2008 Newsletter

Alumni News Tribute to John Grover

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

A Great Find!

Kate Bulinski, Page 6

Miles-High Mountain Trek Page 21

Faculty & Staff News Alumni Trivia Quiz

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Faculty & Staff News.. .................................................................. Page 2 - 7 Letter from the Department Head...................................................... Page 4 Let’s just say...She’s a Great Find!..................................................... Page 6 Tribute to John Grover.................................................................... Page 15 Miles-High Mountain Trek Fields View of Geology’s Impact.. ............. Page 21 Alumni Trivia Quiz........................................................................... Page 18 Alumni News........................................................................... Page 19 - 31

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W arren H uff During 2007-08 I have become increasing involved in teaching distance learning (aka online) courses in the department, as UC moves increasingly in this direction. A lot of changes have occurred in higher education in recent years, much of it due to developments in technology. Several years ago I began offering an online section of Geology 101-2-3, and the response has been astounding. I cap the enrollment at 100 and then have to fend off pleas to add the course. Although some of the students live out of the Cincinnati area (elementary school teachers working on certification requirements, adults living in rural areas who cannot commute to campus, etc.) many of the students are full-time UC students whose work-study schedules are so full that having the option of an online course helps them tremendously. I have no face-to-face meetings with them. All lectures are podcast as mp3 files and notes, quizzes and exams are all given on Blackboard, our online course management tool.

Although online teaching is more time-consuming than traditional face-to-face teaching (which I still do) I still managed to publish six papers with colleagues from China, Austria and the U.S. I continue to serve as secretary of The Clay Minerals Society and an associate editor for both Clays and Clay Minerals and the American Mineralogist.

I was very proud to have Funda Toprak successfully defend her doctoral dissertation last summer. She is currently filling an adjunct position in the department.

Brian Nicklen continues his dissertation research on Permian bentonites in the Guadalupian section of west Texas.

Together with Carl Brett and Pat McLaughlin we are nearing the final stages of an NSF-funded project on Silurian K-bentonites in both the UK and North America.

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I hope to see as many of you as possible at the GSA Annual Meeting in Houston this coming October. Details of the UC reception will be mailed in mid-summer. q

L ewis O wen During the last year Lewis Owen has continued his research and teaching that focuses on the Quaternary geology and geomorphology of tectonically active mountain belts and their forelands. This has involved field work with students and colleagues in the Pre-Cordillera of Argentina (last May), Northern India (June), Death Valley (December) and along the San Jacinto in Southern California (January).

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the next few months. The already published papers are listed below to provide a flavor of his research and for your interest.

This coming summer, Lewis will be working on tectonic geomorphology in the Atacama Desert and in Venezuela. He will be joining colleagues from the Department of Geography on the northern slope of Alaska to work on Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental change in August.

Lewis also plans to visit Tibet in September where he has been invited by his Chinese colleagues to be part of an international conference on the Tibetan Plateau and join a field trip traversing southeastern Tibet.

Lewis was promoted to Full Professor with tenure last September. Now for his sins, he will be taking on the role of interim head of the department in September lasting for a year. During this period he hopes to complete a book on the glacial geology of Tibet and the Himalaya while coping with his service duties. In September 2009, however, he plans to get back to the Himalaya and run the Geology of the Himalaya field course with Craig Dietsch. Craig and Lewis would like to invite alumni to join them and our students on this course. q

C arl B rett The past year has been one of ups and downs, in which I have spent more time than usual on family issues. Also there have been sad incidents. One of our undergraduate advisees, Myles Redder, died in an un-

Some of the students and alumni catching their breath at ~16,000 feet above sea-level in the Zanskar Range in northern India on the 2007 Geology of the Himalaya field course.

usual accident near campus in January (see article below), reminding us all how fragile and contingent life is.

We have worked toward completing the paperwork for Myles’s graduation and setting up a fund in his honor; thus, to try and find some good from this tragic situation. Nonetheless, life goes on and on balance the past year was an interesting one.

Our National Geographic project on the Devonian trilobite beds of Morocco was exceptionally interesting and productive. Aside from the logistical hassle of protecting and budgeting a bushel of cash, the Morocco trip turned out to be fantastically interesting and far

Lewis and Craig Dietsch ran the Geology of the Himalaya field course in northern India last June. This involved about 15 students and several alumni on a three week traverse of the Himalaya. They were joined by several India colleagues and held a three-day informal workshop on dryland dating in Ladakh.

In August, Lewis attended the INQUA Congress in Cairns (Australia), where he presented five papers on the research his colleagues, students and he have been undertaking over the last few years. This also allowed him to visit and dive on the Great Barrier Reef, and meet colleagues at the National Mass Accelerator Facility in Sydney. In March, Lewis visited the Luminescence Dating Laboratories at the University of Oxford, where he drank beer in the pub where Tolkien used to hang out, ate dinner at the high table in Wooster College wearing jeans and calibrated his gamma spectrometer. He also visited the University of St. Andrews to work with colleagues on a research paper on the glacial geology of Mt. Everest.

Over the last year, Lewis has published eight peer-reviewed publications with colleagues and students and has eight more in press that should be published within

Post-doctoral researcher, Markus Fuchs, conducting fieldwork in Death Valley. Markus join our department in March 2007 to spend a year working with Lewis Owen in the geochronology laboratories. Markus is now back at Bayreuth University where he is a Lecturer in Geomorphology.

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y five-year term as Department Head concludes at the end of the summer.

With this in mind, I want to depart from my usual summary of departmental accomplishments and milestones, to instead offer a few reflections about the state of the Department and its future.

With just thirteen faculty, it is clear that the Department cannot have a research presence in every facet of the earth sciences, but, historically, we’ve done an admirable job of training our students at all levels, as many of you can attest, and I am confident that we are continuing to do so. At the undergraduate level, while tinkering with some of our requirements to provide students with more flexibility to pursue interests in a particular subdiscipline, we’ve maintained a core set of required courses that continue to cover the breadth of the science. That said, when confronted a few years ago with a decrease in the number of geology majors to a dangerously low number, we decided that we needed to become far more proactive in recruiting undergraduate students to geology at the initial stages of their careers at UC. With this in mind, we now send a recruitment letter to all incoming freshmen in the College of Arts and Sciences, a faculty member visits every freshman orientation session to hand out copiously-illustrated brochures and talk up the virtues and significance of the geosciences, and we offer a year-long freshman seminar in introductory geology that emphasizes field trips and laboratory work (what the academic cognoscenti now call “experiential learning”). While it is difficult to gauge precisely the impacts of these and other new efforts, I can report that our majors headcount is now approaching 60, its highest level in years, and our expectation is that the numbers will continue to increase. We are now faced with the happy dilemma of not having enough microscopes to go around in some of our classes!

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At the graduate level, our goal has been to develop critical masses of three to four faculty in defined areas of research excellence, which then serve as catalysts for recruiting high-quality graduate students. Over the past several years, the Department has been most successful in establishing and maintaining programmatic excellence in paleontology/stratigraphy, Quaternary geology, and sedimentology/sedimentary geochemistry, the labors and fruits of which you will see elsewhere in this newsletter. Four years ago, we decided to shift some of our emphasis from the M.S. to the Ph.D., which caused a temporary drop in degree completions as the pipeline began to fill with new Ph.D. students. However, this pattern is now reversing: nine Ph.D. candidates and three M.S. students have completed their degrees since last summer. While this does NOT mean that we can expect 12 students to complete their graduate degrees each year from here on out, we anticipate six or seven a year, with the attendant fluctuations expected in a relatively small program.

As we look to the future, one of the major undercurrents on this campus, as elsewhere, is the increased emphasis on interdisciplinary research and programs.

In the College of Arts and Sciences, an effort was initiated this year to develop several new, interdisciplinary faculty clusters with new funding coming into the College. The Department of Geology has been a full partner in proposals for three such clusters, all of which will likely be given the go-ahead to recruit new faculty, and we anticipate that this will permit us to add junior faculty to Geology with research interests that are also relevant to our existing strengths (e.g., a climate modeler, a biogeochemist, and a specialist in the analysis of geo-hazards).

The academic landscape has grown increasingly complex as colleges and universities compete ever more actively to attract students and funding. Rather than being intimidated by these changes, however, I am confident that the Department of Geology will continue to work proactively to take advantage of the new reality.

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C arl B rett continued more productive than we had ever hoped. It was supported by a wonderful group of colleagues, including my New York colleagues, Gordon Baird (SUNY College at Fredonia), George McIntosh (Rochester Museum), Alex Bartholomew, now a professor at SUNY New Paltz, present PhD student Jay Zambito, and Brenda Hanke and Glenn Storrs of the Cincinnati Museum Center, as well as colleagues Eberhard Schindler, Peter Königshof, and Rainer Brocke from Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, Thomas Becker and Sarah Aboussalam from Münster, Germany and Ahmed El Hassani from University of Rabbat in Morocco. This international collaboration and synthesis of many specialties produced unexpected wealth of results. We have detailed data on nearly 1000 trilobites and have measured and correlated five sections of strata over nearly 70 kilometers. Fossil, rock and geochemical collections of nearly 600 lbs were retrieved and are being shipped to laboratories at Cincinnati and Germany for further analyses. Beyond all our expectations, new sections were explored, resulting in discovery of a large (~3 foot) head of a very ancient fossil arthrodire (armored fish) and the first discovery of Devonian blastoids and edrioasteroids (perhaps you’ll recall that these are extinct groups of Paleozoic echinoderms!) from northern Africa.

In April it was rewarding to participate in our Geology department’s centennial celebration. And, speaking for Geology, we are alive and well and fortunate to have a large group of extraordinarily dedicated alums. The fieldtrip I ran for them was one of the most spirited in recent years. We truly appreciate their input and support.

In June my students Jay Zambito and Austin Hendy I was able to work on several important issues with my students and my colleagues Rich Jarrard and Sue Halgedahl from University of Utah. I worked with my grad student Tony Kramer on his thesis area and helped get a research project on “Fossil Mountain” going with my graduate students. It was a grand trip, in spite of itself.

The one van rented from our motor pool had major problems, with cooling system (it was mid to high 90s

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Former Graduate Secretary Ginny Chasteen and her husband Leonard visited with Mike Menard at the 32nd Annual Pumpkin Run Nationals in October, 2007. Their 1957 Chevy was being showcased among 2800 entries after a recent 2 year frame-off restoration.

in Utah that week) and with its brakes. Yet our students behaved in a very responsible and mature way and the trip was successful, productive an fun.

I have continued to work with German colleagues on comparative studies of sea-level, climatic and biotic change during the Devonian, supported by the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation . In my recent visit to Frankfurt, in March, we moved toward completion of a special volume on Devonian seal-level, climatic and biotic changes that has been accepted by the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Paleoecology (Palaeo-3). As a titular member of the Subcommission on Devonian stratigraphy, I participated in a major field conference to examine environmental changes recorded in the Devonian Great Basin of Nevada in September 2007. This pointed up similarities and differences in patterns compared to eastern North America.

There were no new oceanographic missions for the SSETI project (Shelf and Slope Experimental Taphonomy Initiative) in 2007-2008; our remaining samples of shells, crabs, urchins and wood, put down on the seafloor in 1993 simply spent one more year of the sea bottom. However, we are making good strides in

Arnie Miller

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L e t’ s j u s t s a y . . . s h e’ s a

great find!

By: Wendy Beckman Photos by: Dottie Stove http://www.uc.edu/profiles/profile.asp?id=8518

But this paleontologist found us and the University of Cincinnati is about to lose her to Bellarmine University in Louisville. She has certainly had more than her share of pressure, even beyond that normally faced by doctoral candidates .

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s a paleontologist, Kate Bulinski spends much time crawling around on the ground.

“My last year as an undergrad, I noticed that my flexibility was going,” she says. She had trouble with some of her yoga positions. Her doctor concluded that it was bursitis and treated it as such.

After being accepted into UC’s graduate program in paleontology, she sought a doctor in July 2002 for the pain.

