The Upper Crust 2022

Letter from the Department Head

The longer I sit in the Department’s Chair, the more I’ve come to appreciate all the living and moving parts that make up our Department. From my viewpoint amidst the ad min, teach ing mineralogy, petrology, and other courses on the hard-rock side (now being recast with critical minerals at the center), and my en gagement with all my friends, students, and colleagues, the Department is as creative and productive as ever.

I don’t know what I’d do without our fabulous staff who just get things done: Kate Cosgrove managing all of our budget matters; Sarah Hammer keeping our labs running and doing many other things to help keep the faculty focused on their work; Mike Menard keeping our hardware, instruments, vehicles, and all the other wheels and gears running smoothly; and Krista Smilek guiding our students and their courses, finances, and decision-making, and

marshalling everything through the complex UC systems. You guys rock!

And I’ve learned that to do it right, being Department Chair is a full-time job (surprise, surprise, right?) but I’m keeping a few research fires burning. One blaze is collaborating with colleagues at the KGS and the Illinois State Survey analyzing the REE potential of carbonatites and a variety of mica peridotites in the Illinois-Kentucky Flurospar District (a project that was initiated through the help of one Paul E. Potter). Another is mapping mid-crustal meta-igneous bedrock in southwestern Connecticut. I’m collaborating with colleagues at UMass and the USGS on monazite and xenotime geochronology linked to the trace element chemistry of garnet to track how crustal thickness

changed through time (this approach is called “petrochronology” nowadays).

My faculty colleagues had another banner year in external funding. New funding this past year totaled over $2 million! (not to mention the over $1.5 million in continuing external funding). Funding was awarded from the National Science Foundation (to multiple proposals), the USGS, the Ohio Water Resources Council, the Duke Energy Foundation, the Conservation Paleobiology Network, the Ohio Geological Survey, and Parks Canada on topics including geophysics, bedrock mapping, imaging of groundwater dynamics and monitoring groundwater quality, ecology, Quaternary glaciation, biogeochemical markers, and climate reconstruction. The diversity of funders and the range of topics bespeaks to the creativity of our faculty and graduate students. Our community should be proud of both the individual and collective accomplishments. Along with just under 100 peer-reviewed publications last year – including four in the renowned Geology and 20% having graduate students as first or co-author – the evidence is clear: we are a research-active group with a very strong pulse.

Our undergraduate majors and graduate students have done their best coping with the still on-going effects of Covid-19. In all honesty, there has been a vague malaise lingering in our building as we just can’t quite get the pandemic completely behind us. To put it simply, all our students are facing their prospects in an uncertain world. They need our support. But don’t get me wrong, our students continue to achieve. Several of our majors are involved in research projects and six of them applied for and were awarded GROGUs (the Departmentfunded Geoscience Research Opportunity Grants for Undergraduates) putting them on the road to research capstone projects. Our graduate students continue to make us look good, too, successfully receiving external funding for their work, including grants from the University Research Council, UC’s chapter of Sigma Xi, GSA, the Dry Dredgers,

the Ohio Geological Survey, and SEG. For the second year in a row, one of ours won the highly competitive and prestigious Dean’s Dissertation Completion Award.

Thankfully, we were back in the classroom with our students this year, with full-on mask wearing last fall and mask-optional classrooms beginning earlier this spring. For our majors, we are still offering broadbased education in modern geology: we had courses in mineralogy, petrology, structural geology, geomorphology, paleontology, geochemistry, sedimentology, groundwater, and geobiology. For juniors, seniors, and our graduate students, upper-level courses in R, geomechanics, and groundwater modeling are opportunities to build their quantitative skills. On top of all that, Carl Brett took undergrads out into the field all year long (following university-required, strict safety protocols last fall); these trips include Carl’s graduate students and his cadre of undergraduate TAs. Transportation costs for these trips are supported by our endowed funds: thank you. I was on an outcrop of Kope with Carl last fall for a couple of hours and Carl not only knew just about everything in the rocks, but he linked many field observations to larger global cycles and processes…very exciting and a pleasure to learn about the latest thinking about our celebrity bedrock.

We are also getting more students into our labs and getting them more hands-on experience with instruments, large and small. Our Undergraduate Geochemistry Teaching Labs initiative to acquire new equipment to use in our classes continues. The College expressed its approval by awarding us $21.5K in Information Technology and Instructional Equipment (ITIE) funding for portable spectrophotometers, and portable pH probes. Just to mention a few examples, through Andy Czaja’s geochemistry and Aaron Diefendorf’s biogeochemistry courses, and Reza Soltanian’s research at the TEMMS, our students are getting more hands-on practice with instruments and collecting data. Dylan Ward is running LiDAR drone surveys as part of a collaboration at the Cooper Creek

Experimental Watershed and having students work with big data. Dan Sturmer teaches applied geophysics and plans to take a group of undergrads out to Nevada this summer to collect field data on the Spruce Mountain landslide.

Another component of our teaching mission has been brought back to life, post-lock down. We are running department field trips: this May to northern Nevada and in early August a trip from Duluth, MN up to Thunder Bay. Again, your generous support of the Depart ment makes all of this happen. During the past year, the Department dedicated $106,000 to support our students through scholarships, hands-on learning, field trips, and awards.

There are other interesting and novel projects afoot. In collaboration with the Geology-Math- Physics Library, the DAAP Library, and the Engineering Libraries, we invested $5K in a new, high resolution, largeformat scanner which now being set up in the GMP Library. I have in mind digitizing and archiving the rich and multiple-file-cabinetsfull history of the Department recorded in photographs, field trip guidebooks, letters, sketches and drawings, notes, and other materials that Warren Huff has kept and safeguarded. Later this summer I will be talking with the digital archivist and university records manager and the manager of UC’s Preservation Lab on how to approach this project. We are also investing $1,600 to rehab several of our student petrographic microscopes to bring the total number of completely functional ‘scopes to about 20. This is a good thing since to paraphrase Ron Broadhead, in many, many 21st century avenues of the geosciences, “we need to know what rocks are made of and how they are put together.”

Again, this year, it has been rewarding con necting and reconnecting with many of you. I’ve enjoyed our conversations at our recent GSA meeting here in Cincinnati, in the De partment and the field, over the phone, and, of course, via email (and thanks to our loyal readers of Friday Field Notes! As always, I

welcome your comments and your generous sharing of photos.) Over my many years in the Department, I’m still impressed at how engaged and dedicated our alumni are, both newly minted and, shall we say, of more dis tinguished vintage, and everyone in between. Despite the pandemic-related challenges of the past two years, our community remains as strong as ever. I know I speak for the fac ulty, staff, and students when I say your com mitment to and support of the Department are treasured. Your support is vital for our continued success in teaching the next gen eration, our research with our graduate and undergraduate students, and strengthening our social fabric through field trips, outreach, and an array of departmental activities. I hope to see more of you during the coming months and with your help, keep the Department suc cessful and moving forward.

With best regards,

Craig

P.S. As many of you know, Dr. Attila Kilinc is retiring after 52 years of research, teaching, and service to the Department. We are planning to celebrate Attila this coming fall with an in-person event in Cincinnati. Details will be coming soon!

HOW TO GIVE

If giving by check, donors should make their check payable to The University of Cincinnati Foundation and in the memo portion of the check, write-in “Research Fund in Geology” or “Geology Alumni Graduate Fund”. Please send your donation to

The University of Cincinnati Foundation

PO Box 19970

Cincinnati, OH 45219-0970

If online, donors should go to https://foundation.uc.edu/give Once on the website, under the “Select Area to Support”, click on the “UC Colleges/Units” button. There will be two drop downs. On the left drop down, they will select “College of Arts & Sciences”. On the right drop down, they will scroll down and select “Research Fund in Geology” or “Geology Alumni Graduate Fund”.

Nevada field trip May 4-10, 2022

Nevada field trip, May 4-10, 2022 Led by Dan Sturmer, fifteen members of the Department – four undergraduate majors, four graduate

students, three alumni, one of our staff, and three faculty -- went on a field trip to northern Nevada in early May. The trip was multi-disci plinary, multi-faceted, very education al, and a ton of fun. The geology of the Basin and Range in northern Nevada is tremendously varied and complex, illustrated by the stops organized by Dan (and described in the 185-page guidebook he assembled). Highlights included the Sierra Nevada frontal fault, the geomorphology of Lake Tahoe, Cretaceous plutonic rocks of the Sierra Nevada batholith at Donner Summit, Pliocene plant fossils and di atomite, Miocene tufa mounds, recent fault scarps, gigantic sand dunes, and petroglyphs, rocks of a Miocene lacus trine fan-delta system, 35 ka basalt lava flows (with olivine and pyroxene megacrysts), the latest Miocene to Pleistocene Lunar Crater volcanic field, upper Ordovician organic-rich black

shales, Carboniferous con glomerates, strongly deformed Cambrian phyllites, and thanks to Melissa McMullen (B.S., 2009), a tour of the Barrick Cortez Carlin-type dissemi nated gold mine (the main pit and the principle processing plant). And one of the princi pal highlights surrounding us every day: the vivid and beau tiful Basin and Range land scape. For all his hard work and generosity, a very special thanks to Dan! We hope to run the trip again…in 2025!

Photo Captions:

Group photo at Donner Summit: Seated, left to right: Wayne Goodman, Mike Lewan, Marty Goodman, Adam Bernhardt Standing, left to right: Andrew Michel, Jake Janszen, PJ Schomaeker, Cole Farnam, Sam Little, Nathan McCarthy, Vince Nowaczewski, Dan Sturmer, Krista Smilek, Dylan Ward (photo by C. Dietsch)

Faculty & Staff

Aaron Diefendorf

I hope everyone out there is doing well. It’s been a qua si-productive year, although challenges of COVID still r emain. As I write this, my wife and kids have COVID! And, supply chain issues are wreaking havoc on keep ing instruments fixed and presents many challenges f or keeping research moving forward. Tom Lowell and I received a grant from NSF to study diatom biomarkers. Meg Corcoran (who co-wrote the proposal) is finishing up her PhD and will defend this coming spring. Watts Dietrich joined our group this past fall and is focused on the diagenesis of these diatom biomarkers for his MS. A new cadre of undergrads have joined the lab including Megan Hamilton and Michael Schenk. We also received NSF funding to expand the analytical capabilities of the Stable Isotope Laboratory. We managed to get a bit of field work in last fall with lots more planned for this coming summer. It was great to see many of you at the recent GSA meeting here in Cincinnati.

Andy Czaja

Hello friends! Despite the continued disruptions from the pandemic this y ear, my lab was able to get some work done studying the early evolution of life on Earth, the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere, and the search for ancient life on Mars.

Once again, this year I have fo cused on my Mars work as a sci ence team member of the NASA M ars 2020 mission (Perseverance rover). As I noted in Upper Crust last year, one of the main objec tives of the mission is to search f or evidence of ancient (fossil) life and collect samples for return to Earth on a future mission. If Mars ever hosted life, it’s most likely to have been microbial. And my role, as a microbial paleontologist is to advise on what samples to collect that might hold evidence of an cient life. If it’s there, we should be able t o find some evidence, but we will almost certainly need higher magnification and more sensitive instruments to really be sure, so that’s why we want to bring the samples back. Recent

planning for the sample return missions are targeting 2033, only eleven years from now!

MARS REPORT: The first year of the mission has been a rousing success! In addition to successfully piloting the first aircraft on another planet, and taking breathtak

ing images of an ancient crater lake (check out https:// mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/), we studied the crater floor units and collected eight samples, all of which represent igneously emplaced rocks. These will be a major boon for understanding the geologic history of the area and also should allow us to calibrate Mars’ crater chronology by determining the exact ages of these rocks. As of the middle of April 2022, we have arrived at the delta in the crater to learn about its sedimentology/stratigraphy and to also search for organic biosignatures. I anticipate a lot more exciting news to report next year!

