LSU Geology & Geophysics 2014-15 Alumni Magazine

the

2014-15

Alumni Magazine L OUISIANA S TATE U NIVERSITY G EOLOGY & G EOPHYSICS

Department of Geology & Geophysics

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ABOUT THIS ISSUE: CONTRIBUTORS: Rachel Miner Carol Wicks Megan Borel Austin McGlannan Bethany Martinez Geology & Geophysics Faculty

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YEAR IN REVIEW

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ANARCTICA EXPEDITION

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MEET OUR STUDENTS

Send Alumni News and Updates to: Alumni Magazine LSU Geology & Geophysics E235 Howe Russell Kniffen Bldg Baton Rouge, LA 70803

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STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

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MUSEUM HALL

PHONE: 225-578-3353 FAX: 225-578-2302 EMAIL: geology@lsu.edu

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FIELD CAMP

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CLIFT’S CRUISE

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LSU IN PARIS

DESIGNER: Rachel Miner Information is correct at press time.

Check geology.lsu.edu for updates.

The LSU Geology & Geophysics Alumni Magazine is published in the fall of each year and reflects news and events occurring between July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015.

All rights reserved.

ON THE COVER: Metamorphic Rocks at Goat Lake, Sawtooth Mountains, ID

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CONTENTS:

20 FACULTY DIGEST

FROM THE CHAIR’S DESK Greetings! As I write this message to you, the fall 2015 semester has started. Students are back and classes are underway.

After several years of serving as dean of the Graduate School, Dr. Gary Byerly has retired from LSU. This past summer, Dr. Byerly spent three weeks in South Africa with his Stanford and European colleagues and students. Dr. Byerly holds a Blaustein Fellowship from Stanford for this academic year.

We are welcoming twe new faculty members, Dr. Guangsheng Zhuang and Dr. Carol Wilson, to LSU G&G this fall. Both use geochronological approaches in their research programs. Dr. Zhuang focuses on the Himalaya and South China Sea. Dr. Wilson focuses on Ganges - Brahmaputra River Delta.

Please see the stand-alone articles about their research programs that are published in this magazine.

Drs. Wilson aand Zhuang have helped us add courses to our teaching portfolio, including Advanced Sedimentology that Dr. Zhaung is teaching this fall. Dr. Wilson has field work planned for the fall (a trip to Brahmaputra), she will begin teaching in spring 2016.

The AAPG convention was held in Denver this past spring; I enjoyed meeting with you at our “2015 AAPG Alumni Reception.” I enjoy the alumni reception as I have an opportunity to speak with you directly. While in Denver, I also enjoyed hosting a small group of alumni for a one day trip to field camp.

This was a group composed of some of the members of the department’s alumni council who had made significant gifts to the renovation of the student cabins. We toured lower camp, checked out the Dining Hall Multi-purpose Building, and walked to upper camp. I think that the people on the tour were pleased with the renovations and enjoyed reminiscing about their days at camp.

The enrollment in our programs (BS, MS, and PhD) are staying high. Finding rooms and times for all the necessary labs is getting difficult; however, that is a good problem to have!

Our 2015 IBA Team represented LSU G&G well. I was the team advisor, and I want to thank Jeff Nunn and Kelly Poret for serving as the team’s industry mentors. As with previous teams, the 2015 team noted that the learning experience was very rewarding and challenging. I am looking forward to working with our 2016 LSU G&G IBA Team.

We are starting an e-newsletter that will be delivered on a quarterly basis. If you would like to receive this new publication, please make sure that your email contact information is up to date.

Sincerely,

Carol M. Wicks Department Chair

THE DEPARTMENT AT A GLANCE 2014-15 Total Faculty Tenure or Tenure Track Faculty Research & Support Staff Postdoctoral Researchers

19 17 8 2

Total Undergraduate Students Senior Junior Sophomore

144 47 33 20

Freshmen University College Majors

2 42

Graduate Students Master’s Doctoral

67 38 29

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14 YEAR in 15 REVIEW

ARNOLD BOUMA OAK DEDICATION The LSU Department of Geology & Geophysics hosted an LSU Oak Endowment Ceremony in memory of retired LSU geology professor Arnold Bouma. Bouma’s former student and College of Science Dean’s Circle member Erik Scott moderated the ceremony, which was attended by Bouma’s wife, Lieneke, and his sons Mark and Robert. A number of Bouma’s former students were on hand to share stories and remember the professor who had such a great impact on their academic and professional growth.

Arnold Bouma’s sons Mark and Robert, and his wife Lieneke.

REMEMBERING DR. CLARENCE “CLAY” DURHAM JR. Dr. Clarence “Clay” Orson Durham, Jr., PhD, geologist, passed away Sunday, April 12, 2015, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 94. Clay’s lifetime accomplishments were many. He received a BS in geology with honors from the University of Texas in 1942.

He earned a professional certificate in meteorology from the University of Chicago in 1943 and served as a meteorologist in the Army Air Corps during World War 2. After the war, he continued his education at Columbia University where he was awarded his PhD in geology.

Clay joined the faculty at Lousiana State University in 1951 as a professor of geology. He also served as director of research for the Louisiana Geological Survey during his tenure at LSU. In 1965 he was named chairman of the LSU Department of Geology and in 1966 became director of the School of Geoscience, a position that he held until he retired from teaching in 1973 to pursue work as a consulting geologist.

Clay had a passion for geology. He was well-known and well-loved by many. His former LSU students held him in great esteem. Many say their lives were forever changed by their association with this remarkable man.

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Louisiana State University

HOMECOMING SPIRIT The Homecoming door decorating competition provides LSU students, faculty, and staff a creative venue for showcasing the 2014 Homecoming theme, “Louisiana State of Mind.” Geology & Geophysics’ design won the door decorating competition at the department level.