Initially considering it to be arthritis, the doctor recommended that Kate see a physical therapist. She was also given anti-inflammatories and other medications.

“Then I had an MRI in October 2002, which showed that I had a tumor on the outside of my right hip,” Kate says. “They suspected that it was a nonmalignant tumor.” So in December 2002, the surgeon performed a biopsy and determined that the growth was a desmoid tumor — a very rare but benign softtissue tumor that had invaded the surrounding area. Kate recalls that it was very painful.

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But something still didn’t feel right. Kate didn’t know where to turn.

“I thought, ‘What should I do? I’m brand new here.’” she recalls. But she had truly found a home and a family at UC. Kate had originally been encouraged to consider UC’s highly ranked paleontology program by one of her professors at Penn State. At the time, she had no idea how important the decision to come to Cincinnati would be on other areas of her life.

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C arl B rett continued more productive than we had ever hoped. It was supported by a wonderful group of colleagues, including my New York colleagues, Gordon Baird (SUNY College at Fredonia), George McIntosh (Rochester Museum), Alex Bartholomew, now a professor at SUNY New Paltz, present PhD student Jay Zambito, and Brenda Hanke and Glenn Storrs of the Cincinnati Museum Center, as well as colleagues Eberhard Schindler, Peter Königshof, and Rainer Brocke from Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, Thomas Becker and Sarah Aboussalam from Münster, Germany and Ahmed El Hassani from University of Rabbat in Morocco. This international collaboration and synthesis of many specialties produced unexpected wealth of results. We have detailed data on nearly 1000 trilobites and have measured and correlated five sections of strata over nearly 70 kilometers. Fossil, rock and geochemical collections of nearly 600 lbs were retrieved and are being shipped to laboratories at Cincinnati and Germany for further

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in Utah that week) and with its brakes. Yet our students behaved in a very responsible and mature way and the trip was successful, productive an fun.

I have continued to work with German colleagues on comparative studies of sea-level, climatic and biotic change during the Devonian, supported by the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation . In my recent visit to Frankfurt, in March, we moved toward completion of a special volume on Devonian seal-level, climatic and biotic changes that has been accepted by the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Paleoecology (Palaeo-3). As a titular member of the Subcommission on Devonian stratigraphy, I participated in a major field conference to examine environmental changes recorded in the Devonian Great Basin of Nevada in September 2007. This pointed up similarities and differences in patterns compared to eastern North America.

There were no new oceanographic missions for the SSETI project (Shelf and Slope Experimental Taphonomy Initiative) in 2007-2008; our remaining samples

“I met Arnie Miller at a Geological Society of America conference my senior year in fall 2001,” she recalls.

“Within a few months here, fresh off her undergraduate degree at Penn State in 2002, we recognized that her credentials were so outstanding that we elevated Kate directly into our PhD program, bypassing the MS; she was admitted to candidacy in the spring of her second year,” says Arnie Miller, professor of geology and outgoing head of the department. continued on p. 23. See Great Find!

analyses. Beyond all our expectations, new sections were explored, resulting in discovery of a large (~3 foot) head of a very ancient fossil arthrodire (armored fish) and the first discovery of Devonian blastoids and edrioasteroids (perhaps you’ll recall that these are extinct groups of Paleozoic echinoderms!) from northern Africa.

In April it was rewarding to participate in our Geology department’s centennial celebration. And, speaking for Geology, we are alive and well and fortunate to have a large group of extraordinarily dedicated alums. The fieldtrip I ran for them was one of the most spirited in recent years. We truly appreciate their input and support.

In June my students Jay Zambito and Austin Hendy I was able to work on several important issues with my students and my colleagues Rich Jarrard and Sue Halgedahl from University of Utah. I worked with my grad student Tony Kramer on his thesis area and helped get a research project on “Fossil Mountain” going with my graduate students. It was a grand trip, in spite of itself.

The one van rented from our motor pool had major problems, with cooling system (it was mid to high 90s

of shells, crabs, urchins and wood, put down on the seafloor in 1993 simply spent one more year of the sea bottom. However, we are making good strides in analysis of massive amounts of data obtained on our taphonomy experiments in the Bahamas and Gulf of Mexico since 1994: thirteen years of data on the effects of exposure on mollusks shells in many marine environments. In early 2008 we had a workshop for the SSETI project. Again we are moving toward publication of a New Edition of Popular Cincinnati-region book Published by The Kentucky Geological Survey Lexington, KY (April 24, 2007) – One of the most popular books published by the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) at the University of Kentucky has been updated for publication of a second edition. Exploring the Geology of the Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky Region, written by University of Cincinnati geology professor emeritus Paul E. Potter, was first published in 1996.

For further details see http://www.uky.edu/KGS/ announce/paulpotterbook.htm

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C arl B rett continued large amount of our research in another special volume of Palaeo-3. (If it seems I am favoring that awkwardly named journal, maybe so; I am an associate editor).

Present and former graduate students all appear to be doing very well. Recent. Brian Kirchner, Alex Bartholomew, Sean Cornell, and Pat McLaughlin are prospering in academic positions and it is a great satisfaction to see them all moving forward productively. Austin Hendy, coadvised by Arnie Miller and myself, completed his PhD and is now actively pursuing post-doctoral studies at Yale University. I continue to have collaborative research projects with all of them.

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Graduate students, Jason Dortch and Kate Hedrick, collecting samples from a moraine boulder in the Ladakh Range of Northern India for terrestrial cosmogenic radionuclide dating. Kate and Jason are working with Professors Craig Dietsch and Lewis Owen examining the nature of landscape evolution in the Himalaya.

PhD students Brad Deline and Jay Zambito are making excellent strides toward their dissertations. Doctoral students Mike DeSantis and Sean Cornell and Masters students Trisha Smerczak, Jessica Bazeley, and Tony Kramer, will complete their respective dissertations and theses in a short time, and new students Aaron House and Nathan Marshall are establishing their research very well.

During the summer of 2007 PhD student Jay Zambito made good headway on his project on the recurrent Hamilton faunas of the Ithaca Formation in the beautiful Cayuga Lake Valley of central New York State. I also worked with Alex Bartholomew and Gordon Baird on some extraordinary coral beds in the nearby Skaneateles Lake region. In September Jay, Gordon, Alex and I showcased new results in two field trips for the NY State Geological Association. We are working on manuscripts on the coral beds and Jay, who just successfully defended his PhD proposal, has submitted a paper for another Devonian special volume.

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Professor Marc Caffee from Purdue University explaining tectonic geomorphology to our students along the Karakoram Fault in the Nubra Valley while on the Geology of the Himalaya field course.

Marc has been collaborating with colleagues in our department and has been on the committees of several of our graduate students over the last few years.

US Geological Survey in conjunction with the NY State Geological Survey. The main issues now are doublechecking the edge matches on adjacent quads. Soon we will have this set of maps ready for publication.

Former graduate student Pat McLaughlin , Warren Huff and I, are moving ahead with NSF funded research on Silurian sequence stratigraphy in eastern Laurentia . With Pat’s help we have completed our analysis of most Ohio I am also working on final editing of a series of 10 Silurian sections and cores and are moving into correlaquadrangles I mapped in central New York State in the tion of sections in Indiana and Tennessee. We are prepast several years with assistance from many former senting major field trips for the Northeast students (Chuck Ver Straeten, Sean Cornell, Alex Bar(Niagara area) and North-Central section thlomew, Pat McLaughlin, Mike DeSantis, Jess Bazemeetings of Geological society of America, ley), under the auspices of the Statemap Program of the to highlight the integration of biostratigraphy (Mark Kleffner), carbon isotopic studies of Brad Kramer and Matt Saltzmann at Ohio State University and our work on sequence straitgraphy. Through this joint work we are also moving toward interconThe April 18 earthquake tinental correlations with classic sections (M 5.2) in southern Illinois in Great Britain, working with former PhD was widely felt in the Cinstudent Dave Ray, and in Gotland, Sweden. cinnati area. Attila Kilinc was featured in interviews on all the local TV channels as well as in the Cincinnati Enquirer. See the full report at http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ article?AID=/20080419/ NEWS01/8404190367

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Photograph of the intrepid adventurers after their flight over Corduroy Terrain: David (aka “The Shadow”) Nash, Rebecca Reverman, Kees DeJong, and Eric (the pilot).

D avid N ash David Nash (Geomorphology/Ground-water geology), and Kees DeJong are still at work on their “corduroy terrain” project. The “type locality” for this terrain was first noted by DeJong on the department’s centennial poster (fig. Nash a). The image used in the poster was generated by Nash at the request of Paul Edwin Potter for use in the splendid new edition of his book on local geology (in which he did not use the image). Nash believes the strikingly linear ridges result from etching of joints while DeJong believes they are, at least in part, the result of glacial activity. Their debate continues but both DeJong and Nash are delighted to have a fascinating local field area to visit and argue about. They

Corduroy Terrain (aka Geomorphic Problematica) photo taken by Nash during recent flyover of MiamiWhitewater Forest.

have gained a new appreciation of the research done

by Daniel Keller and Hans Hofmann on jointing in the region. Recently, Rebecca Reverman, DeJong, and Nash rented a plane and pilot to fly them over MiamiWhitewater Forest to photograph the features.

Finally, in 2007, I was honored to receive the McMicken College Dean’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship; I greatly appreciate this vote of confidence from my colleagues and as always I feel very fortunate to be in the outstanding academic environment of the University of Cincinnati. q

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R ichard A. S pohn (former geology librarian) We were all saddened to learn that on April 18, 2008 Rich Spohn passed away in his sleep at his home in Orlando, Florida. He was 63 years old. A prayer service was held at the Family Funeral Care in Hunters Creek, Florida on April 23.

His family asks that any memorial gifts be made to the Grand Teton National Park Foundation in Richard’s name. You can do this on-line at: http://www.gtnpf.org/join.php. Sympathy cards can be mailed to 13106 Meergate Circle, Orlando, Fl 32837.

D avid N ash continued David Nash is also hard at work trying to establish the Great Miami Ground Water Observatory or GMGWO (“GWO” pronounced as in “two”… he’s open to suggestions for a better acronym). The observatory would use an array of 16 instrumented piezometers to produce “near real-time” pieziometric maps on a website along with current ground-water chemistry. The project is very ambitious and will be a joint project with J. Barry Maynard, and many other ground-water researchers from around the area. The project incorporates lessons learned from a similar, much smaller project on the Little Miami aquifer system. The success of the project is dependent on the participation of the Hamilton County Park District on whose land GMGWO would be located. Currently Nash is working with Kevin Savage (back with Bowser – Morner Inc.) and the park district to see if a mutually agreeable arrangement can be found. Nash is delighted to be working with Kevin again (Kevin was also heavily involved with the Little Miami project). As well as being an extremely capable and experienced ground-water geologist, Kevin is also great salesman and incomparable raconteur (a great asset when conducting long aquifer tests).

Nash’s current doctoral students, Ana Londoño, Rick Bullard, Rich Pohana are all proceeding towards their degrees (each at their own speed). Rick and Rich’s progress is somewhat deliberate as they are both fully employed with demanding jobs (Rick is teaching at Cincinnati Christian University and NKU and Rich is the city’s engineering geologist). Ana is finishing her fascinating research studying erosion rates in Southern Peru from the degradation of Pre-Columbian terraces.

Ana will be defending her dissertation this summer and will join the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Saint Louis University in the fall.

His visit with Harvey Sunderman along with Warren Huff, Attila Kilinc, and Paul Edwin Potter was one of the

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high points of the academic year. Harvey’s health has not been good for several years and he had declined visits. Several months ago, however, Harvey made an unexpected telephone call to Warren and Warren convinced him to allow a visit. The visitors at first found Harvey uncommunicative but after a while the old Harvey that they knew and loved reappeared. There was much talk of old alums including Meg Riestenberg and Sally Sutton (Harvey smiled, winked, and said “They were sharp ones!”). It was a delightful visit and Nash hopes Harvey will permit another visit in the near future.