My current students have all had successful years too, despite the pandemic restrictions. Andrea Corpolongo (Ph.D. candidate) continued work on her NSF-funded project studying the paleontology and paleoecology of 2.5-billion-year-old fossil microbes from the Kaapvaal Craton of South Africa. Andrea also continued to be a strong advocate for our department’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives as well as an outreach program to promote our science to the general public. Camden Goland (M.S. student) is continuing work on a project to study thermal alteration of fossil organic matter from some of the same geologic units that Andrea is study ing, despite not being able to be in the lab this year. D esirée Baker, who started in Fall 2021, began work on a NASA Exobiology-funded project looking for evidence of oxygen production by microorganisms in 3.2-billion-

Photo Captions:

Group photo at Donner Summit:

1. Perseverance’s first sample seen in the drill bit, 9/1/2021

year-old deltaic sediments from the Moodies Group of South Africa. This project has major implications for how we might search for similar evidence in the deltaic sed iments in Jezero crater on Mars! In the last year, both Andr ea and Desirée joined the Mars 2020 science team as well, as student collaborators and Andrea is currently leading the production of a manuscript about the min erals detected by the SHERLOC Raman spectrometer on P erseverance.

My former students have been busy and successful as well. Andrew Gangidine (Ph.D. 2020), finished his post doctoral fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC and took a permanent position as the Curator of Earth and Space Sciences at the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Brookfield, MI. Finally, Jeff Oster hout (M.S. 2016), after earning a Ph.D. at the UCLA in 2021, began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Jet Propul sion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA working on aspects of M ars Sample Return.

Finally, I am looking forward to welcoming a new stu dent in the Fall. Brianna Orrill received her B.S from Ari zona State University in 2021 and will likely work on a pr oject relating Mars and the Early Earth.

For more goings-on in my lab, please check out my web site at http://andyczaja.com.

2. The front edge of the delta in Jezero crater. It is here we hope to find evidence of ancient life that might have existed in this paleolake.

Brooke Crowley

It’s hard to believe that it’s already time to write an other newsletter update. T he past 12 months have gone quickly. Looking back, it’s overall been a positive and productive year. We have an excellent new co hort of graduate students, including t wo students who are working directly with me: Clark Ward and Jonas Zajonz. Clark is pursuing a master’s and comes to us from Nebraska. Jonas is from Germany and is pursu ing a PhD. He’s also working with Josh Miller. Emily Simp son has been working hard on her PhD research and passed her qualifying exams this Spring. Way to go Em ily! We will have a new MS studen t joining our lab next Fall, Andrew Hensley. He will be working on a funded col laborative project on Haiti’s r ecently extinct rodents. I’m thrilled to be working with such a great group of engaged and enthusiastic young scientists.

My own research continues to move along nicely. I am wrapping up several very diverse projects, several of which have involved isotope values in feces… I hadn’t anticipated that this would be a research direction I would pursue, but feces can be collected without ever handling or disturbing wild animals, and it turns out fe cal isotopes are very wellsuit ed for assessing diet and tracking foraging areas for individual animals. A special issue in Frontiers in Ecol

ogy and Evolution called “A G olden Age for Strontium Isotope Research? Current Advances in Paleoecologi cal and Archaeological Re search”, which I helped orga nize, is also finally complete. I t was a pleasure working with my fellow co-editors and I am proud of our final product.

Travel-wise, I haven’t been up to much (thanks to COV ID), and mostly, I have been f ocused on lab-based work. However, I have been able to visit family (in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Michi gan). My husband and I have also been enjo ying regional State Parks, and we con tinue to thoroughly explore Cincinna ti on foot. If you haven’t tried this, I highly recommend it. Let me know if you’d like some ideas or route suggestions.

On a more personal note, I was diagnosed with breast cancer in early March. I did not share this with many people at the time, but now feel comfortable letting oth ers know. I had surgery at the end of M arch, with about a month and a half of followup radiation therapy. To my knowledge, the cancer is now gone and I can move on with my life. This was a personal challenge, but also a learning and growing ex perience. Among the things tha t I learned is that I am part of a very loving and car ing community here in Cin cinnati (both at work and at

home). I c ouldn’t ask for better colleagues and friends. Thank you for your kindness and support.

Lastly, we are trying to gather contact details for alum ni who would be interested in being part of an alumni men tor network. The primary goal of this network is to help current students connect with alumni who have had various experiences following graduation, but I am also hopeful that it could be useful for keeping alumni connected as well. We have a Google Survey that asks for

Photo Captions:

details regarding when you graduated, your preferred contact details, and the types of networking activities you might be interested in participating in in the future: https://forms.gle/o9p6wWrykYuC2reUA. Everyone is in vited to be part of this network, and the more people tha t participate, the stronger the network will be. If you haven’t previously completed the survey (or even if you think you might have but can’t remember), please con sider doing so.

1. Embracing an early January snow storm at Cumberland Falls State Park, Kentucky

Strontium analysis allows researchers to peer back in time to see how animals lived August 13, 2021

The New York Times turned to a University of Cincinnati expert in strontium analysis to explain how studying this ele ment can help researchers better understand how extinct animals like woolly mammoths lived.

Br ooke Crowley, an associate professor of geology and anthropology in UC’s College of Arts and Sciences, has analyzed strontium, hydrogen and other elements to track the movements of hawks, jaguars and even extinct horses based on what they were eating — or more precisely, where they were eating.

Strontium is absorbed in the food chain and becomes a telltale marker for researchers to learn about the habitats im portant to animals, including long-dead woolly mammoths that roamed Alaska.

A study in the jour nal Science by the University of Alaska pieced together the 28-year life of a woolly mammoth they named Kik that roamed what is now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge more than 17,000 years ago. The researchers were able to use strontium analysis of Kik’s surviving tusks found in the permafrost to track his yearly movements. The unique strontium signature from the food he ate each year was embedded in layers of the growing tusks that researchers examined. Another elemental signature in the tusks — nitrogen — suggested Kik died from starvation.

“It’s rather amazing how much one can learn from little tiny bits of material from a now-extinct animal,” Crowley told the New York Times. “I’m particularly impressed that the authors were able to track this individual mammoth’s move ments for his entire life.”

Cr owley, who was not involved in the University of Alaska study, has examined strontium in other collected Ice Age mammal specimens to understand their migrations and use of the landscape in North America.

Dan

Sturmer

It has been an incredibly busy year. I finally returned to teaching on campus this spring. It has been nice to get back to a more normal schedule. Our older daughter Ivy is finishing up Kindergarten and Eliana (3) is enjoying pre-school. Sarah continues to teach online courses in the Environmental Studies program UC and she is finish ing up a M.Eng. in Computer Science here at UC.

V ince Nowaczewski successfully completed his Ph.D. qualifying exam in March. This summer he will be in northeastern Nevada where he will be mapping the

Spruce Mountain Quadrangle south of Wells. The goal of the mapping will be to better understand formation of the Middle Pennsylvanian Hogan Basin, strata of which is exposed in several mountain ranges in east-central Nevada. He also continues to work on geomechanical modeling to explain the distribution of structures within the Ancestral Rocky Mountains orogen.

I am sure that you have heard about our GSA joint NorthCentral/Southeastern section meeting that we hosted in April here in Cincinnati. I served as the technical pro gram co-chair with Alan Fryar from the University of Ken tucky. I think the meeting went very well and it was really interesting being involved in the full planning and watching the meeting come to fruition.

This summer is already filling up. The weekend after finals I will head to Reno where I am presenting a talk and a poster at the Geological Society of Nevada sym posium (postponed from 2020). A few days later I will lead a 5- day field trip for the department around central and northern Nevada. I will likely do some more field work, including mapping with Vince at Spruce Mountain and leading several undergrads to do field work on the Spruce Mountain landslide in Nevada. Several under graduate students will be working with me this summer on DEM landslide analy sis, shear-wave velocity analysis, and landslide statistical analysis projects…more about this next year. Additionally several of the students will assist with GRP and refraction seismic analysis of areas along Cooper Creek and at the TEMMS along the Great Miami River. Those projects are spearheaded by Reza Soltanian and Dylan Ward. Additionally, I will be working on several grant proposals and will be working on manu scripts throughout the summer and fall. We are going to M aui for a week in July which will be a really nice break.

It was a busy publication year with 8 papers released in the last year. One of them involved building a set of paleogeographic maps to document changes in late Pa leozoic sedimentation and tectonism in eastern Nevada ( Cashman and Sturmer, 2021, P-cubed). During the mak ing of this paper my co-author and I realized that the tr aditional Antler Orogeny story doesn’t really match the

data we collected (more on this in next year’s edition). A set of papers focused on late Paleozoic sedimentation in western North America, including a summary of the late Paleozoic in North America (Sturmer et al., 2022, P-cubed), Adam Jones’ MS thesis work in the Oquirrh Basin (Jones et al., 2021, P-cubed), and the influence of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains on sedimentation in the mid-continent (Wang et al., 2022, P-cubed). My former M.S. student Nick Ferry and I ran a field trip to several landslides in the Las Vegas area as part of the 2022 GSA joint Cordilleran/Rocky Mountain section meeting (Ferry and Sturmer, 2022, GSA). I also co-authored papers with several graduate students in our department, includ ing papers focused on a debris flow in Mammoth Caves (B osch et al., 2021, Journal of Cave and Karst Studies), geophysical analysis of compound bar deposits (McGarr et al., 2021, Hydrological Processes), and modeling car bon dioxide injection in fluvial deposits (Ershadnia et al., 2022, Chemical Eng ineering Journal). Finally, I was the lead author on 3 meeting abstracts and co-author of 9 other abstracts.

This has been a busy teaching year as well. Last fall I two versions of our Careers in the Geosciences class, one at the 2000-level and one at the graduate level. This is the first time that the class has been taught at multiple levels, and it was a great success. This spring has been very busy for teaching. I taught three courses, includ ing structural geology, Earth surface processes, and a newly -developed 7-week natural hazards course for UC Online. Next fall will also be busy, with Careers in the Geosciences (undergrad and grad), Applied Geophysics, and co-teaching regional tectonics seminar with Craig. We are also planning to have the Career Days event in fall 2022, probably in September. If you are interested in participating, please let me know!

Photo Captions:

1. Washoe Valley seismic survey deployment

including

2. Burros joining our Blue Diamond landslide field trip

3. La Madre landslide deposit (gray) atop Jurassic Aztec Sandstone (tan and red)

4. XRF analysis of paintings in the UC art collection.

of Nevada,

influences the evolution of drumming patterns in a valley in the Himalaya of India.

5. Presented a poster with Stefan Fiol (left) from CCM looking at the how

Carl Brett

The past year was a bit rough from end to end. My old Silver Toyota Sienna (2004) finally gave up the ghost, without much fanfare. That vehicle had carried so many loads of rocks and fos sils, kids and students; in 2020, its transmission nearly gave out and for a while, I thought it was over. But with a change of trans fluid the old car began shifting more and more easily and the minivan and had a remission for nearly another year. I had hoped to get it over 300,000 miles and almost but not quite made it. In February, our entire family got Covid for a second time, despite having shots and booster, both times it was not much worse than a cold, but the after effects may have contributed a bit of fatigue and malaise that have plagued me for the past months.

On the other hand, the year had its highpoints. In June, 2021, former PhD student Christopher Aucoin completed and de fended a dissertation detailing the onset of the Richmondian invasion, a coordinated immigration of over 50 species, mainly from warm water tropical areas, into the Cincinnati region, that took place in a couple of phases ~446 MA, each one occurring abruptly in just a single small scale cycle. Chris also document ed the relationship of early phases of this bioevent to a detailed sea level history and disturbances of the global carbon cycle.

