Outcroppings 2020

O

utcroppings MAGAZINE OF THE EARTH, ENVIRONMENT,

Volume 5 2020

AND ENERGY

Issue Focus: Coping with

COVID

2020 • Outcroppings 1

Despite the restrictions imposed by COVID-19, EEPS graduate student Tanyel Baykut found ways to cope through exploration.

See EEPS COVID Stories, p.92

2 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Photo: Linda Welzenbach

Contents COVID-19 Virus Morphology

Outcroppings 2020 Issue

EDITORIAL BOARD Cin-Ty Lee (Chair) Rajdeep Dasgupta Laurence Yeung

Image credit: CDC

EDITOR & CREATIVE DIRECTOR Linda Welzenbach

COVID-19 Closures open a window of opportunity for EEPS climate scientists Sylvia Dee, Caroline Masiello and Mark Torres.

STUDENT BOARD Asmita Banerjee (Chair) Patrick Phelps Debadrita Jana Sarah Preston

See COVID-19 Research Brief on p. 68 ADVERTISEMENTS Meagan McKellar ALUMNI RELATIONS Martha Lou Broussard Outcroppings is an annual magazine that celebrates the science of our planet and the environment, encourages balanced discussions about energy, and chronicles the paths of people from the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences.

SUBMISSIONS Outcroppings@rice.edu

ON THE COVER:

‘The Chimneys’ Big Bend National Park, Texas. EEPS graduate student Ben Belzer explores the Cretaceous aged volcanic ash pillars exposed near Kit Mountain.

(Photo by Debadrita Jana)

earthscience.rice.edu

6

CONTRIBUTORS

8

DEPARTMENT NEWS

9

AWARDS

Richard Gordon, Melodie French & Laurence Yeung, Chenguang Sun, Martha Lou Broussard, Gabor Tari

12

IN MEMORIUM

DALE SAWYER

18

IRESS 2020

IRESS moves to new format; Eagle Ford Virtual Field Trip

28

PROFILES

Martha Lou Broussard Yueyang Jiang

40

ISSUE FOCUS: Into the Field before and after COVID

Introducing Michael Johnson (M.S. ‘75) sponsored field trips

42

Debadrita Jana

68

RESEARCH BRIEF-

72

RESEARCH BRIEFAnhydrous Sugars

76

DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES

90

OWL PELLETS

Big Bend

Hawaii

CLIMATE during COVID

Ksenia Metruck

Sarah Preston Asmita Banerjee

AAPG field trip to Mexico; Science Olympiad; Welcome Back;

Coping with COVID

2020 • Outcroppings 3

2020

2020 will be remembered not only as the start of a new decade, but the end of taking for granted the health and safety of the Earth and its inhabitants.

Yet despite a year of trials and turmoil there are triumphs of engineering, teamwork and exploration that we can be proud of. Among them is Operation Warp Speed, using a term coined more 50 years ago, which has given us hope that we can acheive a new ‘normal’ soon.

51 years ago we put the first men on the Moon, and while we look to put men on Mars in the next 51 years, many of us have lost touch with those bigger picture endeavors as many of us struggle with feelings of disassociation and loneliness as a function the COVID-19 ‘norm’.

So as social distancing slowed the course of research and limited group field activities, we have deviated from the original plan to cover the data science laboratories for this issue. We decided to focus on COVID-19 related research, enable students to talk about the importance of field experiences, and explore our first virtual field trip to the world’s most important non-convential energy resource- an opportunity rarely available to those outside of industry.

This issue closes with the voices of our students and faculty talking about how they overcame COVID-19 isolation to not only inspire us to find our own ways of coping, but also in this small way, bring everyone together though we are apart.

Finally, much of the success of this issue is dedicated to our student contributors who provided much of the content, enthusiasm and creativity all the while in isolation.

-Linda Welzenbach

4 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Our Contributors Asmita Banerjee

Jade Boyd

Asmita is a Ph.D. candidate interested in climate change through the lens of paleoclimatic, paleo-oceanographic and paleoenvironmental studies. She hopes to go to Antarctica to collect her own ice samples for research.

Jade Boyd is science editor and associate director of news and media relations in Rice University’s Office of Public Affairs.

Martha Lou Broussard

Debadrita Jana

Martha Lou Broussard (B.A. ‘57) is EEPS Alumni coordinator, past EEPS reserach administrator and former Shell geologist. Martha Lou has been a life-long supporter of students at Rice and recently recognized for her exemplary service to students with AAPG’s Michel T. Halbouty Award.

Debadrita Jana is a Ph.D. student studying palaeoclimatic and paleoceanographic phenomena from the Plio-Pleistocene. She spends a lot of time with her core samples and dreams of sailing the high seas to gather data for her research. She enjoys food, books and travel.

Gary Gray, Ph.D.

Yueyang Jiang, Ph.D.

Gary Gray is an adjunct professor in the Professional Subsurface Geoscience Master’s Program at Rice. He is a retired structural geologist from ExxonMobil with a decades-long interest in Mexican geology.

Yeuyang Jiang is EEPS’s data scientist with expertise in big data analysis, which he uses to bulid models to quantify and predict Earth processes. He is originally from Zibo, Shandong province, China.

Ksenia Metruck

Julia Morgan, Ph.D.

Ksenia is an undergraduate (‘21) originally from Florida. An avid hiker and collector of rocks from across the country, she became an EEPS major in her sophomore year.

Julia Morgan is a professor who combines geomechanics, structural geology, and discrete numerical modeling in the study of mountain building, volcano deformation and landsliding in marine, terrestrial and planetary systems.

Sarah Preston

Patrick Phelps

Sarah is a sophomore EEPS major from Nashville, Tennessee. When not in class, she enjoys studying planetary surface processes, Star Wars and bouldering.

Patrick Phelps is a Ph.D. student working on crystal growth and dynamics in magmatic systems. He enjoys hiking and exploring nature.

2020 • Outcroppings 5

6 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Desert Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) in flower Big Bend National Park, Texas Image: Debadrita Jana 2020 • Outcroppings 7

NEW FACES

DEPARTMENT NEWS

FAREWELL

Yueyang Jiang Research Scientist

Mejs Hasan Clever Planets Outreach Coordinator

Yueyang Jiang is a is a data scientist with expertise in big data analysis and earth systems model development. He brings to Rice more than 10 years of experience in high-performance supercomputing to process, manage and analyze large datasets (e.g., geodatabase, downscaled climate projections and earth model outputs) to support and improve EEPS data science research. He recieved is Ph.D. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from Purdue University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Ecosystems Center of Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA, and a research associate position at the Department of Forestry and Ecosystem Society at Oregon State University.

Mejs Hasan was the digital communications and public outreach coordinator for CLEVER Planets. Mejs is from North Carolina. She received her Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill, where she studied the effects of pollution, storms, drought and conflict on rivers and wetlands. While at Rice she was an active article contributer to Outcroppings in addition to managing the CLEVER Planeets webpage and social media. Mejs left EEPS in June of 2020 to join the Jet Propulsion Laborabory in Pasadena, California, as an Earth Science Visual Story Teller, where she will focus on writing stories and makimg animations about JPL missions that study Earth’s environment.

Andre Droxler Emeritus Professor

Andre Droxler retired from EEPS in June after serving as as a faculty member for 33 years. His research focused on studying the morphology of sediments accumulating on slopes and basin floors surrounding coral reefs and carbonate platforms. Over the past 30 years, he has conducted research programs in the Bahamas, offshore Jamaica, along the Belize margin, in the western Gulf of Mexico, in the Maldives (Indian Ocean), along the Australian Great Barrier Reef and in the Gulf of Papua (Papua New Guinea). The main focus of Droxler’s research included the regional and global evolution of coral reefs, the paleo-oceanographic/climatic and sea level records archived in the sediments deposited around reefs and carbonate platforms.

Gerald Dickens Professor of Oceanography

Jerry Dickens retired from EEPS in August after serving as as a faculty member for ?? years. During his tenure, he was an oceanographer deeply involved in the chemistry of seafloor sediments and sedimentary rocks. He is best known for his work on Oceanic gas hydrates: Clathrate hydrates of gas (gas hydrates) which are important for both climatological and energy resarch.

While he may have retired from EEPS, he has moved on to Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland to continue his research on geochemical cycling during major oceanographic change towards understanding events in the early Paleogene (Paleocene-middle Eocene) and early Aptian, times characterized by major warmth and massive input of carbon.

8 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

AWARDS

Assistant professor Laurence Yeung has earned a five-year, $584,000 NSF CAREER Award to connect theoretical and experimental data on a metric that can give scientists better data about the global biosphere’s past and present productivity.The grant will also funds Yeung’s goal to share their results with Houston-area students through annual teacher training activities through the Rice Office of STEM Engagement and the Harris County Department of Education. -M. Williams, Rice News

Image: Jeff Fitlow

Image: Linda Welzenbach

FACULTY

NSF EARLY CAREER FELLOWS

Assistant Professor Melodie French earned the prestigious CAREER Award, a five-year National Science Foundation grant for $600,000 to support her investigation of the tectonic roots of earthquakes and tsunamis. The award gives her Rice lab the opportunity to study rocks exhumed from subduction zones at plate boundaries that are often the source of megathrust earthquakes and tsunamis. -M. Williams, Rice News

Images courtesy of Hunter Lockhart

ALUMNI

EEPS ALMUNI RECEIVE TOP AAPG HONORS

Martha Lou Broussard, B.A. ‘57 was awarded AAPG’s 2020 Michael T. Haulbouty Outstanding Leadership Award. Broussard was a technical assistant to M. King Hubbert prior to going on to a successful career in the oil industry with Shell Development Company and ERICO. She returned to Rice to work as the Department of Earth Science coordinator, and now volunteers as the department’s alumni coordinator. She is best known for starting the AAPG/Society of Exploration Geoscientists Student Expo program, which is key in the recruiting programs of as many as 40 exploration and production companies.

Hunter Lockhart with friends on board a drill ship in Trinidad

Gabor Tari, Ph.D. ‘94 is the 2020 recipient of the Vlastimila “Vlasta” Dvořáková International Ambassador Service Award. This award is given to those who have promoted growth and awareness of the AAPG organization internationally, outside the United States, and created opportunities for the Association to reach a wider audience of geoscientists worldwide. Tari is being honored for his exceptional role in being the main driver of catalysts for many international events in the Europe Region.

Above text from the 2019 AAPG Honors and Awards program.

See page ?? for the full story along with her biography.

2020 • Outcroppings 9

STUDENTS , FACULTY, POSTDOCS

DEPARTMENT NEWS

EEPS Ao Cai and Laurence Yeung earn Best Paper awards In 2020, Ph.D. student Ao Cai and assistant professor Laurence Yeung are among the very few to grab best paper awards for 2019.

Ao Cai’s paper, “Data weighted full-waveform inversion with adaptive moment estimation for near-surface seismic refraction data” won best student paper presented at the 2019 SEG Annual Meeting, September 15-20, 2019.

There were 1,077 peer-reviewed technical expanded abstracts (conference papers) accepted for presentation at the meeting.

There were 5,126 attendees including exploration geophysicists from both academia and industry.

“Your research and preparation were also noticed by your fellow SEG members who judged your paper, ranking it in the top 25 of 1,077 papers presented at the San Antonio meeting,” wrote John Koehr, Executive Director of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists in December.

Ao Cai received final notification as the top winner in April of 2020.

in the world that cultures the more exotic bugs we needed to work with,” says Yeung. The risk has not only paid off in terms of helping to realize a method for determining biological N2 production in soils, something that has been difficult to measure for more than 50 years, he demonstrated what a successful non-traditional collaboration can accomplish in two years.

Why is it important to better constrain the biological production of N2 in soils? The biosphere needs nitrogen to thrive -- just ask any home gardener -- but keeping track of all the different ways that nitrogen comes and goes in the environment has proven quite difficult for scientists to track.

N2 is an important end-product of biological processing because its formation means that "fixed" nitrogen (the nitrogen easily utilized by life) is lost from the environment.

This process occurs in soils, rivers, lakes, the ocean and water-treatment plants, among other places. Yet (especially on land) we have a poor understanding of how much fixed nitrogen is being lost. The main reasons come down to a lack of good measurements and the huge number of micro-environments where these processes occur.

Laurence Yeung’s paper titled “In Situ Quantification of Biological N2 Production Using Naturally Occurring 15N15N” won first runner up in the category of Environmental Science in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology (ES&T).

This problem translates, on the global scale, to large uncertainties in nitrogen cycling on land and thus the uncertain responses of these cycles to environmental change. Yeung’s study gave the community a new way to pin down fixed-nitrogen loss.

Each year, the ES&T editorial advisory board reviews and ranks approximately 100 published papers identified as “outstanding, high-quality and far-reaching environmental research.”

The method they developed is based on how often one finds nitrogen-15 atoms bound together in a molecule of N2. It turns out that biological N2-producing processes tend to assemble nitrogen-15 atoms more or less randomly. This pattern is totally different from that of atmospheric chemistry, which tends to "clump" nitrogen-15 atoms together in N2.

So, we can take a mixture of N2 gas and identify how much of it came from biological processes in the local environment. They were able to demonstrate this for soil gases sampled at the Kellogg Biological Station in Michigan. What makes this especially cool is that it can be done passively, without disturbing the soil. All other techniques require some sort of physical disruption (e.g., removing a soil core) or adding nutrient amendments, both of which can disturb the natural functioning of the biota.

ES&T publishes ~4,500 citable articles per year. As the first runner up in one of four categories (Environmental Science, Environmental Technology, Environmental Policy and Features), Yeung’s paper falls in the top ~0.2 per cent of all the articles published in 2019.

“It's an honor to be selected, and quite a surprise, because I didn't know the paper was even in the running. It is the first paper I had ever submitted to ES&T, and the first written for the soil research community. This recognition is quite encouraging, especially for a first-timer in this field,” says Yeung.

Soils are a new area of research for Laurence. He took advantage of an opportunity, pitching his tool kit to the best in the world, to address a very complicated problem. “Many good scientists have dedicated their careers to understanding the biogeochemistry of soils. The Dutch group is one of the few 10 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

What makes their results award worthy? Yeung couldn’t be sure. “It could have been some combination of it being a new technique, a clever "re-casting" of a ubiquitous technique developed in the 1950s into one that does not require isotopic labels, or the rigor with which the data was analyzed and discussed. The other 99% is probably luck.”

AWARDS

WIESS SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCES

2019 SCIENTIFIC IMAGE CONTEST: SECOND PLACE Since 2015, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences has been hosting a Scientific Image Contest to highlight the artistry that is part of the science conducted at Rice. All types of imagery are accepted, from the macro to micro world, from computer graphics to mathematical illustrations.

For the second year in a row, EEPS resarch has been honored. Postdoctoral fellow Michael taken by a drone while conducting Mars analogue research in Iceland.

Thorpe’s

prize winning image was

Michael Thorpe is recently a Rice postdoctoral fellow and new research scientist at NASA Johnson Space Center. His research centers on exploring chemical weathering and sediment generation in basaltic terrains, both on Earth and Mars, ultimately tracking geochemical and mineralogical transformations from source-to-sink.

The award winning image shows glacial fed lakes in central Iceland. It was a drone image captured as part of a NASA project called SAND-E. I thought image was appropriate because not only was it breathtaking, but it demonstrates a key component to my research: looking at basaltic sediments from source to sink. Another interesting part of the image is the various shades of color in the three lakes in the landscape. I think this is due to glacial sediments being filtered out from the interconnected lake system. Part of the reason we focus on Iceland is that the degree of chemical weathering is similar to what we observe with the Curiosity rover on Mars.”

This work will will be published in the journal Geology, that compares the geochemistry across planets and proposes that ancient martian environments may have been more Icelandic-like.

An article about Michael Thorpe and his research with EEPS faculty Kirsten Siebach will appear in the 2121 issue of Outcroppings.

2020 • Outcroppings 11

STUDENTS

DEPARTMENT NEWS

Almost 100 virtual attendees joined in celebrating EEPS graduates last Friday, May 15, 2020. EEPS faculty and staff presented a program that honored seven undergraduates, eight professional masters in subsurface geoscience, two master of science degrees and 11 doctor of philosophy graduates.

In a show of solidarity, all the faculty are standing before

you, albeit remotely through the zoom gallery. We are standing in full support behind you, the students, to show that we recognize all that you’ve accomplished, all that you’ve overcome and most importantly, that we are behind you as you move forward in your lives.

We probably took it for granted before, but the faculty, students, staff, alumni, friends of the department, are all united in our wish to celebrate student accomplishments.

Whatever their degree, the students here have not only acquired immense knowledge, but in a small department like ours with small class sizes, they have also learned how to think critically about complex problems. They have had the opportunity to learn outside of the classroom as well, from the many faculty in our department. Our faculty are in turn inspired by the questions students ask, and thus we learn too.

For the parents, who might not all be familiar with what an Earth Science major is, I can best summarize it as the field in which we study how Earth and all its components interact.

12 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

From its interior to the soils at the surface, the hydrosphere, and the atmosphere that gives us life. This includes the interactions of the Earth’s surface with its deep interior that lead to volcanoes, earthquakes and other natural hazards.

We also study how our climate system evolves and how other planets have evolved with time. In a sense, what our students learn is how to work in complex, highly interconnected systems, when data is often incomplete and systems are rapidly evolving. We are trained to think in deep time where we reconstruct fragmentary data to tell the story of the Earth.

And perhaps, these studies of our history shed light on the future of our planet.

I think you would agree that society right now is at a most uncertain moment in our history with COVID-19, climate change, the energy crisis and the economy. Our Earth scientists, even if they do not go on to be geologists, may prove essential to helping our society make it through these crises.

-Cin-Ty Lee, EEPS Chair

AWARDS

The Awards: Eugen Merten Memorial Prize in Geology & Geophysics Christina Stoner – as a junior majoring in Earth Science, for her strong performance in ESCI courses. She was also the co-organizer of the Hawaii trip.

Michael Lara – for ESCI 322 last fall, where he taught the lab portion of the course and also coordinated the field trip.

Outstanding Undergraduate Award

Joyeeta Bhattacharya – for her active role in the new course ESCI 110, keeping it running smoothly while interfacing between two faculty and 40 students.

Jackson Stiles – for his strong performance in ESCI courses and deep involvement in departmental undergraduate life Jared Nirenberg – for his superlative performance in all ESCI courses and senior honors thesis research titled “Glacially-controlled variations in the biological pump of the Ross Sea in the Mid- to Late Pliocene”

Departmental Service Award Alana Semple Debadrita Jana Naod Araya

The Leroy Caleb Gibbon Award Andrew Moodie – for his written Ph.D. thesis titled “Assessing deltaic landscape management strategies based on studies from the Yellow River delta, China”.