Nash has been delighted by the many, many visits by alums over the last year. He hesitates to the list them because his memory is not what it used to be and he is afraid he might forget someone. Nash invites all to view the Lexington Peneplain from his office window (for those unable to visit in person, they can see the view on the web at http://homepages.uc.edu/~nashdb/cincinnati/lexington_peneplain.htm, and be sure to read the reprint of Bruce Ryan’s excellent article on the life of Nevin Fenneman, http://homepages.uc.edu/~nashdb/ cincinnati/Nevin%20Fenneman.pdf). q

A ttila K ilinc This has been an exciting academic year for me and for my students. Utku Solpuker and Tracy Brockman have successfully defended their PhD and MS theses.

Gokce Ustunisik is in her third year of her PhD research and Michelle Davidson is writing her MS thesis. I have one publication in print and a second one jointly with Ustunisik has been submitted for publication.

On the teaching front, I continue to teach Graduate Research (the only required graduate course for all graduate students), Environmental Volcanology, Igneous Petrology and Basaltic Volcanism. This spring quarter, I took over John Grover’s Physical Geology course and enjoyed teaching to a group of 107 students.

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exploring the field evidence for active extension in the Puga Valley (hot springs, fresh deposits of salt, native sulfur, cinnabar, orpiment, and realgar, and the scarp of this half-graben) and returning to graben-filling Tso (Lake) Morari and spending half a day exploring the Karzok ophiolite there. Congrats to Becky for finishing her M.S. degree just last week, The High-Pressure Karla Tectonic Unit: A Remnant Shear Zone associated with the Ultra-High Pressure Tso Morari Dome, eastern Ladakh (India), NW Himalaya. Thanks to Becky for getting me working in the superb geology of the Indus Suture Zone, the blueschists of the Karla, the Tso Morari dome, and getting up to 5600+ meters — great view! Congrats, too, to Jason as the lead author on the paper, Nature and timing of large landslides in northern India, which was accepted for publication in QSR; Jason’s co-authors are Lewis, fellow faculty colleagues and Himalayan travellers Marc Caffee (Purdue) and Ulli Kamp (University of Montana), Bill, and me.

Our tectonic geomorphology group (!) is just finishing our next paper, Exhumation and incision history of the Lahul Himalaya, northern India, based on (U-Th)/He thermochronometry and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating techniques with co-authors Byron Adams (M.S. 2007), me, Lewis, Bill, and our friend and colleague at Virginia Tech, Jim Spotila who measured Byron’s apatite helium ages. And, as always, thanks to Lewis for opening the Himalayan door for me. We plan to return in September 2009.

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I was back in Spain with Paco Martinez in September, starting a collaborative project to determine the origin of pebbles of deformed granite in syn-orogenic conglomerates in the Variscan chain in northeastern Spain and the Pyrenees. We are collaborating with zirconologist John Aleinikoff of the USGS in Denver.

John and I will be spending a week at Stanford this summer probing zircon with the SHRIMP there — I get the 8 pm to 8 am shift. We are going back for more fieldwork this September. It’s been great collaborating again with Paco. Maria Luisa Arboleya was working in Lewis’ cosmogenics lab and staying at our house while I was at their house in Barcelona…We are hoping Paco and Maria Luisa will both return to the Department in the near future.

My teaching highlight was using Simon Lamb’s book, Devil in the Mountain: A Search for the Origin of the Andes (a book Attila Kilinc recommended to all of us several years ago) as the text for my freshHaralampiev, Professor and man seminar, Rocks & Alex Mrs. John Grover.

Mountains. I learned quite a bit about how this complex mountain range formed…without collision! Part of ending this year was delivering a tribute to John Grover at the Department’s Awards Banquet (which has been reprinted somewhere in this issue).

Alex Haralempiev was there. John is (semi-) retiring.

His wit and whistling will be missed! q

I continued to serve as the American Geophysical Union Volcanology-Geochemistry-Petrology section’s Press Officer and as well as a member of the Executive Committee. q

C raig D ietsch Who knows where the time goes? (I don’t.) Last June and July were spent on the second running of Geology of the Himalaya with Lewis Owen and a large UC contingent, including alums Patrick Applegate and (for the second time) Bill Haneberg, graduate students Becky Reverman, Kate Hedrick, Yeong Bae Seong (Ph.D., 2007) and Jason Dortch, and undergrad Geology majors Mackenzie English, Mike Oestreich, and Nathan Marshall. For me, highlights of the trip were

2007 Himalayian trip with Lewis Owen heading up the UC contingent.

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Paul Potter This year I traveled to both the national and regional AAPG meetings at Long Beach and Lexington (each with a field trip), attended the GSA meeting in Denver (and gave a paper), and also went to Brazil, where I gave two talks and helped Brazilians with three papers. In Brazil, I also spent two weeks on a fazenda (farm) in Sao Paulo State and much enjoyed planting sweet corn in November, off-loading some pineapple and sugar cane, and cutting grass around the fazenda house. This trip much refreshed my Portuguese.

In late May I attended a three-day meeting of the Geological Society of Canada in Québec City, along with about 900 others – a truly first class conference.

And then I went on an insightful and informative six-day field trip around the Gaspé Peninsula, whose theme was “Petroleum systems – Cambrian through Carboniferous.” Thanks to some colleagues on the trip I was, on various occasions, both pulled and pushed up some of the coastal outcrops to get a first-hand view.

This year the Kentucky Survey published the second edition of Exploring the Geology of the Cincinnati/ Northern Kentucky Region, an effort that took most of two years to prepare —- and much longer, when you include the many new photographs and drawings made by our illustrator Tim Phillips. Also this year I helped Arnie Miller and Warren Huff with alumni affairs and much enjoyed the Fall Field Trip to western Kentucky to see alluvial deposits along the Ohio.

And finally, for a geological hobby, I have been taking pictures of geological scenes across Kentucky (and determining latitudes and longitudes of many older ones) to add to a special layer for all the seven hundred

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Kees DeJong some digitized 1:24,000 geological maps that cover the state. Some of these photographs were made 30 to 40 years ago.

My best wishes to all the Cincinnati Geology Graduates. q

David Meyer A very positive development this year has been the progress of my book, with Richard Davis, A Sea Without Fish, towards publication with Indiana University Press. The book is a synthesis of information about the Ordovician fossils of the Cincinnati Arch region, and what we know of their paleobiology and paleoecology.

The book includes a history of stratigraphic studies and the early work done by the "Cincinnati School" of publishing amateurs. There are many new illustrations of spectacular Cincinnatian fossils and a color Ordovician "seascape" by local artist John Agnew. We are now awaiting page proofs and are hoping it will be out by the time of the GSA Annual Meeting.

This year I have working with former student Ben Dattilo on life habits of some Ordovician brachiopods that were favorite attachment sites for edrioasteroid echinoderms. We gave a talk at the North-central GSA in Indiana, and will be going national with the work at Houston in the fall. In July I will be giving a paper at the International Coral reef Symposium in Florida on declining numbers of crinoids on some Caribbean reefs.

Ph.D. student Liz Dame defended her dissertation study on the very slow recovery of spiny sea urchins on Caribbean coral reefs. Teaching also kept me busy this year, with Age of Dinosaurs, Paleoecology, Paleontology Seminar, and Coral Reefs. Kani has retired from her work with Bernheim Arboretum but continues to be very busy with volunteer efforts for Oxbow, Inc., the Civic Garden Center, and Cincinnati Museum Center. Our son Ross completed his Masters in Public Administration at NYU and he, his wife Emmy, and our grandson Bailey (15 mos.) have recently moved back to Cincinnati to find permanent work. It has been a great year for me, and the Department as a whole. q

Mt. Rumpke’s Land Slide Just finished teaching Introductory Structural Geology for the umpteenth time. I still enjoy teaching this course but hope that when UC converts to a semester system (in 2011?) ‘Introductory’ can be left out of the title.

Students still have problems with understanding the Mohr Circle. Must be my fault.

Landslides are not mentioned except that I compare the Northern Gulf of Mexico with a huge landslide, characterized by listric growth faults and a salt-cored overthrust at its front, the Sigsbee Escarpment, with a displacement of 50 km. In front of it is a real fold belt!

Transfer faults similar to those terminating the Pine Mountain Thrust are present as well.

I could have mentioned the 1996 landslide of Mount Rumpke, the tallest hill in Hamilton County. It was 1100+ feet before the slide but Rumpke admitted that that was too high (and paid a $1 million fine) and now it is only 1085 feet. Below are three topographic diagrams: before the Mount was built, before the slide, and after the slide. They were published in a recent article of which I was a coauthor. See tinyurl.com/6krtf3 for an abstract.

This spring was quite enjoyable: another successful trip to the Appalachians with Carl Brett and 30 students. It was the Evita trip, named after the musical in the Barter Theater in Abingdon (VA). In the past we had the Wuthering Heights, Dracula and other trips named after the plays we saw.

PS: Rumke Sanitary Landfills is also known for its methane gas extraction from wells 100 feet deep. Microorganisms that live in organic materials such as food wastes, paper or yard clippings cause these materials to decompose. This produces landfill gas, typically about 60 percent methane and 40 percent carbon dioxide. The latter is removed, and the methane is pumped in the Pipelines of Duke Energy (formerly CG&E): 15 million cubic feet per day. The largest landfill-methane producing facility in the world! q

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Arnie Miller It’s been a fun year. I’ve continued to expand my research contacts with Chinese colleagues, including a meeting last Fall in Denver that jump-started the initiation of a joint working group to conduct a high-resolution, field-based comparison of the Ordovician Radiation in South China and North America. We’ll soon be submitting a grant proposal to fund the initial field meetings of the working group. I’ve also learned recently that a publishing house in Beijing has reached agreement with the American publishers of Principles of Paleontology, 3rd Edition (Foote and Miller, 2007) to produce a Chinese edition of the book.

My students and I have been working on a range of topics related to the history of Phanerozoic marine biodiversity, including: a detailed analysis of changes through time in the global geographic disparities of biotas; an ongoing projec, spearheaded by Austin Hendy and Kate Bulinski, to better understand the nature and development of the latitudinal diversity gradient during the Cenozoic Era; a large, group project involving several colleagues worldwide to refine the “industry standard” Phanerozoic marine diversity curve. By the time you read this, a paper on this topic will have been published in Science that includes several authors with Cincinnati roots.

I’ve also been laying the groundwork and conducting interviews for my next book, which will recount the story and intrigue (YES, there IS intrigue in paleontology…) behind the development of one of the more pivotal papers of the past thirty years in paleontology, known among the cognoscenti as The Consensus Paper. This was a four-author paper published in 1981 in Nature Magazine that is widely credited with giving license to the use of raw data from the fossil record for reconstructing and interpreting the history of global biodiversity. Because the authors were all very prominent members of the profession near the zeniths of their careers, the Consensus Paper was bound to attract significant attention. The run-up to the paper was anything but straightforward, however, and is a story worth telling.

Stay tuned.

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Arnie Miller continued I am very grateful for the accomplishments and hard work of my graduate students; By repeatedly bringing provocative new findings and methods for discussion at our frequent group meetings, they helped me to stay (reasonably) sane during my stint as Department Head. Austin Hendy (co-advised by Carl Brett) finished his integrated, multiscale doctoral dissertation on the history of Cenozoic biodiversity, and is now ensconced at Yale University as a postdoc. Kate Bulinski also recently completed her Ph.D. on the quantitative nature of biodiversity within populations and paleocommunities and how it scales up to produce the composite patterns observed at broader levels. Kate will be starting a tenure-track faculty position this Fall at Bellarmine University in Louisville. Devin Buick continues to develop amazing new procedures for the collection, graphical representation, and analysis of morphological data in his ongoing Ph.D. dissertation documenting the relationship between diversification and morphology in the prolific bivalve genus Cucullaea. Chad Ferguson is integrating his investigations on the use of the subfossil record to diagnose anthropogenic changes to coastal marine settings with a study of the longer term history of environmental change preserved in a set of cores that he collected in his primary study area in Florida Bay. This year, we welcomed two new graduate students to the lab: Sarah Kolbe, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, who arrived after a year in Denmark as a Fulbright Scholar; and Jacalyn Wittmer, who earned her undergraduate degree at Beloit College. Sarah and Jackie are both diving headlong into

2007 - 2008 A ward W inners .