DR. GARY BYERLY RETIRES The summer of 2015 brought with it the retirement of Gary Byerly, dean of the LSU Graduate School and the Richard & Betty Fenton Alumni Professor of Geology & Geophysics. Dr. Byerly is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society of American, and the Geologoical Society of South Africa. Dr. Byerly has been granted Emeritus status by the university. He will continue to advise students and work in South Africa. His contributions to LSU and the Department of Geology & Geophysics along with his leadership of the Graduate School will continue to be felt for many more years to come.

CAROL WICKS NAMED A 2014 AAAS Fellow Congratulations to our department chair, Carol Wicks, on being named a Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society. Dr. Wicks was one of three LSU faculty who were named to the list of Fellows for 2014. Each Fellow is elected by their peers for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

DENOMMEE’S DYNAMIC DISCOVERY Research conducted by PhD student Kathryn Denommee, her advisor Dr. Sam Bentley, and Dr. Andre Droxler of Rice University made national news headlines on the insights their findings may have on the disappearance of the Mayan Civilization.

The trio’s research involved analyzing core sediments taken from the Lighthouse Reef in Belize including some from the famous “Blue Hole” - a popular scuba diving location. The team analyzed how the layers of sediments compiled within the Blue Hole keep a natural record of climate events from thousands of years ago. Through their study the group discovered indications of a period of drought that can be linked to the approximate time of the Mayan decline. The group plans to study the records found in Belize to extract as much information from them as posssible.

Denommee, originally from Canada, joined Dr. Bentley at LSU in 2011. She is currently finishing her PhD with a focus on sediment transport, the study of how sediment moved around, and paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate patterns.

Department of Geology & Geophysics

Above: Dr. Bentley explaining the readings on ocean sediment.

Below: Dr. Bentley and Kathryn Denomme stand in front of infographics that explain their recent studies.

ANTARCTICA EXPEDITION

By Phil Bart

On January 14, six LSU graduate and undergraduates students and I departed from Baton Rouge to begin a nine-week scientific expedition to Ross Sea Antarctica. The purpose of our expedition was to understand the pattern and timing with which the West Antarctic Ice Sheet began its retreat from the outer continental shelf. To date, the ice sheet has retreated more than 1000 kilometers, in the process contributing more than 5 meters to relative sea-level rise globally. The U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs funds our three-year project. This is the fourth time that I’ve sailed as chief scientist and eighth research cruise to the Southern Ocean. This January also marked the 25th year since my first trip to the Antarctica as an MS student.

From Baton Rouge, we flew west to Dallas, then Sydney before arriving in Christchurch, New Zealand. After being issued coldweather gear, we flew by C-130 to McMurdo Station on Ross Island where we awaited the arrival of the Nathaniel B. Palmer RVIB, which is one of two ice-breaker class research vessels leased to the NSF by the Edison Chouset Company, a shipbuilder whose corporate headquarters are in Galliano, Louisiana. We sailed from McMurdo station into Ross Sea on the morning of January 23.

Over the course of the next 45 days, we acquired a grid of multibeam data, multichannel seismic data and a series of kasten cores, jumbo piston cores, and box cores. We also obtained more than 1,000 photographs of the seafloor to aid our interpretation of nearsurface sedimentary layers. We encountered pretty much ideal conditions for our operations and only once was sea state so rough that we forced to abandon our acquisition plans. Thankfully, a calm sea state returned and we lost only about 15 hours of ship time in the process. On the equipment side, we had a high-pressure hose failure during the seismic acquisition phase of our expedition.

Lucky for us, we were able to acquire multibeam data while the science-support group that sailed with us was repairing the air hose.

The multibeam survey we acquired at that time revealed a series of subaqueous features that appear to represent sediment that was squeezed into crevasses in the base of the ice sheet when it was grounded on the outer shelf. No one has ever observed these features in the marine environment before. Their preservation strongly suggests that the ice sheet lifted off the sea floor abruptly at the end of the glacial period.

We had many interesting discussions onboard about the incoming data as it was being acquired. Our LSU science crew included Matthew DeCesare (PhD, 2017), Ben Krogmeier (MS, 2016), Dan Mullally (MS, 2015), Madeline Meyers (G&G UG, 2015), Jack Cadigan (PE UG, 2017), and Jerry Elwood (G&G UG, 2017). All the students participated in the data acquisition and onboard data processing.

Specifically, Madeline Meyers processed all of our new seismic data onboard with assistance from Dan Mullally. Both of these students benefited from taking Dr. Juan Lorenzo’s geophysics class. Ben Krogmeier interpreted and mapped the new and archived seismic data that we brought with us to the field. Matthew processed and isolated in situ benthic and planktonic foraminifera from cored sediments that we interpreted onboard to have been deposited below the formerly expanded floating ice shelf.

We finished our scientific acquisition on March 10 and began the 10-day long journey by ship to Hobart, Australia. We spent one last night together on the Nathaniel B. Palmer RVIB in port before splitting up and making our return to Baton Rouge. Some of the students took the opportunity to travel in the region before heading back to Baton Rouge and the remainder of the 2015 spring semester.

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Louisiana State University

Meet our students.

HONORS & AWARD WINNERS:

Martial Morrison, MS Edward B. Picou, Jr. Named Grant AAPG Foundation Grants-in-Aid Program, “Seismic Analysis of False River Point Bar Deposits of the Misssissippi River, LA” Advisor: Juan Lorenzo

Scholarship Recipients: Billy & Ann Harrison Field Camp Scholarship:

John T. Mestayer Memorial Scholarship:

Daniel Babin, Andre Benoit, Taylor Judice

Anne Brennan

W.A. Van Den Bold Memorial Scholarship:

BP Doctorate Scholarship:

Evan LeBlanc, William Aertker

Shannon Ferguson

Charles L. Jones Scholarship:

BP Masters Scholarship:

James Smith IV

Tasha Hoffmann

Patrick F. Taylor Scholarship:

Adam Sturlese Memorial Scholarship:

Eleanor Smith

Thomas Schramm, Christopher Wray, Catherine Hudson

Sid & Peggy Bonner Scholarship:

Jon O’Keefe Barry Scholarship:

Michael Vetter

Martial Morrison, Jennifer Kenyon, Nicole Button

Harriet Belchic Memorial Scholarship:

Geology General Scholarship:

Anna Thorson, Jennifer Kenyon

Nicole Button, Kathryn Denommee, James Smith IV, Eleanor Smith, Jennifer Kenyon, Daniel Babin, Hunter Songy

Devon Energy Corporation Scholarship: Crawford White, Zachary Wright, Gregory Keller, Cory Treloar, Eleanor Smith, Catherine Hudson, Jennifer Kenyon

Leo W. Hough Scholarship Fund:

Ben Stanley Geology Camp Scholarship:

Abdulaziz Almutairi

David Susko, Cory Treloar, Christopher Magliolo

Joel Hazel Scholarship:

Candace Hays & Ronnie Johnson Scholarship:

Hussain Alqattan

Frances Crawford, Sarah Decoteau, Catherine Hudson, Shelby Richardson, Samantha Robilard, Heather Zibrat, Joshua Danna, Ryan Clarke, Shelby Johnston

Laurice Sistrunk Scholarship:

Eni Petroleum Scholarship:

Danial Babin

BP Scholarship:

James Smith IV, Samantha Robillard, Frances Crawford, Anne Brennan

James Smith IV, Taylor Judice

H.V. Andersen Endowed Scholarship:

Cory Treloar, Eleanor Smith

Jie Shen, Yuting Li, Cody Schulte, Kexin Zhang, Taylor Judice

Department of Geology & Geophysics

H.V. Howe Scholarship: Dr. A.E. “Sandy” Sandberg Scholarship: Samantha Robillard

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SUPER SCIENCE SATURDAY Hundreds of future scientists and science enthusiasts packed the PMAC on Saturday, October 11, 2014 for Super Science Saturday, a free familyfriendly event to help students K-12 get excited about science. For the first time, the October event featured each department within the LSU College of Science.

The 27th annual event consisted of 19 activity stations that lined the upper-level concourse of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, offering demonstrations and hands on activities that allowed the students to experience science for themselves.

The kids loved the fossil table at Super Science Saturday manned by students from the Geology Club.

The Geology Club did an excellent job representing the department at the event. The students made it a priority to engage the children and explain what they were seeing, how it was formed, how it is used, and why it is important.

GEOLOGY STUDENTS ARE ROCKSTARS The students of the Department of Geology & Geophysics showcased a wide range of research being done in the department during our annual Rock Star Poster Competition organized by Professors Dutrow, Doran, and Henry. This year had the largest number of entries to date, with 29 students submitting their research: 16 graduate students and 13 undergraduates.

Many visitors, including adjunct and emeritus faculty, the dean of the College of Science and the university director of undergraduate research, stopped by the event to see what our students have been working on. Our College of Science judges, Dr. Becky Carmichael (CxC specialist in science), Dr. Clayton Loehn (shared instrument facility) and Dr. Sheri Wischusen (director of undergraduate research education) had a very tough time selecting only three winners in each category.

The top winners in the graduate poster presentation session were: first place, Edwin (Jeff) Bomer, MS candidate with Dr. Bentley, Anthropogenic Sediment Diversion in the Mississippi River Delta:The Feasibility of Building Land for Coastal Restoration; second place, Tara Jonell, PhD candidate with Dr. Clift, Using U-Pb detrital zircon geochronology in the Himalayan rain shadow: evidence for summer monsoon control over erosion in the Zanskar River basin, northwest Indian Himalaya; and third place, Tasha Hoffmann, MS candidate with Dr. Dutrow, Plagioclase Halos around Garnet: Implications of PressureTemperature Paths in Metapelites.

Undergraduate student winners were: first place, Megan Borel (senior), Petrogenetic Significance of Tertiary Granite Trace-Element Contents in the Sawtooth Range, Idaho, USA; second place, Ashley Thrower (senior), Implications of rare earth elements in Sawtooth Metamorphic Complex Calc-Silicate Gneiss, Idaho; and third place, Jennifer Kenyon (senior), Investigating the effects of selenium on fungal growth and mineral production, from her summer internship at the Smithsonian Institution.

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Louisiana State University

Choppin Honors Convocation The College of Science celebrated the achievements of its stellar students and faculty during the 40th Annual Dean Arthur R. Choppin Honors Convocation April 28, 2015.

Students in the Department of Geology & Geophysics were once again honored at the College of Science Choppin Awards Ceremony.

Outstanding Senior: James Emerson Smith IV Outstanding Senior: Eleanor Wesley-Anne Smith Outstanding Junior: Jennifer A. Kenyon Outstanding Junior: Daniel Paul Babin Outstanding Sophomore: Hunter Stephen Songy

2014 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH CONFERENCE

Dr. Kathryn Griener was awarded the Distingushed Dissertation Award at the College of Science Choppin Awards Ceremony on April 28, 2015. Griener’s research was supported by the Geoscience Diversity Enrichment (GeoDE) Program.

The 6th annual LSU Undergraduate Research Conference (URC) held on October 31, 2014, was a huge success for Geology & Geophysics students.

The URC is an annual conference that promotes undergraduate research at universities and community colleges. The Oral & Poster Competition is open to undergraduate students who currently conduct research in STEM disciplines and the social sciences.

Junior, Jennifer Kenyon, won first place in the Division II Math & Physical Science poster competition for her poster “Investigating the Effects of Selenium on Fungal Growth & Mineral Production.”

In addition, senior, David Rau, earned second place honors for his poster “Comparison of HF & Non-HF Palynological Techniques: A Case Study on Modern Sediments from the Gulf of Papua” in the Math & Physical Sciences Division I section.

Dr. Darrell Henry was presented the Tiger Athletic Fund Undergraduate Teaching Award

Department of Geology & Geophysics

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GEOLOGY CLUB

By Megan Borel 2015-16 President

The past year has been an exciting and memorable year for the LSU Geology Club. We started off with a booth in Free Speech Alley in efforts to gain more students, and our determination proved successful! The first geology club meeting of the year had the biggest attendance yet; the Geology Club was able to bring in new faces and new ideas.