My current students, colleagues and I resumed more active field work in several areas. PhD student, Cole Farnam has es tablished the presence of the latest Ordovician (Hirnantian) strata in Ohio, which, though perhaps less than 100 Kyr after the great Hirnantian extinctions, show an already well estab lished Silurian fauna, indicating a remarkably rapid recovery to a new relatively stable fauna that then largely persisted for mil lions of years into the Silurian. We continued sampling of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana and spent time working with colleagues at the Ohio Geological Survey core facility at Delaware, Ohio analyzing drill cores from central Ohio and integrating with outcrop studies in the Upper Ordovician and Silurian.

Masters student Josie Chiarello made good headway in sam pling and assembling data pertaining to two newly proposed Late Ordovician faunal invasions of corals, stromatoporoid sponges and varied brachiopods. We measured and sampled several newly blasted roadcut sections and made extensive faunal counts. She will finish her thesis this summer.

Allison Young worked toward completion of her dissertation on sub-surface-outcrop stratigraphy of the Lexington-Point Pleas ant formations and also moved up to an important position as geologic project manager for Tetra Tech, an environmentalengineering firm; she will be working with our department to develop student internships with this company.

During the pandemic, I worked with undergraduate student

Sam Little on the extensive collections of the famed Dry Dredg er, Steve Felton, who passed away in 2019. Sam worked dili gently on the project and subsequently has become an active Masters student. He is making further important discoveries on the patterns of the famed Richmondian Invasion. His project also illustrates the very productive relationship we have with the Cincinnati Dry Dredgers, America’s oldest and one of the largest and most active amateur paleontological groups. Sam is fully documenting strata in a “research trench”, which has been excavated on private land by Dry Dredgers Dan Cooper and Matt Phillips; Sam’s work is also partly supported by the Dry Dredgers funds. In turn, I am working with these individu als and others to help document and publish on their many excavation sites around the world.

In May 2021, I spent a week with family near Nashville, Tennes see and I combined this trip with field work with colleagues and former PhD students Pat McLaughlin (PhD, 2006; now at the Il linois Geological Survey after several years at the Indiana Sur vey) and Jay Zambito (PhD 2011; professor at Beloit College). Pat and Jay were sampling Devonian and Mississippian rocks in the nearby region for phosphatic sediments at very interesting new sections near Gallatin and Westmoreland, TN. There is currently an effort to sample and studying the geochemistry of nodules of calcium phosphate minerals: not just because our country’s phosphate supplies are dwindling, but because some of these nodules also contain concentrations of rare earth elements used in multifarious high tech applications including the manufac ture of cell phones, digital cameras, and LED lights.

Our former student, Tim Paton (MS 2017) and I spent a couple of excellent days studying new Ordovician sections south and east of Nashville. A very exciting discovery was a new roadcut with the famous Millbrig bentonite, in a ditch, which was rest ing on a remarkable bed of phosphate pebbles with even a few whole trilobites, apparently buried alive by the ash.

During a very productive week in central New York State, I worked with several colleagues and students, including Pat McLaughlin (more phosphate prospecting) and ran a special multi-day field trip course for my students, and visited localities where I am do ing research in conjunction with some very dedicated amateur paleontologists. I also spent time at the Paleontological Re search Institution (PRI) near Ithaca, NY. Together with PRI direc tor Warren Allmon and Greg Dietl, Director of Collections, my long-term collaborator, Gordon Baird (Emeritus, SUNY Fredonia) and I received funding from the National Science Foundation to curate, database, and fully document our Devonian research col lections amassed during four decades of field study in New York. PRI will dedicate an entire floor of a newly renovated building to housing these collections. We are working with PRI to make certain that this archive is fully documented. We will also pro duce a digital atlas of Devonian fossils for the general public. This process has also included writing monographic chapters on Middle and Upper Devonian strata in New York to be pub lished as a major book through PRI this year.

During the summer of 2021 there was a great deal of activity literally right outside the door of the Geology-Physics Build ing. Excavations for the new Clifton Court Hall, in the space be

tween our building and Clifton Avenue, began to take shape in July and by August there was a major exposed pit section ~5 m deep for the basement section and an additional 6 m side-hill excavation for the wall of the building. Together, these cuts provided an excellent, though completely ephemeral, ex posure of the middle Cincinnatian (Late Ordovician ~447 Ma) Miamitown, Bellevue, and Corryville members. These units were named in the early 1900s, for exposures near the Univer sity, but in the present day, most all of the old type exposures are under concrete in this very urbanized area. Fortunately, I was able to document these beds in some detail in photos and measured sections before they were covered. Although they accidentally destroyed our extensive “rock piles”, which I have used in teaching for years, the folks from Messer Construction kindly brought up several large blocks from the basement ex cavation and made them available for our study. Thus, we were able to learn new things from strata literally right under our feet at UC.

Two new undergraduate students Nathan McCarthy and Bi anca Neale, inspired me with their skills and motivation. They were so excited and focused that they began going out to fossil localities on their own almost every weekend. The had want ed to find a rare and beautiful type of fossil echinoderm, an edrioasteroid or seated star, a dime- or quarter-sized disk with a five-rayed “starfish” webbed together with scale-like plates. I had told them of a locality where a specimen of this rare fossil had been found on an earlier field trip. During a warm day in February, they sent me a cell phone photo of a slabs covered with the rare fossil Isorophus cincinnatiensis-the official fossil of our fair city (really; Google it!). I challenged them to find the layer in place and sure enough they found it 4 meters up on both sides of the roadcut. They brought back many dozens of specimens, including a slab with more than 130 specimens, one of the densest occurrences ever found. Nathan studied the size distribution and interactions among these tightly packed encrusting animals. This past April he presented their findings at the North Central Section of Geological Society of America here in Cincinnati.

The latter GSA meeting occupied a good deal of time in the winter of 2022. Professors Craig Dietsch and Rebecca Free man (University of Kentucky) as well as our Dan Sturmer, coconvened a very successful meeting where our colleagues and students made nearly 50 presentations. I plugged away dur ing the winter and early spring of 2022 and produced two new ar ticles/guidebooks on the Ordovician and Silurian sequences, chemostratigraphy, cycles, and depositional environments in the Tristate Area.This was done in collaboration with col leagues Ben Dattilo (UC PhD, 1994; now at Purdue university, Fort Wayne) and Chris Waid of Ohio Geological Survey, PhD student, Cole Farnam, and Kyle Hartshorn (Dry Dredgers), a re markably skilled avocational stratigrapher. In the end, we ran two full-day field trips that were well attended and seemingly very well received. In turn, we made some important new con nections. The two guidebooks, each with a major stratigraphic synthesis, will be published, one each, through the Ohio and Kentucky Geological surveys.

We had hoped to get back fully to face-to-face teaching in 2021, after the difficult and often isolating 2020, but that was not to be. It was a bit of a juggling act trying to come up with virtual classes and still cater to the students who came in to school. I broadcast and recorded most of my classes from the University. I still ran some single day field trips by spacing stu dents out in large vans and having them wear masks except on outcrops. Yet, I found these students to be genuinely plugged in and quite appreciative to be getting back out on real rocks again. The up and coming freshmen and sophomore cohorts were among the best I have taught in 45 years. In fact, they were an inspiration to me and reminded me why I do not want to retire any time soon.

Field Trip Groups

Field trip group at Trammel Fossil Park, Sharonville, Sat urday April 9, 2022. Note Professor Dave Meyer (far left), B en Dattilo (center), new UC graduate student Ian For sythe, next to Ben on right and immediately behind un dergraduate Nathan McCarthy (seated), and Cole Farnam (sec ond from right). Photos by Stephen Pekar (Queens College), next to Nathan.

Nathan McCarthy (green coat) makes and interesting discovery at Lawrenceburg, IN, examined by Carl and others.

Note from the Undergraduate Program Director

Dylan Ward

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here at UC for a decade this August. In that time I’ve graduated five individual grad uate students with four M.S. and two PhDs awarded be tween them, working in the Teton Range, the San Rafael S well of Utah, the central Kentucky karst, and the An des of northern Chile. These landscapes provide excep tional examples of landscape evolution: by glaciation, b y stream incision through layered rocks, by dissolution.

They are all great landscapes for adventure.

Taking over as Undergraduate Program Director this past year has been a different kind of adventure. I’d like to start by saying that I got off to a good start thanks to Carl Brett; we have all benefited from all his years of service in the role and his deep care for and personal investment in our students. Carl showed me all the things he was doing for our students over the years and

I was amazed, many that are well beyond the defined scope of the job, but, I think, vital to the community of the department. Carl, and Krista Smilek, always have the answer when I get in too deep. Thanks to Krista, too, who is always in touch with our students and makes this job possible, and irons out all the technical lumps that come up along the way.

I come into this position as the department is going through a transition of sorts, (although such change is perhaps the more typical state of affairs). Our name change to the Department of Geosciences reflects the field of Geology outgrowing its name, or at least the com mon perceptions of its name. The geosciences comprise a br oad and interdisciplinary field which is inclusive of classical geological methods and knowledge but is no longer defined by them. The relevance of the geologic deep-time perspective and systems-level understanding of the Earth to current societal needs and challenges has never been greater: from environmental protection and restoration, to a changing landscape of energy resourc es, water availability, natural hazards, and the context of

ongoing clima te change in Earth’s long history. This has created an opportunity for us to communicate beyond the classically geologically-oriented students, and also a challenge. How do we use our limited number of credit hours to develop students who have enough technical depth in one or a few narrow fields to call themselves ex perts, yet are broadly trained enough to work effectively with in terdisciplinary teams, and to act as independent and flexible problem solvers?

Looking to the future, we would like to maintain and strengthen the core Geology BS program, including a rigorous field component and a high co-required science and math requirement, while broadening the appeal and reach of the geosciences to students with interests in other sciences and engineering, planning, business, and even arts and music. We have noted a strong student interest in working on research projects, and in learning not just background knowledge, but how to do things. The ongoing development of the geochemistry teaching lab, the TEMMS groundwater research station, and the reintroduction of the departmental, alumnisupported undergraduate research grants program are all contributing to a reinvigoration of undergraduate research in the department. In addition, we are gearing up to re-envision our BA program to serve a larger number of interdisciplinary dual-majors who would like to gain the unique deep-time perspective that our department provides.

And finally, I am always happy to hear what folks in various industries are seeing with regards to incoming employees, and how our program can help to make sure key hard and soft skills are in place.

Dylan Ward dylan.ward@uc.edu

Joshua Miller

The UC Office of Research is excited to announce the winners of the 2021-2022 University Research Council awards to faculty, who each received a $25,000 award for their two-year projects and to graduate students, who received up to $7,500 for summer research proj ects. The URC funding program is UC’s oldest and most pr estigious internal funding mechanism. Since 1971, the URC has worked in partnership with the Vice President for Research to advance high-potential research, schol arship and creative work. As part of the Research2030 str ategic plan for research, a new program focused on early-career faculty, the URC Faculty Scholars Research Award, was established last year.

“Such faculty represent the bright future for UC, and this program seeks to bolster their efforts early in their career to help them identify solutions to the complex questions, problems and challenges facing society,” says UC’s Vice President for Research Patrick Limbach. Awardees were selected based on the quality, novelty and impact of their research, scholarship and creative activities, along with a clear potential to make further, sustainable contributions to knowledge creation and

improved societal outcomes. We are especially pleased that graduate students Megan Casey Corcoran and Mad ison Quinn Gaetano also received awards.

P roject: When giants grow-up: Changes in dietary ecol ogy and mobility of sauropod dinosaurs during their g rowth and maturity

“Sauropod dinosaurs hatched from eggs no larger than soccer balls and could grow to be over 100 feet long, but the ecological and biological transitions necessary to ac complish this transformation are shrouded in mystery. U sing a unique collection of teeth from Rapetosaurus krausei (Sauropoda; Late Cretaceous, Madagascar) rang ing from recently hatched to fully adult individuals, I will use t ooth shape, tooth wear patterns, and geochemistry to establish the most comprehensive test for how diet and individual mobility changed with sauropod growth and development.