Front Row: Aaron House, Jessa Moser, Colby Smith, Gokce Ustunisik, Becky Reverman, Thomas Grabo and Emma Rieth.

Back Row: Bill Honsaker, Brad Deline, Eric Mosbaugh and Jole Hecher.

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their research. Sarah is investigating the relationship of bivalve morphological variability and disparity with geographic and environmental range during critical intervals of the Eocene and Oligocene; Jackie is studying the regional paleoecology and global paleogeographic history of tentaculitids.

Vanessa is still going strong at Tufts University, where she continues as an economics major (plus maybe political science). She also came back this year from ACL-reconstruction surgery to help the Tufts University Women’s basketball team make it all the way to the Elite Eight of the Division III NCAA tournament; it was great to see her back out there, playing with the same crazy abandon that was her trademark before the injury. Nate is now done with 11th grade after plowing through a full complement of AP courses, and he’s starting to look at colleges ($$ob, $$ob); he’s spending part of the summer working at UC Medical Center in a program that will give him tastes of five different research labs. Mary Jo’s role as a school social worker in the Cincinnati Public School system is now focused primarily on students and families from non-Englishspeaking countries, her main appointment next year will be at the Academy of World Languages. Chico (our Jack Russell Terrier) is as peppy as ever and is currently making sure that our house painter does a good job.

Finally, around the time the next edition of Upper Crust is published in June 2009, we’ll be hosting the Ninth North American Paleontological Convention (NAPC) on the UC campus. Come join us for what will certainly be a lively, provocative meeting! q

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T r i b u t e t o J o h n G r o v e r ( g i v e n b y C r a i g D i e t s c h )

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t is with mixed emotions that I address you this evening, to honor our colleague John Grover, to acknowledge his important contributions to the Department during his career, and to celebrate our collective friendship. I am proud to be speaking to you tonight about John, but also, I confess, somewhat wistful about the prospect of losing a fellow hard-rocker — John will willingly confess he is at heart a metamorphic petrologist — and I suspect our future hires won’t be as conversant with Schreinemaker’s analysis as John is, nor will they fully appreciate the beauty and complexity of the Gassets Schist. Alas…

John joined the Geology faculty in 1972, after completing a post-doctoral fellowship with Don Lindsley at SUNY Stony Brook, following his PhD from Yale where he worked with Phil Orville. I’d like to mention that Phil Orville was one of great “humanist experimental petrologists” and a wonderfully warm and brilliant (and somewhat absent minded) teacher of all things related to thermodynamics, mineralogy, and petrology. I think John brought to our Department that same kind of genuine concern for the welfare of his colleagues and students, and Phil’s absolute dedication to doing research right, built on the most firm scientific foundation of observation and experimentation.

John is the lead, or sole author of a series of seminal papers that describe the thermodynamics, solution properties, and phase relations among the pyroxenes, surely one of the most important groups of rock-forming silicate minerals, I think its fair to say, in the Solar System. This work is indeed esoteric to some, but

will all continue “to...we enjoy John’s wit and whistling for years to come.

”

several

John’s work to understand the intricacies of why pyroxenes form, how they form, and how they interact with each other — and believe me, the crystallization behavior, solid solution, and sub-solidus phase relations among the pyroxenes are complex — led to fundamental advances in our understanding of the generation and crystallization of basalt here on Earth (basalt, of course, covers more of Earth’s surface —by far — than any other rock type) and the petrologic evolution of our Moon, both its basaltic mare and anorthorsitic highlands.

John’s chapter on Thermodynamics of Pyroxenes in the Mineralogical Society of America’s outstanding series, Reviews in Mineralogy is the culmination of this work.

John’s interests in geology are wide, and he is a true geologist. He has published on a variety of topics, including an AJS paper on dolomite formation and its implications for carbonate diagenesis (now that’s swimming with the tide in our Department!), the formation of gypsum and quartz in sedimentary rocks in Kentucky, analysis of far-field stresses in the mid-continent, seismites in the Fairview Formation, and the thermodynamics and phase relations of tourmaline group minerals.

This last subject is of special note tonight, since John did this work in collaboration with his Ph.D. graduate student, Alex Haralempiev, who came to Cincinnati from Bulgaria via the Moscow Institute of Mineralogy, Petrology, and Geochemistry to work specifically with John. A common theme in all of these diverse projects is John’s collaboration with students, including undergraduates.

I think this is one of John’s most noteworthy contributions to our Department — his genuine interest in students and his tremendous efforts in the classroom, to teach students geology, and of course, mineralogy.

John’s keystone courses were his 2-quarter mineralo-

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A Tribute to John Gover continued

gy sequence (GEOL 301 and 302). I can describe this course because I’ve taken parts of it…I think in today’s parlance these courses were “challenging”. Kees always said that students who had taken John’s mineralogy sequence were the ones ready to handle his course in structure. John taught mineralogy through fundamentals, first principles, quantitative methods, and of course, with expertly prepared specimens. Critics of higher education say that today’s college classroom is more about having students learn to feel good about themselves, to get the As and Bs they’re entitled to. Not in John’s classroom — as it should be — students left having learned content, and the better of them left with a sense of “Wow, there is so much more to learn!” But John’s classes were not all work and no play; during the past few years I have walked by his Freshman Seminar on Time (just the sort of deep, multidisciplinary topic that appeals to John) and from the hallway, I could easily sense a place where students were engaged, John was enthused and having fun, and everything that a liberal arts classroom is supposed to be was there.

John always took a genuine interest in the health and welfare of our Department. He expressed his points of view candidly, which, naturally, led to disagreements, but heaven help the department that does not or cannot freely express opinions and different points of view. John cared. At many Master’s

and Ph.D. defenses, John asked important questions about the research being presented. His questions came from his genuine interest in the topic and, I know, a strong personal commitment to scientific integrity.

I would also like to mention that John was always a great colleague on field trips: relaxed, funny, and into whatever geology was at hand. His wit came along, too. On one of our 4-day fall field trips, we were inside a huge open-pit limestone quarry near Paducah, looking at the geology, of course, algal mounds, I think, and every now and then one of those gigantic Euclid dump trucks (with tires taller than we were) would go rumbling by, at close quarters. Back in the van with John, he read me this:

A Euclid huge truck in the quarry

Filled with tons of rock, approached very roary

For the mounds we were keen

And the truck came unseen…

The next stop on our trip was in glory!

In closing, let me end on an upbeat note. As long as the funds last, John will continue teaching in the Department.

We are not approaching a “terminal Grover reaction” or the “Grover missing reaction” in our academic multi-component research-teaching-service space. Let’s hope that we will all continue to enjoy John’s wit and whistling for several years to come. q

UC

to Host Major Darwinian Convention i n 2009

The University of Cincinnati is slated to devote the 2009 calendar year to celebrating the life and contributions of Charles Darwin.

Next year marks the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentennial of his book, The Origin of Species, which was published in 1859.

Read the full article at http://media.www.newsrecord.org/media/storage/paper693/ news/2008/01/31/News/Uc.To.Host.Major.Darwinian.Convention.In.2009-3178140.shtml

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R E D D E R

(BS ‘08)

This past January we all lost a good friend and fine citizen of the Earth and of our department: a life cut way too short by a twist of fate. As one of his fellow students Mike Oestreich put it:

...Myles was a fixture in “our small department….

there weren’t many people he didn’t touch in some way.

It’s very sad that he’s gone.

”

In my role as a teacher and advisor, I view certain students as junior colleagues and friends and revel in their individuality and distinctive characters. Myles was one such; without doubt, he was an individual and a character, but I thoroughly enjoyed his enthusiasm, his intellectual curiosity, and his droll sense of humor.

I learned a good deal from Myles and I hope to have passed on a thing or two of value to him, or at least added to his enjoyment of the world, as he added to mine. I think so; I also think that Myles could do whatever he put his mind to, though he once told me that he only really applied himself to subjects he found exciting; so when he worked hard in our geology courses I took that as a good sign. He even received an award for outstanding senior in 2006.

I was so well impressed by Myles’s knowledge and level of interest that I asked him to be an undergraduate tutor for my freshmen seminar the first time I taught it. Without doubt he did relate well to many of the students and fostered a sense of camaraderie. He was always a big help on the field trips and the source of a good many useful suggestions; he and I were in the process of writing a set of guidelines for improvement of that class.

Myles was just one course away from his BS degree pending completion of the final report for the capstone course he did with me. The rough draft, which he recently submitted, is on my desktop; I will edit it and will do whatever I can to see that his degree is made official. Myles would smile about getting me to do this work.

Above all, Myles was always one to raise interesting questions after classes and he openly expressed his skepticism, as well as enthusiasm for the big picture

ideas of geology and earth history. He was a gungho participant on field trips- even when the previous night’s frivolities were still in his blood. In his all too short time on Earth, Myles, as a keen student of this planet, took in a good bit of its grandeur; from Kentucky’s Red River Gorge to the Sevier Desert of Utah and the dizzying heights of the high Himalaya.

Recently, Myles had been working as a consulting geologist at Alt and Witzig Engineers in Westchester and was making plans to move on to graduate study.

He often expressed a wish to go away get a masters degree and come back to do a PhD at UC. I am sure that he would have done well.

In a sense, we, as teachers, have an almost parental relationship to our students, and here the case is particularly poignant because Myles was not only a valued student, but a close friend to me and to my own son Kenton. Myles was sometimes derelict and rebellious, but always interesting and he took an interest in many things and had a positive impact on many people. He was a gritty individual, who had weathered a number of hardships and injuries. We all hoped above hope that somehow Myles could pull through again. But in the end these injuries were just too drastic.

On this cold Martin Luther King Day think warmly of Myles Redder, a fine and dedicated student of the Earth. Myles’s passing serves to remind us that life is short, fragile, and full of contingencies. To honor Myles, we should take time to appreciate each other all the more and revel in our own and our associates’ individualities and idiosyncrasies. Among other things, Myles tried to remind us that it’s good to be a character, to have fun, take stock of the things that really matter and don’t sweat the rest. I will miss him deeply.

Carlton E. Brett January 21, 2008

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Q u i z

Alumni News

50’s

2. How was it used when you were here?

3. How often was it changed?

4. Who was permitted to write on it?

Send your response to Warren Huff at warren.huff@uc.edu and they will be posted on the department/alumni website at http://www.uce.edu/geology/geo_alumni.html.

Walter Laufer (BS ’56)

Tom is retired from the faculty of Wittenberg University.

Dear Warren:

The book by Jim Parks, Bob Dott and me, “Bushels of Fossils” about Lowell R. Laudon, is available from the Geology Department at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I also published a paper on North Dakota vertebrates in GSA Special Paper 427 and am currently working on North Dakota Fox Hills shark’s teeth.

Francis E. LaMore (MS ’54) I’m still retired, but busy as I can be. I’m active in church and community affairs, and feel very blessed as all of my grandchildren are with me in the Houston area.

Cornelia (Lolly) Riley (BS ‘ 58) My new home is in Reedville, VA on an estuary off the Chesapeake Bay. If any of you happen to be studying coastal plain sediments in this region, please let me know.