The PhD thesis research also has already led to several published work.

The Sam Worden Memorial Award

Torkild Rieber Award in Geology

Sahand Hajimirza – for his thorough and detailed work on physics of volcanic eruption – specifically on formation of bubbles during magma ascent Jia Shi – for his Ph.D. thesis research on computational seismology.

Proteek Chowdhury – for his thesis research on Earth’s deep sulfur cycle, which has already led to two peer-reviewed publications.

Outstanding Graduate Student Award

Daniel Woodworth – for his thesis research on the paleolatitude of the Hawaiian hotspot over the past ~50 Ma, true polar wander in the past 12 Ma, and it’s likely relationship to the onset of Greenland ice sheets and northern hemisphere mid-latitude ice sheets. + several more works that are nearing submission.

For their outstanding Ph.D. thesis research in the broad field of sedimentology and active participants in departmental activities:

David Blank – for his thesis research on slow slip events and their links to earthquake nucleation and earthquake triggering.

Tian Dong – Ph.D. thesis: “Dynamics of delta building across different scales as informed by the Selenga River Delta, Russia”

Patrick Phelps – for his creative thesis research on rapid growth of pegmatite crystals.

Mills Bennett Award

Outstanding TA award Kevin Gastra – for ESCI 101 where he created online labs for the students.

Brandee Carlson – Ph.D. thesis: “The geomorphic evolution of abandoned deltaic lobes and distributary channels”

Yi Hou – for her consistent performance in Earth Science courses and her research promise in the field of low-temperature geochemistry in general and sedimentation and organic carbon burial in particular.

2020 • Outcroppings 13

IN MEMORIUM

DEPARTMENT NEWS

Rice mourns geophysicist, former college magister Dale Sawyer

by JADE BOYD, Rice News Rice geophysicist Dale Sawyer, a respected scientist, dedicated educator and former magister of Will Rice and Sid Richardson colleges, died peacefully Sept. 15 after a long illness. He was 65.

Sawyer, professor emeritus of Earth, Environmental and Planetary sciences, joined Rice in 1988 and retired this year. He was well-known and esteemed around the world for his scientific leadership in marine geophysics, particularly his work on the origins of continental margins, and colleagues recalled he was beloved at Rice for his spirit, good humor and dedication to students and scholarship.

He and his wife, Elise, served as magisters of Will Rice from 1997-2002 and Sid Rich from 2009-2014.

Dale Sawyer

Professor of Marine Tectonics

“Dale was one of the kindest, most generous and caring people in the world, welcoming everyone with an enormous smile — and a bear hug if you were lucky,” said longtime research collaborator Julia Morgan, professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. And so eager to hear about your life, before he shared his own. He will be sorely missed by all.”

Sawyer was born in St. Louis, Missouri, traveled the world as a child and graduated from the International School of Bangkok before earning his bachelor’s degree in Earth science from Purdue University in 1976 and his doctorate in marine geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982.

He was a pioneer in the numerical modeling of crustal deformation and an expert in the acquisition and interpretation of active source seismic profiles. He frequently went to sea to collect seismic data aboard research ships, and because of his calm leadership skills and expertise he was tapped to serve as either chief scientist or co-chief scientist on half of the shipboard expeditions in which he participated.

“He ran research cruises from Chile to Iberia and elsewhere,” Morgan said. “His research changed our understanding of how continents evolve and also launched numerous students and colleagues on productive career paths.”

During their time as college magisters, he and Elise helped support more than 1,000 Rice undergraduates, and Morgan said Dale “was like a proud parent to every student in the college, excited about their interests and activities, saddened by their trials, and always there for them.”

After a fireworks celebration for the matriculation of Rice’s 100th class of freshmen in 2011, Sawyer, then magister at Sid Rich, told the Rice News, “It’s wonderful. At this point, all we see is their faces, and we have no idea what they’re going to be a year from now or four years from now. It’s just amazing to watch them grow and do things that they’re going to be proud of for the rest of their lives.”

Sawyer’s family said some of his favorite times at Rice were spent cheering the Sid Rich women to a powder puff football championship and the Will Rice Beer Bike team to a sweep, as well as helping to grow student-run theater. He also advised and mentored countless graduate students and postdocs and helped found the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences’ professional master’s program.

Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman said, “Dale was a wonderful mentor to Rice students outside of the classroom. He had a big smile and wonderful laugh, and he cared deeply about students, their experiences at Rice and their development as scholars and citizens of the world. His passing is a true loss to our community.”

14 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Sawyer’s teaching didn’t stop at Rice’s hedges.

He spoke to grade school classes, worked with his students to create an introductory Earth sciences curriculum for middle and high school students that is still in use and was frequently interviewed by news reporters seeking comment about the geological causes of earthquakes, tsunamis and other seismic events. In partnership with current and former students, Sawyer also co-taught continuing education courses for Houston-area high school science teachers that used ground-penetrating radar to locate graves in former slave cemeteries.

An Eagle Scout, Sawyer was also passionate about mentoring young people through the Boy Scouts of America. He was a Vigil Honor member of the Order of the Arrow, and though he served in many roles at the Sam Houston Area Council, he was most proud of helping to lead National Youth Leadership Training, a program that allowed him to mentor and coach hundreds of young men.

Sawyer’s travels took him to every continent, but Morgan said his heart was always at Rice.

“Rice University was always foremost in his mind: It was his life,” Morgan said. “There are few people I know who had so much loyalty and commitment to the university, to the department and most of all to the undergraduates who crossed his path.”

Sawyer was named outstanding faculty associate at Will Rice College from 1990-1997, was a distinguished alumnus of the Purdue Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and was a member of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Sigma Xi.

2020 • Outcroppings 15

Dale Sawyer – Mentoring

by Julia Morgan

Thanksgiving 2020 is a good time to look back on opportunities that I recieved, and the people who made them possible – and foremost in my mind is my friend and colleague, Dale Sawyer, who passed away this year. As EEPS mourns the loss of Dale, we also give thanks to his long standing commitment to the betterment of our department, Rice Univerisity and beyond.

This is my tribute to Dale’s role as a mentor and advisor, to me and to many others- but most significantly to the graduate and undergraduate students at Rice.

As a full professor in the EEPS Department today, I recognize that I am here primarily because of Dale Sawyer – because of his encouragement, his enthusiasm for my science and his persistence in urging me to apply!

Dale congratualtes 2019 Ph.D. graduate Christopher Odezulu.

Sawyer mentor Dale was my geology undergraduate and research advisor working on Galicia crust-mantle reflectors. I came to Rice as a teenage mother from a poor, rural community. I was not familiar with academia, but I wanted to study the Earth and go to grad school. Dale was supportive at every turn, sparking my interest in geophysics, fielding my naive questions, inviting me into his research group, giving me the skills and encouragement to work part time to support my family, giving useful advice on getting into grad school, seeding my passion to study the mantle using seismology, and taking me to my first AGU meeting. I certainly appreciated it all at that time, but now that I have heard so many advisor stories from the shocking to the indifferent, I realize just how lucky I was, how lucky we all were to enter academia in such a supportive environment. I hope those of us who benefitted from his mentorship can re-double our efforts to make science a more inclusive and joyful experience for all.

-Christine Houser, B.A. 1999 16 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

IN MEMORIUM

The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), Leg 149 was a seafloor science cruise headed to the Iberia Abyssal Plain, just west of Spain. Dale was one of the chief scientists leading the expedition, and the big man in charge. I was a puny new post-doc awed by the scientific experts running the operation. But the instant I met him, it was clear that I had nothing to fear. Dale’s welcoming smile, his big laugh and his eagerness to get to know everyone on the cruise was the start of a great working relationship. By good fortune, Dale and I were on the same 12 hour night shift, so had ample opportunity to interact and talk science while the other half of the ship slept and relaxed. That proved to be a life-changing experience for me – first of all, Dale was one of the most generous people you could find. He was eager to share his vast scientific knowledge of the area, graciously educating me and others on the ship, detailing what the seismic data revealed where we were drilling and highlighting the puzzles we hoped to solve. He was encouraging and supportive to a novice scientist who bounced ideas off him, trying to find where I could contribute the most. Even more impressive was watching Dale as a leader. Imagine spending 60 days trapped on a ship with 100 other people – there were plenty of disagreements and the occasional personal conflict. Yet Dale was unflappable; where he saw discord, he found ways to bring people together and when people complained about each other, he reminded us that we had more to gain by working together. He was a peacemaker, the steady steersman, keeping the ship moving forward despite intermittent personnel and engineering challenges. Just watching Dale operate under adverse conditions was a singular educational experience for me.

Our friendship continued beyond that cruise. We would bump into each other at meetings and conferences, and Dale always took the time to find out what I was working on and to share updates about his interests. Most significantly, he would encourage me to apply for the next open faculty position at Rice. I would chuckle and return to my latest postdoc or research position. But eventually, he wore me down and when I finally saw the right opportunity I interviewed. The rest is a history of an exciting and fulfilling research career, sometimes in collaboration with Dale. I cannot think of a better validation for Dale’s persistent mentorship of an early-career scientist.

Dale also had profound influence on many others at Rice, in particular, in his roles as graduate mentor, undergraduate advisor and magister of the residential colleges. All of these roles underscored Dale’s personality as someone who always wanted to help others and was eager to provide direction and guidance to students who were finding their way. Even more importantly, he never stopped encouraging and supporting students on their own journeys and applauding their accomplishments. There is no question that Dale was energized by all of these interactions, and he generously spread that energy to others. Dale was a good listener, open to new and creative ideas, and rarely critical. He knew that everyone wants to be heard and has a story to tell.

Consistent with this, Dale loved to participate in undergraduate student life, which was a big part of his role as magister of the colleges.

He was a regular attendee of beer bike and other social events, he advertised and attended all of the college performances and shows and proudly showed off the highlights of the college to visitors. He welcomed any and all students who showed up at his door seeking advice and assistance, both within and outside the colleges.

Dale served as undergraduate major advisor for the department for many years. He was the perfect man for the job – he knew the university guidelines and he knew how to communicate them to others without making them seem too onerous. He willingly took on associated background administrative tasks that were often underappreciated by other faculty who didn’t know what effort it entailed.

Consequently, Dale was the go to person for the faculty and staff as well, as he knew the university inside and out; it really was his love and passion.

His efforts on behalf of graduate and postdoctoral training and advising were also significant. Countless Masters and Ph.D. students, as well as postdoctoral fellows, worked under his guidance, with many continuing on to faculty positions or industry roles. As the primary resource for seismic reflection processing and interpretation, he was a popular instructor, known for his careful and detailed explanations of complex techniques, along with his ready accessibility to the students. For this reason, he was a clear choice as one of the first directors of Rice’s highly sought after professional masters program in subsurface geoscience, helping to steer it as it grew, and integrating the students into the educational mix of the department.

Dale was a strong asset to the university, the department, and the broader student body, as well as a great scientist, mentor and community citizen whose contributions will be remembered for a long time to come. And he will be greatly missed.

2020 • Outcroppings 17

SELECTED RECOLLECTIONS FROM SAWYER ALUMNI AND COLLEAGUES I had the great fortune to sail with [Dale] on two marine expeditions ~10 years apart on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Both programs had their challenges (like all cruises!) and I was deeply impressed by Dale’s calm and steady leadership and his unwaveringly positive outlook.

-Donna Shillington, Ph.D.

Dale Sawyer and Brian Jordan (M.S. 2016) hold up the original ship-track map from the 2013 Galicia 3D Seismic Cruise (MGL 1307), for which Dale was Co-Chief Scientist.

Northern Arizona University

Dennis Harry, former Sawyer postdoc and

current Warner Professor of Geophysics, Colorado State University, writes about Dale and ODP Leg 149:

ODP

Leg 210

ODP

Leg 149

I promised Juli Morgan I would tell a story from our Ocean Drilling Program days. Dale was Co-Chief on ODP Leg 149. Juli and I were two of the four scientists charged with measuring the physical properties of the samples recovered during drilling. The procedure required the various science teams to compile their findings for each drillhole in a written report, and the Co-Chiefs compiled those into what became a chapter in the Leg 149 volume of the ODP Proceedings. This would be a good time for everyone to remember your first 9th grade English Composition paper. Remember how the teacher seemed to find grammar infractions from a rule book you had never heard of? ODP made that rule book. And the poor Co-Chiefs were charged with enforcing the ODP way. Yes, Dale was actually an enforcer. Wrap your head around that (in practice, he was more a convincer than enforcer). Anyhow, as we were working our 12-hour shifts we would get our reports back with “corrections” from the Co-Chiefs scribbled in the margins (this was during neolithic time, when editors used things called “pens”). At the risk of being accused of defensiveness, I want to point out that core comes up fast when you are drilling. And the science teams work hard 12-hour shifts, trying to do the writing afterward. We got a bit tired, and possibly were becoming a bit grumpy. And then we found a pen.

A purple pen. Dale’s comments on our perfect manuscript were written in blue pen, if I recall correctly. The other Co-chief used a red pen, and the ODP Chief Scientist (also a reviewer) used a green pen. We (the Physical Properties team) did what people of graduate student to post-doc age do when working 12 hour shifts. We edited the edits with our purple pen. And since no one pays attention to punctuation or grammar when writing editorial comments in the margin of a paper, we had a rich target environment. At the time it was hilarious. And perhaps not entirely polite. We finished blowing off steam, made the requested changes and submitted the revised document, threw our edited document in a drawer, and went back to work. Only to discover during the next shift that Dale had retrieved the edited document, which now included all of our snarky purple pen comments (which, like a Steve Martin movie, didn’t seem as funny the next day)!

The Co-Chiefs had decided to change procedure, and now wanted their commented version of the document back along with the revised version. Horrors! We didn’t actually want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Especially anyone that we might need a Letter of Recommendation from. Our team of Physical Scientists made a quick and almost unanimous decision, and sent Juli to deal with it. Which means I only have this part second hand. I understand that Dale had (thank Poseidon) not yet shared the document with the other Editors, as he was still trying to figure out (as he phrased it to Juli): “who’s the purple pen?”. Fantastic Dale. He greatly enjoyed the humor and told the other editor’s that the document had been thrown out.

A final note. There is some disagreement among the Leg 149 crew as to exactly who uttered the (to us famous) phrase “who’s the purple pen?” and exactly how Dale executed the save. Time takes its toll on memories. But in this we agree; in typical fashion, Dale managed to preemptively defuse a stink bomb before feelings

ODP

Leg 141

Dale was a brilliant scientist, passionate educator, wonderful mentor to his students, and a person everyone always wanted to be around. I came to know Dale well through his work with teacher outreach classes at Rice. Among the many things Dale did, he cared deeply about the role Rice played in the broader community. For many years, he lead an effort which brought K-12 educators from all around the Houston area to Rice to learn about Earth Science, and I had the pleasure of working with him on this. Dale will be greatly missed, and his loss leaves a tremendous void.

-Davin Wallace, Ph.D. 2010 18 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Dale was an excellent scientist who brought an unusually broad perspective to his research, a dedicated educator, a valuable colleague, and an important member of the Rice community. He contributed to the growth of the geophysics program at Rice when it was in its infancy, and he was instrumental in establishing the Rice Professional Masters program in Subsurface Geoscience.

by Julia Morgan

He was a popular advisor to his graduate students, devoting much of his time to their growth as scientists. He had many outside interests; among other things he was a Boy Scout troop leader,

One of Dale Sawyer’s most enduring contributions to the geosciences is the

and a scuba diver. Overall, he was one of the most well-rounded people that I have known.

development of an introductory hands-on, in-class learning exercise known as Discovering Plate Boundaries (DPB). Developed and demonstrated in collabora-

-EEPS Professor Alan Levander

tion with Ph.D. alumni Stephanie Shipp and Alison Henning (see image below), Discovering Plate Boundaries (DPB) is a jigsaw-structured classroom exercise in which students explore fundamental datasets from which plate boundary processes were discovered. The resource has been widely used over approximately two decades as a classroom activity for K-12 students, undergraduate Earth Science majors and for general education courses in community college, and as part of the professional development of in-service and pre-service K-12 science teachers. It collectively builds content knowledge in plate boundary processes (including natural hazards), models an effective data-rich, inquiry-based pedagogy, and provides a set of lesson plans and materials, which teachers can port directly into their own classroom.

DPB is based on four visually compelling “specialty” data maps; 1) earthquake locations, 2) modern volcanic activity, 3) seafloor age, and 4) topography and bathymetry; plus a fifth map of (undifferentiated) plate boundary locations. The map jigsaw-exercise is structured so that students are initially split into one of the

Members of Galicia 3D Seismic Survey Team at Rice: Back row from left to right: Brian Jordan, Dale Sawyer, Juli Morgan. Front row from left to right Sarah Dean (Ph.D. 2014), Steve Danbom (Adjunct Professor), Mari Tesi (M.S. 2016)

IODP Leg 314

four “specialties,” and then rearranged into groups with each of the four specialties to describe the boundaries of a particular plate. The essential materials and instructions for classroom use are available online, https://www.plateboundary. rice.edu. Further guidance about their implementation is summarized in Sawyer

¹

et al. (2005) .

Remarkably, DPB materials have been disseminated through many notable on-line forums including Nature Education

⁴

², PBS Learning Media³, National Association

of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) , and Science Education Resource Center

were hurt and still greatly enjoyed the laugh.

As so many others have written, I will miss him greatly. Dale was my post-doc adviser, and I have often marveled at how fortunate I was to begin my career with that relationship. Dale always inspired with his enthusiasm and enlightened with his unique ability to explain geodynamic processes in accessible and memorable ways. I suppose all of his students learned that it takes 3 km of dirt to fill a 1 km hole. But Dale’s intellect and ability to communicate barely begin to describe him.

He was a remarkably kind and caring human being, who never seemed to lose interest in the welfare of those who passed through his life. I last saw him several years ago at an AGU meeting. As was always the case when we chatted at meetings, he first caught me up on his latest work but soon drifted into telling me about the students in his life at the time and the highlights of what was happening with his family. And as he usually did, he asked about my own students and family. Dale’s interest in the welfare of others ran deep.

⁵

(SERC) , and thus adopted by educators around the world. Although hard-copy teaching kits are no longer sold through the DPB website, the materials are freely available in electronic format to all, ready to use in any learning setting. In this way, Dale Sawyer’s legacy of commitment to educate will continue to engage the world’s next generations!

For more information about the DPB resources and their use, email <DPB@rice. edu>.