Eva Enkelmann

Editor’s note: Our former colleague (2013-2017), Dr. Eva Enkelmann, who is currently at the University of Calgary has created a marvelous website entitled Rocky Voices at (https://www.enkelmann.org/blog). I invite you to have a look at it.

Warren Huff

One of the outcomes of having been associated with the clay science community for many years was a recent in terview I was involved in with Kevin Murphy, a long-time colleague and the Executive Director of the Mineralogical S ociety of the UK and Ireland. You can watch the interview at (https://bit.ly/3vnGWC3).

And for those of you who would like to scroll back through the department’s history, including former faculty and staff plus campus buildings, there is a link at (https://bit.ly/35X1o2o).

Reza Soltanian

Last year was another great year for me and my group here at UC. We have been productive both in terms of obtaining research funding and publishing peer-re viewed papers. Perhaps most notable accomplishment is obtaining $520k funding f or our work on groundwater

and surface water exchange at the Theis Environmen tal Monitoring and Modeling Site (TEMMS) from NSF. In summer 2022 w e will perform variety of field work from GPR surveys, piezometer installation, and water sam pling for water quality analysis to data acquisition for

r iver hydrodynamics using acoustic doppler current pro filer. I have hired a highly computational postdoctoral scholar, Pei Li, who will join us in April 2022. Pei has been working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory before joining UC.

Below I highlight three of our important publications in 2021.

NSF postdoc fellow Corey Wallace finished his postdoc toral term and joined Geosyntec Consultant as a Senior Eng ineer. He will be missed but he is still collaborating with us at least. Corey’s last publication at UC focused

on understanding spatiotemporal dynamics of reaction hotspots in heterogeneous riparian sediments. This work was published in Water Resources Research (volume 57, is sue 12) where Corey showed that the in terface between highly con ductive sediments such as gravel and or ganic rich sediments such as silt are important in developing re action hotspots.

P hD student Reza Ershadnia has been really productive this year. I would like to highlight his publi cation in the Geophysical Research L etter (volume 48, issue 23). In this work Reza investigated mecha nisms that enhance lateral methane plume mig ration in shallow aquifer systems. He showed that represen tation of capillary pressure hetero geneity controlled by multiscale sedimen tary architecture is neces sary to capture multiphase flow dy namics of methane plume.

Tyler McGarr successfully defended his thesis and pub lished a manuscript in Hydrological Processes (volume 35, issue 9). I n this paper, Tyler coupled geophysical techniques with physical and chemical sediment analy ses to quantify exchange dynamics between groundwa ter and river water in a compound bar deposit at TEMMS.

1. Conceptual model of surface water and groundwater exchange and nutrient transformation within heterogeneous fluvial sediments. Ground water flow adjacent to a gaining river is primarily toward the river during baseflow conditions (b), but shifts away from the river as river stage rises during high-flow conditions (c), typically in response to storm events. As infiltrating river water delivers nutrients into the river bed and bank, aerobic respiration (green), nitrification (red), and denitrification (blue) hot spots develop in different facies based on their physical and chemical properties. Hot spots (orange) develop within intermediate conductivity facies adjacent to low conductivity, high organic matter sedi ments. Sediment grain size controls the magnitude of exchange and transport (indicated by the size and length of red arrows). From Wallace, Soltanian et al. (2021).

2. Example of multiphase flow and transport simulations of methane leakage in shallow unconfined aquifers by Reza Ershadnia. Two modeling scenarios in the left and right colums are the same in terms of permeability and porosity distribution and they only differ in capillary pressure (pressure difference at the gas-water interface) distribution. Comparing two scenarios shows that capillary pressure heterogeneity controlled by underlying sedimentary facies types places leading-order controls on lateral methane plume spreading in aquifer systems. From Ershadnia et al. (2021).

3. Example of geophysical data collected by Tyler McGarr. (a) Measured electromagnetic induction (EMI) data displayed on the compound bar adjacent to TEMMS and within the Great Miami River. (b) Inverted EMI data using numerical models by Tyler for each bottom of layer depth. Warmer colors indicate high electrical conductivity associated with finer grained sediments. Cooler colors indicate low electrical resistivity as sociated with gravel- and sand-dominated facies. Tyler found warmer colors correspond to cross-bar channels fills that are baffle to flow but are ideal sites for contaminant and nutrient transformation. From McGarr et al. (2021).

4. Corey Wallace and Tyler McGarr installing cameras at the Theis Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Site in Summer 2021.

5. Installing groundwater wells using a Geoprobe in April 2022 at Theis Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Site. Three new shallow moni toring wells were developed.

6. Tyler McGarr and Reza Ershadnia taking groundwater samples the Theis Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Site.

7. Tyler McGarr and Sage Peterson (from Targeted Compound Monitoring) working on installation of in-situ Vulink and Aqua Troll 200 In-Situ sensors in observation wells at the Theis Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Site.

8. A wonderful day outside at UC Science Day in May 2021. Corey Wallace, Reza Ershadnia, and Tyler McGarr demonstrating grounswater con tamination and plume migration using our aquifer kit.

9. Portions sediment cores extracted from the Theis Environmental Monitoring and Modeling Site are now part of the ice age exhibit at the Cin cinnati Museum Center. Beautiful demo of sedimentary architecture observed in glacial deposits!

Photo Captions (Pages 30-32):

Yurena Yanes

This academic year has been full of exciting events in my re search group. My two PhD students, Catherine Nield and Eze kiel King Phillips, both passed their qualifying exams and are working on various new research projects to complete their dissertations.

Catherine Nield is planning fieldwork this summer to collect fossil land snails in Alaska. We plan to collect samples through out various Quaternary Loess, permafrost, and archeological deposits around central Alaska. Ezekiel (Zeke) King Phillips is working hard in the lab analyzing the stable isotope composi tion of numerous modern and fossil land snails from Ohio and Kentucky to assess their dietary ecology. Both students are working really hard to graduate next year.

Together with Catherine and Zeke, I organized a technical ses sion on “Actualistic Paleontology: Learning from the modern to better interpret the past” in the North Central/Southeastern Geological Society of America (GSA) sectional meeting, cele brated in Cincinnati OH. The session was a success, covering a broad range of topics, and included many student presenta tions.

I have continued working with undergraduate student Kaaviya Muruganantham. She completed a research project and pre sented her results in two scientific conferences, the 2021 GSA annual meeting in Portland OR through a poster presentation,

and the 2022 NC/SE GSA sectional meeting in Cincinnati OH through an oral communica tion. Kaaviya did a fantastic job and showed outstanding oral communication skills and handled questions professionally. Well done, Kaaviya! I am proud of our UC students and feel fortunate to work with highly motivated and enthusiastic students who keep me engaged and teach me how to become a better mentor and scientist.

I am looking forward to starting my new role as editor-in-chief of the journal PALAIOS, a bi monthly academic journal dedicated to the study of life through Earth history, published by the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) since 1986. In this position I have the chance to read and handle numerous peer-review articles on scientific topics ranging from paleontology to sedimentary geology.

Finally, my career has taken a turn after accept ing a position as a rotating Program Director in the National Science Foundation (NSF), where I manage the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology program (SGP) of the Division of Earth Sciences (EAR) under the Directorate of Geo sciences (GEO). This new professional opportunity is allowing me to expand my scientific and administrative skills, and aug ment my training and education in Diversity, Equity, and Inclu sion issues in STEM fields. I’m looking forward to seeing what new oppor tunities may come in the near future.

David Nash

As some of you know and many of you don’t know, David Nash has (had) a brain tumor. It came on very sudden and he had surgery this morning. He was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday, as he was having problems moving. After a lot of testing, he has a brain tumor that was fairly large and fast growing. Ruth Anne called me last night to tell me David was going to have surgery this morning. I was waiting to share the news until after I heard back from Ruth Anne. Please see her note below:

David is certainly a loved member and character in our department and community! Please keep him in your prayers, thoughts, or whatever to you to bring good energy!

It was a very long day of surgery, but David’s surgeon told us that it went as he had expected. They resected his tumor, removing 90+%, which is what the surgeon had told us to expect. The tumor is very near parts of the brain that control motor function and sensation on the left side, so they could not get all in that area. David withstood the surgery pretty well, and when I saw him at about 7pm was alert and pretty well-oriented but in a great deal of pain at the surgical site. I am hoping that they can get the pain under control, so that he can rest more easily and maybe even sleep. (Some of you know he spent four days and nights in the ER waiting for a bed, and essentially had no sleep this past week.) It was hard to judge his motor function tonight; his surgeon thinks that there will be a little more weakness on that left side initially, but that it should subside over the courses of days to weeks.

The tissue samples have been sent to pathology and for DNA testing. Those results should take about 2 - 3 weeks, after which we will know more about next steps. In the meantime, he will need in-patient rehab (they are still talking about Tuesday for that transfer, but that seems really fast - hopefully, he’ll seem more able tomorrow).

Again, I want to thank you all for your love and support, and ask that you continue to send it our way. Right now, we have things pretty well in hand. Nathan is here with his girlfriend Andrea, who is basically managing the home front. David’s sister and her husband arrive tomorrow. Because of COVID protocols, visitors are really limited, so we will just have to continue to let you know how things are going this way.

I am grateful to you all.

Ruth Anne

Attila Kilinc

This is my last Newsletter before retirement. On April 12, 2022, I gave my last lectures in my courses “Physical Geology” and in “Earthquakes and Society”. It was a bittersweet experience for me. I felt relaxed thinking that I do not have to prepare to teach and at the same time I felt, after 52 years of teaching at UC, I will no longer be with students. I was fortunate to be a member of this department.

But, as they say, “life is short, eat desert first”.

I feel our department is in good hand with many very talented faculty who will continue to add to the reputation of the Department, College, and the University.

Our immediate plans include flying to Athens, Greece in August and taking a cruse which will stop at several Greek Islands including the Santorini. A volcano that I always wanted to see. Perhaps, a year later we plan to fly to Los Ange les and take a cruse trip which will go through the Panama Canal. George Rieveschl used to tell me more than 20,000 people died from malaria during construction of the Panama Canal and he was suggested to work on malaria rather than the drug he invented: Benadryl. Since then, I wanted to see the Panama Canal.

I will continue my research on thermodynamic analysis of silicate melts and perhaps learn more on artificial intelli gence and machine language.

Department of Geology Graduates 2021 -2022

Congratulations to all the Graduates of the UC Geology Department!

Summer 2021:

Dean Sampson, BS Lisa Shantz, BS

William Wright, BS Samantha Niewierowski, BA Reza Ershadnia, MS Rachel Bosch, PhD

Fall 2021: Matthew Miller, BA Maxwell Linder, BA Evan Rouse, BS

Reed Sanchez, MS Christopher Aucoin, PhD

Spring 2022:

Wade Bernhardt, BS

Patrick Boylson, BS

John Car, BS

Austin Gentry, BS

Frank Guy, BS

Kyle Roberts, BS Amanda Somerville, BS

Maegan Thomas, BS

Jesse Bacha, MIN

Abigail Kelly, PhD

Summer & Fall 2022

Reza Ershadnia, PhD

Allison Young, PhD

Tom Uhl, MS

Josie Chiarello, MS

Andrew Michel, MS

Alumni News

Alumni 1960’s

HENRY SCHOCH (BS ’66)

Judy and I weathered the Covid storm without incident, received our second Pfizer shots in mid-Feb ruary, and have resumed a modest social life. Among other things, we meet a large group of NPS re tirees every other week for supper a t one of varied restaurants here abouts – outdoor venues if pos sible, but sometimes we throw cau tion to the winds. Post-inoculation, I v olunteered several mornings at Grand Junction’s largest vaccina tion center, mostly helping to herd f olks through the process. But one morning I was tasked with disin fecting the clipboards and pens used b y registrants. We were pro cessing about 500 people per hour, and f ound it almost impossible to keep up with the flow. It reminded me of the I Love Lucy episode at the candy factory.

