneth E. Caster Fund – Supports graduate student travel, scholarships and student research supplies.

Hoholick-Potter International Fieldwork Travel Fund – Supports international travel and research for students.

Alumni Graduate Fellowship Fund– Supports research travel for graduate students.

To support the Department of Geology, please visit www.uc.edu/give, or make checks payable to The University of Cincinnati Foundation, and indicate to which fund you wish to support.

Mail checks to: The University of Cincinnati Foundation PO Box 19970 Cincinnati, OH 45219-0907

For additional assistance making your gift, or for more information, please contact: Denise Carl Associate Director of Development, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences 513.556-6435 denise.carl@uc.edu

We do not have current mailing addresses for the following alumni.

Can you help?

Mr. Lloyd Carson

Mr. Alfred Gaither

Mr. David J. Green (MS ‘72) Ms. Jessica Kelley Mr. Glenn King

Mr. Shuguang Mao (MS ‘95) Mr. Richard V. Martin

Ms. Susan Parrett (ATT ‘81)

Mr. Terry E. Rowekamp (BS ‘65) Dr. Robert T. Russell

Mr. Paul R. Schuh (BS ‘78) Mr. Kenneth Sparks

Mr. James I. Streeter (BS ‘60) Mr. John D. Hoholick Ms. Deirdre Whitley

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Doug McVey (MS ’93) Hi Dr. Huff,

Hope all is well and you are getting prepared for Spring even though it is slow in arriving. We are still having snow showers on and off up here in your home state.

Things are going well and keeping very busy. Since the economy is improving, environmental due diligence is picking up due to increased property transactions. I am in charge of our due diligence group so that means a lot of interaction with bank and developer personnel.

Take care and I will try to keep in touch.

Cheers - Doug

Richard (Rich) Schultz (PhD ’91)

Editor’s note: Rich has received the Genevieve Staudt Endowed Chair in Geography & Geosciences at Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, IL. This is a 5-year endowed chair term centering on professional development and will supplement his role as Program Director of the APHG Graduate Certificate Program (http://www.elmhurst.edu/aphg).

Rich writes: Another note of interest is that I am part of my first NSF Grant in the area of applied geospatial technologies as a senior partner for the National Geospatial

Matt Forney (BS ’04)

(Ed note: Matt was kind enough to send along information about student scholarships) Good Morning Dr. Owen, Dr. Nash, and Dr. Huff:

Please pass this email along to the undergraduate and graduate students as this is the time of year to start applying to NOAA’s Office of Education Scholarships at oesd. noaa.gov. For the undergraduates there is a program called the Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship Program, and for the graduate students there is money available for NOAA related research.

For those students who are finishing up a degree, there are opportunities to be employed by NOAA or Join the

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Technology Center of Excellence (GeoTech Center), now to be headed out of Louisville, KY. I am looking forward to being a short distance from my old stomping grounds in Cincinnati and will have to make a visit one of these days.

I hope all is well at UC and with Geology.

Best, Rich Schultz

Alejandra Bonilla (MS ’05)

Alejandra sends greetings to all. She continues to work part-time for Golder Associates, a geotechnical consulting firm in Tucson, AZ, and writes that, “It’s been a little bit hectic around our house for the last few months since Dante (my second boy) was born in March. Adrian’s delighted to have a little brother to play with, but he will need to wait a while until that actually happens.”

David Ray (PhD ’01)

Editor’s Note: David is currently the Lead Geologist (Sequence Stratigraphy) with Neftex Petroleum Consultants Ltd in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. He sends his greetings and best wishes to all.

NOAA Corps. As a current uniformed officer in the NOAA Corps, I can assure you it is a wonderful organization with opportunity around every corner. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns. I know first hand that government webpages can be confusing and information is hidden.

Matt LTJG Matthew Forney Navigation Manager of Alaska Region NOAA - Office of Coast Survey

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Mike Nicholis (BS ’99, MS ’01)

Warren and Attila...it’s great to hear from you!