Being an academically and outreach-focused club at LSU, we provided our members with geology-based research discussions and ample opportunities to give back to our community. We started the year off by hearing Dr. Jacob Grosskopf’s experience working in Dinosaur National Monument; in doing so, we hope to give our members specific insights into the many concentrations of geology research under our LSU professors. It is also very important to us to make geology known as a career option to all students. Our members and officers set up booths with informative posters, activities, and mineral and rock exhibits for students during events around the area such as Ocean Commotion, Super Science Saturday, Rockin’ at the Swamp, and Science Olympiad.

This year, members of the Geology Club that have attended at least two volunteer events were able to join the annual winter break trip to the Florida Keys. Our club field marshal, Ben Durel, planned an eventful trip that took us to see much of Florida’s coastal and marine geology. Ocala National Forest, Everglades National Park, Key Largo, and Florida Caverns State Park were among some of the stops we made on this trip. There was also an opportunity for our members to join the spring break trip which took place in Austin, Texas. In Austin, there were many natural springs and reserves to explore. Our club went to McKinney State Park, Hamilton Pool

Preserve, and Jacob’s Well natural spring. We also took day trips to New Orleans Gem and Mineral Lapidary and Tunica Hills for hiking.

For fundraising, we were able to participate in Stadium Cleanups both for football and baseball seasons. We completed four cleanups that raised up to $500 each for our club. With these funds, along with semester dues, we were able to continue these trips and provide opportunities for students interested in geology.

As this year came to an end, we were able to elect new students for officer positions, which will help us to expand our continuously growing club here at LSU. Next year, we plan to have each of our officers discuss their individual research to help lowerclassmen get an idea of what concentrations and aspects of geology that they hope to pursue in the future.

Top: Geology Club members behind the rock garden they created in special recognition of David Delaney.

Below: Members of the Geology Club for Tiger Stadium Cleanup during the fall of 2014.

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Louisiana State University

AAPG

STUDENT CHAPTER UPDATE

By Austin McGlannan 2015-16 President The AAPG/SEG Student Expo kicked off the fall 2014 semester for the LSU student chapter.We opened with our monthly meeting in August and registered 38 students for the student expo in Houston.

We were able to supply transportation and lodging to more than 75 percent and registration costs for everyone. Eight students received internship offers or continued interviews from this event.

Following the Student Expo, the LSU student chapter organized for its members to attend the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies for the annual convention in October. The following week, Dr. Alan Brown of Schlumberger NEXT visited LSU and led two short courses covering unconventional shale resources and natural fracture analysis using Petrel. In November, our student chapter funded 11 students to view a webinar presented by SEG, entitled “Integrated Interpretation of Seismic, CSEM, and Well Log Data for Reservoir Characterization.” We also organized a short course for students to learn how to use drillinginfo, presented by drillinginfo’s employees traveling through Louisiana. Most recently, Andrew Webb led our chapter’s submission into the competition of seeding AAPG’s new geology Wiki.

General events that our student chapter hosted involved sponsoring the department lecture series every Friday. We also hosted our monthly meetings in order to discuss the numerous events we organized throughout the semester. The LSU student chapter also brought in distinguished guest lecturer Dr. Ken Miller for one of our events, as well as SEG honorary guest lecturer Aria Abubakar in conjunction with the newly established LSU student chapter of SEG. In place of our weekly Friday lecture series for the week before homecoming, the LSU student chapter organized an alumni panel for all students of our department. Students were encouraged to ask the panel questions ranging from what working in the industry is like, to what research topics undergraduates should consider when looking at graduate programs. We also hosted a homecoming tailgate and invited our department alumni to attend. This was a great, informal networking opportunity for everyone involved.

We began the second half of the academic year with a Seismic Stratigraphy short course offered at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, where six of our members participated.

Later in the semester, Eirk Scott provided our members with a one-day short course on risk analysis and volumetrics.

This season we were fortunate to have five of our chapter

Department of Geology & Geophysics

members participate in the Imperial Barrel Award Competition.

Our competing members included Caroline Broderick, Marshall Morrison, Chris Wray, Cody Schulte, and Chang Liu. Our chapter participated in two community involvement projects during the spring semester. Alesha Morabito led our chapter in helping to build homes in Baton Rouge through Habitat for Humanity. This community service project attracted 15 of our members. Tessa Hermes organized an educational event, SuperSaurus Saturday, with the New Orleans Geological Society and New Orleans Children’s Museum. Here several of our members provided a hands-on educational experience about the petroleum system for children ages 4–12. Promoting student research presentations at professional conferences is one of our top priorities as they allow students to practice communication skills and foster professional relationships. This semester Adam Turner, Bryce Mathis, Cody Schulte, and Zachary Wright presented at the Geological Society of America South-Central region conference in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Derek Goff presented his research at SAGEEP, Environmental & Engineering Geophysics Society.

During spring break our chapter organized a field trip with Dr. Amy Luther to Big Bend National Park, Texas. There our students were able to enhance their field mapping ability. This trip was graciously sponsored by Concho to aid our travel expenses. This trip also attracted a couple of undergraduate students. Increasing the undergraduate involvement in our chapter will be an integral component to strengthening the LSU AAPG chapter.

Our year ended with hosting our annual crawfish boil. Following the crawfish boil, we had four members represent LSU at the 2015 AAPG ACE. These students include Ben Krogmeier, Alesha Morabito, Tessa Hermes, and Austin MGlannan, who also attended the Global Student Leadership Summit.

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Geology Exhibit Revitalizes HR Museum Hall

By Bethany Martinez

Just a few months ago, taking a stroll through the old portion of Howe-Russell Kniffen Museum Hall felt a bit like turning the pages of a 1970’s Gumbo (see inset below), and though many geologists focus their study on the history of the earth, they are also concerned with present and the future. Museum Curator and Associate Professor of Palynology Sophie Warny worried that the outdated displays did not reflect the new and exciting research the Department of Geology & Geophysics has been up to in recent years.