References D.E., A.T. Henning, S. Shipp, and R.W. Dunbar, 2005, A data ¹richSawyer, exercise for discovering plate boundary processes, Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, n. 1, p. 65-74.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/lesson-2-discover²ing-plate-boundaries-8676678 https://houstonpbs.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/arct15-sci-dpb/discover³ing-plate-boundaries

⁴ https://nagt.org/nagt/teaching_resources/teachingmaterials/11340.html ⁵ https://serc.carleton.edu/resources/22182.html

Dale Sawyer lead EEPS first Type Locale field trip to Hawaii in 2001.

Left image: Dale Sawyer stands on the top of Mauna Kea Volcano, the highest in Hawaii.

Mauna Kea Observatories are visible in the background.

Right image: Former Sawyer student, Alison Henning (Ph.D. 2005) marvels that she can stand two feet away from flowing lava.

2020 • Outcroppings 19

2020 Unconventionals:

From subsurface carbon to reservoir characterization 20 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

In 2020, IRESS switched gears to a more academic platform.

The ability to tap unconventional reservoirs, such as low permeability source rocks, has revolutionized the energy landscape in the United States, with far-reaching economic and geopolitical implications. At the same time, this foray into unconventionals has opened up a plethora of basic scientific questions related to the origin, evolution and migration of these hydrocarbons. The course brought together an interdisciplinary group of academics and industry leaders to discuss a number of key outstanding questions. How do tectonics, basin evolution, climate, volcanism, ocean circulation and carbon and nutrient cycling on the regional and global scale control the formation of source rocks? How are the processes of sedimentary deposition manifested in terms of lithological, mechanical and chemical heterogeneity on lengthscales from microns to meters? How can basic geologic and physical principles, in conjunction with various geophysical methods, be used to predict and extrapolate to a basin scale? What are the basic physics involved in natural and induced migration of fluids, and can we gain insight from analog systems elsewhere? The broad concepts, presented by both EEPS faculty and industry professionals, would translate into a better appreciation for the development of wells and their useful lifetimes, how unconventionals have changed the economics and geopolitics of energy, and finally, what the environmental and social costs have been. A three day field trip out to Eagle Ford formation in west Texas would bring many of these concepts together.

Ken Abdulah Dorothy Ballentine Jonathan Ajo-Franklin Melodie French Cin-Ty Lee Daniel Minisini John Sneider Mark Torres IRESS Virtual field trip is highlighted in the next four pages.

2020 • Outcroppings 21

Minisini's Magic Triplet: An outcrop scale to grain scale tour at what the Eagle Ford formation tells us about unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs Leveraging EEPS connections with industry through adjunct faculty, IRESS 2020 focused on “Unconventionals: from subsurface carbon to reservoir characterization”.

The semester-long series was officially co-taught by adjunct professor at Rice and industry expert at Shell Daniel Minisini, and by EEPS faculty Cin-Ty Lee with subject-specific seminars led by energy industry scientists and faculty from Rice’s Subsurface Masters in Geoscience Program.

The pinnacle of the course was a visit to the classic unconventional hydrocarbon play Eagle Ford Group which is well exposed near Del Rio, Texas. The excursion provided participants the opportunity to not only study one of the best characterized and most active unconventional shale plays in the world, but to do so with the guidance of scientists who have studied it in depth.

By mid-March it was clear that the COVID-19 would create challenges to social distancing in the field. While the global pandemic precluded travel, it created a unique opportunity to not only visit Eagle Ford outcrops using the best of industry imagery, but to integrate and share in-real-time, many of the rich data sets generated through industry exploration.

Our tour guides, Daniel Minisini and collaborator Steven Bergman, Ph.D. chief geologist at SCB Geosciences, took 29 participants from a basinscale to grain-scale survey of the Eagle Ford Formation to introduce them to the chronostratigraphy and diverse depositional facies that construct this hydrocarbon unconventional play.

22 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

“Everything we learn from the outcrops is an analogue of what is happening in the subsurface."

-Daniel Minisini, Shell Oil Company

2020 • Outcroppings 23

T

he Eagle Ford derives its name from outcrops described along the banks of the West Fork of the Trinity River near the old community of Eagle Ford, a neighborhood now located within the city of Dallas.

The virtual field trip started along Tx-90 southwest of San Antonio, near Del Rio, where the Eagle Ford outcrop belt is well exposed.

While the thickest and most productive part of the unit dives below ground, the full surface extent trends from the Oklahoma-Texas border to San Antonio and continues westward to the Rio Grande, Big Bend National Park, and the Quitman Mountains of West Texas.

“Obviously we have to keep in mind that the extent of the Eagle Ford is contemporaneous such that in the north, the sediments are relatively shallow with respect to the sediments deposited in the south. Keep in mind that the extent [of the unit below the surface] to the SE is more than 200 miles.

Try to imagine what the sediments might look like 200 miles offshore in the Gulf today- that’s what the Eagle Ford might have been like."

The formation is an upper Cretaceous aged continental shelf basin unit, comprising more than 100 meters of sediment depostion over six million years. Deposition began right after the opening of the Western Interior Seaway 96 million years ago. A precise chronostratigraphic model was one of the main accomplishments by Minisini and collaborators (see inset box just right).

Minisini, along with Bergman and Eldrett leveraged the drilling of two new cores (each costing approximately $100,000!) combined with data from more than 30 outcrops to create a high-resolution age model. They correllated a variety of independent proxies; fossils (foraminifera, palynological organics, radiolarians), geochemical (U-Pb and 40Ar/39Ar dating of minerals in ash layers) and Fourier Transform modeling the cyclic nature of sedimentary beds. The result is the most comprehensive chronostratigraphic framework for the Cenomanian-Turonian age, the time of Eagle Ford deposition.

24 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

In 2018 Daniel Minisini, Steven Bergman, James Eldrett and Rob Forkner published a paper titled "Chronostratigraphic framework and depositional environments in the organic-rich, mudstone-dominated Eagle Ford Group, Texas, USA" in the journal Sedimentology. (doi:10.1111/sed.12437) The extensive datasets and imagery of two cores drilled for the study along with observation and data sets from more than 30 outcrops used in this article can be accessed from https:// doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.878560?format=html#download.

Links to the paper, original images and figures along with the recorded field trip video can be found at https://earthscience. rice.edu/unconventionals/

NASA Earth Observatory

A swath of lights, covering more than 30 counties in the southern part of Texas, stands out from the bright spider web and starbursts of light that mark the highways and cities in this night sky image of the U.S. These lights represent more than 20,000 oil and gas wells that access the subsurface hydrocarbon reservior of the unconventional play of the Eagle Ford Group. The Late Cretaceous-aged organic-rich interbedded marine shales and limestones represent the second most productive play in the United States, generating 1.4 million barrels of oil and 6.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day (up until February 2020).

2020 • Outcroppings 25

Starting at the Bottom LiDAR imagery from outcrops near Del Rio have enabled scientists to follow features over significant lateral distances. Minisini showed how they were able to identify the direction of one particular channel feature. The NW to the SE trend could not only identify source of sediment, but possibly the terminous of the basin or shelf break.

Chaotic beds, located in the lower Eagle Ford, are brecciated with tabular fragments of what was partially lithified sediment clasts that don't exhibt evidence of transport.

One theory is that storm wave pressure from the water column above can impact pore pressure within sediments on sealfloor, causing ductile failure without significant lateral movement. There are some modern observations from the Gulf which support this.

Storm waves have impacted partly lithified seafloor which has in turn affected the stability of offshore drilling platforms.

When you first look at the Eagle Ford in outcrop it appears rather uniform. Closer inspection shows that it isn't. In fact, the layers of the Eagle Ford and its well characterized depositional facies are very complex.

The Eagle Ford Group is roughly divided into an upper and lower zones.The light color reflected in exposed outcrops (left) is misleading and is the result of almost 50 years of weathering. Beneath the buff coloration are meter-scale packages of resistant, blocky limestone bracketing thinly laminated black mudstone with intermittent thin beds of bentonite.

According to Minisini, the lower half of the Eagle Ford turns out to be significantly heterogenous and laterally variable. It also contains numerous concretions and the highest amounts, up to 15% of total organic carbon (TOC) content near the base where it lies on top of the Buda Limestone. Considering that a typcial TOC threshold for drilling an unconventional shale play is 2%, we can begin to appreciate why the Eagle Ford is one of the world's most important unconventional hydrocarbon reservoirs in the world.

The best of the outcrops occur along TX-90. Just a couple meters above the Eagle Ford's contact with the Buda limestone, black mudstones and hummocky cross stratification and chaotic beds suggest a more dynamic basin floor environment than previously suggested.

This complicated story is part of the motivation for the study as it contrasts with the quiet environments we typcially assume that produce the type and concentration of organics.

Minisini says the mere breaking of the black mudstone bed or a concretion with a hammer yields the odor of hydrocarbons.

This is part one of Minisini's triplet: concretions.

The Bentonite Barcode Among the finer laminations of the mudstones throughout the Eagle Ford are more recessed layers.

What could be even less resistant to weathering than organic-rich mud? Bentonite. Bentonite is an alteration product of volcanic ash. It turns out that the Eagle Ford hosts more than 300 individual ash layers. The image to the right shows a fraction of these bentonite layers counted from two of the study's cores and more than 30 outcrops. It has been dubbed the Bentonite Barcode.

26 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

The volcanic events that the bentonites record suggest eruptions of 10’s up to 100 cubic kilometers of ash. Current theories based on previous observation and modelling of wind direction suggest that the source of ash is to the west, from the cordilleran subduction zone.

Unfortunately the Eagle Ford bentonites are extremely altered. EEPS graduate student Sydney Allen (of Cin-Ty Lee's research group) is currently working on modeling their initial composition in order to try and identify their source.

B Bentonites are a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that they include volcanic zircons which are used to used to accurately date each layer deposited and therefore provides a precise chronostratigraphic model for the rest of the formation. From the frequency distribution of the layers throughout the formation, Minisini and his collaborators are also able to suggest that eruption events took place around every 10 thousand years.

A

The key to the high TOC may be preservation of the detailed rhythmicity of the mud laminations and the interbedded aggregates of fragile, single-chambered foraminifera.

Fourier Transform analysis was used to identify the continuity of Milankovic cycles, and is well constrained by the bentonite ages.

The bentonite's curse is its impact on geomechanics.

Look to the 'Bentonite Barcode' figure center left. You can see a denser clustering of ash layers in the lower Eagle Ford. This clustering represents a tradeoff.

These laminae have also been modelled to correspond to the 210 year DeVries solar cycle and the 70-100 year Gleissberg solar cycle (Ma et al.,2021. doi.org/10.1130/ G48734.1)

The clay of the ash layer acts as a pillow between the more brittle rock layers and thus inhibits vertical hydraulic fracturing because it absorbs the fracture energy. Yet the increasing frequency of bentonite layers also corresponds with an increase in the TOC.

The degree of preservation in the lower part of Eagle Ford is distinctly better largely because it is not impacted by bioturbation.

Bentonites are the second part of the triplet.

How rich is rich?

The final element of the triplet is the total organic carbon content.

These two columns of drill core (IONA from the Minisini, et al., 2018 study) show approximately two meters of deposition within the Eagle Ford. The left-hand core (at 14 meters from the top) represents the upper Eagle Ford, while the right (142 meters from the top) represents the lower Eagle Ford.

Notice the difference in the coloration and preservation of bedding between the upper and lower Eagle Ford.

A- Illustrates reworking of

the laminations through bioturbation or post depositional mechanical processes.

B- Shows a bentonite layer within the finely laminated mudstone.

From top to bottom, the Eagle Ford is rich in organics.

Eagle Ford's quick rise in drilling and production can be appreciated from the graph (right) that shows where its TOC plots with respect to its petroleum potential.

A thin-section from the IONA core shown on the right provides some context for not only the amount of organics present, but also the complexity associated with their distribution and future extraction. The darker laminated areas are carbonate-rich mud, compressed fecal pellets, alternating with dense accumulations of well preserved fossil foraminifera. All of these have a microporosity filled with soluble organic matter.

Measurements of the TOC in parts of IONA by Minisini and his collaborators approach 15 weight percent carbon. That value is despite pore spaces only on the order of a few to tens of microns. Yet those spaces add up to an estimated potential 66 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 8.5 billion barrels of oil.

That is indeed magic. 

Plot of TOC for upper and lower Eagle Ford mudstones vs. petroleum potential.

Modified from Jiange, et al., 2018. (//doi.org/10.3390/ min8040154)

2020 • Outcroppings 27

Meet EEPS Data Scientist:

Yueyang Jiang

A helicopter field trip to the 2007 Anaktuvuk River Fire site from Toolik station in northern Alaska.

Photo credit: Adrian Rocha.

28 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

PROFILES

Originally from Zibo city in the Shandong province of China, Yueyang Jiang’s research from tundra to rainforest enhance and deepen EEPS studies of the Earth as a system.

Jiang brings to EEPS a broad geologic background in both Earth and Atmospheric sciences as well as statistics combined with over 10 years’ experience employing high-performance supercomputing. The processing, management and analysis of the large datasets he works on (e.g., geodatabase, downscaled climate projections and earth model outputs) positions him well to collaborate on a wide range of research topics with EEPS faculty.

“My research interests focus on using numerical and statistical methods to deal with earth science questions. Practically, I use both earth models and data (e.g., inventory, remote sensing data) to address questions related to biosphere-atmosphere interactions, and environmental responses to disturbance from local to regional and global scales. For example, I built fire prediction models to help natural resource managers to evaluate the impact of future fire disturbance on different landscapes. I used vegetation dynamic model and biogeochemical model to predict future land cover change and carbon release in response to warming climate and elevated CO2 concentration,” says Jiang.

2020 • Outcroppings 29

As EEPS data scientist, he provides data science and software engineering support to all EEPS researchers.

Data science is a term that encompasses a wide range of responsibilities including management of EEPS Chevron Visualization Lab, the departmental research servers, research data management and storage and facilitating the training and use of Rice’s and EEPS own cluster of High performance Computers.

“Based on my first year at EEPS, I feel most of our researchers who need HPC, have limited knowledge or skills in using clusters. This is a place I can contribute much to EEPS. Nowadays, big data analysis is a musthave skill for scientists. I look forward to working with EEPS researchers on training and application of HPC as well as data science techniques. I am currently guiding

several Ph.D. and postdoctoral researchers to use machine learning tools for their research.”

In his own research, Jiang uses mathematical or statistical approaches (e.g., MCMC, Kalman Filter, machine learning technique) to conduct data-model fusion and analyze time series with different types of noise. He is particularly interested in improving the computational efficiency of models with complex structure, and optimizing strategies to conduct large sets of ensemble simulations on supercomputers.

This work feeds into his goals to investigate new technologies that have promise to advance scientific computation and other research based technology; machine learning, Bayesian statistics for example, so that he can support faculty and student research-

Yueyang Jiang received is Ph.D. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from Purdue University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Ecosystems Center of Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA. Just prior to arriving to Rice, Yiang was a research associate in the Department of Forestry and Ecosystem Society at Oregon State University.

30 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

ers in developing methodology for big data analysis of remote sensing/satellite data to developing climate/geophysical models. 

“In concurrent research, scientists are facing not just hundreds of thousands of data files, but millions or even billions of files. My experience in dealing with complex multi-dimension data can speed up the progress of EEPS’ research.” -Y.J.

The Rice Center for Research Computing (CRC) provides several High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters (totally about 7000 CPUs).

In 2019, EEPS made a great contribution of computing power (20 nodes - 800 CPUs - 4TB RAM) to the Rice HPC clusters.

Eddy covariance and soil temperature measurements gathered at a moist tussock tundra site in Northern Alaska.

Photo credit: Adrian Rocha.

2020 • Outcroppings 31

Martha Lou Broussard Martha Lou Broussard

by Asmita Banerjee

Martha Lou Broussard is a woman of many firsts.

She was the first female student in the Department of Geology, (now Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences), the first female to hold the official title of Geologist at Shell Development and the first woman to serve on the Execeutive Committee of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) as chairman of the House of Delegates in 1987-1988 and then vice president (1998-1999).

Martha Lou Broussard

Martha Lou Broussard on a NSF funded teacher field course in Mexico, just as they were about to cross over the border to McAllen, TX. “Fruit could not be imported to Texas and everyone was tired yet happy-go-lucky. I threw a mexican cantaloupe over the hood of the Rice Carryall (as Suburbans were called then) to celebrate that it had just reached the 100,000 mile mark.” - MLB Photo taken by James Lee Wilson. The picture was later framed and given to Martha Lou by Kathy Mathews, then Rice Dean, when she received the Meritorious Service Award from the Association of Rice Alumni in 2007, the 50th anniversary of her graduation from Rice.

“Rice has always had both female and male students, but in the 50s the girls went to get their ‘Mrs.’ degree—in other words, to find a husband,” remarked Martha Lou as she settled into our interview. “I was the older sister with three younger brothers that I babysat all the time, and I determined that wasn’t the career for me. I didn’t want to be a secretary, so I didn’t learn to type, and I didn’t want to be a teacher or nurse. What I really liked was math.”

32 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

PROFILES

“What I really liked was math.”

A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Martha Lou began the fight for her place in the science world with a quiet resolve quite early in her life. “I was good in math. In fact, in my high school I was the only [woman] in advanced math classes. And the teacher did everything he could do to get rid of me because he didn’t think [women] should be in advanced math classes. So, I showed him and I just did well.”

Martha Lou arrived at Rice University, one of only 12 female science-engineering students among a class of 400. With a strong antipathy for administrative work, Martha Lou pursued chemical engineering for the first two years of her undergraduate study at Rice.

In hindsight, I am not sure what we were shocked at more: the fact of the act itself or the nonchalance with which she stated it, implying that it was commonplace. “I was banned from the lab after this incident for being a distraction, while the boys didn’t get into any trouble at all. It was just a joke, you see”. Martha Lou presented the story of her assault with total serenity, “That’s the way life was back then, females were not treated in a good way.”

At the end of her sophomore year, when it was time for her to pick a major, Martha Lou was at a crossroads. She couldn’t continue in chemical engineering as she had planned. Then she got a call from

Ph ot o:

Lin

da

W elz en

ba

ch

Martha Lou Broussard has been EEPS Alumni Coordinator since she officially retired from Earth Science at Rice in 1991. She organizes several HPAC (Houston Petroleum Auxilliary Council) excursions around Houston each year, coordinates student events at HGS and the AAPG student Expo, and attends every EEPS event and activity.

The road would not be an easy one. “One day, the boys in the chemistry lab decided it would be funny to spray me with cleaning solution to make holes in my pants” mentioned Martha Lou casually “Wait, what cleaning solution are we talking about here?” interjected EEPS science writer Linda Welzenbach, startled at this statement. “Oh, it was acid you know, hydrofluoric acid” stated Martha Lou, like it was no big deal. Linda and I gaped at her, our voices lost momentarily in shock.