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From John Pope’s collection, thanks to John Pojeta (PhD ’63)

Thomas A. Gerrard (BS ‘56)

F.D. (Bud) Holland (PhD ’58)

1. Whose Blackboard is this?

Kenneth Caster

Since graduation and finding a job I have lived in Williston, North Dakota, Fort Worth and Midland, Texas. 1 have been employed by Amerada, Union Texas, Champlin Pet, Tomlinson Oil Co. Inc., and since 1983 an independent geologist Several years ago at the AAPG Convention in Houston, I met Paul Potter in a most unlikely fashion. I was standing in the vacated lobby of the hotel waiting for my wife, when in walked this professional looking gentleman. He wore a lanyard around his neck holding several identification cards, one of which spelled out in bold letters The University of Cincinnati. What a coincidence. Needless to say, we hit it off right away because my wife Sylvia is also a 1955 UC grad from the college of DAAP. We went to dinner that evening and have been, for lack of a better word, “pen pals” ever since. Paul suggested I write a brief synopsis of my family life since leaving Cincinnati some 50 years ago. So here it goes. Sylvia, my wife of 52 years and I have three married sons who also have three children each and are married to the same gals they started married life with. My oldest grandchild is 23 and the youngest is 2 years of age. The threeboys are all in the oil business. Our eldest son, Walter

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Laufer contiunued the Aggie engineer, is with Halliburton and has literally been stationed around the world, but is now residing in Midland, Texas. The middle son is a PLM graduate from UT and before leaving Exxon, was Division Land Manager. He now lives in Austin and has his own company named Principal Properties, an oil and gas company. Our youngest son lives in Houston and is also a UT graduate with a major in Geology. However, he saw more opportunities in the Land Leasing business and so is a Senior Landman with Carrizo Oil and Gas, a very successful, independent oil and gas company.

Our life today is visiting with grand children (9), and traveling, not as much as we used to, although I still want to go to Argentina and Chili before I end up in the “bone yard”. We still enjoy golf, going to Colorado during the summer and Florida in the winter. Every once in a while I still do some Geology for myself and some consulting work for a long-standing client of 22 years.

Best Regards, Walter Laufer

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the $250,000 goal. The Caster Fund stands at about 14% of the monies in hand, and it is the largest of the named funds. It’s amazing how fondly Ken and Annie are remembered. Many of you may remember that Ken spent evenings doodling. John Pope has assembled a large collection of original doodles, and thanks to him, I am able to send two original Ken Caster doodles to each contributor. One doodle is in black and white and the other is in color; some of the black and white doodles were initialed KEC by Ken. I encourage those who still plan to contribute to please do so in the near future (another $2050 would result in four Caster Student Research Awards). The closing date for contributions to the centennial Fund is the national meeting of the GSA and PS in 2008. The PS is a non-profit registered under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Please send any additional contributions made out to the Paleontological society and marked for the caster Fund to: Mark E. Patzkowsky, PS Treasurer Department of Geosciences, 506 Deike Bldg.

Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802, U.S.A. brachio@geosc.psu.edu

Lawrence C. Rowan (PhD ’64) Hi Warren,

It’s nice to hear from you. Fran and I are fine. I retired in February 2006 but I am a ‘Scientist Emeritus,’ which provides office, computer, etc. Most of my time is spent working on organizing sample collections and a manuscript a colleague and I are assembling. Fran is busy with her painting activities, and we have a cottage and boat on Chesapeake Bay. So there is plenty to keep us busy. I hope you are well and enjoying yourself.

Cheers, Larry

John Pojeta (PhD ’63) March 3, 2008 UPDATE ON THE CASTER FUND As of today, the Caster Fund stands at an amazing $22,950, and there will be three caster student Research Awards (of $750 each) in 2008. There have been 35 individual contributors plus the Dry Dredgers as an organization. We are all to be congratulated for a job well done. The Paleontological Society Centennial Fund now stands at about $165,300, which includes about $5,000 in outstanding pledges, or about 66% of

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Donna and Dave in New Zealand, October 2007

David Lienhart (MS ‘65) Hi Warren, As promised, here’s a summary of what Donna and I have been doing for the past year or so. Donna finally retired in mid 2006 and since then we have been busy remodeling and traveling. (Editor’s note: To read Dave’s full report including some fine photos go to http://homepages.uc.edu/~huffwd/ Alumni/Dave_Lienhart.pdf

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M i l e s -H i gh M o u n t a i n T r e k F i e l d s View of Geology’s Impact eology professors

Craig Dietsch

led their second summer journey to

Mountains

Lewis Owen the H imalayan

and

of northern I ndia .

Geology professors Lewis Owen and Craig Dietsch led their second field course to the Himalayan Mountains of northern India from June 10 to July 1 2007. These mountains provide one of the world’s premier natural laboratories to see and study bedrock geology, tectonic and surface processes, and landforms.

Owen and Dietsch are teaching and doing research together to study the links between Earth’s internal and surface processes, their dynamic interplay in the creation of mountain landscapes, and how the evolution of mountain landscapes are linked to climate change. The trip affords them an outstanding opportunity to present an integrated view of the nature and dynamics of our planet to a variety of students.

The group included undergraduate geology majors Laura Brenner, MacKenzie English, Nathan Marshall, Dierdre McCartney and Mike Oestreich; Asian Studies major Caitlin Arnest; geography major Ashley Price; and incoming geology graduate students Ron Counts and Kate Hedrick. Geology alumni making the trip were Patrick Applegate (BS 2003), Bill Haneberg (MS 1985, PhD 1989), and Glen Visher (BS 1952). Additional participants added an international favor: Ron Spelz and his wife Raquel Negrete, both graduate students at the University of Ensenada in northern Mexico, and Yeong Bae Seong, who completed his PhD in the geology department this past spring and is currently a research professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Korea University. Marc Caffee, a faculty member of the Department of Physics at Purdue University who has long-running research collaboration with Owen centered on cosmogenic radionuclide geochronology, also made the trip in an important leadership role.

After arriving in Delhi June 11 and spending a night at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the group began the trip with a two-day bus ride north to Manali (elevation 2,050 meters; 6,725 ft.). There, spending each day outside looking at rocks and landforms, rivers and landslides, and glaciers and high mountains began in earnest. Over the next three weeks, the group traveled northwards along the main (only) road to Leh in the India region of Ladakh, going over the high passes Rohtang La (3,955 meters; 13,106 ft.) and Baralacha La (4,880 meters; 16,010 ft.) and spending three nights at Tso (Lake) Moriri (elevation 4,562 meters; 14,970 ft.).

Students were engaged in a variety of daily exercises, taking notes, drawing sketches and recording data in their field notebooks.

Special projects were possible when camps were set up for two to three successive night; these included collecting boulders from recent landslides for cosmogenic dating, and mapping the rocks and structures produced in the 50-million-year-old collision zone between India and Asia.

The group was also able to walk through a modern rift basin with hot springs and recent mineral deposits of salt, native sulfur, and mercury sulfide minerals, and saw textbook examples of mountain glaciers and their modern sedimentary deposits. The trip ended with a two-day trip from Leh over the Khardung La (5606 m; 18.390 ft.; the world’s highest motorable pass) to the Nubra Valley, a valley marking the trace of the Karakorum Fault, one of the world’s largest strike-slip faults.

For Dietsch and Owen, their Himalaya field course is their common ground in teaching, as well as in research.

“We get excited about showing students the glaciers and landforms that are geologically so young, and so well exposed,” says Owen. “The mountains are so dynamic because they are still active. Students can also

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MIles-High Mountain continued see for themselves how and why geology is important because of its direct connection to climate change and hazards, such as landslides and earthquakes.”

Both professors appreciate the interest and enthusiasm about their trip from the college. “Word is getting around the college about what we are doing,” says Dietsch. “It’s one of those unique opportunities for students at UC that makes us feel good about what we are doing.”

Edward O’Donnell (PhD ’67) Warren, I did some picture scanning and came across one of Kenneth Caster taken in November 1962. I think that is Dave Kuhn behind him along with Annie Caster.

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Great Find! continued from page 6 UC’s International Programs has provided essential financial support for the field course for both Owen and Dietsch and the students. “International Programs is terrific,” Dietsch says. “Since our first trip to India in 2005, I’ve learned that International Programs supports tremendous opportunities to travel abroad. When I talk to incoming freshmen during the summer, I always tell them: ‘You must go abroad! It’s a great experience.’” q

70’s

Tom Klekamp (MS ’71)

Tom calls our attention to an April 18, 2008 article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about harnessing Mississippi River sediment to replenish the State’s disappearing wetlands. It begins, “As it courses through south Louisiana at the highest level in 11 years, the Mississippi River is bringing an estimated 900,000 tons of sediment -- enough to fill 45,000 dump trucks lined up from New Orleans to Houston -- past the state’s disappearing wetlands and into the Gulf of Mexico.”

To read more go to http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1208497883256460. xml&coll=1&thispage=1

Linda Fulton (MS ’73)

Kenneth Caster, 1962

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Linda called our attention to the following press release regarding Ed Hansen (BS ’78) on May 12, 2008

by Hope College (MI): Dr. Edward Hansen, professor of geology and environmental science at Hope College, will spend August to January conducting research in Sweden through an award from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Hansen will be learning research techniques in support of his ongoing investigation of the movement of sand dunes along the southeastern coast of Lake Michigan across the past 5,000 years.

More at http://www.hope.edu/pr/pressreleases/content/view/full/18718

In February 2003, surgeons removed the tumor along with the entire tensor fascia latae muscle (used in moving the leg from side to side). Everything seemed fine for a year or so “Then the next summer I was conducting research in Puget Sound and it started to hurt again,” she says.

But being alone in the middle of the Pacific Northwest, she couldn’t do much about it. “So I just grinned and bore it.”

At this point, Kate was no longer on her parents’ health insurance but was now covered as a graduate student on a UC policy. The policy had a pre-existing condition clause, which required her to wait a year before any treatment would be covered.

As a result of her frustration at having to wait a year before seeking treatment, Kate later volunteered to serve on the student health insurance committee.

Through her efforts and those of the committee, the waiting time was reduced from 12 to six months for treatment of pre-existing conditions.

“I felt it was a worthwhile use of my time,” she says now. “And I learned a lot about insurance!”

Not being able to afford treatment without the insurance to offset the cost, she waited until the fall of 2004.

She had another MRI and radiation treatment from October to December of that year, followed by surgery in February 2005 for another tumor in the same area. This time they planted radiation seeds right in the muscle, which required her spending eight days in the hospital.

“They were really personable,” she says. Moreover, she is especially thankful for the package deal that she got when she chose the University of Cincinnati’s paleontology program and Arnie Miller accepted her as his grad student. Kate says, “If Arnie hadn’t taken me, I would have gone to another school. If I had gone to another graduate school, I don’t think I would have gotten as good treatment as I did in Cincinnati.”

It’s been three years now. Kate has a bit of a limp and a little residual pain, but that doesn’t hold her back.

“I have no problem collecting specimens,” she says with a laugh. “I’m not running any marathons and I can’t do any heavy lifting, but then I was never very good at that anyway.”

But she’s clearly good at lots of other things.

“While at Cincinnati, Kate has won the Isabel and Mary Neff Fellowship, awarded annually by the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences to an outstanding female graduate student, and the Winifred Goldring Award, a national accolade awarded annually by the Association for Women Geoscientists,” says Miller. “After graduation, she’ll be moving directly into a tenure-track faculty position at Bellarmine University (no small feat in a very competitive business). Kate has become a very confident and creative scientist and teacher.” q

After all this, Kate appears to be in good health and feels great. She is grateful to her UC doctors, surgeon Joel Sorger and oncologist William Barrett.

A diamond in the rough might be an appropriate description for a geologist. Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance, created by intense pressure. But Kate Bulinski is not rough. And she’s not a mineralogist; she’s a paleontologist.

D o you have any recollections of field trips, social events, classroom experiences or other experiences during your UC days that you would like to share with your alumni colleagues?

Send them to Warren Huff, Dept. of Geology, UC, Cincinnati, OH 45221 and we’ll include them in next years’ issue.

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Robert John Starmer (PhD ’72)

Sandra Kay Lauffenburger (MS ’75)

Kenneth Beem (PhD ‘73)

The following obituary appeared in the Washington Post, December 3, 2007

Dear Dr. Huff,

Warren, I am in the process of retiring from teaching (January 2), to get on with Barbara’s and my writing career. We are now writing for 6 different publications, and are being besieged to do more. Our position as travel editors for Grapevine Magazine is probably going to expand greatly when I am available for mid-week trips after retirement, or so our executive editor tells us.