We’ve moved to the Houston suburbs because our family has grown. We have to wonderful and “very” active boys George (2yrs old) and Drew (5 months old). So to say the least life has changed just a bit. Texas has been treating us great!

How are you guys doing? I look forward to seeing the Newsletter and reading about all the great work that’s being done! I haven’t had the opportunity to visit Cincinnati the last few years, but hope to make the trip early next year and will do my best to stop by and visit.

Regards, Mike G. Nicholis

Esteban Segredo (PhD ’11) Hi Warren,

How are you?

Well, as you may already know, Anne and I are already in Chile, settling into our new apartment and my new job (at the Universidad Católica de Chile (Instituto de Geografía).

Life is treating us well!

I hope you are doing well.

Cheers Esteban

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Pat McLaughlin (PhD ‘06) Hi Warren,

I hope you are well. We have had some incredibly hot days here recently, hope you aren’t suffering the same. As you know, the Wisconsin Survey has become a sanctuary for recent UC alums. Most recently, Jay Zambito started on July 1! Nick Sullivan has been here for over a year as a visiting researcher while working as an RA with Carl (remotely) and I on a USGS contract with UC. (See attached field picture that I took of Jay and Nick while at a quarry in the northeastern part of the state looking at the top of a ~200’ terrestrial to marginal marine succession of Middle Ordovician St. Peter shales and sandstones overlain by Black River-equivalent marine carbonates.)

As for me, I am thriving. I have two beautiful kids and became program leader for the bedrock program a few weeks ago.

Susie says hello. She is incredibly busy educating/nourishing/training/entertaining Eullan (3.5 yrs) and Doran (15 mos.) on a never-ending basis. I do what I can, but it is only temporary. She does have quite a few other mom-friends in the community that she

gains strength from. We are really lucky to live in such a wonderful place. We have now been six years in Wisconsin! The last four we have spent in the little village of Mount Horeb, ~20 minutes west of Madison in the Driftless Area. My house is built on Upper Ordovician Trenton carbonates that they call Galena here in Wisconsin. It is a little tourist town with many unique shops and cafes, but also a highly educated populous that commutes to jobs in Madison. It is also home to the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey’s Research Collections and Education Center. This ~20,000 ft2 facility contains over 2000 drill cores (~600,000 linear feet) and cuttings equaling ~2 million feet of water well drilling. Over the past six years I have developed several labs and protocols at the facility and have used the facility extensively in my own research and as a place to preserve highly valuable endangered cores from other areas. I live less than a mile from the facility and spend half my workweek there...it is a geologist’s dream come true! :) Best wishes, Pat

Laura Gilpin (BS ’02)

Good Morning Dr. Kilinc, Dr. Nash, Thought I’d touch base with you guys and see what was new with you. How is the department and your research going? Any exciting trips?

Well here’s my update for 2012. Things and life are going really well. I’m coming up on my 5 year anniversary at Nammo. I’ve really been enjoying my work and the company as a whole. I think I mentioned once before, we are a defense contractor specializing in energetic-based products. Some life-saving devices like jet ejection systems, head and neck restraints, etc. But we also make ammunition and shoulder launched weapons. I’ve found a niche here in my department which I really enjoy, which is that I work now mainly on fail-

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ure investigations (and other general R&D investigations). So if an adhesive is failing, or they have some unknown contaminant, or when things just aren’t working as they should, they come to me to find out why.

It’s a lot of fun and I feel like each new investigation brings on a new challenge and keeps it interesting. But I also still do my regular analytical chemistry gig with identifying unknown materials as well as, most recently, helping the TOW missile program (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire command-link guided) get off the ground here by helping to develop the production processes.