Dr. Carey Croneis, chair of the Department of Geology. Dr. Croneis had decided it was time to sponsor a female geology major and after reviewing her academic record, selected her to join the department. He wanted her to be a palynologist (area of paleontology focused on the study of fossil pollen) and although she wasn’t excited at the prospect-she didn’t like paleontology--she agreed to switch to a geology major.

She found that she enjoyed structural geology courses the most as they

2020 • Outcroppings 33

utilized her affinity with math. Upon graduation in 1957, she knew her time in science was at an end. “I wouldn’t be hired because there were no jobs for women.” Croneis offered to have her stay at Rice for a masters’.

Then in February 1958, not even a whole year into her graduate studies, Dr. Croneis got a call from the Shell Research Laboratory.

In an odd twist of fate, Shell was looking to hire a woman and asked her to interview with the Vice Chair of Shell Development at the time and her soon-to-be first boss, M. King Hubbert. “The reason they wanted a woman was that every male geologic assistant that they had hired to work with him either quit or asked for a transfer within a year.

So, they thought if they hired a woman, she couldn’t quit and go someplace else”.

Despite the underlying motives behind hiring a woman, Martha Lou seized the opportunity to take the job and became the first woman to hold the title of Geologist at Shell’s main research laboratory in Houston.

tory, Martha Lou got to spend three years, all by herself, looking for placer deposits in the Southwest. When Hubbert retired, she went to work for the non-hydrocarbon group at Shell Canadian Exploration and was tasked with the job of finding domestic sources of platinum needed for fracking. Chuckling suddenly at a memorable recollection during her days spent outside in the Southwest, she said “There is a saying when you do field work: don’t let the cattle out. Field work with cattle is not fun. One time just as I opened the fence the cattle came running; they thought I had food. And so I stopped because I thought I was going to get run over. Suddenly, they all turned and started kicking their back feet. When I looked, the most gorgeous skunk just came strolling across. If you’ve ever worked in the southwest you see lots of dead skunks on the side of the road.

They’re dirty and awful looking, but this one’s fur must have been two inches [long] and was blowing in the breeze; I mean he was like Flower from Bambi”.

Martha Lou worked for After three years of Hubbert for six years working for Shell Ca(1958-1964) and, despite his nadian Exploration, eccentricities, was both a Martha Lou’s time teacher and mentor. “I must came to an abrupt say I learned a tremendous end when her old boss amount from Hubbert. And retired and her new probably more than I would boss, Heber from New have learned staying here [at York, fired her on his Rice]. He was an associate first day in the office. editor both for AAPG and “He didn’t believe in GSA. When a paper would women working,” says come in for him to review, he Martha Lou. Martha would give it to me. I’d have Martha Lou Broussard, 50 year GSA Fellow, at the Rice EEPS Lou was angry yet not to go to the Rice library and student recruiting table in 2019 Geological Society of America defeated. check every [single] reference. meeting in Pheonix, AZ. I also had to do the math in Photo: Meagan McKellar With unshakable the paper [from scratch] and resolve, she went back then recheck the math again. to the Shell Research Laboratory where she was immediately reSo when the time came for me to be the editor of HGS [Houston hired to write training manuals for Shell’s international geological Geologic Society], I knew exactly how the review process worked.” training program. Reflecting on how life can provide unexpected opportunities even during the bleakest of times, Martha Lou was Martha Lou also got the opportunity to do field work like she had granted access to The Hague and the Dutch Shell Library resources always wanted to, but with a “clause”. She was never allowed to go out to drill sites on her own. She had to resort to convincing anoth- to write training manuals on sedimentology and the field trip sections, including the opportunity to work alongside Bert Bally who er woman (usually, a secretary) to accompany her to the site.

Following her six years with Hubbert at the Shell Research Labora- also happened to be working in the Training Division.

34 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Not long after her return to the laboratories in Houston, Martha Nearing the end of our interview, I asked Martha Lou if things were Lou married Douglas Broussard whom she had met at Shell Canaimproved for women hired since the 1980’s, many of whom were dian Exploration. Because of Shell’s policy of not allowing relatives concerned they were selected specifically because of their gender. to work together, Martha Lou’s career at Shell came to “In the ‘80’s, companies Following her departure from Shell in 1969, Martha Lou an abrupt end. were rewarded points for Broussard joined the department as the research hiring women and people of administrative assistant.

So in 1968 she was invited color. Many of the [female]

by John Adams, the second hires often doubted their chair of the department, to worth and wondered [out come back to Rice to work loud to me] if they had been as the department research hired for their capabilities administrator. With typical or for their gender. The humility, Martha Lou only thing I could say was whispered “I really have to work hard.Then you been lucky. I’ve never had will know you were hired to go looking for positions, because you were good.” they’ve [mostly] been offered to me.” Objecting loudly to her claims, Linda interjected: On being asked what role she wants to be remembered for, Martha “There’s opportunity. And then managing that opportunity to your Lou emphasized the importance of being a mentor and why it is best benefit. Very clearly Martha Lou, you have done that” more important to her than all her accolades combined. “Mentoring means helping people get ahead,” said Martha Lou. Martha Lou journeyed to England in the early 1970’s with her husband Doug, who was managing the building of the first deepsea Martha Lou then told us about two significant mentors in her life, pipeline in the North Sea. There, she worked for ERICO where Rufus LeBlanc and E.H. “Rainey” Rainwater, who sponsored her she ran geology field trips membership in the and also prepared reports for Houston Geologic the British Government on Society (HGS). They the geology of the North Sea. emphasized the imporWhile still in England, Martha tance of volunteering Lou gained her first experience and getting to know in geo-politics when she was people in the commuelected to the AAPG House nity. of Delegates by the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great She has paid both of Britain. their efforts forward, providing mentorship After her adventures in and guiding advice to Great Britain, Martha Lou many who have come Photo: Linda Welzenbach returned to Houston in 1983, after her in industry determined to retire. Howand subsequently EEPS Ph.D. candidate Joyeeta Bhattacharya is one of the ever, upon her arrival back to students at Rice and Douglas E. and Martha Lou Broussard Fellowship awardees.

Houston she received a call beyond. “Back then Martha Lou established this endowed award to recognize from Bert Bally, then chair of I guess I mentored Geology at Rice. He needed every female that came women who are outstanding in academics and service to the someone to take over the through because there department and includes funding support. administrative responsibilities were so few.” of the department of Earth

Science for one semester while he was on a sabbatical leave. Not Martha Lou’s journey is one that is not only inspirational, but also one to leave her Rice family stranded, she single-handedly managed serves to remind us of the significance of quiet perseverance, unthe entire department, from being the graduate advisor to writing wavering resilience and grace, and how that can carve a path for all, grant proposals. While Martha Lou officially retired from her reeven when the world seems to collectively to hold one back.  sponsibilities in 1991, she said, and quite succinctly, “I’ve never left”.

2020 • Outcroppings 35

1960’s Martha Lou has served the Houston Geological Society (HGS) since the early 1960s .

This includes being chair of numerous committees, member of the Executive Committee, Secretary and Vice President of Programs, and editor of the Delta volumes (see below).

Photos: Linda Welzenbach

Martha Lou was the chair of HGS’s Delta Studies Group, and from the symposium she single handedly organized in 1963, went on to publish the most complete book series of preeminant research papers of the time, covering this important petroleum producing depositional environment.

Deltas in their Geologic Framework (1966), Galveston Bay Geology (which was produced in 1969 by Rice faculty Robert Lankford and John Rogers and students), the Annotated Bibliography of Deltas (1971) and finally Delta Models for Exploration (1975). The first Deltas volume went to three printings, Delta Models went to two printings and was translated into Russian by Soviet publishers. This effort garnered her Houston Geological Society’s Distinguished Service Award in 1986.

36 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

1970-80’s She received the HGS Distinguished Service Award and Honorary Membership.

She represented the Gulf Coast Section on AAPG’s Advisory Council in 2011-2014.

1990-00’s Martha Lou Broussard was elected AAPG Vice President for 1998-1999, the first woman to hold this office.

The Student EXPO began at Rice in 1998.

While she resided in London from 1976 to 1983, she worked for ERICO, Inc. and served as London’s delegate to HOD.

Prior to and following the EXPO, she has served on five of the six AAPG standing committees that focus on students.

Martha Lou Broussard has served on ten AAPG committees; in 1987-1988 she was HOD Chair; the first woman to ever hold elected office in AAPG.

In 2003 she was awarded HGS life membership.

She became an AAPG Foundation Trustee Associate in 2005.

Martha Lou received the SEG Special Commendation in 2007 for her work on the Student Expo. She also received the James A. Hartman Service to Students Award for “her [exceptional] dedication to the AAPG and to young, future AAPG members.”

Other AAPG awards Martha Lou Broussard has received include: Distinguished Service, HOD Honorary Member, HOD nine-year Certificate of Service, Certificate of Merit, 2014 Presidential Award for Exemplary Service and Honorary Membership.

In 2007, she was given the Meritorius service Rice Alumni Association medal for her work with students.

For her latest award in 2020, Martha Lou received AAPG’s highest service award- the Michel T. Halbouty Award.

Martha Lou’s dedication to the AAPG over many years is exhbited through this collection of pins and pendants (the pendants are made specifically for her).

Each one reflects Martha Lou’s appointments and participation in nearly all of AAPG’s committees, councils and governing positions, incluing life membership.

Pendant Color Key: Red = Executive Committee Dark Blue = House of Delegates; with dark blue crystal (right)- Chair Lighter Blue = Advisory Council; with pale blue crystal (left page)- Chair

2020 • Outcroppings 37

Martha Lou Broussard:

2020 winner of AAPG’s

Michel T. Halbouty Award Response by Martha Lou Broussard

Mike Party’s call was I am most grateful to the AAPG Advisory Council (AC) for recommending me, and the Executive Committee (EC) for awarding me this honor.

Everyone of a certain age in AAPG has a story about an encounter with Halbouty. Mine is a little different. Many of you might remember when abstracts for the annual meeting were published in the AAPG Bulletin. By the late 1960s most abstracts were short, but some bordered on non-peer reviewed papers. The year that Halbouty was President of AAPG the EC decided to limit abstracts to 250 words with no figures or graphs. The first annual meeting that this was to effect was the 1971 meeting in Houston. I was to be the Technical Program Editor. I took this job very seriously and devised a template on heavy white paper with blue lines delineating the space that would be photographed for the Bulletin. There were no laptops, word counters and other time saving devices in 1970. Most everyone was very cooperative, and the few that were not, resubmitted after my firm letter reminding them that the new rules by the EC had to be followed. All complied except for one.

The abstract was four pages, single spaced, and submitted by Art Meyerhoff and Michael Halbouty. I sent off my letter to Art and received a phone call in return. Art was laughing. He told me that Mike had written the abstract and had just put Art’s name on it out of modesty! He would forward my letter to Halbouty.

Several days later the phone rang in my office. A barrage of words were shouted at me over the phone. It was so loud that James Lee Wilson came running down the hall thinking that someone was attacking me in my office. Much later, after he had run out of words, I explained that if he did not follow the rules that his EC had made, no one else would, and hung up. A few days later a revised abstract arrived with a note that his was the most important paper that would be presented at the meeting and should have a prominent place. After that he ignored me at the HGS meetings.

I became a geologist because Carey Croneis decided that it was time for Rice to have a female geology major. So at the end of my sophomore year, we were to choose majors and he invited me to his office to talk to me about the major. Luckily my high school in Tulsa had a course in Geology and I knew what the word meant.

After I graduated from Rice, no one was hiring female geologists, so I went to work on my next degree. In the fall of 1958 Dr. Croneis again called me into his office. The Shell Bellaire Research Lab was looking for a female Geologist! They had a high rank geologist who could not keep any male technical help more than a year before they asked for a transfer or just quit. They decided to try a female because everyone knew that no one would hire a female away from them. That afternoon I stood at a blackboard doing math problems, Moore diagrams and answering wonderful questions such as whether I was going to get pregnant and quit. Thus began my six years of hell with M. King Hubbert.

38 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

a very big surprise.

I do want to say that I learned so much from Hubbert. He was Associate Editor for both AAPG and GSA so I had to read all the manuscripts, check their grammar, redo the authors’ math to the second decimal place and look up every citation. Thus, I was equipped and well qualified to become the editor of three Houston Geological Society publications on Deltas. I also learned to cool an empty beer can to the right temperature to slide down a glass plate to prove his theory of overthrust faulting. I went to American Petroleum Institute each year to get the production figures and reserve estimates in order to do the log normal curves on a huge Bell computer to prove that domestic oil production would reach its peak in 1973, plus much much more.

Hubbert also insisted that I join the Houston Geological Society, AAPG and GSA. My neighbors across the hall were Rufus LeBlanc and E.H. Rainwater. Before they would sign my applications as sponsors they explained that as a member of an all-volunteer society it was my duty to also volunteer. My first job for HGS was to read new books and review them for the Newsletter. I was the editor of the field trip volume for GSA the year that Hubbert was President of GSA and, of course, the Technical Program Editor for AAPG in 1971. It all mushroomed from there.

I first served on student oriented AAPG committees when Jim Hartman asked me to join the newly formed Student Chapters Committee. I was the HOD representative from the PESGB in London at that time and Jim wanted to make Student Chapters a worldwide committee. I receive so much in return when I work with the students. They are the future of AAPG and we need to involve them. What I am most proud of is my twenty-one years serving on the Student EXPO Committee. When YPs, and not so young members, come up to me at meetings and thank me for helping them get their first job I am so glad that I have made students my life’s work. I have always made it mandatory for the Rice Student Chapter officers to serve on the EXPO Committee, and I also draw from the UH Chapter, the Stephen F. Austin University and Texas A&M chapters. Many of these student officers and the non-chapter students that have attended EXPO have gone on to other AAPG Committees after graduation. One is even now on the EC.

The Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award is given in recognition of outstanding and exceptional leadership in the petroleum geosciences. It is AAPG’s second most distinguished award, second to the Sidney Powers Memorial Award.

Martha Lou is also the recipient of AAPG’s Distinguished Service Award and is a past Vice President and Chair of the AAPG House of Delegates, but is perhaps best known for helping to start the AAPG/ Society of Exploration Geoscientists Student Expo program, which today forms a key role in the recruiting program of as many as 40 exploration and production companies at one time.

None of this would have been possible without the support of my husband Doug. He has made me accept positions through the years when I have been reluctant, but was so glad that I did later on. I have made so many friends through the years because Rufus and Rainey insisted that a member of any organization must also be a volunteer. I want to thank the HGS Nominating Committee, with Sarah Stanley, Chair, Rosemary Laidacker and Judy Schulenberg, for nominating me. Last, of course special thanks go to my oldest peer and friend from the Shell days, John Shelton, for writing my biography.

2020 • Outcroppings 39

Photos: Linda Welzenbach

The Johnson Field Experience

by Asmita Banerjee

In 2019, graduate and undergraduate students at the Department of Earth Environment and Planetary Science received a unique and generous gift from alum Michael Johnson (M.A.’75).

This financial gift provides students access to geology in the field, and especially targets students whose path may not include research beyond the lab. The nature of the gift provides generous support to explore field localities that are unique, difficult to access or to explore classic geologic locations that may be beyond what might be offered through courses.

Undergraduate and graduate students are given the freedom to select excursions that benefit as many students as possible. Students are actually tasked with formally proposing an excursion that is submitted to a student peer review committee. Proposals must include a justification demonstrating that the field locality(s) being pitched will increase students’ knowledge and understanding of the earth, environment or planetary sciences as a whole. Submissions also focus on locations that will provide students with an experience that would not normally be available to them from areas near Houston.

Michael L. Johnson recieved an honorary doctorate at New Mexico State University’s fall 2020 commencement ceremony. Johnson is being honored for the inspirational example he has set as a successful geologist in the oil and gas industry and for his continued support of NMSU, including his tireless advocacy for advancing science programs.

A native of New Mexico, Mike Johnson received his Bachelors’ degree in geology from New Mexico State University in 1972 before coming to Earth Science at Rice University to pursue his Ph.D. During his time at Rice, he helped build the first mass spectrometer and high vacuum extraction laboratory. He specialized in stable isotope geochemistry and analyzed a spectrum of samples, from Vostok ice cores, to volcanic ejecta, to intrusives, to moon rocks. Stable isotopes, carbon and oxygen, were extracted and analyzed with the newly constructed equipment, helping Mike and other graduate students complete their research for their graduate degrees.

in Trinidad and Tobago, vice-president of the Norwegian American Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Natural Gas Supply Association, vice-chairman of the Texas Intrastate Pipeline Association and president of the Houston/Galveston-Stavanger Sister Cities Society. He also served on the audit committee and board of directors of Copano Energy, LLC, a company he helped to create.

Beyond his varied energy industry roles, Johnson is a current member of the Rice University Owl Club Board of Directors. To add to the already crowded feathers in his cap, Johnson was awarded an honorary doctorate from the New Mexico State University in December 2006.

In 1975, Johnson received a lucrative (or as it seemed to a poor graduate student) offer from Conoco Inc. after finishing all the Ph. D. classes but before the dissertation was done and, realizing that he was “bored of being a poor student”, Johnson opted to settle for a Masters’ degree in geochemistry and went into the oil and gas industry where he spent 28 years. He served in a variety of roles culminating as vice president and general manager of Conoco Inc. and chairman and CEO of Conoco Gas and Power.

Mike Johnson’s generosity is not limited to EEPS alone. He supports the Rice baseball team and has since 1997, including an endowed athletic scholarship. In July 2006, Johnson established the first endowed chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at New Mexico State University. When he is not advising leading corporations and politicians on oil and gas, Johnson likes to restore and judge vintage Corvettes, frequently attending regional vintage Corvette meets.

Beyond Conoco, Johnson has had an illustrious service career. His affiliations include the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (since 1972), the Natural Gas Council of America, member of the executive committee of the Gas Technology Institute, a member of the board of directors of Phoenix Park Gas Processors

Johnson is semi-retired, having served in various consulting and advisory roles. Before retiring from his 28-year career with Conoco Inc. (now ConocoPhillips) in late 2002, he served as vice president and general manager of Conoco Inc. and as chairman and CEO of Conoco Gas and Power, a division of Conoco Inc. This part of

40 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Conoco is an integrated, midstream portfolio of businesses that includes gas gathering and processing, gas storage, gas and power marketing, power generation, natural gas liquids marketing and transportation and storage for all of North America and the Caribbean.

Johnson has a master's in geochemistry from Rice University and a master's in finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is serving as chair of the NMSU Dean's Council of Excellence in Sciences and has been appointed to the NMSU Foundation Board.