Sadly, though the State of Colorado has done a pretty good convincing its citizens to get poked, the very conservative western-slope county where we reside has a lot of en demic dyed-in-the-wool resistance. T hus, we’re snuffling around at the bottom of the pile with the likes of Mississippi. On the other hand, many of my neighbors could recite the 2nd Amendment verbatim, ex cept, of course, for the well-ordered militia par t.

Even during the worst of it, I made a point of getting out just about every day for a bike ride or a hike or a bit of photography.

One of my indoor diversions was to delve for the first time into higher magnification photography. I found a long-discontinued but like new Nikon PB-6 bellows on eBay, a focus rail, and a new Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens with aperture ring (something of an oddity in the digital age) and began to experiment.

A while back, a friend showed me a lit tle sliver of amber that he bought at a r ock shop in Moab, earlier provenance unknown. Packed with it, however, was a penciled notation on a scrap of pa per. “Termite,” it said. And sure enough, ther e was a little dark speck of some thing trapped inside. Stem to stern, the insec t is about 1/16-inch long.

A bit of online research reveals that the majority of amber comes from the Ka liningrad Oblast, a curiously detached bit of Russia w edged between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic coast. Lesser amounts originate in the Dominican Republic and a few other spots around the globe. If Russian, then the hapless insect got mired down in sticky pine sap during the Eocene, about 44 million years ago. If Dominican, then it was enveloped by the sap of an extinct spe cies of Hymenaea about 25 million years ago. Either way, it’s a very old insect, one whose state of preservation puts to shame anything the ancient Egyptians were ever able to accomplish.

The surface of the amber was irregu lar and reflective, so I had to try vari ous camera and lighting angles to get a decent result. Each of the attached images is a composite of from twelve to sixteen separate frames aligned and merged digitally to achieve greater depth-of-focus.

I shared the resulting images with a local geologist friend* whose grandson is an entomologist. The grandson confirmed that the insect is indeed a termite based on the number of abdominal segments and the beaded nature of the antennae.

Additional insanity: I read somewhere that immersion in CO2 would temporarily anesthetize spiders and insects. Accordingly, I repurposed a peanut butter to create a gas chamber. I used Shrader valves with their inner cores removed as inlet and outlet, and a bicycle tire inflator to slowly meter gas flow so it wouldn’t batter or freeze the bugs. It works, except that when asleep, the top-heavy little critters fold up their legs and roll over, so it’s impossible to arrange them in a lifelike pose, and when they revive after a few minutes, they’re itchin’ to go and won’t sit still long enough for me to shoot a stack of photos. And so, a failed experiment, at least for now.

This is all for now.

Take care, Hank

*William (Bill) Hood, who worked for Amoco, among other jobs, and later taught at Southern Illinois University. Have you ever crossed paths with him?

Alumni 1970’s

HARMON:

WHAT IS A GEOLOGIST

INTRODUCTION

“Back around the mid-teens [i.e., 19-teens], Jack H. Lowe of the Sidney, Nebraska Telegraph described the geolo gists as he saw them – men who had often frustrated him in his eff orts to get a good story. ‘If you see a man walk ing down the street with oil on his shoes , where it shouldn’t be, and no oil on his hair, where it should be, that’s an oil man. If he has a faraway look in his eye and seems to be contemplating the depth of the first Jurassic sandstone in Persia, that’s a ge ologist. Have pity on him. He’s just as lonesome as he looks . He’d love to tell you everything he knows, but he doesn’t know how. When he greets St. Pe ter at the gate and is asked to g ive an accurate account of his life on earth, he’ll start out say ing, ‘Well, whatever I say I don’t w ant to be quoted because you can ++-never tell what might happen, but…’ That, my friends, is a Geologist.’’” (Blakey, 1985, p. 1).

“Petroleum geologists are a spe cial breed. Walter Youngquist onc e wrote that ‘little boys who pick up rocks either go to prison or become geologists. They are Boy Scouts who hated to give up camping when they went to col lege so they majored in geology. After all,’ he explained, ‘ what other business could an individual be in and go to the Grand Canyon or the Swiss Alps and claim he was working?’” (Blakey, 1985, p. 2).

“’A man simply cannot become a geologist,’ wrote news paperman Lowe, in the Midwest’s early days of petro leum geology. ‘He is born one, raised as one and edu cated as one. It requires a certain kind of temperament, a deliber ate sort of speech and patience beyond mea sure. A geologist listens to more silly questions than an y other human, and he must weigh each question and devise each answer with the greatest of skill. He must

be able to talk at length without disclosing what is fore most in his mind. He must know how to be polite but fir m, decisive but evasive, positive but negative, effusive but quiet… Furthermore, a geologist must know what is going on down in the depths of Mother Earth, and that something we always thought was reserved for the Lord.’” (Blakey, 1985, p. 3).

NO GEOLOGISTS WANTED: An oil scout is a general handyman. He is an information man who watches wildcat wells, reports on showings, finds where leases should be taken, and keeps tabs on everything that’s happening in the neighbor hood in the oil business. Now y oung fellow, I’m not hiring you as a geologist. You’re a scout. You can use geology if you want to, but the oil companies don’t have much to do with geology. They don’t have any confidence in it. And if you could use your geology, that’s all right, that suits me fine, go ahead. But you’re not employed as a geolo gist. (Walter Wrather, about the oil business in 1905, in Blakey, 1985, p. 60)

TOO DAMN MANY QUESTIONS:

“Most operators in Oklahoma relied on their ability to ‘smell’ oil. If they were not adept at that, they sought out an undis covered oil seep or drilled near someone else ’s success. They thought little about geolo gists one way or another. Some looked upon the sudden cr op of educated youngsters as dandies. One driller refused to let a geologist on the derrick floor because he wore one of those “fancy new” wristwatches. Others saw them as competition. A geologist who approached a well near Dale backed off when he spotted a shallow grave with headboard and footboard near the well. At the foot of the grave were the toes of a pair of boots sticking up; on the headstone was scrawled “He asked too damn many questions.” (W. Dow Ham, in Blakey, 1985, p. 61)

“The oil geologist must have all of the knowledge and skills that an Eagle Scout should have, plus special edu cation and training in the scientific field pf geology. Star study, map making, pioneering, camping, marksman ship, cooking, first aid woodcraft are only a few of the things he must lear n. Added to all this he must have the

courage and enthusiasm for his job that will carry him on to remote and dangerous corners of the globe.” (Dr. Bela Hubbard in Our Oil Hunters, in Blakey, 1985, p. 72)

“The geologist is the keystone of a great arch involving not only his own but many other industries. No other group has done more to raise living standards world wide. I like to quote this little statistic to my lawyer fr iends. Less than 10,000 active petroleum geologists, and lesser numbers in the past, have pointed the way to trillions of dollars worth of energy for the benefit of mankind. By comparison, there are millions of lawyers in the United States and hundreds of thousands in gov ernment. Their numbers are increasing pari passu with the tr illions of dollars of our national, state, municipal, and private debt, plus the scores of billions of annual government waste, for all of which they are chiefly re sponsible. But, for the grace of G od, I might have been one of them” (Lewis Weeks, in Blakey, 1985, p. 107)

“If I were a barrel of oil, comfort ably located in a pool, hidden in a tr ap deep in the ground, the region I would be safest for me – where I might live out another 50 or 100 million years in peace and dignity – would be in some country where minerals and ex ploration are nationalized. The r eason is that in countries such as these, there is but one hunter, and the chances of eluding him are far better than the chances of being discovered. The most dangerous place for me to live, as a barrel of oil, would be in the United States where there are thousands of hunters and each has a different weapon.” (A. I. Levorsen, in Blakey, 1985, p. 129)

“I regard geology as a cultural subject, as much so as art or literature. In the dictionary sense, it contributes to the ’training and refining of the mind.’ It does so, in particular, by making us aware of the immense sweep of geologic time and of the vast forces operating in the earth as we see it today.” (Lewis Weeks, in Blakey, 1985, p. 160)

“We usually find oil in new places with old ideas. Some times, also, we find oil in an old place with a new idea, but w e seldom find much oil in an old place with an old idea. Several times in the past we have thought we were running out of oil whereas actually we were only run ning out of ideas.” (Parke A. Dickey, in Blakey, 1985, p. 166)

Many geologists eager to impress their employers or cli ents, proceed to pad their reports with geological terms and other impr essive-sounding phrases. E. H. Cunning ham-Craig was not impressed. “It should be the geolo gist’s endeavor to try to see how short a report he can wr ite, provided all the essential matters are covered, and not how long he can make it. …The geologist should write out his report three times, each time making it shorter by cutting out all that does not seem absolutely necessary.

“Clearness is no less essential. Technical geological terms should be eschewed as much as possible, because it is probable that for most of those who read a report few will have more than a smattering of geological knowledge. It is not difficult to explain in simple lan guage all that can be conveyed by sesquipedalian sci entific phraseology. … it is not enough tha t the writer is clear in his own mind upon a point, he must set it down so that the reader cannot fail to be clear in his own mind as to what is meant to be conveyed. … Therefore, short crisp sentenc es, without conditional clauses, should be the rule .”

“Graces of style and the neat turning of phrases are to be avoided; it is possible to give a literary flavor to scientific work, … but it is not literature that is required from the field geologists, but facts. If in read ing over the draft of a report one c omes across any sentence with which one is particularly pleased, the wisest course is to cut it out at once. Be literal rather than literary.”

“The point most essential of all is to stick to facts. If the certified facts cannot be given, the geologist must say so clearly. “To the best of my belief …”; “As far as I could determine ..”; ”It seems to me that …”; and many other similar phrases should be tabooed. Indeed, the geologist should avoid as much as possible the first-person pronoun and to write the report in the third person The report will read better and will appear more forcibly to both scientific and commercial readers if the writer does not intrude his personality, but allows the facts as ascertained by him to speak for themselves.” (in Blakey, 1985, p. 182, 175).

Reference: Blakey, E. S., 1985, Oil on their shoes – Petro leum geology to 1918: Tulsa, OK, American Association of P etroleum Geologists, 191 p.

J. TODD STEPHENSON (MS ’79)

I was recently appointed by the State of Ohio and the Ohio History Connection to be a member of the Ambassadors group which is responsible for the UNESCO World Heritage nomination for the Ohio Hopewell Earthworks sites in Ohio. I am the lone geologist on that committee. Dr. John Hancock, UC Professor Emeritus - Historical Architecture is one of the strong leaders of the group. I have worked on documenting the diverse geological provenance sites of the raw materials that the ancient indigenous utilized for creating the amazing artifacts that have been found in the Ohio Earthworks. Following is a summary of my volunteer work for that group.

I am scheduled to give three lectures next summer at Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve in Oregonia, Ohio. They will follow a common theme of, “Geologic Origins of Ohio Hopewell Artifacts.” I would highlight the possible origins of each raw material, examples of artifacts made from each material, locations of artifacts found in Ohio and the possible meaning of each. It will be a brief overview of this information but will draw upon the acknowledgement of the ability of the indigenous people to be very good geologists, artisans, traders, miners, etc. I plan to focus on Four Categories of Raw Materials: highlight the differences of the categories; identify location/provenance/geography of the raw materials; what does the raw material look like in outcrop; distance of transport; examples of crafted artifacts; possible meaning/utilization of artifacts.