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Gilpin (continued)

At home things have been going well too. My husband just recently was hired as a police officer with the City of Maricopa. So he’s enjoying the new challenges his job is bringing him. We’re up to three dogs now. We were at four for a few months as I was fostering a lovely pitbull/Am bulldog mix until he was adopted. Four was insane though, I don’t recommend it. ;) And I’ve also undergone major lifestyle changes. Just over a year ago, I decided to change my life through healthy eating and exercise. Over the past year I’ve lost 50 lbs and have gone from being a couch potato to running my first 5K to, most recently, completing my first triathlon. And I actually took first place in my division, which was really amazing for me. My next triathlon is actually coming up this Sunday and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been competing with two coworkers from a different department, and it has been so much fun to have teammates. In fact, the three of us have started a company sponsored multisports team here at work.

Nearly a dozen people so far have signed up, and I’m really looking forward to seeing other people get into running, cycling and triathlons. It’s such a positive and rewarding experience. I’ll attach a few pictures from my first tri.

But overall, I’m just very happy with life at the moment.

I know that my lifestyle overhaul has helped me both personally as well as professionally, I manage stress

much better and am just generally more positive at work.

I’ve found a good balance. I did want to say though, how happy I am and always have been with the education I received at UC and from the department. I honestly think it’s a testament to the department, and in particular to you, Dr. Kilinc, that I could have a undergraduate and graduate education in geology, but then be able to perform as a chemist in the job market. Having a strong background in the pure sciences has allowed me to be flexible in the job market, and especially in this economy for the past 5 years, that has been invaluable. I also find that the experimental research that I got involved with as an undergraduate (and of course continuing into grad school) has been immensely valuable for me in my current position. I often deal with very difficult (hard to analyze) samples.

But experimental geology/geochemistry is often about innovation and creativity when it comes to sampling and sample analyses.

Oh, and Dr. Nash, you’d enjoy this… I’m often complimented on my report writing here. And, though the least exciting part of my job, I am often tasked with writing up reports, documentation and procedures (even when it’s a procedure I don’t have anything to do with) because our director has a high opinion of my writing skills. But I certainly owe my understanding of the importance of being able to present a polished report to you. That was good advice that I never forgot.

Hope you’re both very well. Please tell everyone I said hello.

Laura Gilpin Research Department Nammo Talley

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Joel Hecker (BS ’10)

I’m finally done at Miami now. I finished my MS in Hydrogeology and got a job as a staff geologist/groundwater modeler with the environmental consulting branch of an engineering firm up here (Michigan) (Soils & Materials Engineers). College paid off, now its time for the real world.

Hope all is well.

Joel

Mike Oestreich (Class of ’09)

Editor’s Note: Mike O visited an old Gilsonite mine in Utah and provided some photos. Here is a note of explanation from Wikipedia: Gilsonite is the registered trademark for a form of natural asphalt found only in the Uintah Basin of Utah; the non-trademarked mineral name is uintaite or uintahite. It is mined in underground shafts and resembles shiny black obsidian. Discovered in the 1860s, it was first marketed as a lacquer, electrical insulator, and waterproofing compound about twenty-five years later by Samuel H. Gilson.

By 1888 Gilson had started a company to mine the substance, but soon discovered the vein was located on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. Under great political pressure Congress removed some 7,000 acres (28 km2)

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from the reservation on May 24, 1888 to allow the mining to proceed legally. Gilsonite mining became the first large commercial enterprise in the Uintah Basin, causing most of its early population growth.

This unique mineral is used in more than 160 products, primarily in dark-colored printing inks and paints, oil well drilling muds and cements, asphalt modifiers, foundry sand additives, and a wide variety of chemical products.

The trademark, registered in 1921, belongs to the American Gilsonite Company.

Mining Gilsonite during World War II was by hand, using a six-pound pick and then shoveling the ore into 200-pound sacks, which were sewn by hand. In 1949 at the Parriette Gilsonite mine near Myton, Utah, Reed Smoot McConkie set the world record for ore mined by hand. Using his pick and shovel, he mined 175 bags of ore in an 8 hour day, 950 bags in a six day week, 1925 bags in a month and 15,000 bags in one year.

