drawal, primarily rice farming, in southwest Louisiana shows that subsidence can occur even if there is no long term drop in water levels. Nunn and Tsai in CEE plan to submit an NSF grants to study subsidence associated with fluid withdrawal. Nunn presented work on Google Earth at a workshop at Google’s headquarters in January. He plans to create additional graphical information on Louisiana water usage that will be available online. Nunn continues his long-term collaboration with Hanor on fluid flow and solute transport involving several students working in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Slope of Alaska. Nunn has two new students working on seismic amplitude analysis of data sets donated by industry. Other activities of note include overseeing the ADG program and LSU’s Imperial Barrel Award team, which finished second out of ten teams in the GCAGS regional competition in 2011.
Sophie Warny Sophie Warny is an assistant professor of palynology in the department and curator at LSU’s Museum of Natural Science. She has received one of the most prestigious awards handed out by the National Science Foundation – its CAREER Award, meant to support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher, mentor, and scholar through outstanding research, scholarship, and educational outreach. Warny’s research focuses on climate change in the historical past of Antarctica. Already, Warny and her research team have discovered a previously unknown Antarctic warm period approximately 15.7 million years ago through the analysis of frozen fossils of pollen and spores, called palynomorphs. The $582,000 that comes with this award shows how important this research is. Warny’s research group is composed of two PhD students, Kate Griener and Marie Thomas. Kate and Marie's research is supported thanks to a generous fellowship from Marathon. Kate works on coupled isotopic and palynological analysis of the Nothofagus genus, as this genus is one of the last ones that survived the climate deterioration in Antarctica. Marie will use palynomorphs to study sedimentary systems offshore Papua New Guinea, a project in collaboration with Dr. Sam Bentley. Warny also has four master's students. Kevin Jensen is conducting a biostratigraphic study of the Eocene/Oligocene boundary at St. Stephen Quarry in Alabama; this project is done in collaboration with BP. Carlos Santos and Sandra Garzon are conducting a palynostratigraphic analysis of upper Cretaceous formations in the Middle Magdalena Valley Basin,
in Colombia. The Middle Magdalena Valley Basin is one of the most productive oil basins in Colombia. Their projects is a collaboration between Warny's lab, Ecopetrol, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Since starting on tenure-track in the department three years ago, she graduated two master's students, Russell Crouch and Lee Foersterling who are now employed with EDG and Devon, respectively. Warny also co-advises one PhD student, Dr. Rebecca Tedford, who is now a biostratigrapher with BP in Houston. Since at LSU, Warny has raised $1,721,140 in grants to support her laboratory. She recently remodeled CENEX, the Center for Excellence in Palynology at LSU.
Alex Webb Please refer to featured article on pages 10.
Carol Wicks Carol Wicks is a professor in the Department of Geology & Geophysics and continues to integrate studies of ecology, geochemistry, and fluid flow in karstic basins. Wicks’ research group includes two PhD candidates, Ben Maas and Randy Paylor, one Master student, Scott TIpple, and one undergraduate major, Ed Lo. Ben is focusing his research efforts on the geochemistry of saline water issuing from springs along the Bromide fault near Bromide Oklahoma. Ben has completed several sampling trips and will write his proposal during fall 2011. Randy is focusing on sediment transport processes in sediment-depleted and sediment-rich cave streams. Randy has a proposal pending with the National Science Foundation and received funding from Geological Society of America. Scott will focus on numerical modeling of dual-density flow along the saline water – fresh water mixing region in the karstic Edwards Aquifer. Scott is funded by GSA, AAPG, and GCAGS. During summer 2011, Scott was a teaching assistant at Field Camp. This will be Scott’s fourth summer at Camp – once in Freshman Camp, Senior Camp, and twice a TA! Ed started in the research group in January 2011. He quickly learned how to operate the laboratory’s ion chromatograph and helped Ben with sample analyses. Ed spent Summer 2011 participating in an NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates at Georgia Tech where he studied flow dynamics around free swimming copepods.
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