1. Element - Example – Copper (Great Lakes).

2. Mineral - Example – Mica (Southern Appalachians).

3. Rock - Example – Obsidian (Yellowstone NP).

4. Fossil - Example - Shark Teeth (Chesapeake Bay).

I also plan to use a theme of the ancient Native Americans in Ohio were incredible “earth scientists and engineers.” (You could even highlight they were keen on STEM before STEM was cool!). Based on the material I have read from many sources and including the Ancient Ohio Trail website, I have summarized that they were characterized by some of the following things:

Aware & observant of surroundings - habitat setting (higher terraces for earthworks); soil types (agriculture and mound building material); high ridges for land trails; streams, rivers, creeks for water-borne transportation; atmospheric observations with focus on solar and lunar phases

Exploration - know what clues to look for, where to look and were curious; oral traditions passed down

Experimentation – e.g. - what type of clay makes the best pottery or what type of tempering additives made a difference to the pot tery; what kind of flint makes the best points; trial and error assessment of utility

Extraction - collect from surface or in streams; primitive engineering practices on following & mining veins of ore

Processing - make preforms to consolidate material in order to make it easier to transport

Transportation - hiking and/or canoeing; understanding topography and stream drainage patterns

Construction - build/create weapons, tools, implements, vessels, decorations, ritual objects; build and design massive and intricate Earthworks and engineer them to last

Artistry - effigy carvings in various earth materials; fashioning stencils, jewelry, using copper or silver or mica; painting using pig ments from selective minerals

Accurate units of measurement (mathematics and geometry; civil engineering/surveying)

Astronomical understanding of lunar, planet and star movements

Division of labor: manual laborer, farming, hunting, architects, craftsman, artisan efforts, etc.

Education/training by oral tradition and practice (original home schooling approach)

View the procurement of raw materials as a quest for power, prestige, maturity, etc.

Trade relationships - “supply chain” issues

WILLIAM “BILL” HARRISON

Harrison interview, 9/21/2021

https://news.yahoo.com/storing-carbon-dioxide-undergroundcurb-235500013.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb

GARY TAYLOR (MS ’74)

Editor’s note: Gary and his family live in Colorado where he is currently President of the Board of Directors of the Wet Mountain Broadcasting Corp/KLZR Radio in Westcliffe, CO, and is also a regular host on station KLZR (91.7), The Mountain Express Wednes days, 7:00-8:00 AM and Valley Views, an interview show.

Gary has soaked up music wherever he has lived, including Cleveland (rock, folk), Chicago (blues), New Orleans (Dixieland), Cincinnati (bluegrass) and Warsaw/Krakow (euro). Growing up in the tall shadow of Cleveland DJ “Moondog” Alan Freed, he was introduced to radio as a DJ for a schoolmate’s basement station in junior high.

He also works with the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival, coordinates the Summer in the Park concert series, and is an organizer of the High Peaks Music (Folk) Festival. With TC Smythe he has been part of the singer/songwriter duo Smythe & Taylor for the past 20 years, taking them from New York to San Francisco, Canada, London, Oxford, Paris, Poland, The Netherlands and Ireland.

In his past life he was a paleontologist and geologist and is pleased to be living on top of the Precambrian of the Wet Mountain Valley. He and Kathy will be celebrating 50 years of marriage this summer.

JOHN KUNDTZ

Thanks Warren, I am headed on a short vacation this week, so I will send the books down when I get back. I will also include the original photos if you like them as well - Now that I have digital copies, I would be happy to part with the originals. Speaking of ties and jackets, I found this picture from one of Wayne’s Modern Sedimentology Field Trips to Florida. Much different dress code from Paul’s Class! Brings back good memories ...

Take care, Stay Safe and Healthy, John

STEPHEN D. MEYERS (MS ’77)

Published in the Cincinnati Enquirer, April 29, 2022

Obituary

Stephen D. Meyers of Goshen. Beloved husband of 45 years to Helen (nee Young) Mey ers. Cherished father of Stephanie Meyers (William Ingstrup). Proud grandfather of George Ingstrup. Dearest son-in-law of June Young. Dear brother-in-law of Rosemary Young. Cher ished friend, admired teacher, and mentor to many. Brilliant scientist. Passed away April 27, 2022 at the age of 72. Family and friends will be received Thursday, May 5 from 10:30-11:30 AM at St. Columban Church, 894 Oakland Rd., Loveland, where Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11:30 AM. Interment Gate of Heaven Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, plant a tree in his honor. tuftsschildmeyer.com

TheoffshoreMancosplayinthe SanJuanBasinasacomponent oftheMancostotal petroleumsystem

RonaldF.Broadhead

ABSTRACT

Historically,theoffshoreMancosplayoftheSanJuanBasinhas producedoilfromnoncommercialtomarginallycommercialreservoirsconsistingofdark-graymarineshalewiththinbedsand laminaeof fine-grainedsandstoneoflimitedpermeability.During thelastdecade,horizontaldrillingwithhorizontalwellshas resultedinsubstantiallyincreasedproduction.However,placementoftheoffshoreMancosplaywithintheMancostotalpetroleumsystemhasbeenpoorlyunderstood.Here,theoffshore MancosplayisinterpretedasacarrierbedplaywithintheMancos totalpetroleumsystem.

UnconventionalreservoirsoftheoffshoreMancosplayare stratigraphicallyequivalenttoupdipconventionalreservoirs depositednearertotheshorelineandtodowndipsourcerocks maturedtopeakoilgeneration.OffshoreMancosfaciesinclude aproximalfaciestothesouthwest,amedialfacies,andadistal faciestothenortheast.Oilproductionhasbeenobtainedfrom theproximalandmedialfacies.

Mancosshalescontainoil-generativekerogensthatarewithin theupperoilwindownearconventionalreservoirsinthesouth andhavematuredtopeakoilgenerationdowndipofandtothe northeastoftheoffshoreMancosreservoirs.UniformAPIgravities oflightsweetproducedoilsthattranscendthermalmaturityvariationsofMancosshalesindicatethatoilsgeneratedindowndip maturesourcerocksmigratedupdipthroughthecarrierbedsandstonesoftheoffshoreplayandintotheconventionalreservoirs. Residualoilsaturationsareconsistentwiththeconceptofmigratingoilsmovingupdipthroughonlyasmallnumberofinterconnectedpathwayswithinacarrierbed.

AUTHOR

RonaldF.Broadhead Emeritus,New MexicoBureauofGeologyandMineral Resources,NewMexicoInstituteofMining andTechnology(NewMexicoTech), Socorro,NewMexico;ron.broadhead@ nmt.edu

RonF.Broadhead,emeritusprincipal petroleumgeologistatNewMexicoTech, studiedshalesunderPaulPotteratthe UniversityofCincinnatiandsubsequently workedforCitiesServiceOilCo.inOklahoma. From1981untilretirementin2020,he workedfortheNewMexicoBureauof Geology,adivisionofNewMexicoTech,asa petroleumgeologist,wherehealsotaught petroleumgeology.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TwoanonymousAAPGreviewers,John Breyer,andFrancesWhitehurst(AAPG technicalgeologiceditor)reviewedthepaper andofferedhelpfulandsubstantive suggestions.Theirreviewsareappreciated.

DATASHARE135

Crosssectionsareavailableinanelectronic versionontheAAPGwebsite(www.aapg.org/ datashare)asDatashare135.

Copyright 2021.TheAmericanAssociationofPetroleumGeologists.Allrightsreserved. ManuscriptreceivedMarch11,2020;provisionalacceptanceApril30,2020;revisedmanuscriptreceived September15,2020;

nalacceptanceNovember19,2020.

DOI:10.1306/01152120038

AAPGBulletin,v.105,no.9(September2021),pp.1765

STEPHEN REIDEL (BS ’70, MS ’72)

(A note sent to Prof. Tom Algeo)

Hi,

I was just looking at your webpage for Geology. You did a great job with it. I received my BS in 1970 and MS in 72. I really enjoyed the ‘4-day field trips’ page. I was on 3 of them and they were great learning experi ences. I shocked my wife with my picture in the photo from 1967. I had just started geology after transfer ring from physics. I was taking Warren’s into class and Frank’s mineralogy but because I was a junior, I was t old I should go. It was a great field trip and combined with Warrens and Frank’s classes, I was hooked; I knew geology was for me. I retired from the Pacific NW National lab in 2008 and became an adjunct at the branch campus for Washington State University; I just ‘retired’ from that. Your webpage reminded me how great the UC Geology department is and how much I learned from great faculty. I was really surprised to see Attila still teaching but glad to see it. I learned Thermo and ore geochemistry from him which were really great classes. Keep up the great work

Alumni 1980’s

GEORGE LOSONSKY (MS ’83, PHD ’92)

Hi Warren, yes I’m still in Baton Rouge. My young est son lives here too, he works as an environmental dr iller. My older son is a chef in Chicago, where he spent 7 years working for Grant Achatz at Alinea and related restaurants. He’s a Kent State graduate. My oldest, Nadia lives in Austin where she does land scaping/gardening. So two out of three inherited the “I want to work outside” bug from dad.

The two pics are: Nissan stadium after the game on January 22, and Geha (Arrow head) Stadium after the game on Januar y 30.

George Losonsky, PhD, PG

BILL HANEBERG (MS ’85, PHD ’89)

is the lead author on a report of potential radon exposure in Kentucky. And Sarah Derouin (PhD ’08) has de scribed the publication in an article published in EOS. It’s an interesting mix of geoscience and health. R ead the entire article: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GH000263

RESEARCHARTICLE

10.1029/2020GH000263

RESEARCHARTICLE

10.1029/2020GH000263

KeyPoints: BedrockgeologicunitsinKentucky havelithologicallycontrolled indoor radonpotential

KeyPoints:

• BedrockgeologicunitsinKentucky havelithologicallycontrolled indoor radonpotential

• Carbonatesedimentaryrocks generallyhavehigherindoor radon potentialthannonshaleclastic sedimentsandsedimentaryrocks

• Carbonatesedimentaryrocks generallyhavehigherindoor radon potentialthannonshaleclastic sedimentsandsedimentaryrocks

• Weusedgeologicmapcoverageand radontestresultstoproducean interactivestatewideindoor radon potentialmapfornonspecialists

AGeologicallyBasedIndoor RadonPotential MapofKentucky

AGeologicallyBasedIndoor RadonPotential MapofKentucky

WilliamC.Haneberg1 ,AmandaWiggins2 ,DouglasC.Curl1 ,StephenF.Greb1 , WilliamM.AndrewsJr.1 ,KathyRademacher2 ,MaryKayRayens2 ,andEllenJ.Hahn2,3

1KentuckyGeologicalSurvey,UniversityofKentucky,Lexington,KY,USA, 2BREATHE,CollegeofNursing,Universityof Kentucky,Lexington,KY,USA, 3CenterforAppalachianResearchinEnvironmentalSciences,UniversityofKentucky, Lexington,KY,USA

WilliamC.Haneberg1 ,AmandaWiggins2 ,DouglasC.Curl1 ,StephenF.Greb1 , WilliamM.AndrewsJr.1 ,KathyRademacher2 ,MaryKayRayens2 ,andEllenJ.Hahn2,3

1KentuckyGeologicalSurvey,UniversityofKentucky,Lexington,KY,USA, 2BREATHE,CollegeofNursing,Universityof Kentucky,Lexington,KY,USA, 3CenterforAppalachianResearchinEnvironmentalSciences,UniversityofKentucky, Lexington,KY,USA

SupportingInformation:

• SupportingInformationS1

• TableS1

• Weusedgeologicmapcoverageand radontestresultstoproducean interactivestatewideindoor radon potentialmapfornonspecialists

SupportingInformation:

• SupportingInformationS1

• TableS1

Correspondenceto: W.C.Haneberg, bill.haneberg@uky.edu

Correspondenceto: W.C.Haneberg, bill.haneberg@uky.edu

Citation: Haneberg,W.C.,Wiggins,A., Curl,D.C.,Greb,S.F.,Andrews, W.M.Jr.,Rademacher,K.,etal.(2020). Ageologicallybasedindoor radon potentialmapofKentucky. GeoHealth, 4,e2020GH000263.https://doi.org/ 10.1029/2020GH000263

Received27APR2020

Accepted2NOV2020 Acceptedarticleonline10NOV2020

Citation: Haneberg,W.C.,Wiggins,A., Curl,D.C.,Greb,S.F.,Andrews, W.M.Jr.,Rademacher,K.,etal.(2020). Ageologicallybasedindoor radon potentialmapofKentucky. GeoHealth, 4,e2020GH000263.https://doi.org/ 10.1029/2020GH000263

AuthorContributions:

Conceptualization: EllenJ.Hahn

Received27APR2020

Datacuration: DouglasC.Curl

Accepted2NOV2020 Acceptedarticleonline10NOV2020

AuthorContributions:

Formalanalysis: WilliamC. Haneberg,AmandaWiggins,Stephen F.Greb,KathyRademacher,MaryKay Rayens

Conceptualization: EllenJ.Hahn

Fundingacquisition: EllenJ.Hahn

Datacuration: DouglasC.Curl

Investigation: StephenF.Greb, WilliamM.AndrewsJr.