“I see parents and students taking the LSU tour, college deans having their meetings here, bankers taking their summer classes in our auditorium, and the way it was before was not reflective of the current work we do or its quality,” Warny said. “So we wanted the hallway to reflect the fact that we are a top tier research institution and ensure that the first impression of the public and undergraduate students is not a bunch of mismatched furniture and panels from 30 years ago.”

In 2012 Warny and Associate Professor of Geology and Geophysics Philip Bart began planning a new display outside room 130, one of the most highly-trafficked areas in the building, that could bring geology to life in the eyes of the students passing through. With help from Southwest Museum Services, who designed and built the exhibit, and support from Vincent Guillory and Charlyn O’Neil in LSU’s Facility Services Office, the exhibit was completed in time for a fall debut.

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Panels mounted on the walls explain various topics covered in introductory geology classes, many conveniently taught in room 130, in hopes of attracting new students to the department. Standing next to a panel full of color, Warny explained that they were designed especially with students in mind.

“This one is ‘Minerals in Your Life.’ So these minerals are in things that we use, like toothpaste or the coloring of M&Ms or the material for your cell phone. So all the minerals we have on this graphic are actually used in your daily life. We tried to keep everything very global,” Warny said.

Louisiana State University

The exhibit, which includes samples and photographs from geology faculty and staff, also hones in on Louisiana-specific topics like coastline retreat and the oil and gas industry. With Louisiana leading the nation in these fields, Bart explained that geology should be more present on the radar of LSU students.

“So many people really don’t know about geology. I grew up here in New Orleans, and I had no clue as a kid about geology and the job opportunities that existed - the kind of exciting science that you could do here in the state,” Bart said.

Warny and Bart applied for a Traditional Enhancement Grant through the Louisiana Board of Regents to fund the exhibit.

Their project was the top-rated entry, giving them the assurance that it would be funded.

“The displays did not only allow us to offer a much-needed new way to showcase our research, the Board of Regents is also helping raise awareness on ways to improve the economy in Louisiana. We hope the exhibit showcases geology as a job and career path to students,” Warny said.“We tried to showcase Louisiana and the impact a career in geoscience can have on Louisiana citizens. It’s a good job to get if you want to live here.”

But the exhibit is meant to do more than just recruit; in what Bart calls Geo-news Alley, magnetic poster-board panels make it simple for students to both show off their work and practice their presentations skills.

“Our students who are giving poster presentations at an upcoming conference can come out here, post it up and practice, and take some questions from their fellow students or the faculty,” Bart said. “We wanted to have a place where we could showcase student work and encourage the students to be proactive about what they're doing and sharing their research with their department. That’s an important part of training as a scientist, being able to present your work.”

The grant also allowed the department to make other additions to the area. New furniture sits outside classrooms for students to relax or study on. In front of the panels, new display cases exhibit fossils and finds from LSU explorations. Across from the magnetic presentation boards, a new geological map and TV for department news and updates invite student interest.

“We really want to show students and visitors that geology is all around them and that in Louisiana, this is an exciting and rewarding career path,” Warny said.

Department of Geology & Geophysics

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Field Camp

2015

By Dr. Amy Luther Assistant Professor and Field Camp Director

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This was my second summer at the LSU Geology Field Camp and was the 87th consecutive summer of camp outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. With LSU Geology’s growing enrollment, we had 41 senior students and a foreign exchange student guest for a few weeks. 37 of these students were from LSU! Because of the large numbers, we were unable to run Freshman Camp, but we expect it will be back up and running next summer! Dr. Jason Ricketts from University of Texas-El Paso joined us as co-instructor for the seniors and was a knowledgeable and enthusiastic addition to our group!

For the most part, the summer ran as planned. Our main obstacle was the incredible amount of rain. May was the rainiest in Colorado Springs history with over eight inches of precipitation and June and July continued to have produce large storms. Colorado was beautifully green this summer and there were moderate temperatures, no water restrictions, and little fire danger. The Little Fountain Creek, where we get our water, flooded many times this summer, and even over-topped the bridge three times! Luckily, the bridge did not sustain any serious damage like in the fall of 2013. The main drawback to all of this moisture was that Colorado had as many mosquitos as Louisiana!

In the first two weeks of camp, the seniors made a stratigraphic column and geologic map of the LSU property. This was an interesting time because all of the ephemeral streams were flowing, adding some challenge to Jacob staffing and tape-and-compass exercises in the stream cuts! We also tried to go to Red Rocks Canyon Open Space, but it had been closed due to a large debris flow that covered the parking lot. In week three, we headed to New Mexico and camped near Sipapu Ski Lodge in the Picuris Mountains. The students became expert mappers as they struggled through complexly deformed Proterozoic metamorphic rocks near Dixon, New Mexico. We also got to discuss the volcanism of the Taos Plateau from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge near Taos.

During week four, Dr. Brooks Ellwood joined us and led a stratigraphy problem through the Greenhorn Formation. The students got to see the GSSP of the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary in Pueblo, Colorado, and then went out to La Junta. One of the highlights of this week was getting to spend a day at Picket Wire Canyonlands, the largest dinosaur track site in North America. We observed, cleaned and measured Apatosaurus and Allosaurus footprints along the Purgatoire River. Bruce Schumacher of the U.S. Forest Service joined us and taught us about the geologic and more recent history of the region.

The fifth week was spent at Twin Mountain near Canon City where the students mapped the same Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that they saw on the LSU field camp property. The final week was planned to be spent looking at volcanic rocks in Castle Rock Gulch and camping in Salida. Unfortunately, our trip was cut short because a golden eagle had made its nest in our field area! This gave us a chance to take a short side-trip to Florrissant Fossil Beds to make up for our lost mapping day.