He was chosen as an NMSU Distinguished Alumnus in 1997. In July, Johnson and his wife, Judy, established the first endowed chair in the NMSU College of Arts and Sciences with a $1 million gift to the Department of Geological Sciences.

Johnson is a member of the Audit Committee and Board of Directors of Copano Energy LLC. He is frequently called upon to testify before Congress regarding gas supply and gas economics, and is

a frequent speaker to outside groups on the U.S. gas business and free enterprise as well as science topics.

Johnson is currently a consultant for energy technology for the mayor of Stavanger, Norway, and is a member of the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, operated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

A native of Roswell, N.M., Johnson now lives with his wife, who is chief financial officer for the city of Houston, in Houston, Texas, but they plan to move to their ranch in Nambe, N.M., in the near future. The Johnsons have two children: a son, who is a junior at Southern Methodist University majoring in accounting, and a daughter, who is a freshman majoring in electrical engineering at the University of Southern California. 

Michael L. Johnson (left in the foreground) with Jane Goodall (center) on a ship to visit a offshore drilling platform near Angola, Africa. In his career, Johnson travelled the world (57 countries) for exploratory drilling operations. During his tenure in Africa, he met and became good friends with Jane Goodall, incling partnering with her on some chimpanzee projects in Africa. Image courtesy of Michael Johnson.

2020 • Outcroppings 41

Johnson

Field Ex p

erience:

Big Bend N a tional Park

By adrita Jana the more see of can e e Deb u n o o y is on ere

end ces wh l in logy l B a g s i e “B g pla f featur eomorpho ks n i z boo ama range o logy, g t x e t e n eo a wid all the g ou read i y place etrology -D.Jana ” p and ht to life. g brou

na a Ja

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42 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

a Deb to: o h P

Just a few months before COVID, EEPS graduate students went to Big Bend National Park (BBNP) in west Texas. Big Bend, which covers 801,163 acres (3,242 km2), was established in 1944 through a land transfer by the State of Texas to the United States. The park is located along a 118-mile (190-km) stretch of the Rio Grande at the United States–Mexico border.

The geology of BBNP varies widely from high mountains (the southernmost range in the U.S.) to broad open lowland basins, providing opportunities to study the formation of mineral deposits; the origin and formation of sedimentary and igneous rocks; Paleozoic to Cenozoic fossils; and surface and ground water resources.

EEPS graduate students (L to R) Jackson Borchardt, Lea Hollendonner, Sydney Allen and David Valerio contemplate the tremendous erosional power of the Rio Grande that created Santa Elena Canyon.

2020 • Outcroppings 43

BIG BEND BRIEF GEOLOGIC TIMELINE 500-200 ma 300 ma

North America was part of the super continent Pangea, a deep ocean trough extended into the Big Bend region. Sediments washed into the basin from the northwest to become shale and sandstone beds.

Around 300 million years ago, contintental collision on the south formed the ancestral Ouachita Mountains and uplifted the area followed by 160 million years of erosion.

q

Rosillos Mountains

100 ma

Approximately 135 million years ago, the region’s elevation (following separation of the two continents by rifting) was low enough to allow the intrusion of a warm, shallow Cretaceous Sea. Carbonate mud deposited later lithified into the limestone which can be seen throughout the park, including the walls of Santa Elena Canyon.

About 100 million years ago, the shallow sea began to withdraw towards todays Gulf of Mexico, covering the basinal limestone with sandstone and shale around the Chisos Mountains.

q

42 ma

q

Around 42 million years ago a very active period of volcanism began in the region. The Chisos Mountains include the remains of these ancient lava flows and ash beds. Sometimes the magma deformed the overlying strata without reaching the surface. Those resistant rock formations, later exposed by erosion, now make up the Rosillos Mountains.

q

Santa Elena Canyon

q

chimneys

Chisos Mountains

Mariscol Mountain

Image source: Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus- NASA Landsat 7 satellite. The black line delineates the park perimeter 44 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

q

135 ma

A

s Earth Scientists, we use a combination of fieldbased, laboratory and computational methods to study the evolution of our planet through time, and the dynamic processes that drive such changes.

Big Bend National Park is known for its great variety of intrusive, extrusive and sedimentary rocks spanning a vast range of geologic time. The field trip afforded students with the opportunity to observe and learn about rocks from the Paleozoic to recent, although the dominant features of the park are its Cretaceous aged sedimentary rocks and Cenozoic volcanics.. The first stop of the trip was the Window Trail in the Chisos Mountains.

These mountains were elevated by post-Eocene uplift and post-Oligocene intrusions that fold and deform the overlying strata. Subsequent erosion gave rise to the dramatic landscape characteristic of the high Chisos Mountains.

The Chisos Formation represents a caldera complex consisting of interlayered, highly variable lithologies. These range from conglomerates, coarse-grained sandstones and tuffaceous sandstones, clays and mudstones, to intrusive volcanics from basalt to rhyolite, trachyandesite and tuff.

Photo: Jackson Borchardt

Photo: Debadrita Jana

Visiting outcrops in the field and making observations allows us to revisit some of the most fundamental concepts of this discipline.

During the late Eocene to the Oligocene a period of volcanism at Big Bend commenced. This is often attributed to the initiation of flat-slab subduction of the Farallon plate from the west, which had the effect of pushing subduction-related volcanism eastward.

Much of the volcanic rocks are spectacularly exposed in the Chisos Mountains (background image), the only range in North America fully enclosed within the national park and extending up to the 7,832-foot Emory Peak.

(Above) Along the Window trail, Ph.D. candidates Sydney Allen and Jackson Borchardt are looking at high silica rhyolite cobbles that may originate from some of the shallow intrusive felsic igneous rocks of the Oligocene South Rim Formation. (Below) Sydney Allen, Ben Belzer, David Valerio and David Blank look towards the Chisos Mountains.

2020 • Outcroppings 45

On the Chimneys Trail, a roughly five-mile round-trip hike in the southwestern area of the park, you can find Indian rock art, or petroglyphs, that had been scratched, drawn and carved into the walls of this rhyolite pyroclastic flow. The petroglyphs range from 9,000 years old to just a couple hundred, a testament to the rich history of the peoples that have lived and explored the region.

Photo: Debadrita Jana

46 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Hydrothermal activity from Cenozoic volcanism in the area forms several hot springs in the Big Bend region, which are a major attraction for tourists. 9000 year old Petroglyphs by Native Americans are a testament to long term human use of these hot springs.

Big Bend also has a rich paleontological history. A treasure trove of fossils cover a time span of more than 100 million years. Hundreds of molluscan, fish, reptilian, dinosaur, crocodilian and mammalian specimens found within the park can be seen at the National Park’s fossil discovery exhibit.

Photo: Jackson Borchardt

Dr aw

ing

by Jo s

ch u

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e

In 1971, Quetzalcoatlus northropi, the largest flying dinosaur in North America with a wingspan of up to 39 feet, was discovered in Big Bend National Park.

2020 • Outcroppings 47

Desert pediments are also a common feature in Big Bend. Standing tall amid the pediments are the ‘Chimneys’ (first inset image on the right). While these features look like dikes that have intruded the surrounding rock, they are actually layers of tuff that formed as volcanic ash was deposited and later solidified.

Big Bend represents the northern most extent of the Mexican Chihuahuan Desert. This desert is the wettest of all North American deserts, with a pediment that hosts numerous plant and animal species rarely found north of the Mexico border.

Unique communities of ocotillo, mesquite, agave, yucca and more than 65 varieties of cactus thrive on the basin floors and foothill pediments of the park’s uplifts.

Pediments, such as this thin rocky veneer of volcanic tuff and limestone alluvium, are low-relief surfaces produced by the water-erosion of a mountain over the last several hundred thousand years (middle Pleistocene).

48 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Photo: Debadrita Jana

Photo: Jackson Borchardt

Photo: Debadrita Jana

Photo: Debadrita Jana

Erosion of the chimneys rising from the desert floor (inset image below) created windows and arches within the tuff layers. Stratification of an igneous materials, such as those in the tuff and seen here in Kit Mountain, were one of the more interesting features we observed.

The Chimneys are described as the Mule Ear Spring Tuff member of the Chisos formation, and were originally thought to be a volcanic dike, which could not explain why these resistant features are stratified. Today they are considered a reclict resistant layer of ashfall.

2020 • Outcroppings 49

The Rio Grande started flowing through the Big Bend region about two million years ago, downcutting several canyons in the area.

Fault zones exposed in several canyons provide a great opportunity to study deformation mechanics of the Laramide orogeny in Big Bend. The most famous of these is the Santa Elena Canyon, where the Rio Grande cuts through normally faulted cretaceous aged limestone. The beds of these canyons are covered in modern fluvial deposits.

Limestone accumulates slowly in seas from the deposition of the shells and tests of marine life, but also from chemical precipitation. Calcium carbonate, of which limestone is composed, is more soluble in cold water, and thus it is thought that these units must have originated from warm, tropical seas. The Sue Peaks and Telephone Canyon formations are carbonate rich alternating beds of limestone and marl.

Kse

Santa Elena Limestone Ksp

Sue Peaks Formation

Kdc

Del Carmen Limestone

Ktc Kgr

Santa Elena Canyon is eight miles (13km) long and 1,500 feet (450 m) deep, and in some places less than 30 feet (9 meters) wide.

Current thinking puts the developement of the Rio Grande drainage system at 2.25 ma which, under the right conditions with the less chemically and physically resistent limestone eroding at rate of 0-0.5mm per year, could create the canyon we see today in less than two million years.

Modern, partially litified cross-bedded clastic sediments deposited along the banks of the Rio Grande are well presevered.

Photos: Jackson Borchardt

50 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Telephone Canyon Formation Glen Rose Limestone

Not long after these Cretaceous limestones were deposited they were uplifted, folded and faulted during the Laramide orogeny, which began during the Cretaceous and lasted until the Eocene. This is the same mountain building event that uplifted much of the North American Rocky Mountains, including the front ranges in Colorado and Alberta, Canada. At Big Bend, the Laramide orogeny uplifted the Santa Elena Mountains in the west and the Sierra del Carmen Mountains in the east. These ranges have opposite movements, meaning that they were folded and thrust towards each other with the Boquillas Basin separating them.

Photo: Debadrita Jana 2020 • Outcroppings 51

Lithospheric mantle xenoliths (spinel lherzolites) have been collected and studied by professor CinTy Lee from the Vulcan open pit quarry in the town of Knippa, Uvalde County, Texas.

The xenoliths, which are found in late Cretaceous (~83 Ma) basanites (alkali basaltic magmas erupted through the remnants of the Appalachian-Ouachita structural belt), provide a rare opportunity to examine the lithosphere-mantle boundary between Mesoproterozoic continental lithosphere and transitional Gulf of Mexico passive margin.

Photo: Debadrita Jana

The final stop on the field trip was at a open pit basalt quarry on our way back to Houston. The Vulcan quarry, located in the town of Knippa, is well known to EEPS professor Cin-Ty Lee. In 2009, Lee and colleagues suggested that the mantle xenoliths found in basalts emplaced in the mid-late Cretaceous may represent the first relict samples of proterozoic basement materials along this southern boundary of the North American crust.

52 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

The geologic history of Big Bend is complex, yet readily accessible. In the park, we were able to see the preserved rock record of multiple ancient continent collisional and extensional events followed by extensive volcanic eruptions through the deposits left by quiet inland shallow seas filled with marine life.

Some have suggested that Big Bend National Park is the only place in North American where the Appalachian Mountains meet the Rocky Mountains. The oldest rocks in the park are Paleozoic sediments that were deformed in the Marathon orogenic event (Pennsylvanian-Permian) resulting from the collision of the South American Plate over the North American Plate to create Pangea. This ancient mountain belt is part of the greater Ouachita-Marathon-Sonoran orogenic event that also created the Appalachian ranges. Subsequent rifting begween the Triassic and Cretaceous enabled the progression of the inland seas and deposition of the thick layers of limestone (e.g. seen in Santa Elena Canyon pages 36-37 and 44-45) which were then deformed during the Rocky Mountain building Laramide orogeny.

So within the confines of one national park, you are able to witness the enormous breadth of geologic and tectonic history that has not only shaped Big Bend, but has also shaped the world. 

(L to R) Author Debadrita Jana, Lea Hollendonner, David Blank, Jackson Borchardt, Sydney Allen, Ben Belzer, Neyda Maymi (Professional Subsurface Master’s student) and David Valerio stand in the “window” of the Chisos Moutains.

For more infomration about hte general geology, geomorphology and geochemistry, use this link: https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1327/pdf/Circular_1327.pdf 2020 • Outcroppings 53

Johnson Field Experience: Rice Undergraduate Geosciences Society:

Hawaii

Story and photos by Ksenia Metruck ‘21

54 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

In February of 2020, students of the Rice Undergraduate Geoscience Society (RUGS) went to the Big Island of Hawai’i.

The location was selected by RUGS to explore the recent Kilauea eruptions, a unique opportunity made possible through the support of the Michael Johnson field trip fund.

This was the last group field trip for all of EEPS in 2020.

2020 • Outcroppings 55

Why Hawaii?

Hawaii is the perfect place to study both geology and environmental science.

Only two years after one of Kilauea’s more significant and spectacular eruptions, Rice undergraduates would walk on those new lava flows to better understand their formation and impact on the community.

The trip was planned by two geochemistry undergrads, Christina Stoner ‘21 and Naod Araya ’20 with faculty support from Professor Julia Morgan and Assistant Professor Melodie French.

Julia Morgan, who conducts research on Hawai’ian volcanos, facilitated connections with specialists at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory’s including world-reknown geologist Dr. Don Swanson. With many of the participants interested in Environmental Science, they also elected to visit the famous Mauna Loa Observatory to learn about atmospheric carbon dioxide monitoring; where the Keeling Curve was born.

Exploration of the ‘Big Island’ would also provide students with a soup to nuts picture of an evolving chain of volcanic islands formed by a hot spot, from eroded basalts that make up green sand beaches at sea level to recent lava fields at 13,000 feet.

The following story was written by Ksenia Metruck, ‘21, compiled from the thoughts and experiences of all the participants.

56 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

6 Hualālai Xenolith Site

4

Waipio Valley

3 Mauna Kea Volcano

2 1 Kilauea Volcano

Lava Tree Monument

5 Green & Black Sand Beaches 5 2020 • Outcroppings 57

RUGS students with USGS geologist (emeritus) Don Swanson and Julia Morgan at Kilauea summit.

Photo: Melodie French

1

Kilauea Volcano Summit Tour

On our first excursion we were met by USGS geologist Don Swanson, who gave us the tour of Kīlauea summit. The tour began at the summit and then worked its way back down Kīlauea’s flanks. Seeing the vastness and power of the volcano right at the start prepared us to appreciate the 2018 flows we saw later.

His insight into the area is unmatched. We were able to learn about everything from traditional mythology concerning the volcano and pre-European history to the 2018 eruption which drastically changed the summit area and destroyed much of Leilani Estates.

Senior Jackie Richards, EEPS geochemistry major, put it most accurately, “It feels amazing, it feels surreal. I’m looking at something so picturesque that I feel like it’s not actually in front of my eyes.”

We all felt that way.

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Don Swanson is a world-reknown field volcanologist who works for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, located in Hawaii National Park. After receiving his Ph.D. in geology from Johns Hopkins University in 1964, Don has been advancing the field through groundbreaking work in predicting the timing and volume of volcanic eruptions around the world. Though offiically retired, his distinguished research career is far from over, as indicated by his continuing publication record, and yet Don still has time to show students and visitors around Kīlauea volcano.

For a moment during the tour, while lecturing at a point overlooking the crater, Don Swanson paused and looked down into the rising steam, then up at the sky before noticing a helicopter circling us. He quickly explained that Hawaii is currently in uncharted territory with the new crater lake that is forming.

He thought for a moment that the noise and vibrations from the helicopter were coming from Kīlauea itself.

2018 Leilani estates lava flow visted by RUGS students.

2020 • Outcroppings 59

Lava tree State Monument is a verdant area with 80 lava stacks or “trees” representing a 1790 eruption.

See bottom graphic in the figure on the right: Lava trees form when very fluid lava flows only around the base of the tree, leaving a lava casing. Over time, after the tree dies, only the lava built casing remains leave a hollow core.

2

Lava Tree State Monument

The first day concluded with a visit to the Lava Tree State Monument. Located in the Puna district of the Island of Hawai’i, the park consists of around 80 lava tree molds, with approximately 40 preserved individuals visible from the designated path.

The tree molds were created by a flow from 1790. Lava trees may form when a lava flow meets a forested area.

The 1790 flow was fluid enough that the majority of the lava passed around the individual trees, leaving behind basalt “shells” around each trunk (Figure 1).

60 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Lava tubes form from lava that is flowing beneath a hardened surface. If lava in the tube empties, it will leave a cave.

Lava molds form when lava hardeneds around an object that is removed, leaving a vacancy in the form of the original object.

Lava trees are a hardend lava “skirt” that formed around a tree.

Another type of lava produced feature Julia Morgan showed us was tree molds. These formations are exposed cavities inside of larger intact lava flows where a tree stood during an eruption event and has since rotted away. These were not formed into individual, free standing, lava trees because the majority of the flow did not subside before it cooled. Thinking back, Jessica Sheldon, Environmental Science ’21, said “I loved reading about the event that preserved the trees and as we walked through the park I was in awe trying to imagine the scale of an event to encase such a tall tree.”

Left: Julia Morgan explains the formation of tree molds to undergraduate students Madison Morris and Naod Araya.

Right: Naod Araya peers through a tree mold in a lava flow.

2020 • Outcroppings 61

Site of the Mauna Kea Protest Camp.

3

Mauna Kea Telescope Protest

On our way to the Mauna Loa Summit, Julia Morgan stopped at Mauna Kea to talk about the protest camp. Traditional native Hawaiians strongly believe in living “pono” which is a Hawaiian word meaning “righteousness” that places a heavy emphasis on nature and living life in balance. We could see many flags representing people not only from across Hawaii, but from around the world. They were gathered to protest the construction of the thirty-meter telescope and eight floor research complex at the top of Mauna Kea. We learned prior to arriving in Hawaii that Mauna Kea is believed to be the embodiment of the goddess of snow Poli’ahu, who is an integral part of Hawaiian mythology. It was profound to see first-hand the commitment of the protestors to protect an area they felt to be sacred despite the chill wind that had us quickly climbing back into the van.

Despite bouts of altitude sickness, everyone enjoyed the trip. “I was struck by the landscape on the way up Mauna Loa—the broad, seemingly endless field of a’a made it feel like we were driving through another world. Then the altitude hit. Then the view. Even though I was gasping for air the entire time, I was awestruck. I had never seen a more beautiful landscape in my life! And I understood a little better why the observatory employees worked through altitude sickness,” Sarah Preston, Geology ’23.