And AntiqueWeek has suggested that we act as east coast representatives when we have the time -- but they haven’t come up with the particulars for this yet.

It’s a brave new world out there.

Robert John Starmer Waste Management Expert Robert John Starmer, 64, a radioactive waste management expert with PMC Environmental, died Nov. 16 of a heart attack in Espanola, N.M., while on a business trip to nearby Los Alamos. He was a resident of Damascus. Mr. Starmer was born in Flint, Mich. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1965, a master’s degree in 1969 and a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati in 1972. All three degrees were in geology. Mr. Starmer moved to the Washington area in the early 1980s and worked for the federal government before joining the Rockville office of PMC Environmental in 1990. Survivors include his wife of 39 years, Hildegaard Starmer of Damascus; five children, John Starmer of Saipan, Robert Starmer of San Jose, William Starmer of Catonsville, Anika Starmer of Damascus and James Starmer of Baltimore; and three grandchildren.

Tod Roush (BS ’74) Greetings, Warren The summer of 2006 was spent, mostly, in Minnesota as the tech and safety officer on a drill rig on a geotechnical project for a pipeline company. Most of the petroleum products we use up here comes from Canada. The company is adding a third line from Clearbrook, Minn to their refinery in St. Paul; about 290-miles. Borings were 25- to 100-feet deep; most interesting was when we drilled though about 60-feet of regolith. It turned the drilling mud a most attractive shade of blue-green.

Highlights of 2007 included a week working on an Indian reservation in the Grand Canyon. A biologist and I were down there to do an ESA and look for possible water sources. We worked outside the canyon, along the rim, and even got a free helicopter ride down to the river. I was in geo-heaven!

Later in the summer, I spent three weeks in San Angelo, TX as lead on a Texas Superfund site. PCBs mostly.

Worked with our office, and another company, out of Austin. We installed eleven monitoring wells using airrotary. I was reminded why I left the Texas heat, but it was nice to go back for a visit.

I enjoy getting the Upper Crust and hearing about the exciting lives the UC grads are living. My own life pales by comparison.

Best regards, Tod

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As with all years they are quite busy, but here in Australia everything accelerates toward the end of the year and then STOPS nicely for about 6 weeks. I am getting toward that ‘stopping’ point, and thus have a moment to look at my ‘outstanding’ correspondence. I have been living here in our nation’s capital (Canberra) since 1992. However, I have not been working as a geologist since I left the oil industry several lifetimes ago, 1983 I think. Somewhere around there I decided I wanted to work with movement that happened on a human scale rather than a cosmic one – I had been (computer) modeling sedimentary processes for Exxon’s research arm and working in Seismic Stratigraphy with Dr. Pete Vail.

In fact I was actually his section supervisor for a while – quite a hoot since one does NOT actually ‘supervise’ Dr. Vail!! So despite having found quite a wonderful place in Exxon, something was ‘moving’ me on.

All that is in the past. I went into human movement analysis and became a certified Laban Movement Analyst. That led me to teaching movement efficiency (to a fledgling fitness industry that mostly wanted to ‘burn’ and sweat) and then on to work in rehabilitation. Somewhere along the way I became a specialist in Movement Therapy for long-term Chronic Pain syndromes (go figure!!) and became well known in the lovely small world of Canberra and Australia! I trained as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist, and using my Laban skills, I teach Dance Movement Therapists in tertiary institutions as well as provide professional supervision.

However, the chronic pain work led me to realize that there was a certain personality type that seemed more susceptible to long-term problems. I went on to study Self-psychology (originated in Chicago AND has a huge following in Cincinnati!!! However, I trained here in Oz), which specializes in working with Personality Disorders. I became a Registered Psychodynamic Psychotherapist. So for the past 9 years I have been in full-time verbal psychotherapy private practice seeing clients with personality disorders, trauma, anxiety, depression, and of course some with chronic pain!! This is in addition to the tertiary teaching load, which occurs in Sydney.

Because I can’t stop studying (my husband keeps pointing out empty spots on my office wall which need a diploma to fill them…), I have gone on to obtain an undergrad Psychology degree (called a Grad Dip here) and am starting an Honours psychology degree (a sort of under-Masters…) in February. The Honours degree requires a thesis and allows one to then pursue a PhD, which I may do one day. In addition to the Dance Ther-

Linda Fulton (MS ‘73) and Wayne Goodman (MS ‘76)

apy teaching, I have been invited to join a Self-psychology faculty led by my psychotherapy supervisor. So I teach in his summer schools and usually present clinical cases/papers at our annual conference. He and I also have some ideas for future collaboration, as my in-depth knowledge of the body/movement is unique in the self-psychology world.

Anyhow, things just keep happening. I am also facilitating the first Laban certification training to happen here on Aussie soil (previously everyone had to travel to the US). My website http://www.laban.com.au holds the info… not that any of you will plan to attend.

HOWEVER, the spatial component of Laban might be quite interesting to future geologists!! Hohohoooo.

Very recently I was contacted by a “Creative Leadership” training group that provides training in “creative conversations for management and business” to work with them applying the Laban work. After agreeing to give it a go, I realized that this had actually been a sort of grandiose dream that I had had upon leaving Exxon – to get movement on a creative level back into the corporate world. Seems my life, like everything, just keeps evolving.

So add to that a husband and three (grown, thank god) stepchildren, 4 cats, a spaniel, and some lovely friends, life in Oz works for me.

Sandra

Phil Clymer (BS ’75) Toni and I have been in Tyler (TX) for almost 20 years now. I’m still doing consulting, working mostly in natural gas. I mainly do acreage assessments and wellbore evaluations for small companies, with most of the action in the Jurassic Cotton Valley sands.

Toni has gone back to school to work towards a master’s in communication and she continues with her artistic efforts in embroidery in her spare time. I have renewed an interest in astronomy and sometimes gather the neighborhood kids to watch for satellites. We have two dogs, four cats, and a herd of raccoons that raid the bird feeder and compost pile most nights.

Ken

Kenneth J. Fulton (PhD ‘76) Dear Friends of Ken Fulton, We are sad to report that Ken passed away July 5, 2007 from pancreatic cancer. Ken was born near Aberdeen, Ohio, and came to UC to study geology where he received his MS in 1973 and PhD in 1976 working under the supervision of Wayne Pryor. He married Linda Provo, who also received her PhD in geology from UC in 1977. Both Ken and Linda worked for Exxon until about six years ago when they moved back to Aberdeen to the farm that Ken inherited from his mother.

Services were held Monday, July 9th at the Ripley First Presbyterian Church in Ripley, Ohio. Letters of condolence may be sent to Mrs. Kenneth J. Fulton, 2543 Ohio St. Rte. 763, Aberdeen OH 45101-9526.

David F. Giuseffi (BS ’78) In a letter to David Meyer, Dave reports on some very successful trilobite collecting in the Lower Devonian Hunton Group in Oklahoma including, Viaphacops, Paciphacops, Huntonia, Cordania and Dicranurus.

And he adds, “A recent article in last year’s Journal of Petrology described some new echinoderms from the Bois D’Arc donated by Allen Graffham and associates.

I had also found anyther cystoid recently.” And reflecting upon his academic background Dave writes, “I was to benefit on my choice to major in Geology. I knew nothing about the (UC) department’s faculty at the time and didn’t know that I would be getting one of the best educations in paleontology that money could buy.”

Ron Broadhead (MS ‘79) Ron is profiled in an article on the Tucumcari Basin in New Mexico in the April 4 edition of the AAPG Explorer.

Read it online at http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2008/ 04apr/tucumcari.cfm.

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Ken Tankersley, a UC graduate and husband of Jenny (Meinhart) Tankersley (BS ’81) is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cincinnati and was recently featured in a UC news article at http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=7439.

Jeff Spencer (BS ’80) Currently with Blackpool Energy in Houston.

Dr. Huff, A major accomplishment this past year was the completion of a book that I co-wrote on Ohio’s oil and gas history. The book is largely illustrative, using old photographs and postcards, with minimal text. The book is on Amazon, with the release date ~February, 2008.

From the introduction: “Forty-five years before the drilling of the famous 1859 Colonel Drake oil well in Pennsylvania, oil was produced and marketed from salt brine wells dug in southeast Ohio. The oil was bottled and sold as a cure-all medicine, Seneca Oil. In 1860, one of the first oil fields in Ohio was discovered approximately 10 miles southeast of these wells. The 1885 discovery of the giant Lima-Indiana oil field set off the oil boom of northwest Ohio, a period of land speculation and rapid oil field development that lasted over 20 years and propelled Ohio into the leading oil-producing state from 1895 to 1903. John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of Cleveland built storage tanks, pipelines, and a refinery near Lima. The Ohio Oil Company, now Mara1st row L to R: (? = don’t remember), Jeanette Hanson, Sylvia ?, Paul ?, Tim Tharp. 2nd row: John DeReamer, Tom Hudson, Bill Haneberg, Dana Jackson, Mike Roberts, ? 3rd row: John Haynes, Dave ?, Mark Miller, Ken Loos, Amy Lambourg, Cesar Jaques, ? Last row: ?, Bill Wilsey, Rob ?, Scott Gilb, Carol Kazmeier, Paul Potter

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thon Oil, was active in the area and still maintains an office in Findlay. The Bremen oil field was discovered in south-central Ohio in 1907, setting off another oil boom, which included drilling within the city limits.”

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Steve Stadelman (BS ’85)

Sincerely,

Steve reports, “We had a bit of UC reunion at the southeast GSA that include me, Ed Henriques, Gabe Rood, and Bruce Braswell. George Losonsky, Steve Holland, Scott Recker, and Chris Boggs were trying to arrange their schedules to attend but were unable. We were able to get a little trout fishing in on the Davison River in Brevard, NC after the meeting.”

Jeff

David Jennette (MS ’86)

Timothy Tharp (MS ’83)

Dave is now Senior Technical Advisor for the Apache Corporation in Houston.

(Editor’s note: Jeff also recently published an article in the Houston Geological Society Bulletin on the petroleum play history of Mustang Island.)

Warren, Hope you are doing well, and I enjoy the annual newsletter.

I ran across this photo in my attic the other day, which rekindled some fond memories of days at UC. It is a photo of Paul Potter’s graduate course in Sandstone Petrology? or Advanced Sedimentology? in Fall 1982 or Winter 1983 on the back steps of Old Tech.

The years go by too fast, but it was fun trying to remember names with faces. Maybe you or others at the Department can recall the full names of those I couldn’t.

After nine years with Chevron in New Orleans, I have been employed with Department of Energy contractors in Oak Ridge for the past 16 years, working in environmental restoration and radioactive waste management. We now have two in college at the University of Tennessee and the youngest still in high school.

Best wishes in the year ahead,

Tiebing Liu (PhD ‘88) Dear Dr. Maynard: I am in the field to find porphyry copper deposit in Xinjiang, northwest China.

Please give my greetings to all in the department.

Best regards.

Tiebing’s Liu’s new grandson.

Tiebing

Rex L. Baum (PhD ’88) Rex is with the USGS in Denver and reports that he has just finished editing “Landslides and Engineering Geology of the Seattle, Washington area,” which will be published by GSA in its “Reviews in Engineering Geology” series.

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MYLES REDDER FUND AND ANNUAL AWARD The Myles Redder Fund, established as a Gift Fund in January, 2008, honors Myles Redder (1984-2008) a Geology undergraduate who had an important positive impact upon the quality of life in the Geology Department.

Myles’s many friends and relatives established this fund in his honor and memory following his untimely death in January, 2008.

Myles was an avid participant in field trips and participated in many teaching and research expeditions in the Tri-state area, New York State, Utah, and the Himalayas; in these experiences he helped foster a sense of community and enthusiasm for field study in this department.

Thus, the Geology Department felt it appropriate to use this fund to establish an award in his honor, to be given annually at the Department’s award ceremony to an undergraduate Geology major who has demonstrated excellence in geological or paleontological field research.

Friends and alumni are encouraged to contribute to the Myles Redder Fund.