It was another wonderful summer at the LSU Geology Field Camp. The students worked hard and grew tremendously as geologists. Hopefully they will remember the summer as fondly as I will!

Louisiana State University

Department of Geology & Geophysics

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Clift’s Cruise

By Dr. Peter Clift

At the end of March 2015, I left my office in Baton Rouge and headed off to Colombo, Sri Lanka, to begin my involvement in International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 355. IODP is an international organization, funded by the National Science Foundation and its international partners, and based out of College Station,Texas.

IODP performs scientific drilling in deep ocean basins around the world based on proposals written by the international scientific community, including myself. I had been planning for these particular drilling activities since the late 1990s, so I was very excited that finally we were having the opportunity to take samples deep below the ocean floor in the Arabian Sea. In particular I wanted to take samples from the Indus submarine fan. This is the second largest sediment body in the world (around 5,000,000 kmÂł) and is believed to record the long-term erosion and development of the Western Himalayas whose, development is still strongly debated by geologists.

This particular expedition was unusual in being partially funded by the Indian government; they contributed around $6 million to the total cost of $15 million.

My job was to be the co-chief scientist.

I worked together with an Indian colleague making the decisions about when to start and stop drilling, as well as coordinating the writing of reports. We were joined in this endeavor by about 25 other scientists taken from all the member countries and spanning a wide range of expertise. On Easter Sunday we left the harbor of Colombo and headed first west and then north after rounding the southern tip of India until we were approximately 250 miles offshore Mumbai, India. All of our drilling took place within a subbasin of the area called Laxmi Basin. This structure was believed to have formed a little earlier than the rest of the Arabian Sea and possibly related to the emplacement of the Deccan Traps volcanic province. The Deccan is particularly famous as being one of the potential influences that caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.

As well as reconstructing the erosion of the mountains and attempting to link their development with the history of the Asian monsoon, we were also interested in investigating the origin of Laxmi Basin by drilling into the basalt which underlies the sediments. Our ship, the

JOIDES Resolution, was a converted oil industry drill ship adapted to undertake only scientific missions, something it has been doing since the late 1980s.

Without a blowout preventer we were unable to cope with the presence of any hydrocarbons but instead focused entirely on coring. This process also provides us with the material that we will work on after our return to the shore. Because of the significant sediment thickness in this part of the Indian Ocean, locally in excess of 11 km, we only had time to drill at two locations, each of which penetrated around 1100 m below the seafloor. At the second of these locations, we managed to recover some basalt on the very last day of drilling. This allowed us to see that the basin had begun to open before the onset of the Deccan volcanics.

Drilling was often rather complicated.

We had significant problems keeping the hole open and stable so that we could reach our deep targets. Although studying sand is one of my great passions, this material makes problems for drilling in the subsurface. Until it is properly consolidated, it can flow and fall into the hole causing blockage and loss of the drill pipe, costing a lot of time and money in the process. At one point this happened to us; we were forced to blow off the end of the pipe using explosives in order to free ourselves. This is always a tough

Co-chief scientist Peter Clift (center) discusses the cores recovered during the previous shift with the sediment description team in the core laboratory on the JOIDES Resolution.

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Louisiana State University

Co-chief scientist Dhananjai Pandey from the National Centre for Ocean & Antarctic Research, GOA, India (left), expedition project manager Denise Kulhanek from Texas A&M University (center), and Peter Clift (right) in the science office.

decision to make, especially after investing a lot of time and effort into making a deep hole. Generally speaking the weather was really good for drilling during our eight weeks at sea. We only had minor disruptions as a result of inquisitive fishermen, followed by a request from the Indian Navy for us to move so they could conduct a bombing practice. In the end both these groups left us alone to continue operations in peace.

At the end of our journey, we recovered around 1600m of sediment, which will be stored in the repository in Japan, where I and other researchers will be able to access it for many years to come.

One of the best things about undertaking scientific drilling is you often get surprised by the results. You begin to develop

some humility about how much you really know about how planet Earth works.

One of the most dramatic results we had was to drill through a 300 m thick mass transport deposit that we dated to be late Miocene age, around 10 million years old.

This deposit represented an enormous landslide, which seismic data shows us to be around 18,000 kmÂł in volume or around three times larger than the next largest such landslide on Earth, found off the shore of Norway. Although this was not our original objective, such a dramatic deposit demands attention and study.

Already we know that this was released from the continental slope of India to the northwest of the drilling site and we believe that it flowed as much as 400 km from its source onto the deep floor of the nearby ocean. Study of the chemistry and minerals

Department of Geology & Geophysics

in the sediments holds out the possibility of better understanding how the Asian monsoon has changed its intensity in the past; however, revealing this history will require detailed work in the laboratory, partly to be done here in Baton Rouge, as well as in collaborating laboratories around the world. One of our primary objectives is to test the idea that the Asian monsoon started to strengthen around 8 million years ago, a suggestion that I have battled against for many years now. Now at last we have the opportunity to test who is right, or, indeed, whether any of us are correct in what we have believed up to this point.

The expedition ended in Mumbai. There we were taken off the vessel in the middle of the harbor by a small water taxi. It was certainly good to get back to the shore and return to the world of fast Internet, cold beer, and something new to eat. While the facilities on the ship were very good and the food generally delicious, I’m sure I was not alone in being happy to be headed home. A little peace and quiet after an expedition that lasted nine weeks from door to door is exactly what I needed. LSU students will no doubt be working on the samples I collected for many years to come, hopefully in collaboration with many new friends that I’ve made across the country and around the world in the process.

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The experience of a lifetime

LSU students spent five weeks in Paris and Southern France taking two geology classes

By Sophie Warny, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Curator, Louisiana State University

Last August, I was contacted by Dr. Harald Leder, Director of the LSU Academic Programs Abroad (APA) and Dr. Kevin Bongiorni, a faculty in the Department of French Studies at LSU. They were organizing the Summer 2015 edition of “LSU in Paris” and were looking for one more faculty member to join the experience. Having the chance to teach in the country where I spent much of my childhood was a great opportunity, and I gladly accepted the offer.