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Photo: Aidan Colton

MLO collects data on over 40 different greenhouse gases, including carbon monoxide, methane and many other aerosols. It is best known for its measurements of carbon dioxide. The graph shown here is known as the Keeling curve, named for climatologist Charles David Keeling who measured atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration starting in the 1950s. The jagged rise and fall of data points represents the annual Spring and Fall cyles of CO2 flux from plant growth and decay, while the cummulative rise in CO2 over the last 60 years is attributed to increased burning of fossil fuels.

Mauna Loa Observatory Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) resides at the top of a windy, single lane road cut through lava flows. This facility collects baseline data used to make global atmospheric pollution comparisons for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as running scientific experiments beyond Earth’s atmosphere. MLO’s incredibly remote location, high altitude and nearby atmospheric inversions create clean, well-mixed air ideal for acting as the “unpolluted” standard to compare cities to.

Our MLO guide, NOAA scientist Aidan Colton, showed us the full suite of instrumentation, from spectrometers to telescopes to lidar. One of his main jobs is to calibrate instruments hourly in order to maintain a consistently high quality of data.

Of particular note is the MLO’s array of ozone and water vapor programs, which rely heavily on ozonesondes, lightweight instruments carried into the atmosphere by helium balloons. The ozone and humidity profiles collected here span 35 kilometers altitude and are vital to the construction of ozone profiles worldwide. By studying the patterns in ozone concentration locally in Hawaii, climate scientists can gain a more thorough understanding of how ozone-depleting compounds affect life on Earth, especially in areas much more heavily affected by pollution.

2020 • Outcroppings 63

We were all very excited to head down to the coast and finally Hawai’i’s famous beaches. On “Waipio Valley”, “Valley of the Kings”, and “Curving Waterexperience Valley” all refer to King Kamehameha I’s arrival,childhood it was stunning see how much sand wasThe herevery compared to beaches along the Gulf home, to located on The Bigdifferent Island’s the north coast. prominent geological features are of Mexico.

The local basalt flows eroded into irregularly shaped, coarse grained sand that left our feet very towering sea cliffs formed by tsunami erosion. Some of these cliffs reach heights of 2,000 feet. soft after an hour or two. The sand here travels a very short distance from erosion to deposition which gives it much less time to mature, become round and well sorted, compared to the quartz deposits from the Mississippi that make up beaches like Galveston.

James Karroum, Geochemistry ’21, cracked open a coconut he found on the beach.

4

Waipio Valley

Between a pair of tall cliffs lies a flat alluvial floor from which exceedingly fertile sediments support taro farming. The location we visited is drained by the Waipio Stream and connects to the ocean across a black sand beach. It is thought that this beach formed over time from the rubble that has fallen off the cliffs between tsunami events.

Julia Morgan described the thriving community that existed in the valley until 1946, then devastated by a tsunami, although no lives were lost. Some Hawaiians attribute this miracle to the mana (divine power) of the Hawaiian kings buried in caves carved into the sea cliffs by the ancestors of those living in the valley.

Green sea turtles sun themselves on the black sand beach. According to the lifeguard, they don’t lay eggs on this particular beach.

64 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Papakōlea Beach lies within Pu’u Mahana, which is thought to be an old volcanic cone, though there are many debates on what type of cone Pu’u Mahana is, or if it is even a volcanic cone. All we know is that it formed as part of the Southwest Rift Zone of Mauna Loa. From carbon dating of charcoal found trapped within lava flows, geologists have determined this formation is almost 49,000 years old! When Pu’u Mahana first formed, it must have been above sea level because the minerals are not as glassy as they would be if the flow reached the water. Subsidence of the island combined with sea level rise, eroded the cone to form the bay we visited.

5

Black & Green Sand Beaches

Today only 50 people live in Waipio Valley, most of them agriculturalists seeking to take advantage of the rich volcanic soil which is high in key nutrients and trace elements that help crops grow.

We visited beautiful Punalu’u Black Sand Beach on our way to South Point, where we had lunch while admiring the jagged cliffs at the southernmost point of the United States. After a 20 minute drive on a dirt road we reached the Green Sand Beach Trailhead, which was the beginning of a 3-mile trek to Papakōlea (Green Sands) Beach. The crude path took us across the Big Island’s rocky south coast to a small bay bounded by steep cliffs and a beach full of fine, sparkling green sand.

There are only four green sand beaches in the world. The beautiful shades of green that make up Papakōlea sand are the mineral olivine, the primary iron and magnesium silicate mineral present in unusually high concentrations within the volcanic rock surrounding the bay. Because olivine has a higher specific gravity and hardness than the lava rock it is encased in, eroded crystal fragments stay on the beach while less dense, volcanic ash fragments are carried out to sea by the crashing waves.

2020 • Outcroppings 65

“Waipio Valley”, “Valley of the Kings”, and “Curving Water Valley” all refer to King Kamehameha I’s childhood home, located on The Big Island’s north coast. The very prominent geological features are towering sea cliffs formed by tsunami erosion. Some of these cliffs reach heights of 2,000 feet.

Martina Faciane, Earth Science ‘21, found a picrital basalt which is characterized by large olivine grains in a very feldspar-poor basalt. The rock is roughly two decimeters in diameter. She brought it back to Rice as a donation to the EEPS department.

6

Hualālai Xenolith Site

Our final morning, we visited lava flows from some of the most recent eruption of Hualālai, the volcano whose flows cover most of the Kona district. The most recent eruption lasted from 1800 to 1801 with calc-alkaline basaltic lavas emerging from five vents.

We stopped along Mamalahoa Highway and got out of the vans to explore. These particular lava fields were extremely rugged, with large vertical reliefs across short distances due to exposed and crumbling lava tubes. 

The extensive Pahoehoe flows have well-preserved textures despite being covered in some areas by grasses. Both pahoehoe flows and piles of a’a had sections of black, iridescent facies, created by rapid cooling which caused differentiation within the flows. The outer layers are composed of mafic minerals, which are very rich in magnesium and iron, and tiny glass particles which create the shine. The image shows an example of centimeter to nearly decimeter-scale xenoliths that are exposed road cuts, evidence that while this magma came from great depth beneath the volcano, it entrained other rocks along the way.

66 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

“It still feels a little surreal that we were able to go on the trip right before all travel was halted for COVID-19. While everyone has been in isolation, we’ve been resharing our favorite pictures from the trip. This has helped us connect since we won’t be able to go on a final the senior trip we had planned during our time in Hawaii. What has stuck with me the most from this trip is the memory of standing at the top of Kilauea and Don Swanson stopping mid sentence, looking into the steaming crater, and wondering if the sound of the helicopter was a herald of an impending eruption.”

- Ksenia Metruck

Melodie French stands in a large chamber within Huehue Lava Tube, created during the 1801 Huehue flow from the Hualalai volcano. The lava tube is located very close to the Kona Airport at Keahole.

Photo: Julia Morgan

2020 • Outcroppings 67

The Environmental Impacts of

COVID-19 in Texas

By Sarah Preston When COVID-19 struck the United States, spurring lockdowns at the federal, state and local levels, Rice environmental scientists were presented with a unique opportunity.

Dee and her team felt that even short term closures might enable them to potentially partition individual contributions to environmental pollution, something that would not be possible under normal circumstances.

They thought that if they could understand how air quality and greenhouse gas emissions are affected by these changes, they could also perhaps provide a realtime analog that shows how effective an extreme, shortterm environmental mitigation strategy might work.

To EEPS climate scientist Dr. Sylvia Dee, the lockdowns provide a rare chance to observe how an abrupt reduction in human activities might impact air and water quality. She is also interested in how an improvement in air quality might affect the rate of COVID-19 transmission in higher-risk populations. With funding from the Rice University COVID-19 Research Fund Oversight and Review Committee, Dee leads a team that includes EEPS professors Dr. Mark Torres and Dr. Carrie Masiello, Rice Economics professor Dr. Ted Loch-Temzelides and Rice Civil and Environmental Engineering professor Dr. Dan Cohan, along with an undergraduate research team, to map the environmental fallout of COVID-19.

Timeline of closures and reopenings in TX The project was particularly timely. Environmental scientists rarely have the ability to manipulate the large-scale natural systems they study on such short time-scales. The economic shutdowns put a freeze on many climate-impacting industries, effectively creating a natural experiment!

68 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

The Project The team needed to find ways to quantify any emerging COVID-19 trends in a variety of environmental variables, yet the effort had to be unique: in a COVID-19 world, it could not involve field work or original data collection. Instead, they would mine data from publicly accessible databases ranging from NASA satellite data to geographic data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), comparing the present lockdown period to the same months in previous years to try and answer three questions: (1) Which environmental indicators most effectively track environmental and climate change?

(2) What trends in air and water quality and greenhouse gas emissions exist at the local and regional level for Houston and Texas?

(3) Environmental pollution has been shown to directly aggravate COVID-19 symptoms; is there a relationship between environmental quality and health impacts that can be identified during the pandemic given that abrupt, simultaneous changes in both are incredibly rare?

The Research Team An early goal of the project would also be to deliver a proof-of-concept, web-based visualization tool, accessible to the public, for the various indicators of environmental quality. This task would be completed by an undergraduate research team by the end of 2020.

Preliminary Results

Sarah Preston was one of 11 undergraduate students that made up the research team speicifically targeted to help gather data for three environmental quality indicators and developed the climate data visualization tool. Students were recruited in a variety of ways to accomplish the various tasks.

She learned about the project during one of EEPS summer Zoom socials. The majority of the undergraduates from Rice, however, received an email about the project from one of the subject specific listservs used to advertise the project. Two external students from Princeton were recruited from a listing of opportunities distributed by Princeton alumni.

The efforts of the student research findings agree with other recent studies occurring worldwide, and Texas indicators clearly mirror those trends. Their analysis finds that among major air pollutants and greenhouse gases, only NOx concentrations changed significantly during Texas’s March-April 2020 lockdown. They also found that historical PM2.5 concentrations do not correlate with COVID-19 incidence at the county level, but that racial composition does- with an additional higher level of cost from COVID for minorities in Harris County.

Sylvia G. Dee, Ted Loch-Temzelides, Mark Torres, Caroline Masiello, Daniel Cohan, Chima Adiole, Nathan Botton, Samantha Breaux, Melinda Ding, Benjamin Gelman, Lingkun Guo, Lucia Lu, Mitchell Osborn, Sarah Preston, Annie Xu, Joanne Zhou.

The Challenges of Virtual Science

GHG and AQ plots comparing averages of past years to 2020

When they looked at the entire United States, they found reductions of up to 25.5% in NO2 concentrations and 4.5% in PM2.5 concentrations during March-April federally mandated lockdown, compared to previous years. Another team noted a 25% drop in greenhouse gas emissions in China, and other groups found a 7.8% to 17% reduction in global CO2 levels compared to the same months in previous years.

The temporal variance in the data definitively illustrates that the impact of human activities on the environment is significant, and that COVID-19 disproportionately affects minorities.

Although the group met the goal of developing a webbased environmental mapping tool, there were a variety of challenges. Most of those challenges were associated with the range of skills in programming. Group members familiar with Python who knew something about data visualization, such as the greenhouse gas group, could focus on integrating individual parameters in the visualization tool. For other groups, including mine working on water quality, the large programming knowledge-gap required us to also focus on delegation of coding and non-coding tasks. Also, with so many people working on the project remotely, organization of team activities was complicated by four time zones, making scheduling Zoom meetings a Herculean task. Sharing up to date information, despite many Slack channels, was hard to manage. We faced technical issues with Zoom, Jupyter Notebook and the Rice VPN. COVID, the very focus of the project, impacted some team members logistically and mentally. Others had to take a break on the project to work on other projects and internships. Nearly everyone struggled to balance project work with classes.

The project continues to make forward progress. Two Rice students presented preliminary results and unveiled the mapping tool at the remote 2020 Fall AGU meeting. Two manuscripts will be published in early 2021.

2020 • Outcroppings 69

The Mapping tool

The data results of the selected group, parameters and year are shown on a heatmap (below) by color for each of the counties of Texas.

The Texas COVID-19 Environmental Impacts web-based mapping tool (http://tx-covidenviromap.rice.edu/) was created as part of a research project investigating the envrionmental and socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic at Rice University.

Click any colored county to see a timeseries graphical breakdown of emissions (graph at right).

The dashboard enables users to access data collected during a period of March 2020 - August 1, 2020.

HOW TO USE the Mapping tool: From the boxes on the lefthand menu, starting at the top, select a group from the uppermost dropdown list.

If Air Quality or Greenhouse Gases is selected, select an environmental indicator using the ‘Select Parameter’ dropdown list.

The Mode Selector allows you to toggle (click the button) viewing data for the selected year or the difference between 2020 and the selected year on the heatmap.

From the Interval dropdown menu, you can select whether you’d like to see data on a monthly or yearly interval. If the interval is monthly, you can choose to view data for a single month from January - July.

Future work DATA SOURCES Air Quality: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Greenhouse Gases: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) COVID Cases/Deaths: Texas Health and Human Services CONTACT US Email: sylvia.dee@rice.edu Website: https://sylviadeeclimate.org/ If you have any questions or feedback you would like to provide regarding the website, please fill out this form https:// forms.gle/giV2igcs44U7GWFo9.

COLLABORATORS Annie Xu, Mitchell Osborn, Sarah Preston, Sylvia G. Dee, Ted Loch-Temzelides, Mark Torres, Caroline Masiello, Daniel Cohan, Chima Adiole, Nathan Botton, Samantha Breaux, Melinda Ding, Benjamin Gelman, Lingkun Guo, Lucia Lu, Joanna Zhou http://tx-covid-enviromap.rice.edu/

70 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

All of the collected data is available for future projects that may examine the environmental impacts of similar lockdowns.

In addition, the team hopes to explore further how reduced economic activity impacts groundwater and how the magnitude of environmental change varies by ecosystem or level of development. 

“As an undergraduate new to remote scientific research, the project was informative and influential. I learned that success is based on effective collaboration, and that programming and data science is even more crucial than I [ever] imagined!”

- Sarah Preston

Top: The graph illustrates the 25.5% drop in monthly NO2 emmissions in Harris County for the shutdown period during 2020 (red line) compared against the prior four years (dark blue line).

The dashed lines delineate the initiation and cessation of business lockdown in Houston.

Bottom: From the COVID Cases/Deaths group, select Race/Ethnicity from the parameters to see the breakdown by county of COVID incidence vs Race/ Ethnicity, or select PM2.5 to see how PM2.5 concentration relates to COVID incidences.

2020 • Outcroppings 71

SUGAR from FIRE

By Asmita Banerjee

Wildfires and burning fossil fuels can leave behind vast quantities of a range of organic compounds that are produced via incomplete combustion. These various compounds are collectively known as pyrogenic carbon (PyC).

Because the entirety of the Earth’s surface has known its fair share of fire through time, PyC is ubiquitous in the earth system - it is found in the atmosphere, soils, sediments, ice, terrestrial water bodies and the oceans.

For some time, scientists have studied pyrogenic carbon’s role in the global carbon cycle, but mostly on the particulate matter effect on global climate. Despite a wide range of studies, knowledge about the exact processes that control PyC’s production, transport or its preservation remains elusive. To improve understanding of the relationship between production of PyC’s and the climate system, Drs. Loredana Suciu and Caroline Masiello have turned their attention to an important yet poorly constrained PyC component known as anhydrosugars.

The original article is published in Biogeochemistry, volume 146, pages 209–256.

How do anhydrosugars help us understand fire?

Anhydrosugars are sugar molecules that are one of the many components of pyrogenic carbon. What makes them special is that they are exclusively produced by burning terrestrial plants (forests, grass), or more specifically, they are exclusively a decomposition product of the cellulose and hemicellulose commonly found in plant matter. Anhydrosugars constitute up to 60% of the thermally altered biomass at low temperature, making them a scientifically important proxy (a chemical substance that can be used to detect earth processes) for vegetation fires that is different from other fire proxies (charcoal). The in-situ production of anhydrosugars, their transport from source to sink and their preservation are, however, not well established. This is not only because of fire’s unpredictable behavior but also because anhydrosugars are highly reactive in both dry and wet environments, degrading on a scale from minutes to days, which limits their use as a tracer in reservoirs other than the atmosphere.

Once released into the atmosphere, anhydrosugar molecules can react chemically or become part of airborne particulate matter (PM). PM is a major contributor to smog events in cities and, based on its specific chemical composition is best known in the scientific community as a useful tool to identify pollutants from natural fires versus those produced as a by-product of fossil fuel combustion (i.e., lignite coal).

These distinctions are what enable policy makers to propose regulations on smog management.

“Paradoxically, while the organic chemistry community have considered anhydrosugars too labile to work with, the atmospheric science community has deemed it unreactive until recently, leading to an incorrect estimation of how much 72 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

smog forms from ‘natural fires’ in a place like New York City, Denver, Salt Lake City or any other city that sits near a forest,” says Dr. Carrie Masiello, EEPS faculty principal advisor on this project.

This contradiction may be nearing a resolution, however.

In EEPS’ recent Ph.D. graduate Loredana Suciu’s extensive review paper about the formation and behavior of anhydrosugars in different reservoirs, she, along with Carrie Masiello and collaborators, show that anhydrosugars can actually be used as tracers in most Earth Systems, ranging from the atmosphere to the hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere and sediments.

Suciu’s interest in understanding the chemistry governing the behavior of anhydrosugars in the atmosphere sheds new light on the air quality effects of fire and its natural and anthropogenic causes, including the smog components ozone, reactive nitrogen and PM. In addition to Suciu’s contribution to air quality and atmospheric chemistry research, her work on understanding the degradation of anhydrosugars provides a new tool for better constraining their behavior in the broader context of the earth system. Previous experimental work has found that anhydrosugars have a half-life of less than a week and yet they are preserved in the rock record. “It was intriguing to find out under what conditions this tracer can resist degradation and end up in the sedimentary record,” says Dr. Loredana Suciu.

Thinking about the conundrum, Suciu and Masiello conclude that the most plausible pathway for anhydrosugar preservation in the rock record is via mass wasting or debris flow. The rapid transportation of sediments from source-tosink enables anhydrosugar preservation in the rock record,

A model of the anhydrosugars cycle Anhydrosugars can be found in various phases (gas, particle, charcoal, dissolved) within five reservoirs: Atmosphere, Biosphere, Hydrosphere, Cryosphere and Sediments.

Fresh emissions from fires occurring in the biosphere are released to the atmosphere, where they react chemically, partition from one phase to another, participate in clouds, or return to the biosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere via dry and wet depositions. Anhydrosugars are also present in charcoal left in the soil, where they decompose, dissolve, are buried or transported as solids and solutes through water back to the hydrosphere.