Formalanalysis: WilliamC. Haneberg,AmandaWiggins,Stephen F.Greb,KathyRademacher,MaryKay Rayens

Fundingacquisition: EllenJ.Hahn

Methodology: WilliamC.Haneberg, AmandaWiggins,DouglasC.Curl, StephenF.Greb,WilliamM.Andrews Jr.,KathyRademacher,MaryKay Rayens,EllenJ.Hahn

Abstract Wecombined71,930short term(medianduration4days)homeradontestresultswith 1:24,000 scalebedrockgeologicmapcoverageofKentuckytoproduceastatewidegeologicallybased indoor radonpotentialmap.Thetestresultswerepositivelyskewedwithameanof266Bq/m3,medianof 122Bq/m3,and75thpercentileof289Bq/m3.Weidentified106formationswith ≥10testresults. Analysisofresultsfrom20predominantlymonolithologicformationsshowedindoor radonconcentrations tobepositivelyskewedonaformation by formationbasis,withaproportionalrelationshipbetween samplemeansandstandarddeviations.Limestone(median170Bq/m3)anddolostone(median130Bq/m3) tendedtohavehigherindoor radonconcentrationsthansiltstonesandsandstones(median67Bq/m3) orunlithifiedsurficialdeposits(median63Bq/m3).Individualshaleshadmedianvaluesrangingfrom67to 189Bq/m3;themedianvalueforallshalevalueswas85Bq/m3.Percentagesofvaluesfallingabovethe U.S.EnvironmentalProtectionAgency(EPA)actionlevelof148Bq/m3 weresandstoneandsiltstone:24%, unlithifiedclastic:21%,dolostone:46%,limestone:55%,andshale:34%.Mississippianlimestones, Ordovicianlimestones,andDevonianblackshaleshadthehighestindoor radonpotentialvalues inKentucky.Indoor radontestmeanvaluesfortheselectedformationswerealsoweakly,butstatistically significantly,correlatedwithmeanaeroradiometricuraniumconcentrations.Toproduceamapusefulto nonspecialists,weclassifiedeachofthe106formationsinto fiveradon geologicclassesonthebasis oftheir75thpercentileradonconcentrations.Thestatewidemapisfreelyavailablethroughaninteractive internetmapservice.

Abstract Wecombined71,930short term(medianduration4days)homeradontestresultswith 1:24,000 scalebedrockgeologicmapcoverageofKentuckytoproduceastatewidegeologicallybased indoor radonpotentialmap.Thetestresultswerepositivelyskewedwithameanof266Bq/m3,medianof 122Bq/m3,and75thpercentileof289Bq/m3.Weidentified106formationswith ≥10testresults. Analysisofresultsfrom20predominantlymonolithologicformationsshowedindoor radonconcentrations tobepositivelyskewedonaformation by formationbasis,withaproportionalrelationshipbetween samplemeansandstandarddeviations.Limestone(median170Bq/m3)anddolostone(median130Bq/m3) tendedtohavehigherindoor radonconcentrationsthansiltstonesandsandstones(median67Bq/m3) orunlithifiedsurficialdeposits(median63Bq/m3).Individualshaleshadmedianvaluesrangingfrom67to 189Bq/m3;themedianvalueforallshalevalueswas85Bq/m3.Percentagesofvaluesfallingabovethe U.S.EnvironmentalProtectionAgency(EPA)actionlevelof148Bq/m3 weresandstoneandsiltstone:24%, unlithifiedclastic:21%,dolostone:46%,limestone:55%,andshale:34%.Mississippianlimestones, Ordovicianlimestones,andDevonianblackshaleshadthehighestindoor radonpotentialvalues inKentucky.Indoor radontestmeanvaluesfortheselectedformationswerealsoweakly,butstatistically significantly,correlatedwithmeanaeroradiometricuraniumconcentrations.Toproduceamapusefulto nonspecialists,weclassifiedeachofthe106formationsinto fiveradon geologicclassesonthebasis oftheir75thpercentileradonconcentrations.Thestatewidemapisfreelyavailablethroughaninteractive internetmapservice.

PlainLanguageSummary Exposuretohighlevelsofradonisthesecondleadingcauseoflung cancerintheUnitedStatesandgreatlyincreasesthelikelihoodoflungcancerinpeoplewhoarealso exposedtotobaccosmoke.Producedbytheradioactivedecayofnaturallyoccurringuraniuminrocks,radon gasmigratesintohomeswhereitanditsradioactivedecayproductscanbeinhaledbyhumans.We knowthatdifferentkindsofbedrockproducedifferentamountsofradon.Toillustratethedangerposedby indoorradoninKentucky,wecombinedresultsfrom71,930radonhometestkitswithgeologicmaps showingdifferentkindsofbedrockandproducedageologicallybasedandhighlyinteractiveindoor radon potentialmapofKentucky.Ourmapisavailableasaweb basedinteractiveservicehostedbytheKentucky GeologicalSurveyandrequiresonlyadesktopormobilewebbrowsertouse.Themapalsoincludeslinksto supplementalinformationthatuserscanaccesstobetterunderstandtheindoor radondangerintheir counties,encouragethemtohavetheirhomestested,and,ifappropriate,mitigatetheproblem.

PlainLanguageSummary Exposuretohighlevelsofradonisthesecondleadingcauseoflung cancerintheUnitedStatesandgreatlyincreasesthelikelihoodoflungcancerinpeoplewhoarealso exposedtotobaccosmoke.Producedbytheradioactivedecayofnaturallyoccurringuraniuminrocks,radon gasmigratesintohomeswhereitanditsradioactivedecayproductscanbeinhaledbyhumans.We knowthatdifferentkindsofbedrockproducedifferentamountsofradon.Toillustratethedangerposedby indoorradoninKentucky,wecombinedresultsfrom71,930radonhometestkitswithgeologicmaps showingdifferentkindsofbedrockandproducedageologicallybasedandhighlyinteractiveindoor radon potentialmapofKentucky.Ourmapisavailableasaweb basedinteractiveservicehostedbytheKentucky GeologicalSurveyandrequiresonlyadesktopormobilewebbrowsertouse.Themapalsoincludeslinksto

1.Introduction

(continued)

Investigation: StephenF.Greb, WilliamM.AndrewsJr.

Methodology: WilliamC.Haneberg, AmandaWiggins,DouglasC.Curl, StephenF.Greb,WilliamM.Andrews Jr.,KathyRademacher,MaryKay Rayens,EllenJ.Hahn (continued)

©2020.TheAuthors. Thisisanopenaccessarticleunderthe termsoftheCreativeCommons Attribution NonCommercialLicense, whichpermitsuse,distributionand reproductioninanymedium,provided theoriginalworkisproperlycitedand isnotusedforcommercialpurposes.

Thisisanopenaccessarticleunderthe termsoftheCreativeCommons

Attribution NonCommercialLicense, whichpermitsuse,distributionand reproductioninanymedium,provided theoriginalworkisproperlycitedand isnotusedforcommercialpurposes.

radondangerintheir counties,encouragethemtohavetheirhomestested,and,ifappropriate,mitigatetheproblem.

1.Introduction

Morethan225,000newcasesoflungcancerandalmost143,000deathsfromlungcancerwereestimatedto haveoccurredin2019intheUnitedStates(AmericanCancerSociety,2019).Radongas ageogeniccarcinogenproducedbytheradioactivedecayofnaturallyoccurringuraniuminrocksandsediments isthesecondleadingcauseoflungcancerintheUnitedStates(Al Zoughool&Krewski,2009).Exposuretoboth radonandtobaccosmokeincreasestheprobabilityoflungcancer:Thelifetimeriskofradon inducedlung cancerwhenexposedto148Bq/m3 ofindoorradonis62per1,000eversmokerscomparedto7per1,000 neversmokers(Mendezetal.,2011;U.S.EnvironmentalProtectionAgency,2009).Amongneversmokers, exposuretoradonmaybemoreharmfulforthoseexposedtosecondhandsmoke(Lagardeetal.,2001). Recentstudieshavealsosuggestedrelationshipsbetweenradonexposureandbothbreastcancerriskand

Morethan225,000newcasesoflungcancerandalmost143,000deathsfromlungcancerwereestimatedto haveoccurredin2019intheUnitedStates(AmericanCancerSociety,2019).Radongas ageogeniccarcinogenproducedbytheradioactivedecayofnaturallyoccurringuraniuminrocksandsediments isthesecondleadingcauseoflungcancerintheUnitedStates(Al Zoughool&Krewski,2009).Exposuretoboth radonandtobaccosmokeincreasestheprobabilityoflungcancer:Thelifetimeriskofradon inducedlung cancerwhenexposedto148Bq/m3 ofindoorradonis62per1,000eversmokerscomparedto7per1,000 neversmokers(Mendezetal.,2011;U.S.EnvironmentalProtectionAgency,2009).Amongneversmokers, exposuretoradonmaybemoreharmfulforthoseexposedtosecondhandsmoke(Lagardeetal.,2001). Recentstudieshavealsosuggestedrelationshipsbetweenradonexposureandbothbreastcancerriskand

JAMES A. HARRELL (PHD ’83)

Professor Emeritus of Geology, Department of Environmental Sciences, T he University of Toledo Hi Warren,

It is good to hear from you. I hope you are well. Yes, of course, you can mention the New Yorker article. It’s funny though, I get more attention from an off-hand re mark I make to a journalist with the New Yorker than I do for any of the papers I publish in professional journals. I guess I should be happy with the notoriety any way I can get it. By the way, my big news is that I just finished the book I’ve been writing these past several years, “Archae ology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian St ones”, and this will be published as a two-volume box set by the University of Toledo Press sometime in the latter half of 2022. I’m not done yet with Egypt -I head back there for more fieldwork in late October.

With best regards, Jim Harrell

For the entire article:

https://www.newyorker.com/maga zine/2021/08/30/did-spacemen-or-peo ple-with-ramps-build-the-pyramids

(BS ’80)

Did Spacemen, or People with Ramps, Build the Pyramids?

By Ben McGrath

August 23, 2021

S

cholars generally suppose that the ancient Egyptians built pyramids, those mysterious toil, with the help of earthen ramps buttressed by mud bricks. Pyramid stones are heavy, tons apiece, on average. A nice draggable slope could explain how, if not exactly why, people toward the sky, without cranes or internal combustion. Count Elon Musk among the skeptics pyramids obv.,” he tweeted last year), along with Roger Larsen, a former newspaper editor Though not a conspiracy theorist, Larsen likes to say that, given a choice between an explanation “I’d have to go with aliens,” noting that an eight-per-cent incline leading to the top of the Great would need to be more than a mile long, its volume possibly exceeding that of the pyramid all the debris go after demolition?