The following guidelines are established for this award: The awardee is to be selected by the faculty of the Department of Geology; several students may be nominated, but one will be selected each year by majority vote.

The student will normally be a junior or senior Geology major in good standing in the department.

Tim Tharp

Houston, TX

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The Annual Meeting this year will be in Houston and we will host an Alumni Reception on Monday, October 6. We will meet from 7:00-9:30 pm in Room 340A of the Hilton Americas next to the convention center. See you there!

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The student should have demonstrated a strong potential for field research either as an independent study or in conjunction with research projects supervised by faculty or graduate students; in the latter case, the student should demonstrate independent thinking or completion of a subsidiary project spun off from the main project.

The research must have a strong field component, although it may also include major laboratory aspects.

Eligible studies include, but are not limited to, research for a capstone project.

The recipient of the award will receive a modest monetary award and will have his/her name engraved and added to a plaque announcing the recipients of the Myles Redder award that will be displayed in the Geology Department.

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Alejandro “Alex” Carrillo (MS ’90)

He received his Ph.D. from the Univ. of Wyoming in 2006 and is currently at the Centro de Geociencias of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He reports, “In 2006 we began a project on the geochemical and isotopic studies of ice cores from Mexican glaciers. Mexico, a mostly tropical country, has three high mountains above 17,000 feet Popocatepetl, 17,881 ft., Iztaccihuatl 17,323 ft, and Citlaltepetl, 18,740 ft.

Twenty years ago Popocatepetl had several glaciers at its top, but now they are gone, due in part to his constant volcanic activity and part to climate change. Iztaccihuatl and Citlaltepetl have lost nearly 50% of their glaciers in the last 20 years. There are some studies in Physical Glaciology (size, relatively movement, accumulation vs. ablation zones, so on), but no geochemical studies on ice cores whatsoever. Our main goal is to determine the thickness of the remaining glaciers (GeoRadar sounding), and to get a detail geochemical and isotopic signature (including major and trace elements, and some Tritium and 14C dating) of ice cores drilled in Iztaccihuatl and Citlaltepetl. We hope to find a record from the anthropogenic impact of Mexico City (founded in 1325) on the nearby glaciers of Iztaccihuatl.”

Editor’s note: For your information several recent graduates have started a UC Geology page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group. php?gid=8773228707. You are most welcome to join.

Carl Scharpf (MS ‘90) Carl has been working around the world in the petroleum industry since graduation, first as a petroleum geologist with Amoco in Houston, Texas, and Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Vietnam. He then became the Lead Far East Geologist with Union Texas Petroleum back in Houston with much of his time spent in China. After that, Carl became the China Exploration Manager for Burlington Resources International, the largest independent petroleum company in the U.S., where he split his time between their Houston and Shekou, China offices. Carl then returned to Houston to work for Marathon Oil in their Southeast Asia New Ventures division and presently is in the process of moving to Jakarta, Indonesia where he will be the Vice President for Exploration, Marathon Indonesia Oil Company (whew, got all that!?). Carl and his wife, Nhan, have two daughters, Anna and Sarah.

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Richard B. Schultz (PhD ’91) I continue to teach at Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago, IL. My areas of interest include online learning in the geosciences, GIS education and the scholarship of teaching and learning. I was recently nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award at Elmhurst.

Kenan Cetin (PhD ‘92) Dear Warren, I am sending two pictures of myself and another former doctoral student of yours, Dr. Asuman Turkmenoglu, who, as you know, was also my teacher Dr. Asuman Turkmenoglu and a member of my thesis committee when I was in graduate school for my Masters. I took these during a visit to Middle East Technical University in Ankara late last month, when Dr. Turkmenoglu and I caught up a bit after so many years and talked about how glad we both felt to have had the opportunity to work with you during our graduate years. Best wishes for the school year.

Kenan

Rosalyn K. Hayward (MS ’92) Hi Dr. Huff, It has been a long time since I have been in touch.

When last we emailed I was working on a GIS-based Mars dune database for the USGS in Flagstaff and promised to let you know when the database was available. I hate to think of how long it has been in the making, but finally it is seeing the light of day. Meanwhile I have enjoyed taking GIS classes at Northern Arizona University (although I am enjoying being finished with them even more) and working at the USGS

Terry Acomb (MS ‘97) Warren, As you may know, highlining has become my newest favorite sport of late.

in Flagstaff with the Astrogeology team. I have been with the USGS here for nearly 4 years now in nearly every possible capacity from volunteer to contractor to student employee to term employee. The background that I received studying glaciers and loess deposition at UC (thanks to TVL) has served me well in studying sand dunes on Mars (small universe).

The database is available at: http://pubs.usgs.gov/ of/2007/1158/ A paper introducing it and some of the initial science results based on its use has been accepted by the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, and a website has grown up around our Mars dunes efforts: http://www.mars-dunes.org/ We are also planning a dune workshop at White Sands (it is still hard to get to Mars for field work) next spring to bring together terrestrial and planetary dune scientists.

Say hi to the folks around the department from me.

I am thoroughly enjoying living, working and hiking in Flagstaff and if anyone is in the neighborhood they are welcome to stop by.

Rose

Evelyn M. Goebel (MS ’93) Evvy reports that she co-authored a paper in v. 91 (2007) of the AAPG Bulletin entitled, Compartmentalization and time-lapse geochemical reservoir surveillance of the Horn Mountain oil field, deep-water Gulf of Mexico. As she points out this was, “quite a feat for us at BP, as we tend not to disclose much about our business.”

Steven Lev (MS ‘94) Currently at Towson University in Towson, MD, published a recent paper in Earth-Science Reviews (v. 86) entitled, Orogenesis vs. diagenesis: Can we use organic-rich shales to interpret the tectonic evolution of a depositional basin?

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Blaine Watson (MS ’97) & Debbie (Yost) Watson (BS ’97) Hi All, We’re still located in the middle of Illinois. Bement is half way between Champaign and Decatur. I work in Decatur now, having gotten out of the state employment gig almost 4 years ago now. I’m a project manager in a consulting firm again; the money was much better than the pending lack of raises/promotions for State employees. It hasn’t gotten much better since then so, in hindsight, it was a good move. We also run our own business as independent dealers for Amsoil (the first synthetic motor oil made for passenger vehicles. See: http://www.super-oil.com/) and have been doing pretty well on the side with that in the last couple years. [Editor’s note: Blain and Debbie have recently expanded their synthetic lubricant business to include a line of lawn care products. See http://www.organicfertilizer-tech.com/d.cgi/1095659/home.html] I also teach an on-line course (Intro to Weather and Climate) for Lake Land Community College in Mattoon, IL. I just finished a term as President of my local Lions Club and have been on the chapter board as SecretaryTreasurer for the North Central Chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists since 2002 (got into that through my stint in Wetlands Geology at the IL State Geological Survey). Also, I passed the ASBOG examinations (first try - yeah!) and Illinois licensing requirements for becoming a Professional Geologist back in October 2004.

After working professionally for 10 years, I was a bit worried about the tests, but I studied the only study guide I could find and took some practice exams to do what I could in preparation. I’ve recently been thinking I need to get more involved with “real” geology and am planning to renew/rejoin the GSA for starters. I doubt I’ll be able to do the annual meeting this year, but I feel like I need to do something that keeps my mind active in the field. I had originally wanted to teach an Intro Geology online class for Lake Land, but they had no plans to offer it when I started and then they didn’t want to have me do two classes when they did decide to offer Intro Geology online (so Deb got to do it). Surprisingly, my current job doesn’t really provide me all that much opportunity to do “geological” things either.

Debbie is doing fine also. In November, she’ll finish her seventh year working as the office manager for a commodities trading advisor in Champaign. The work environment is pretty relaxed since it’s just her and the company owner. She has quite a bit of flexibility with her schedule, which helps with being able to get our daughter, Audrey, to/from school, etc. Plus, the grade school Audrey attends is only a couple blocks from Deb’s work. As I mentioned, Debbie also teaches an on-line course for Lake Land, Intro Geology, which also has an on-campus portion to permit the traditional intro

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labs. She still does an excellent job with students and always has good evaluations!

In other news, Deb got her motorcycle license endorsement last year after taking a rider safety course at U of I. She rode some last year on a friend’s borrowed bike, then took the course again this year and has since gotten her own bike. Not by coincidence, we picked it up on her birthday in Knoxville, TN and met up with another department grad, Shelly (Cooker) Krummen, for an hour or so. I’ve been riding since early 2003, including trips to Seattle in 2004 and Charleston, SC in 2005 - both for SWS wetlands conferences. I commute to work on my bike on average a couple days per week, almost year round, so it’s more than just a hobby I guess. This past Christmas, Santa (and grandparents) brought Audrey a full set of her own riding safety gear. Here’s a recent family pic of us all heading out for a ride on our BMWs - we get lots of strange looks around here (we all have helmets, full gear, and our bikes are quiet compared to 95% of the other riders around here).

Audrey will turn 9 this November and will be a 3rd grader. She’s an excellent student and we’re very proud of her. She keeps us pretty busy through her participation in a local gymnastics team in Champaign, as well as the normal school things. She placed 5th in her age/level at the USGA state meet for downstate Illinois clubs last year, which was not bad for her second year of competition. This summer she’s kept busy by attending two gymnastics mini-camps - one at U of I (with the university women’s team coach and gymnasts) and one at Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy (where she got to work with and meet some former Olympians and elite gymnasts).

We’re just glad to have her stay active and benefit from the training and exercise, but she’s got some talent too!

Please pass around our note and “hello” to other departmental folks for us. And do another department 4-day trip that comes to Illinois so you can invite us along!

Cheers, Blaine, Debbie, and Audrey Watson

Mark P.S. Krekeler (MS ‘98) Warren, Attached is a first attempt at a newsletter to update you on things here at GMU and serve as a connection point.

Sincerely, Mark (Editor’s note: To see Mark’s complete report go to http://homepages.uc.edu/~huffwd/Alumni/Mark_ Krekeler.pdf) Mark has also co-authored a recent paper in v. 39 (2008) of Applied Clay Science entitled, Defects in microstructure in palygorskite–sepiolite minerals: A transmission electron microscopy (TEM) study.

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Ginifer (Combs) Swofford (BS ‘97) I‘ve been busy since graduating from UC! After graduation, I worked at BBC&M Engineering in Sharonville as a Field Geologist/Lab Coordinator for several years and then moved to Chicago to be a Flight Attendant!

I was actually in the air when the attacks happened on September 11th! I got married in 2002, and, due to cutbacks in the airline industry, looked for another position. I landed my dream job at the EPA in Chicago - On-Scene Coordinator! As fate would have it, I got pregnant not long after I took the position and decided to move back to Cinci after my daughter was born to be closer to family. We’ve been back about four years now and live in the Eastgate area. I’ve been a substitute teacher in the Western Brown School District for the past three years. I’ve also been working part-time at CET (Channel 48) in their Learning Services department where I have been assisting in the development of multimedia kits and workshop planning.

Ginifer Swofford Project Assistant CET Learning Services 513-381-4033 x363

Gregory S. Reid (BS ‘99) Professor Huff, I have just left H.C. Nutting Company to join TesTech Inc. TesTech is a smallish geotech/environmental firm of about 200 people located in Dayton, Ohio. We perform geotech and environmental drilling in 13 states and have offices in Dayton, Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana and Lansing, Michigan. I have been working on the engineers at Testech to better utilize the use of geologist. I would like to add that in March I will be looking for 10-12 field tech’s as summer help both in Ohio and Michigan. This is the perfect job for grads and undergrads at all levels. Once again the hours are long but you will be outside most of the summer. The field techs are used on construction projects inspecting the soils and materials before, during, and after construction. They are the first people in and the last to leave. Good skills in writing and communication are a must. The summer help usually consists of civil and geotechnical engineers but I would like to work in a few “common sense” geologists for the more difficult projects.

Thank you for your help, I can be reached at reid@testechinc.com Gregory S. Reid

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Adam Flege (MS ’01) Dr. Maynard,

How are things going at UC? All is well on this end.