Particulates and dissolved anhydrosugars associated with ice melting are also exported to the hydrosphere.

The hydrosphere is the most important reservoir of anhydrosugars because it receives inputs from multiple reservoirs. Sediment and aqueous transports in the hydrosphere move both solid and dissolved phases from the biosphere, cryosphere or deposited from the atmosphere to intermediary or ultimate depositional environments (lakes, wetlands, deltas, oceans) that together constitute the sediments reservoir.

allowing them to serve not only as a historical fire occurrence tracer but also a potential insight into terrestrial mass wasting processes in the Earth’s history.

Taking it a step further, Suciu wanted to understand the cycling of anhydrosugars and their relative proportions in the atmosphere and the cryosphere. This is critical for comprehending the complex relationship between fire, terrestrial vegetation and changes in climate recorded in ice and snow.

Current atmospheric chemical transport models (CTMs), or numerical models that simulate global atmospheric chemistry in tandem with general circulation models that account for atmospheric physics, do not include anyhydrosugars. This is because they focus on tracking changes in the mass of particulate matter rather than in changes in overall chemistry. Since the atmosphere is the primary source of PyC transported to the cryosphere (see figure above), Suciu applied her research to an existing “chemical box” model.

A chemical box model is a zero-dimensional framework in which the concentration changes of various molecules are modeled as a function of time only, depending on what chemical and physical processes they are subjected to in a hypothetical “box”. Using such a chemical box, Loredana developed a multiphase chemistry and gas/particle partitioning mechanism for levoglucosan, a typical anhydrosugar molecule (like that shown in the background on the left page) that could be applied to CTMs to identify atmospheric contributions of anhydrosugars to snow and ice in both present and past.

The application of these CTMs helps constrain initial conditions at the air-ice interface, thus deciphering cryospheric records of anhydrosugars for understanding past fire, vegetation and climate. However, to correctly interpret the histori-

cal record, an in-depth understanding of how anhydrosugars change chemically as they go from their source (fire) to their sink (cryosphere) is required. Suciu’s model addresses this problem by providing the fundamental toolkit for quantifying atmospheric degradation of levoglucosan that whenfurther developed to include other anhydrosugars such as mannosan and galactosan, can be used to better understand anhydrosugar ratios that are tracers for vegetation type.

Their work is just the beginning. Anhydrosugars have enormous potential to inform and expand on scientific disciplines beyond the coupled atmosphere-cryosphere environment.

Mastering the link between pyrogenic carbon and anhydrosugars opens up a new toolkit for understanding archeology studies of paleo-human fire practices, paleo-fire-vegetation and climate relationships, and degradation of pyrogenic carbon in soil and other environments, as well as anthropomorphic terrestrial transport of organic matter and PyC to the ocean by mass wasting and subsequent marine carbon cycling.

Drs. Suciu and Masiello’s efforts lay the groundwork for a remarkable suite of new research potentials which spans much of the carbon cycle as well as the history of human interactions with it.

“As an advisor, you want your Ph.D. students to do something that's going to have implications that are not only immediately relevant, but also has the potential for some really significant intellectual depth,” says Dr. Carrie Masiello.

Dr. Loredana Suciu’s research and extraordinary review effort has done just that.  2020 • Outcroppings 73

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74 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

Energy & Data Management Certificate Data has become a huge factor in all phases of the oil and gas industry, upstream, midstream and downstream.

Companies need fresh talent on an ongoing basis to fulfill the need for managers who can effectively manage data, which is constantly increasing in volume and complexity.

Rice University’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences (EEPS) and Glasscock School of Continuing Studies have partnered to offer the Energy & Data Management Certificate, which focuses on exploration and production as a data-driven business and emphasizes the importance of the curation, exploitation, and analysis of data using data analytics and data science methods within the upstream oil and gas industry. This noncredit, graduate-level certificate offers qualifying work-related education for those interested in gaining employment in this field or to advance their career. This opportunity provides professionals with a robust understanding of subsurface data management, highlighting the importance of Energy Data Management as an emerging discipline alongside geophysics, geology and other oil and gas related career fields.

Qualifications

+ Basic knowledge in flow in porous media + Basic principles in geology/geophysics + Previous exposure to basics of programming such as Python is recommended

Who Should Enroll? + + + +

Entry-level geoscientists/ geophysicists Mid-career professionals seeking to redirect their career path Professional in other fields seeking to advance their career into energy data Managers seeking to update their knowledge and understanding of energy data practices

Learning Objectives + + + + +

Manage, maintain, monitor and measure organizational data governance plan Understand the importance of organization-wide standards Apply well-know algorithms, methods and best practices for analyzing diverse data sets Become familiar with tools, methods and environments for data management and data science Use robust data workflows and life-cycles

Curriculum

Participation in this certificate program fulfills industry demand for a university-based curriculum that trains employees to become educated data management – developed with the industry for the industry. + Tools, Methods & Best Practices for Data Science and Analytics + Computational/Data Science in the Energy Sector + Energy Data Management and Governance profms@rice.edu | 713-348-3188 2020 • Outcroppings 75

NEWS

DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES

EEPS Supports Rice’s 4th Annual Science Olympiad Invitational

by Linda Welzenbach

EEPS undergraduate Annelise Goldman teams up with the Rice University Science Olympiad Alumni Association (Rice SOAA) to host the 4th consecutive Science Olympiad Invitational on January 18, 2020.

“I think it was a great science outreach effort for Rice, connecting with the greater Houston (and far beyond in some cases) community,” says says Dr. Richard Gordon, Keck Professor of Geophysics in the department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and faculty sponsor of Rice SOAA. This is the second Rice University Science Olympiad for Sophomore Annelise Goldman, who volunteered in 2018 and then joined the organizing committee in 2019. She went from writing one exam her first year, to writing three exams and helping to manage all the 2020 event activities. But this isn’t her first brush with Science Olympiad.

Just prior to the COVID-19 closures of 2020, Rice undergraduates Alan Jin, Muthu Chidambaram and Annelise Goldman managed a challenging set of science events that attracted 525 high school students from 36 teams from 21 high schools across the U.S. Approximately 45 volunteers, mostly Rice undergraduate members of Rice SOAA, some graduate students and Rice Alumni, wrote and graded tests, proctored exams and managed science events. Nearly all the volunteers put in a long day starting with the arrival of visitors before 8 a.m. and concluding with the awards ceremony in the RMC Grand Hall around 8 p.m.

Annelise has been participating since middle school.

“I am a long-term fan. At my middle school it was really competitive. At the time I thought that science was really cool, but was like, ‘I’m not a person who’s cut out to do science’. But my mom suggested I try out anyway, to see if I might like it.” Like it she did, going on to participate throughout high school.

Science Olympiad is the reason why she is a science major at Rice.

Now she is giving back to the program that brought her where she is today. “I’m very grateful to this program for inspiring me and introducing me to different fields.

I wanted to help other students have a similar experience,” says Goldman.

Science Olympiad invitationals are practical competitions that help Science Olympiad teams from across the country prepare for regional and national competitions. Invitational events are themselves competitive among host schools. Universities seek to not only provide high quality exams that lure nationally ranked teams, but to expose those “elite” students to what the host University has to offer.

Annelise Goldman evaluates one of the student-built instruments submitted for the “Sounds of Music” event at the 2020 Rice Science Olympiad Invitational.

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Science Olympiad Invitationals also include key-note lectures by host institution faculty that connect and inform students about careers in science. This year’s key-note speaker was EEPS own assistant professor Dr. Sylvia Dee, who shared her pathway to science, the impact of her research, and the variety of careers available to scientists.

EEPS 2020 Fall BBQ Photos by Linda Welzenbach

Despite COVID-19, EEPS staff and faculty donned masks and offered distanced greetings to its newest graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The EEPS community was grateful for the opportunity to see old, and more importantly welcome new colleagues at the end of October.

Set up in timed waves, EEPS faculty (professor Julia Morgan pictured elbo bumping new student Mei Chien on left) and current students would arrive to greet the new members of our community and then move on to keep attendee numbers within the safety limits set by CDC and Rice regulations. Most of the afternoon conversations focued on stories of how everyone has been coping with the isolation. You can read them in ‘COVID-Storie, which can be found in the OwlPellets section (page 93).

Meet several of EEPS new graduate student family members (from left to right): Mei Chien, Audrey Putnam, Valeriia Sobolevskaia, Charles Marshall, Julian Garrido.

2020 • Outcroppings 77

STUDENT PAGES

DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES

GeoUnion Report

by Debadrita Jana

2019 seems almost like a distant Era. EEPS hosted a tubing/camping at New Braunfels, Texas to welcome the 2019 student cohort. This was followed by a Geounion-led field trip to Big Bend, made possible through the generous donation of EEPS alumnus Michael Johnson. We organized a great Halloween party despite bad and took for granted a typical game night with our colleagues from Civil Engineering and BioSciences.And then there was the grand gathering- EEPS delicious Thanksgiving potluck lunch on the KWGL patio.

Photo: Linda Welzenbach

Geounion also was able to organized a number of new academic resource activities and promote a number of initiatives.The first is a pre-AGU poster practice session, with the initial meeting held in Nov. 2019. All EEPS graduate students now have a new student-led position or faculty-liaison to communicate to faculty. Alana Semple, who left Rice in 2020 for a postdoctoral position at University of Washington, held the inaugural post. We organized a Women’s Networking Session with peers from University of Houston and industry professionals from Chevron and other energy companies. Throughout 2019-early 2020, Geounion organized monthly dinners where we explored different cuisines as way to engage with our diverse EEPS community.

Then there was COVID-19. Most activities (many we will never take for granted again) for 2020 were put on hold.

We were not able to celebrate the Crawfish Boil in our usual style, and had to put aside EEPS 2020 tee-shirt design 78 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences

contest. Also postponed what was to be the crown jewel of the year. In May-June EEPS students would go on a long-awaited type-locality trip to Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. This trip was unique in that it would be student led, and was actually conceptualized by graduate student Jackson Borchardt.

This included a full academic year seminar course (fall 2019 through spring 2020) organized and led by Jackson Borchardt and EEPS faculty assistant professor Dr. Kirsten Siebach. This trip, when it can be rescheduled, will also be sponsored by the Michael Johnson endowment.

As everything moved into the virtual space, we organized an online photography competition (winners shown on the next pages). Over 30 wonderful entries were submitted by students, alumni and staff.

The 2020 cohort of new graduate students was welcomed primarily virtually, although we were able to greet some of them at the EEPS Welcome back event in September of 2020 . We welcomed not only a new Geounion committee, but new committee for Diversity, Justice and Inclusion (or DIJ).Geounion also pursued conducting a mental health survey to gauge how graduate students were coping with the pandemic, the results of which were and the were communicated to the faculty via the faculty liaison. Geounion sought to push having in-person activities as the year wore on, leading to use of Rice’s new outdoor tents and patios now equipped with AV infrastructure for socially distant activities such as movie night. We closed out the year by organizing a socially distant “AGU night” on the KWGL patio, where we used our imaginations to carry us to the far distant sparkling city of San Francisco during safer, better times.

Regardless of the tactics employed, a ‘changing of guard’ occurs once per year and it is with excitement that I announce the 2019 - 2020 GeoUnion officers: Thank you all!

Debadrita Jana, 2019-2020 GeoUnion President

Geounion 2019-2020 Cabinet: Debadrita Jana - President Will Larsen - Vice-President Sydney Allen - Treasurer Yi Hou- Secretary Yi Hou - Faculty Liason Patrick Phelps - GSA Representative Asmita Banerjee - DIJ Representative

Winner Winner

PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST WINNERS!

Joyeeeta Bhattacharya

AND SPECIAL MENTIONS…

Winner

Joyeeeta Joyeeeta Bhattacharya Bhattacharya

Joyeeeta Bhattacharya

Joyeeta Bhattacharya

1st Winner Runner up Runner

up #1

Winner

Proteek Chowdhury

Joyeeeta Bhattacharya

Proteek Chowdhury 2020 • Outcroppings 79

CIAL NTIONS

ECIAL NTIONS Runner up #2

Celine Fliedner

Celine Fleidner

Ilenne Del Valle

Debadrita Jana

Debadrita Jana

80 Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Ilenne Del Valle

Ilenne Del Valle Ilenne Del Valle

Ian Mellor-Crummey

Ian Mellor-Crummey

Valerie Payre

Valerie Payre

STUDENT PAGES

DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES

RUGS Report

by Christina Stoner

RICE UNDERGRADUATE GEOSCIENCE SOCIETY

FUTURE EVENTS Career Panel: In Spring 2021, we plan to host a career panel over Zoom. With panelists from a broad variety of fields, this will be an opportunity to network and discover professions.

Mini-Field Trip: If possible while following social distancing restrictions, we hope to go on a mini-field trip around the Houston area.

PAST EVENTS Hawai'i Field Trip: With Dr. Juli Morgan and Dr. Melodie French providing their expertise, we traveled to the big island of Hawai'i for a week-long field trip in Spring 2020.

Mentoring Program: In Spring 2020, undergraduate Earth Science students were matched with graduate students depending on similar interests. The goal of the program was to build stronger connections between graduate and undergraduate students, while providing academic and career advice for mentees.

Welcome Back Picnic: When Fall semester 2020 arrived, we wanted to welcome new and returning RUGS members Field Excursion: In the Spring of 2020, RUGS, along with Dr. with some food and socializing. We were able to gather on Julilawn Morgan Dr.ofMelodie French traveled to the big island the in and front the Skyspace and have a picnic, socially of Hawai’i for a week-long field trip. distanced and safe.

Halloween Rock Painting: To celebrate Halloween, we Mentoring Program: In Spring 2020, undergraduate Dell Butcher. hosted a rock painting hangout on the roof ofEarth Science students were matched upmany with graduate students Although freezing cold, we had talented artists who left with beautifully painted rocks. based on similar interests. The goal of the program was to Movie Night: Utilizing thebetween new tents put up for outdoor build stronger connections graduate and underinstruction, we streamed Journey to the Center of the Earth graduate students, while providing academic and career inadvice the geology quad tent.

With pizza from Pinks, this was a for mentees. great end to a strange semester.

Welcome Back Picnic: When Fall semester 2020 arrived, we wanted to welcome new and returning RUGS members with some food and socializing. We were able to gather on the lawn in front of the Skyspace and have a picnic, socially distanced and safe.

Halloween Rock Painting: To celebrate Halloween, we hosted a rock painting hangout on the roof of Dell Butcher. Although freezing cold, we had many talented artists who left with beautifully painted rocks.

FUTURE EVENTS

Movie Night: Utilizing the new tents put up for outdoor in-

Career Panel: In Spring 2021, to wethe plan to host a Earth career struction, we streamed Journey Center of the in panel over Zoom. With panelists from a broad variety of fields, this the geology quad tent. With pizza from Pinks, this was a great will be an opportunity to network and discover professions. end to a strange semester.

Mini-Field Trip: If possible while following social distancing restrictions, we hope to go on a mini-field trip around the Houston area.

2020-2021 OFFICERS Christina Stoner President

Sarah Preston Vice President

Madison Morris Treasurer

Martina Faciane Socials Manager

Anthony D'Souza Web Manager

2020 • Outcroppings 81

Mexico EEPS

AAPG

Chapter goes to

Story by

Gary Gray, Ph.D. EEPS adjunct lecturer

On August 20-24, 2019, the Rice student AAPG chapter sponsored a field trip to the Monterrey-Saltillo region of Northern Mexico.

This trip was co-sponsored by Shell USA, as part of their continuing support of the Rice student AAPG activities.

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Towering isoclinal ‘box folds’ of the Monterrey Salient fold province within Parque La Huasteca, Monterrey. These spectacular, gigantic structures are formed in Late Jurassic through mid-Cretaceous platform carbonates.

AAPG

encourages students to be a vital part of their association, and thus sponsors the Student Chapters Program. These programs provide undergraduate and graduate geology students with meaningful opportunities to connect with professionals in geological careers, both inside and outside of academia.

The Student Chapter Program is also a wonderful way for student members to increase their exposure to field experiences guided by professional field geologists, which not only is of benefit to the chapters’ universities, but to the future of AAPG and to the geologic profession as a whole.

Images by

Debadrita Jana

2020 • Outcroppings 83

La Popa Basin Monterry, Mexico The goal of the trip was to introduce EEPS students to the geology of northern Mexico, where most of the Mesozoic hydrocarbon systems of the Gulf of Mexico are exposed in a spectacular array of gigantic structures. The region also has striking similarity to parts of the deep Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the Middle East, South America, and Asia, so it serves as an accessible analogue to many hydrocarbon producing areas of the world.

The exposed strata are predominantly carbonates, which have been deformed via salt tectonics and the contractional Laramide Orogeny into spectacular folds, faults, salt diapers, and salt withdrawal basins. The expression of these structures varies significantly depending upon which carbonate facies are being deformed and therefore offers an amazing opportunity to study both structure and stratigraphy at the same time.

And of course, any trip to Mexico also provides a unique cultural experience to accompany the geology.

All eight attendees on this trip (L-R: Mohammed Ziane, Gary Gray, Eric Barefoot, Chenliang Wu, Tanyel Baykut, Julin Zhang, Valerie Payre, Debadrita Jana ) were veteran international travelers, so we hardly skipped a beat when our plane arrived late, the rental car place botched our reservations, and weather conspired to kill our first half-day in the field.

Undaunted, we began a parallel exploration of Northern Mexico cuisine, and never looked back. As they say, when life gives you limes, make Margaritas!

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Field trip leader Gary Gray points out the location of the El Papalote salt diapir on a regional Landsat photo of the Monterrey area.

A yesera (sign next to Tanyel) is a gypsum mine that exploits the extensive gypsum caprock that formed at the top of the El Papalote diapir. This was the first stop of the trip, where Gary discussed the regional geology and how salt diapirism has deformed and rotated the sedimentary layers out of their horizontal positions. This helped put the various features/ structures that would observed at later stops into a regional context.

2020 • Outcroppings 85

A panoramic view of the Late Jurassic Zuloaga limestone, in the Sierra Bunuelos, south of Saltillo. This is a shallow ramp carbonate unit that is time correlative and similar facies to the Smackover Formation of the U.S. gulf coast. It is a significant reservoir in Mexico. Tt has been heavily fractured at this locality due to thrusting within a large evaporite-cored fold.

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Earliest Tertiary deltaic deposits of the Potrerillos Formation within the La Popa salt withdrawal basin. These were deposited as the underlying salt was moving, forming sequences with wildly varying thicknesses.