Gilsonite-brand uintahite’s earliest applications included paints for buggies and emulsions for beer-vat lining. It was used by Ford Motor Company as a principal component of the Japan Black lacquer used on most of the Ford Model T cars.”

2013 GSA RECEPTION

The Geological Society of America 2013 Annual Meeting will be held October 27-30 in Denver, Colorado at the Hyatt Convention Center I would like to invite you all to attend and to join us for an

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alumni get-together on Monday, the 28th in the Mineral Hall D from 6:30 PM-9:00 PM,. I hope to see you in Denver,.

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Editor’s note: Mike Oestreich forwarded this article about racing.

By Chris Quintana | The New Mexican

Organizers of the Santa Fe Concorso chose Las Campanas and the Santa Fe Air Center as the new venues in which to gather and show off high-end collectible vehicles owned by auto enthusiasts from across the nation.

Dennis Little, president of the nonprofit sponsoring the charity event, now in its third year, said that the Santa Fe Concorso outgrew its previous venue at La Mesita equestrian ranch in Nambé Valley and that Las Campanas provides more grassy space.

“Dirt and dust don’t agree with these paints jobs,” he said.

A public event Sunday at Las Campanas will feature more than 100 vehicles — cars, motorcycles and bicycles included. Guests can also expect a silent auction for items such as a look inside Jay Leno’s private car collection or professional driving lessons at Bondurant School of High Performance Driving.

Racing legends Sir Stirling Moss, Denise McCluggage and Al Unser Sr. will attend and sign autographs.

ten flies the helicopter around. Santa Fe, getting a bird’s-eye view of how the city changes over the years. He’s also given tours, provided aplatform for aerial photography and carried movie crews up in his helicopter.

Jeff Brock of Brock’s Speed Studio in Abiquiú brought his modified 1952 Buick. The car is a four-time record setter in the gas competition coupe and sedan category at the Bonneville land speed competition at the Utah Salt Flats, where people bring custom-made vehicles to see how fast they can go. Brock said his car’s latest record came when he reached an average top speed of 162.4 miles per hour.

“It’s better than any drug,” he said. “And it’s almost as good as sex to tear across the earth like that.”

He built the car’s exterior and extras such as an air scoop shaped like a missile. The car’s body is a slate gray, and it truly looks like it deserves to be called a “lead sled.” Brock got attention when he revved the engine, shattering the chatter of all in attendance.

Brock, who will be at Sunday’s event as well, said he built the car in 2009 over the course of three months at a cost of about $10,000, and has raced it in any speed competition he could find.

The weekend gathering kicked off Friday night at the Santa Fe Air Center at the Santa Fe Municipal Airport.

Guests at the $125-a-ticket VIP event got a look at sparkling Rolls Royces, Mercedes, Maseratis, BMWs and other luxury vehicles in addition to vintage aircraft, a first for the Concorso, Little said.

One of the attendees was local business owner Joaquin Brandie of Gryphon Helicopters. He brought his 22-year-old Bell 47 G1 helicopter, a machine he claimed could land in any weather on any terrain.

Brandie, who said he knew he wanted to fly when he was 11, said local pilot Richard Brown once rescued him from the Santa Fe National Forest in a similar helicopter. He said he of-

day as well.

Friday’s gathering also included a team of technicians who deconstructed and then reconstructed a Model T Ford in about 10 minutes. The group will be at Las Campanas on Sun-

Organizers say proceeds from the Concorso benefit various charities for children in Santa Fe.

D o you have any recollections of field

trips, social events, classroom experiences or other experiences during your UC days that you would like to share with your alumni colleagues?

Send them to Warren Huff, email: WARREN.HUFF@UC.EDU or Dept. of Geology, UC, Cincinnati, OH 45221 and we’ll include them in next years’ issue.

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