I took a new position as a project manager/geologist with a fellow UC Geology Grad, Mike Westerfield, and his company, WESTECH Environmental Solutions in Cleves, OH. It is a great opportunity as I am heading up all subsurface investigations. Erin and the kids are well, getting bigger every day, and wearing mommy and daddy out. I hope all your family is doing well.

I am also teaching an environmental geology course at Miami Middletown this summer. We are talking about groundwater contamination next week and I am trying to give the students as many real world examples as possible.

Please tell everyone in the department I said hi. Attached is the most recent family picture.

Adam

Lisa C. Fay (BS ‘03) Hi Dr. Nash! I hope this finds you well. Part of my GeoCorps work involves mapping landslides in Northern California (I’m at Klamath National Forest, based out of Yreka). Earlier this week, I went to an interagency meeting in Sacramento to discuss a joint effort in geomorphic mapping for CA’s 1:100k sheet. Very exciting!

Happy Holidays!

Lisa ps: GeoCorps is a wonderful program; it’s a great way to see what it’s like working for a federal agency, and get your foot in the door. There are almost 70 positions available for 2008. http://geosociety.org/geocorps/

Christy Reuter (BS ‘06) Christy is currently working on her Masters in Education at the University of Louisville.

D o you have any recollections of field trips, social events, classroom experiences or other experiences during your UC days that you would like to share with your alumni colleagues?

Send them to Warren Huff, Dept. of Geology, UC, Cincinnati, OH 45221 and we’ll include them in next years’ issue.

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G R A D U A T E

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D E G R E E S :

This has turned into a banner year for the completion of graduate degrees in our program, with nine Ph.D. and three M.S. recipients since the start of last summer. Here is a complete list (degree and name of adviser in parentheses):

K at e B u l i n s k i (P h .D., A r n i e M i l l e r ) L i z D a m e (P h .D., D av e M e y e r ) S a r a h D e r o u i n (P h .D., T o m L o w e l l ) A u s t i n H e n d y (P h .D., A r n i e M i l l e r /C a r l B r e tt ) Kenneth Caster From John Pope’s collection, thanks to John Pojeta (PhD ’63)

K e l l e y L a B l a n c (P h .D., T o m L o w e l l ) U t k u S o l p u k e r (P h .D., A tt i l a K i l i n c ) C o l b y S m i t h (P h .D., T o m L o w e l l )

W e d o n ot h av e c ur r en t m a i l i n g a d d r e s se s for the following alumni. C an you help?

A l e x a n d e r S t e wa rt (P h .D., T o m L o w e l l ) F u n d a O z l e m T o p r a k (P h .D., W a r r e n H u f f )

Michael Armstrong

Jeffrey Grumbles

Robert Russell

Kelleen Beach

Michael Honnert

Paul Schuh

T r a c y B r o ck m a n (M.S., A tt i l a K i l i n c )

Mary Bremer

Kenneth Jayne

Danny Sims

Vernon Carr

Ben Johnston

Margret Smart

B e ck y R e v e r m a n (M.S., C r a i g D i e tsc h )

Rebecca Carter

Jessica Kelley

Amy Smith

T r i s h a S m r e c a k (M.S., C a r l B r e tt ).

Ping Fan Chen

Glenn King

Ann Smyth

Likely Ph.D. completions this summer include A n a L o n d o n o and C h a d F e r g u s o n .

Martin Clifford

Andrew Kosse

Kenneth Sparks

Krista Collins

Shelly Krummen

Timothy Stevenson

Paul Court

Byron Lester

James Streeter

James Devine

Shuguang Mao

David Trowbridge

Paul Arndts

Sharon Diekmeyer

Susan Parrett

Kelleen Williams

Joseph Forgacs

Robert Rhoades

S h a u n B e ck e r

Stephen Woodward

Maurice Frey

Terry Rowekamp

David Green

Mark Rudolph

U N D E R G R A D U A T E

D E G R E E S

N at h a n M a r s h a l l Eric Mosbaugh Melissa Montemagno Mike Wemer Andy Meadows M at t J o n e s Myles Redder

Warren Huff (PhD ‘63) and Bob Babbs (BS ‘73)

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Duff Kerr (MS ‘51) and Aureal Cross (PhD ‘43)

Ken Papp (BS ‘99), Andrew Webber (PhD ‘03) and Masha Prokopenko (MS ‘98)

One of the most gratifying changes in the Department in recent years has been a growing influx of majors. Carl Brett estimates that our majors head count now exceeds 55, its highest level in years and more than double where we were just three years ago! So we can look forward to increasing numbers of graduates over the next several years and, hopefully, well into the future. It’s wonderful to be confronted with the attendant “problems”, such as the possibility of not having enough microscopes to go around in our petrology lab. Somehow, we’ll manage. There’s a liveliness and vitality in the hallways that we are all enjoying.

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2 0 0 7 M r . E ugene J. A maral B ear C reek C apital , LLC M r . J ohn A. B ozzone BP F abric of A merica F und D r . D anita S. B randt M r . R obert A. B reitenstein , J r .

M r . L eland W. B urton M s . B ecky C arter M rs . K aren M. C hapin C hrist T he K ing L utheran C hurch C incinnati M ineral S ociety R obert J. C ionni , M.D. M r . R onald W. C oble J ohn S. C ohen , M.D. M r . D avid O. C ox M s . A nnette M. C rompton M r . J effrey C. C rompton M r . J ohn A. C rompton M rs . M ary A nn C rompton M s . J ayme D. C sonka M rs . M ary J. D avidson M rs . D onna L ou M. D avis M r . E dmund D emario E state of L ucile and R ichard D urrell D r . R obert J. E lias M rs . J anet M. E lliott D r . F rank R. E ttensohn M s . R ita J. E ubanks M r . M ichael N. F ein M r . R obert F erree M r . S teven M. F erris M r . T homas F. F iorito M r . M ark P. F isher M s . J anet G. G asper D r . T homas A. G errard M r . E dward S. G ilson , J r .

M r . W ayne R. G oodman M r . W illiam H. G raver M s . A ndrea J. H aas M r . R obert V andenberg

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D r . A lexandre G. H aralampiev M r . W illiam L. H armon M r . D onald L. H ava M r . E dward F. H awkinson M s . E mmalou G. H offer M r . J ohn D. H oholick D r . F. D. H olland , J r .

M s . L inda D. J aakobovitch M rs . E llen D. K ahler M r . B rian W. K eltch M r . J ohn C. K ern L t . C mdr . A rthur L. K immel D r . B rian T. K irchner M s . E lizabeth A. K rebes M rs . J ennifer K rueger M r . E dward A. K ryza , J r .

M r . F rancis E. L a M ore M rs . S hirley V. L athrop M r . D avid A. L ienhart M r . A nthony L imke M r . R onald J. L loyd D r . W ayne D. M artin M rs . W ilma M c G uire M r . T homas R. M c M anness M rs . S usan M. M enke M r . J an M ethlie M r . D avid R. M iller M rs . B arbara J. M orath M r . E lmer M orath M r . S teve M orath M s . J oan E. M orison M rs . S andra J. M orrell M r . K enneth D. N esbitt M r . P hilip M. N ovack -G ottshall D r . O sborne B. N ye , J r .

R obert H. O sher , M.D. M s . M arilyn Z. O tt M rs . D orothea E. O tte M r . T imothy E. P etry M s . M argaret P laus

D r . J ohn P ojeta , J r ., P h .D. M rs . E milie J. P olens D r . P aul E. P otter M r . C ecil R. R ahe M rs . F lora M. R ansdell M r . E ric M. R edder R ev . R onald M. R edder D r . S tephen P. R eidel M rs . S usan R. R eisbord M r . S cott D. R ichards M rs . C ornelia K. R iley Roselawn Evangelical Lutheran Church M r . T od W. R oush M r . K evin R yan J oshua J. S ands , M.D. M s . T amaki S ato D r . R ichard B. S chultz M r . M ark F. S chweinfurth M r . S tanley P. S chweinfurth M rs . J anet R. S helton D r . F rederick E. S imms M r . E rwin L. S ingle M rs . H olly C. S mith M r . D aniel S nodgrass D r . D avid A. S ommers M r . J. T odd S tephenson M s . A manda S tewart M r . S tephen S. S trunck D r . W illiam A. V an W ie D r . R oy B. V an A rsdale M s . P riscilla S. W alford R ick W arner & A ssociates , I nc .

M rs . M ary H elen M. W est M r . W illiam L. M. W ilsey M r . D ail A. W ilson M r . A rthur T. W oods M s . J enea W oods M s . S usan A. Z immerman

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2 0 0 8 G r a n t s

YALE PEABODY MUSEUM SCHUCHERT AND DUNBAR GRANT-IN-AID: Jay Zambito SEPM GRANT-IN-AID: Zhenzhu Wan AAPG Grant-in-Aid: Zhenzhu Wan GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA: Joanne Ballard, Justin Stroup, Jacalyn Wittmer, Zhenzhu Wan, Kate Hedrick SIGMA XI: Jason Dortch, Kate Hedrick, Sarah Kolbe, Justin Stroup PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY: Jacalyn Wittmer, Zhenzhu Wan, Jay Zambito, Sarah Kolbe.

Sarah will be receiving special recognition from the Society because her proposal was ranked third highest out of 114 submitted this year.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL FUND OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Sarah Kolbe, Jay Zambito EVOLVING EARTH FOUNDATION: Jay Zambito AMERICAN ALPINE CLUB: Jason Dortch LIMNOLOGICAL RESEARCH CENTER: Joanne Ballard

a total of 21 external grants.

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S t uden t Pa p ers & Posters - GSA 2007 Colby Smith “Late Pleistocene Glacial Activity on Nevado Sajama, Western Cordillaera, Bolivia.” With his co-author, Proffessor Thomas Lowell.

Kate Bulinski, Devin Buick, Chad Ferguson Austin Hendy

and

“Cenozoic Relationships Between Geographic Range and Assemblage-Level Abundance: The Role of Rare Taxa.”

Austin Hendy “Where Does All the Diversity Go Again? A Cenozoic Perspective on Variations in Alpha, Beta and Gamma Diversity in Shallow Marine Environments.”

Trisha Smrecak

and

Professor Carl Brett

“Shell Encrusting Epibiont Biofacies Along Depth/Photic Zone Transects: Comparison of Recent and Late Ordovician Gradients.”

Brian Nicklen “Late Paleozoic Weathering and Residual Accumulation of Minerals on Elk Creek Carbonatite, Southeastern Nebraska, USA.” poster

Brain Nicklen, Warren Huff

and

Gordon Bell

“Ancient Ash Beds in the Type Area of the Middle Permian, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, West Texas, USA” poster.

Kelly LaBlanc “Using Glacial Dispersal Patterns to Understand the Spatial Distribution of Subglacial Quarrying.”

Alexander Stewart, Thomas Lowell John Szabo

and

Lewis Owen

and

“Palaeotopograhy and Glacier Erosion: Terminal Region, Ohio, USA,”

Jay Zambito, Alex Bartholome

and

Carl Brett

“Re-examination of the Type Ithaca Formation Frasnia Using a Sequence Stratigraphic Approach: Implications for Control of an Anachronistic Fauna.”

Thank You!

Devin Buick

and

Linda Ivany

“Becoming Younger While Getting Colder: Exploring the Evolutionary Role of Heterochrony in Long-Lived Bivalves from the Eocene of Seymour Island, Antarctica.”

F i s h e r F u n d E s t a b l i s h e d The Department is extremely pleased to announce the establishment of the Mark and Connie Fisher Fund in Geology. Mark Fisher (MS ‘81). This fund is to be used at the discretion of the Department Head to cover pressing, contemporary needs of the program and comes through a generous five-year pledge from Mark and Connie, with matching funds provided by Marathon Oil.

Ana Londono “1,000-year Pattern of Erosion in Arid Environments from Wari Pre-Columbian Terraces in Southern Peru.”

Mrs. & Mr. Chad Ferguson and Brian Nicklen

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