Like many amateur Egyptologists, Larsen, who was a woodworker before founding Mississippi’s the Columbus Packet, has his own construction theories, nurtured over hundreds, if not thousands, and tinkering, and he has gone so far as to fashion a homemade device that he thinks could enabling lifting rather than dragging. It resembles a mashup of a giant wooden rowing machine

Elon Musk said aliens did it (“obv.”), but an amateur Egyptologist in Mississippi tested out a homemade lever gizmo to lift a two-ton block.

New Species of Fossil Named After Geology

Robert Gaines

MARK KREKELER (BS ’95, MS ’98)

Editor’s note: Mark Krekeler’s geotechnology research is highlighted in Scientific American, https://bit. ly/3OwMu4B. The project was funded by the National Institute of Justice and has involved several Miami students and staff. Attached is a photo of Mark and his lab assistants.

ADVANCES

Remote Rescue

Reflected light can reveal forensic details far below a drone

Volunteers sometimes spend months trudging through remote terrain to search for lost hikers or crime victims. But a new tool could soon pinpoint forensic evidence from the sky instead. By identifying how traces of blood and other human signs reflect light when found on various natural surfaces, the scientists say searchers will be able to quickly scour large areas for clues about missing persons—dead or alive—using images acquired by drones.

Special drone-mounted sensors can record wavelength intensity for the entire electromagnetic spectrum (rather than just the red, green and blue of a typical camera) in each pixel of an image. Geologists routinely use this tech nology to pinpoint mineral deposits. Mark Krekeler, a mineralogist at Miami University in Ohio, and his col- leagues r ealized that the same approach, supported by the right spectral data library, could potentially detect forensic evidence.

To build their tool, the researchers measured how human-related features, including blood, sweaty clothing and skin tones, reflect different wavelengths of light. Previous studies have examined such reflective “signatures” to identify blood, “but the signature depends on the surface itself and may change over time,” Krekeler says. He and his team analyzed thousands of samples, such as bloodstains on different rock types, recording how they changed as the blood dried.

The researchers customized software that mixes the known reflective signatures of various surfaces to reproduce a target of interest. For example, rock and clothing sig- natures can be combined to seek a hiker lost in the mountains, or a blood sig nature can be mixed with those of clothing and sand t o search for a wounded person in a desert.

The software estimates whether the target exists in any pixel in an image. It can distinguish between an animal and a human in dense forest, search a cityscape for evidence of a specific person in a blue cotton dress, or determine whether soil is stained Rescue drone by blood or diesel fuel, Krekeler says. His team was slated to present its work at the Geological Society of America’s meeting of the North-Central Section in April. Wendy Calvin, a planetary scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who was not involved with the study, calls it “an interesting and novel use of spectral data— and the technique looks promising.” But she says it could be chal lenging to use from afar because of how much of a substance would likely be needed to show up in a pixel.

W ithin months, officials will be able to download and test the tool for themselves. Developing best-practice proto cols for search teams could make such technology routine for investigations and forensics, Krekeler says. As drones and sensors bec ome more widespread, he adds, they can transform investigations that are currently costly, laborintensive or even impossible. —Rachel Berkowitz

Alumni 2000’s

POSTED ON FACEBOOK BY ALEX BARTHOLOMEW

Great couple of days in the field with some great folks! Here’s a pic of four Carlton Brett students out doing some fieldwork in the Low er Devonian of eastern N.Y. (L-R): Chuck Ver Str aten, Pat McLaughlin, Jocelyn Sessa, and myself. Thanks to Paul Griggs for the great tour and help! Chuck and I are holding blocks of the Lower Devonian (Pragian?) Connelly Conglom erate with large phosphatic concretions and quar tz pebbles, stratigraphically sitting on the Wallbridge Unconformity. Cementon, N.Y.

JANET BERTOG (PHD ’02)

As some of you might know, our former student Janet Bertog (PhD ’02) has established a very successful lapidary and jewelry business in Utah. Her website is https://heathercanyon.com.

RONALD COUNTS (PHD ’13)

https://news.olemiss.edu/geologists-investigategeological-history-of-nations-capital/

Graduate students Kristian Macias (left) and Jodi Messick and Ron Counts, MMRI associate director, dig in the Smithsonian National Zoo to collect a gravel sample for age dating. Photo by Thomas Graning/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

SARAH DEROUIN (PHD ’08)

Things are fine here-- I recently started a new job at the University of Michigan. I’m the Public Relations Spe cialist for the School of Information. UMSI faculty and researchers use information and technology to solve pr oblems. I write about the cool research projects and interdisciplinary work on topics ranging from educa tion, to environment, to security. It’s been a fun change and really interesting to tell the stories of people tr ying to make the world a better place.

https://eos.org/articles/detailed-geologic-mapping-helps-identify-health-hazards

Detailed Geologic Mapping Helps Identify Health Hazards

A team of geologists and nursing researchers created an interactive radon hazard map for Kentucky residents—and it was possible only because of the high-resolution bedrock mapping in the state.

Geologically based indoor radon potential

becquerels

cubic

of Kentucky.

https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GH000263, CC BY 4.0

By Sarah Derouin ! 7 hours ago

Haneberg et al.,

It sounds like the beginning of a joke: What do you get when you put a

risk—and

the same

the

is no laughing matter for Kentuckians. Although smoking itself is a well-known

Alumni 2010’s

CATHERINE DUNN (MS ’16)

Laboratory Manager, Stanford University

I manage the Cosmogenic Isotope Laboratory and co-manage the laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) lab in the Stanford Isotope Geochemistry Measurement & Analysis Facility.

I previously ran the Earth Materials Laboratory (mineral separation, rock preparation, and cosmogenic nuclide labo ratories), which involved health & safety and hands-on equipment training for all lab users.

I ha ve inventoried and modernized the equipment and procedures in the Earth Materials Lab and managed the chemical inventories. I have also been involved with school-level space planning and design of new laboratories.

DANIELLE BULLOCK Health, Safety, Security, Environment (HSSE) Coordinator at World Fuel Services

JULIA WISE O’SHEA (MS ’12, PHD ’16)

Julia and her husband Brian P. O’Shea are delighted to announce the arrival of their son Brannan Wise O’Shea born January 13th, 2021. “He’s 6 months old yesterday (7/13/2021), vocal, opinionated, curi ous, and joyful. He is also very dubious of solid foods.”

LAUREN WASSERSTROM (BA ’12, MS ’14)

I recently started a new position as the National Practice Leader for Lead and Copper Rule Compliance at Jacobs Engineering. In this role, I am responsible for assisting utilities implement the new Lead and Copper Rule requirements that controls lead and copper levels in drinking water and developing the overall compliance strategy for the firm. The regulation was recently updated and there are substantial changes in the rule that will make it challenging for many water systems across the country to meet the new requirements. It is a very exciting and eventful time to be involved in lead!

Prior to joining Jacobs, I spent the past 3.5 years working for the Greater Cincinnati Water Works overseeing the lead corrosion control program and monitoring drinking water quality in the distribution system. There are so many different avenues to apply geology and the water industry is such a wonderful field where you can help protect public health. I hope everyone in the department is doing well. I look forward to staying in touch and hearing what others are up to in the newsletter!

SONIA K. SANCHEZ-LOHFF (MS ’16)

1stProduct (UX/UI) Designer | Geologist turned Designer

With thanksgiving having just passed us by and the new year on the horizon, I thought it would be a good time to share that I have officially graduated from the Springboard program with my UX/UI Design Career Track Certification!

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to take this past year to learn a whole new skill set, an opportunity which I am aware not everyone is afforded. If you had asked me a year and a half ago where I would be, I would never have guessed it would be in a new city with a new career. The global pandemic has forced many of us to adapt, and I am grateful for this call to action and where it has led me.

I have many people to thank for instilling the confidence in me to take this leap: Nicole DeGabriel, Adrian Sanchez, Miguel Sanchez, Jenni Loveless, and Samantha Miller to name a few. Thank you for your constant encouragement and support throughout this journey.

I have met some wonderful friends and colleagues along the way: Neha Roy, Ranae Fithian, Kyssha M., Andrea Rule, and Buddy C.. Thank you for keeping me sane with our occasional chats throughout the course and for all your help with impromptu usability tests!

Thank you, Werner Griesel for keeping me grounded and informed with our weekly mentor calls. You really helped me get unstuck when I was at an impasse and always provided helpful real-world insights in the form of a humorous analogy (a highly underrated educational tool, in my opinion).

Ashlynne Cochran, thanks for helping me stay on track with my goal and for all your guidance! You were always so helpful. To Springboard students out there- lean on your student advisors for support!

I’m looking forward to my next steps as we near the mark of yet another full rotation around the sun! 2021 was such a transformative year, let’s see what 2022 will bring!

UI/UX Design Career Track • Sonia Sanchez Lohff • Springboard

of my childhood

forest

house

escaping for hours into

out

Since I

natural

forward ten years, where I am entering college at

Alumni 2020’s

RACHEL BOSCH

Announcing this year’s GSA Karst Division Awards: Early Career Scientist Award-Dr. Rachel Bosch

WESLEY PARKER (10/14/21) Hey Facebookland, long post ahead but it’s announcement time!

As many of you know, I’ve been living in Montreal and working as a Postdoctoral Fellow since July 2020. In that time, I’ve fallen in love with Quebecois culture, the stunning beauty of Canada, and with Mathieu Allard. I have also, simultaneously, fallen out of love with academia. So about 6 months ago I started applying for a range of professional opportunities around the world, and a few weeks ago I was awarded one.

So, it is with great excitement—but no small amount of sadness—that I announce I will be leaving Montreal at the end of the year to pursue a permanent job with the KPMG Climate Change Risk and Decarbonization Strategy team in London, UK. I don’t have an exact start date yet (due to visa processing delays) but my new bosses and I project it will be sometime in January. So, I plan to spend the winter holidays with my family in Pennsylvania and Ohio and will be departing for England shortly after the New Year.

I am also incredibly fortunate to announce that Mathieu has applied for, and has received, a visa to live and work in the UK as well, and that we will be relocating across the pond together. I must admit I take great comfort in the fact that I will not be making this intercontinental move alone, and I am eager to see where our adventures take us in the coming months.

I am also so grateful for all the friends and memories I have made in Montreal, and for the love and support of my family and friends back in the US. This is a big new adventure, and I’m honestly a bit petrified sometimes, but I’ve got an amazing network of people behind me and I’m excited to follow this new road wherever it may lead.

God Save the Queen

Department of Geology Donors

Eugene J. Amaral

Ronald F. Broadhead

Leland W. Burton

Katherine D. Cosgrove

Robert J. Elias

Janet M. Elliott

Frank R. Ettensohn

Robert A. Ferree

Mark and Connie Fisher

Linda P. Fulton

Janet G. Gasper

Evelyn M. Goebel

Wayne R. Goodman

William L. Harmon

Marzena Jaminski

Lawrence P. Karasevich

S Duff Kerr

Elizabeth A. Krebes

Jennifer J. Krueger

George Losonsky

Brian L. Nicklen

Lewis A. Owen

Abigail E. Padgett

Mary L. Pojeta

Eric M. Redder

Stephen P. Reidel

Cornelia K. Riley

Edgar W. Roeser

Tod W. Roush

Jocelyn A. Sessa

Frederick C. Shaw

Frederick E. Simms

James T. Teller

Mary T. Uhl

Roy B. Van Arsdale

Victor V. Van Beuren

William A. Van Wie

Vanguard Charitable

Steven M. Warshauer

Stephen G. Wells

John M. Wunder

of Geology

University of Cincinnati

Cincinnati, OH

PAID Cincinnati, OH Permit No. 133