The first full day of our trip was to La Popa basin where a salt diaper is fully exposed at the surface. A thick gypsum caprock is present, now being mined, which unfortunately had limited access to several key outcrops. Nonetheless, we saw how the diaper ‘leans’ basinward just like diapirs in the GOM. We visited a vertical salt weld, formed by a wall of salt that had been evacuated, and the tsunami deposits at the K-Pg boundary.

Good success was had searching for Valanginian ammonites along a recently revised road cut near Galeana, N.L.

Next, we saw towering 2 km high isoclinal ‘box folds’ of the Monterrey Salient fold province, formed in platform interior carbonates. Our overnight was in Saltillo, where we dined at the famous “El Tapanco” restaurant.

Mexico’s equivalent to the classic Newark rift and Eagle Mills Formation can also be found deep within the fold belt. Here the group discusses the paleogeographic implications of these Early Jurassic rift deposits.

2020 • Outcroppings 87

The next day, we drove to the quaint regional mining town of Concepcion del Oro, passing through remnants of the foreland basin, a series of ‘decapitated’ folds, and structures detached at multiple stratigraphic levels. The final day was a west-to-east traverse of the entire foldbelt, stopping to hunt for ammonites (success!), Jurassic redbeds (Eagle Mills equivalent), and a fantastic drive through Santa Rosa canyon. There, the basinal carbonates are folded into spectacular and often chaotic forms very unlike the regular box folds in the platform facies near Monterrey. We overnighted in Linares, then headed back to Monterrey for our flight back to Houston. It is hard to beat the combination of stratigraphy and structure that can be found in this region, and there is no substitute for visiting these classic exposures in the field. 

(Left) Gary points to the frontal thrust of the Monterrey Salient, near Rayones. This knife-sharp fault places Early Cretaceous deep-water carbonates of the Tamaulipas Inferior Formation over Late Cretaceous Mendez Formation shales.

Chenliang Wu stands on the hanging wall of the Rayones Thrust enjoying the view of wildly folded basinal facies carbonates within the interior of the thrust belt.

Gary Gray is a structural geologist with 29 years experience at ExxonMobil. He has a decades-long interest in Mexican geology that he was able to pursue while employed at ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co. Upon his retirement in 2013, he became adjunct professor at Rice teaching 3D seismic interpretation, structural geology, extensional tectonics, and basin exploration. He is involved with the Rice Professional Subsurface Masters Program (PSM), helping Rice teams with the AAPG’s Imperial Barrell Award Program, supervising PSM student internships and advisor for four years. Gary has served on six EEPS masters and doctorate thesis committees. Gary co-convened the international Pan American Conference for Research on Fluid Inclusions on the Rice campus in 2018.

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2020 • Outcroppings 89

DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES

pellets.

COVID STORIES While 2021 is shrouded in the fog of an uncertain future, hindsight is 2020. Let us reminisce with some of the stories and images from members of our department who were isolated throughout the year.

As told by Patrick Phelps

2020—a year that will live in infamy for many of us. The year started off with one of the largest fires ever recorded in Australia. It was so large, the aersols belching from the flames had an equivalent effect on the stratosphere as a moderate sized volcanic eruption. In retrospect, this was an omen for more difficult times to come.

At Rice, life was quieter. The spring semester was plodding along like any other when news from China warned of a new, never before seen virus was spreading rampantly. It quickly jumped from country to country, spreading the world over. In March, students at Rice went on spring break with the caveat to stay vigilant, yet not knowing whether they would set foot again on campus. The university extended spring break by a week to allow professors to prepare for online teaching. The university would not reopen until the summer. With lockdowns being announced throughout the country and world, the rest of the year was looking bleak. Some students came back in the fall to a ghost of a campus, while others continued to work from home. But amongst the doom and gloom, glitters of hope and happiness were seen. What follows are some of those shining stars.

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The Beach Escape

W

hen the pandemic began and quarantine measures were announced, Tanyel Baykut, M.S. student who recently defended his thesis, was freaked out. Not knowing how to adapt to the new day by day reclusive lifestyle, his productivity decreased. Once he realized what was happening to him, he decided he had to find a way to live a normal life again. His outlet? Beach camping. He had heard of Crystal Beach and thought he would give it a try. Crystal Beach is about two hours south of Houston, located on the Bolivar peninsula of the Texas Gulf coast. Tanyel and some of his friends had a wonderful time camping, making fires, shooting off fireworks, and discovering new interests. In particular, he loved the dozens of dune buggies with their large wheels and lights. He ended up at Bolivar almost every Saturday and finally found he could relax and enjoy life. With relaxation came motivation and efficiency. He managed to defend his master’s proposal in April and gave presentations at the AAPG and GSA annual meetings, not to mention defending his thesis in December.

Because of his relaxing beach trips every couple of weeks, Tanyel found peace and productivity.

“The big difference was getting out of my apartment to see the ‘infinity’- the stars, full moon, sunrise-sunset, Mars ...”

Top: Tanyel giving the moon some support at Crystal Beach, TX. Bottom: Taking a ride on a dune buggy at sunse.

2020 • Outcroppings 93

Being holed up in our homes for weeks at a time takes a toll. As Tanyel discovered, just getting out makes all the difference in the world. While he was exploring the Texas coast, other members of the department were venturing further afield inland. It turns out 2020 provided the perfect excuse to go see sites some of us would never have gone to in a normal year. Next up, we will jump from the sandy shores of Crystal Beach to an almost otherworldly sandy destination.

P s d n Sa t a re G re e u t h n T e v d A

Above: Mark trecking through gypsum at White Sands National Park.

Right: One of Sylvia and Mark’s “deer” friends.

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rofessors Sylvia Dee and Mark Torres decided to pack up and spend a week hiking around New Mexico. They went to the small town of Ruidoso. Nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Blanca mountains of New Mexico.

It is a short hop away from Lincoln National Forest and thousands of miles of seclusion.

Sounds like an ideal way to distance oneself from people during a pandemic. Colossal in the background of Ruidoso is Sierra Blanca peak, an 11,981 ft. mountain, which is the most prominent peak in New Mexico. The Sierra Blanca mountains are volcanic relics that began erupting 38 million years ago. Now, old lava flows, tephra deposits, and so much more can be found shaping the landscape. While out hiking in the forest, Sylvia and Mark met some unexpected new friends. Some might even call them “deer” friends!

They also took a trip to White Sands National Park, which is just outside of Ruidoso. Known for sparkling white sands, this national park seems like it should belong on another planet. Each sand grain is made of the mineral gypsum, which gives it a white color. This contrasts with sand at a beach which is more typically a mixture of minerals, giving it a more earth-like color. White sands used to be covered by the Permian sea, which through evaporation, deposited layers of gypsum. After millions of years and a large number of tectonic environment shifts, those gypsum layers were weathered, eroded, and redeposited in dry lake beds. When the climate dried out further, the winds began to blow the gypsum into the white sand dunes found today.

The Lights Over Grand Teton

L

ucian Bennett Brandt, an undergrad majoring in Environmental Science, was one of the few who was not required to work from home this summer. Instead, he spent it mitigating the spread of invasive species in the Bridger Teton National Forest. One night in particular stood out during his time up in the Tetons. The Forest Service compound where he worked is in the middle of nowhere. As a result, the night sky was mind-bogglingly beautiful. One night, comet NEOWISE became visible over the mountains. This comet was discovered in late March and was visible in the US for much of the summer even to those near major cities like Houston. He remembers sitting in one of the pullouts near the Forest Service compound, as the comet, bright as a star with its tail spreading across the sky like a million grains of golden sand, became visible right above the Grand Teton. The Grand Teton is the largest peak in the Teton Range, standing at 13,775 ft. Right below where he was sitting, in what are called the ‘flats,’ an Elk, its fur turned pale by the moon, was resting. Shooting stars streaked across the sky what felt like every two minutes. Few things had brought him such pure awe and amazement.

One could consider the fortuitous appearance of the comet NEOWISE as a beacon in the darkness of a worsening year.

2020 • Outcroppings 95

Not all of us were as fortunate as to be able to get out and isolate ourselves amongst the trees, elk, and stars. Instead, most of us turned to online platforms or small in-person get togethers to find the socialization we needed. Our next stories, therefore, turn back to Houston.

Down to the Dungeon

W

hen Stewart Williams, PhD student, was thinking about how to spend time at home, he knew exactly what he wanted to do: play Dungeons and Dragons. A fantasy role-playing game where a Dungeon Master (DM) leads players through a set of scenarios filled with fantastical beasts and quests while attempting to achieve some sort of goal set by the DM. He has been both an online player and a “DMer” for quite some time. Through 2020 he has been playing more frequently, since it is a good way to socialize with friends. He has also gone a step further and started an in-person game with other members of his lab group. With frequent virus testing through Rice and generally healthy and safe practices, they decided it was a marvelous way to achieve some fun, live interaction every week or so. Stewart also wants to invite others in the department to their game.

If anyone is looking for a little bit of at home adventure for 2021, get ahold of Stewart!

Be careful of the ogres around here...

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To avoid feeling as though we are languishing in our homes, some of us have become creative, building our own little worlds (like Stewart) or turning to crafts and artistic prose. The act of creating is an exploration in itself, allowing the artists to discover their own thoughts, feelings, and internal worlds while completing the pilgrimage to a finished work of art. What follows are three stories following some of those creative journeys.

The Yarn Yarn

W

hile some have taken on new hobbies, others have stuck with those they know best. Emily Falksen, M.S. student, did just that. She has been knitting for years and has become known in the department as ‘the girl who knits her own socks’. In fact, even before the lockdowns began, she had been working on some lace stockings.

Her efforts to finish, however, were thwarted because she could not find 1/8th inch elastic- the same elastic used to make masks- due to limits in the supply chain. In addition, the stockings required a blocking process. Blocking is where the completed object is soaked in water and pinned into the final shape. The water helps set the fibers into place, so the object holds the desired shape. This is especially important with lace. Blocking allows the knitter to ‘relax’ the weave so that the eyelets in the lace open up to become visible. Her next project was a cardigan and her first sweater no less! Sweaters and Houston do not always mix though, so she shipped it to Minnesota where she will be able to appreciate its warmth more. Next came some colorwork socks with ginkgo leaves on them. Colorwork is where you knit with two or more different colors of yarn, which is necessary to get those leaves to pop. Her final knitting project was her wedding dress and shawl. She recently got engaged and yet had begun the dress a month before her engagement. She was not sure how long it would take to knit the ensemble, so she figured she should start early (turns out it took two months). With extra lace-weight yarn, she can finish a shawl to go with the dress. Emily likes knitting because it is not only a repetitive task that is relaxing, but the skill to create subtle patterns is very satisfying! She chooses projects that are challenging enough to have to think about what she is doing. That way she stays engaged throughout the project and gets an exquisite result.

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W

Fishing for Fun

hen April came around, Debadrita Jana, Ph.D. student, came across an online poetry challenge. Called GloPoWriMo, which stands for Global Poetry Writing Month, her mission was to write a poem a day for the month of April.

She made it through all thirty days, not only creating thirty poems but growing into a masterful wordsmith. A few months later, she

decided to try another challenge, this time turning her pen from the written word to that of drawing. This challenge, known as Inktober, calls for a different sketch every day for the month of October.

The catch?

They all must be inked.

She decided to try to complete thirty Geology themed sketches. She did not complete the challenge for October, but she plans to finish her thirty sketches anyway.

Poem and sketch of fossilized fish by Debadrita Jana.

Do you see the hidden fish?

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A Wooly Tale

F

ollowing along with the earlier knitting yarn, we come to Jeanine Ash’s wooly tale. Jeanine is one of our EEPS research scientists, who since she arrived, has started several social groups that encourage projects of a creative nature. In addition to her well entrenched knitting habit, she recently learned how to do a bit of embroidery. She enjoys it because she can make the stitches to mimic natural shapes like sea pearls and snake plants.

Jeaninine’s new socks (bottom) and embroidery project (left).

In December, she also picked up a knitting book with 52 sock patterns. That means she can knit a different pair socks for every week of the year. So far, she has 51.75 more pairs of socks to go! She imagines the pandemic will be a distant memory by the time she finishes, but at least she will have some chic new socks to brandish by the end of it.

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Our final story is a message of hope. With 2020 now behind us, we must keep our eyes open to what 2021 may bring.

This year, while still in the middle of a public health crisis, did not begin with devastating fires, but rather with a surprise wrapped up and attached to a kale leaf. Here is a story of life.

“Hope” Springs Eternal

taken the two largest and put them in a kale patch.

A couple days later, they saw one of the caterpillars had attached itself to a leaf. For over a week it did not make a chrysalis. Thinking that it had failed, she stopped looking. On the 21st of December, they picked the same leaf of kale…and there the chrysalis was! She put the leaf in water and started watching.

On New Year’s day, it looked like it was starting to change color. She thought it would be gradual but on the afternoon of the 2nd, the pupa was empty! It took Linda about an hour to find the new butterfly hanging down along a window sill out of plain sight. Linda managed to tuck her into a container with a slicee of orange to safely continue her full development overnight. January 3rd was going to be close to 70, so they decided to release her then.

S

o 2020 delivered a few miracles after all. Linda and Marc named her Hope, who graciously allowed Linda to create a permanent memory of the magic of nature that went on despite a global pandemic.

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inda Welzenbach Fries, EEPS science writer, loves exploring backyard nature. Not long after the work from home order began, she discovered very hungry caterpillars all over her butterfly weed, necessitation the acquisition of three more plants. In November, she spotted a monarch butterfly laying eggs on the three shrubs. She passed it off, thinking it was too cold for any to survive.

Yet by thanksgiving, the shrub was completely bare, and one or two caterpillars that looked to be fully mature and many smaller ones just starting. Monarch caterpillars grow through 5 stages, called ‘instars’. The 5th instar is the final molt before the caterpillar creates the chrysalis, where it metamorphoses over several weeks to become a butterfly. But back to the hungry caterpillars…

Linda called all the nurseries in the area looking for more plants (once the caterpillars start eating one type of plant they must continue with that same type). Just before a real cold front was arriving she decided to collect them, but they were all gone. Little did she know her husband, Marc, had

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Top l B otto eft: Two th 5 in Abo v m left: A s tar e: Ho c pe, a chr ysalis aterpilla rs o fema le m n a kale on a bu onar tterfl ch bu leaf. y we tterfl e d. y.

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The Amundsen Sea, Thwaites Glacier Antarctica March 2019 Image: Linda Welzenbach

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THE JOHN B. ANDERSON FELLOWSHIP FOR A SUSTAINABLE EARTH The Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences is pioneering a new frontier of systems thinking called Whole Earth Systems Science. We are studying how the ocean, atmosphere, biosphere, and deep Earth interact to give us a habitable planet.

Students are working with complex datasets that span a vast array of processes, length scales and time scales, to make predictions about the future of our planet.

The John B. Anderson Fellowship for a Sustainable Earth will help support the next generation of students to develop sciencebased solutions for the world’s most pressing problems, through collaborative research with Houston’s unique combination of energy, medical, chemical and space sectors.

To help with this effort, consider giving to the Human Impacts Fund at: earthscience.rice.edu/giving

The Human Impacts on the Earth Endowment supports research and education in Earth systems science, through the building of a world class center in Earth, Environment and Energy.

For additional information please visit: https://earthscience.rice.edu/sustainearth/

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TOWARDS THE RICE CENTER FOR A SUSTAINABLE EARTH

Building a habitable planet in a complex and interconnected world through scientific discovery and communication To sustain 7 billion people in the world, it is necessary to consider energy, natural resources and the environment as one continuous spectrum, all part of a highly complex and interconnected system. We must worry about our impacts to the environment, but we also need reliable energy resources to sustain our economies and improve the lives of the world.

We are at a crossroads, where further progress requires an interdisciplinary approach, where we bring industry and academia together, and where we bring physicists, geologists, chemists, engineers and biologists together with economists, artists, writers, politicians and more.

Launched in 2014, the IRESS initiative offers a unique opportunity to bring together leaders in Earth and Environmental Science from both industry and academia.

THE FUNDRAISING CHALLENGE HAS BEGUN Initial momentum is building for our institute. To kickstart development, Mary Anne and William Dingus (B.A. ’81) formalized a challenge gift to the department this year to help establish an endowment called Human Impacts on the Earth. Their gift will match any donation or pledge of $2,500 to the fund. If we make this challenge we will have a $500,000 endowment to support research and education activities focused on understanding how to maintain a habitable planet.

We are grateful for this generous gift and we hope you might consider contributing to this endowment or getting involved with the department by providing advice, helping our students, and more.

HELP US BUILD THIS CENTER

TEXAS-SIZED GRAND CHALLENGES

Over the next five years, we will be building the center, with the ultimate goal of building an Institute of Earth, Environment and Energy. We will work with Houston’s energy, medical, chemical and space sectors to train the next generation of undergraduate and graduate students in complex systems thinking through Whole Earth Systems Science. We will pursue four grand challenges facing Houston and the Gulf Coast. However, we cannot do this alone. We will need your help. Come join us on this exciting journey of learning about our planet and how to make it more habitable. earthscience.rice.edu/giving

The city of Houston is the ideal place to develop new ways of tackling energy and environmental problems. How the Gulf Coast will move forward in the face of environmental change may ultimately be the template for sustainable growth for the world.

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Towards a natural resource strategy The Texas coast: past, present & future Fluid flow in everyday life Planetary habitability and exploration

2020 Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences Contribution Opportunities

We need your help and ideas! Our development priorities are to grow the next generation of geoscientists, who can navigate the complex world ahead of us. Our ultimate goal is to build a center for sustaining the Earth, which ultimately will lead to an institute of the Earth, Environment and Energy. Towards these goals,we need help in establishing research support for students, enhancing opportunities for female geoscientists, building new analytical and computational facilities, adding new faculty lines through endowed chairs, and establishing post-doctoral fellowships in partnership with industry or the planetary community in Houston.

Contact Cin-Ty Lee for more information or if you have other ideas of how to enhance DEEPS (ctlee@rice.edu; 713 348 5084) EEPS, Rice University, 6100 Main Street MS-126, Houston TX 77251-1892

Contribution Opportunities

Human Impacts on the Earth Fund This endowment kickstarts the building of the Rice Center for a Sustainable Earth

Industry-Rice Earth Science Symposium This endowment goes to supporting industry-Rice relationships through workshops, conferences and collaborations

Douglas and Martha Lou Broussard Memorial Fellowship Endowment

Given to a graduate student in the later year(s) of their program, preference to female students

Devlin-Schnable Memorial Scholarship Fund The award helps to offset the cost of summer field camp for Geology/Geophysics students

For more information please visit our website: https://earthscience.rice.edu/giving/

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Rice University Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences KWGL, MS-126 6100 Main Street Houston, TX 77005

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