With LSU APA, each faculty member is responsible for teaching two classes, so I was left with the challenge of creating two classes that would take advantage of all that France has to offer. Having done my doctoral research on the Messinian Salinity Crisis under the direction of Dr. Jean-Pierre Suc in Montpellier, I knew I had to incorporate the many fantastic outcrops that can be found in the French Riviera and in Provence. So, very naturally, two classes came to mind; a version of Historial Geology that would use the countless buildings (such as the Musée d’Orsay), monuments and science museums of Paris as lecture support, and a field geology class in

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Southern France. The syllabi were approved, and the “LSU in Paris” program had 45 students registered by the spring. We were at full capacity, with 16 of these students taking one or two of the geology classes offered, four of these students coming from the LSU Honors College, and most studying either geology or petroleum engineering.

Historical Geology was taught for the first three weeks of the program. In addition to daily morning lectures, we took some afternoon field trips.The first week, we went to the Galerie d’Anatomie Comparée in the magnificent Jardin des Plantes. This garden hosts many science museums and laboratories, and it was very humbling to see items such as one of the first edition of Darwin’s book on The Origin of Species or walk in a building once occupied by Cuvier.

The second and third weeks, we spent each morning studying one of the geological time periods, starting with the Precambrian and ending with the Holocene. When I taught that class at LSU, it was generally in an auditorium with about 150 students. In Paris, this class was qualified as an Honors class, and the advantage was that I had, at

Louisiana State University

most, 16 students in the class, and we had the luxury of having fabulous museums just a short subway ride from our classroom. We took advantage of this by visiting, twice, the Musée de la Paleontologie. This museum had on display most of the key fossils that are discussed in the textbook we were using as support for the Historical Geology class. What a treat to see these as opposed to just abstractly read about them in a book!

To help the students pay attention to details and take the time to reflect on these priceless specimens, they were all tasked to sit in this museum and draw 10 fossils of their choice, while discussing the paleo-environments that existed at the time these fossils lived. One of the LSU students’ favorite was of course a fossil of a Cenomanian crawfish. After all, we are from Louisiana and crawfish season is always on our mind. One of the impressive largerscale fossils was the full skeleton of a specimen of Cynthiacetus peruvianus.

In addition of taking full advantage of the museums, we took some walks in the street of Paris, mostly in the 5ième and 11ième arrondissements, to look at the rocks that were used in the construction of the French monuments, buildings, churches and castles.The students learned that many of the buildings in Paris are made out of rocks that came from the Basin de Paris, a geological sedimentary basin where successive marine layers were deposited during the Triassic to the Pliocene. The students also learned that cobblestone streets can tell you a lot about the periods in which the streets were built.They also learned that most of the sidewalks in Paris are made of granite. One of these granites, the Granite deVire, is Precambrian in age.

The fourth week in France, the 12 students enrolled in the advance field class (Geol 4002) left Paris Saturday morning onboard the high-speed train (TGV) for the six-hour ride to Nice. Upon our arrival in Nice, a small bus was waiting to drive us to the Oceanological Observatory of Villefranche-sur-Mer (OOV), where we had an agreement allowing our students to use their dormitory, and to share the space with French graduate students conducting marine research.

This historic building is located less than 4.2 miles from Nice on the French Mediterranean coast. It is the most comprehensive marine science campus in France, and it is attached to the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, one of the top scientific research universities in France, and is also part of La Sorbonne system in Paris. Because the OOV is located in the beautiful small maritime town of Villefranche-sur-Mer, the students had the opportunity to walk to the beach and outdoor coffee shops and restaurants after class. It is also located just a few minutes from major cities such as Menton and Monte Carlo.

LSU IN PARIS

To read the full article, please visit: http://issuu.com/lsugeology/docs/lsuinparis

Department of Geology & Geophysics

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Faculty Digest Juan Lorenzo Associate Professor Juan Lorenzo and his seven graduate students remained busy on three main research fronts, two within Howe-Russell laboratories and one in the field with the mobile seismic laboratory known as the “Seismeauxbile.” This past year, Juan became adjunct faculty in the LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering.

Juan’s group continued to experiment with shale analogs in the hydraulic fracture lab, a collaborative facility between the Departments of Geology & Geophysics and Petroleum Engineering dedicated to fundamental research and education. Two new students (Trudy Watkins and Abby Maxwell, both for MS) will be incorporating the analyses of these data into their research. Trudy interned with a company during the summer of 2015 and Abby, as well as receiving two GSA scholarships in 2015, also interned at the Seismic Research Centre at the University of the West Indies during the summer.

Jie Shen (for PhD) is investigating the behavior of seismic attenuation in the laboratory and has just published a paper in the May issue of Geophysics entitled “Soil density, elasticity and the soil water characteristic curve inverted from field-based seismic P- and S-wave velocity in shallow (< 25 m) near-saturated (> 99%) layered soils”.

In fall of 2015, she will begin to work at Shell as a geophysicist with the Quantitative Interpretation Group in New Orleans.

Ruhollah Keshvardoost-Jobaneh (for PhD) is new to the group. “Ru”, who completed his MS at Auburn University has started to investigate the role of permeability in surface wave seismic attenuation in the lab. This project uses the Coastal Studies Wave Tank Facility. However, a recent grant from Sandia National Labs will also allow him to use a new sand tank facility we are building to conduct his dissertation research.

Martial Morrison (for MS), began collected shallow (0-30 m) seismic reflection data across a Holocene Point-Bar Complex, in False River, Louisiana. His research is being supported in part by an Edward B. Picou, Jr. Named Grant through the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Grants-in-Aid Program. This summer, Martial was assisted by five international undergraduate research from Brazil (photo) who were interning with our group while taking a research course at LSU. Abah Omale (MS, 2015) will present a paper at the 2015 GCAGS meeting in Houston dealing with new ideas on the causes and amounts of fault motion the Gulf Coast from the Tertiary until the present. Derek Goff’s work (for MS) on a joint geophysical estimation of shallow soil types under the New Orleans levees was awarded a geometrics travel grant to the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society. Derek’s work is funded by a scholarship from the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

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Top: Side-on look at a plastic block after a hydraulic fracture experiment. A flat red (dye) crack is suspended. The flat red area extends away from a model vertical well (grey metal valve) where a highpressure sugar solution was injected.

Below: Field work in the False River area of Louisiana involved collecting shallow seismic reflection data. In front of the Seismeauxbile (radio acquistion vehicle), Dominique, Erika, Martial, and Marchus.

Louisiana State University

Karen Luttrell Assistant Professor It has been an active year for Prof. Karen Luttrell and the crustal deformation group, with both undergraduate and graduate students pursuing active research projects. Dr. Luttrell has been awarded grants from both the Louisiana Board of Regents (to investigate magma properties of the Yellowstone Volcanic System) and the Southern California Earthquake Center (to investigate the crustal stress field around the San Andreas Fault plate boundary). Fall 2014 brought more fieldwork in Yellowstone Lake, as Luttrell was joined by a G&G undergraduate who helped program and deploy our geophysical sensors. The student’s subsequent computational models of the physical system were presented at the fall 2014 AGU Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Through the course of the year, Luttrell gave several invited lectures around the country, and her research has been presented at conferences on three continents. Dr. Luttrell also attended a National Association of Geoscience Teachers workshop for early career geoscience faculty, and continues to enjoy teaching the undergraduate geophysics course, as well as intro physical geology for freshman Honors students. She is excited for the year ahead with LSU G&G!

Sam Bentley Billy & Ann Harrison Chair of Sedimentology Sam Bentley has had an exciting year, helping students complete their degrees, sedimentology and deltaic geology, and working as director of the Coastal Studies institute (CSI). Bentley supervised the MS thesis of Laura Sorey, who graduated in December 2014 after completing a paleooceanographic study of sediments from the Blue Hole of Lighthouse Reef, Belize, in a project supported by the Interamerican Agency for Global Change Research. Laura also had a Board of Regents fellowship. Bentley also supervised the senior thesis of James Smith (G&G BS May 2015). A research paper from James’ thesis is in-press for journal publication. James studied hurricane-driven sedimentation in Breton Sound over the past century, to provide better understanding of sedimentary processes for restoration of the Mississippi Delta. His work was supported by the United States Geological Survey, and the Billy and Ann Harrison Endowment for Sedimentary Geology, of the LSU Foundation.

Beyond these student highlights, Bentley is lead or senior coinvestigator on 10 new or ongoing research grants in the past year (funded by the National Science Foundation, United States Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Water Institute of the Gulf, and Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority), supporting a total of eight graduate students and 10 undergraduates in G&G. The largest and most prestigious of these grants is from the National Science Foundation, under their program for Coastal Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (Coastal SEES). This $1.8 million award is led by senior investigators Robert Twilley (Louisiana Sea Grant) and Bentley, and studies the coupled evolution of the Mississippi Delta landscape and communities, with coDepartment of Geology & Geophysics

Bentley (right) and LSU colleague Robert Twilley at the International Deltas Meeting in Istomino, Republic of Buryatia (Russia), on the Selenga River Delta, Lake Baykal.

investigators Jim Chen, Scott Hagen, and Clint Willson (LSU Engineering), Nina Lam (LSU Environmental Sciences), Kevin Xu (LSU Oceanography), and Doug Edmonds (Indiana University Geology).

Bentley has also been active in service to the State of Louisiana.

As part of Louisiana’s 2017 revision of the Coastal Master Plan for coastal restoration, Bentley was appointed Academic Member of the 2017 Master Plan Framework Development Team (a team that provides stakeholder input to the plan). Bentley is also under contract to the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority as technical liaison to the 2017 Master Plan Science and Engineering Board, providing technical peer review on plan revisions.

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Brooks Ellwood Robey Clark Distinguished Professor Brooks Ellwood’s student research team had a very successful year. Jacob Grosskopf finished his PhD dissertation on CWIS rocks and was hooded in May. His work is centered on oxygen levels in the CWIS, mainly during the C–T boundary interval, that includes the C–T GSSP, located in Pueblo, Colorado. His work focused on how the ichnofacies can provide an indication of anoxic to oxic conditions across the CWIS. Tom Schramm also finished his PhD dissertation and was hooded along with Jacob in May. Tom has been working on Ordovician successions from Oklahoma to New York, and probably understands the stratigraphy of the Ordovician in the United States as well as anybody anywhere. His work included the Sandbian–Katian GSSP in Oklahoma. A third PhD student in the group, Emad Elfar, is working on Cambrian sections in the Drum Mountains and House Range in Utah, and in the Snake Range in Great Basin National Park, Nevada. His sequence stratigraphic interpretations are excellent, and it is expected that he will graduate in May, 2016. His work includes the Stage 5– Drumian GSSP in the Drum Mountains in western Utah.

Brooks continued his work on Devonian and Permian rocks from Turkey, collected during his sabbatical, and on Permian–Triassic boundary (PDB) rocks

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from Vietnam. One paper was published this year and he and his colleagues are working on several other papers covering different aspects of that research. He is also working on PTB rocks from Slovenia, and doing additional work on Middle Permian Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs) from samples in and around Guadalupe Mountains National Park. GSSPs are international boundaries now being established all over the world, where each one is being used to redefine geologic stages, the basis for the modern Geologic Time Field camp location in Comanche National Grasslands. Tumbleweeds filled Scale. The initial work on the canyon 15’ deep and a half mile in length. the Guadalupe Mts. NP GSSPs has been published. Now the localities in the Cretaceous Western concentration is more on geochemical Interior Seaway (CWIS), from Canada aspects of these sections. into Texas, and Kansas into Utah. These This summer, Brooks continued his sections include the C–T GSSP in tradition of teaching a week at the LSU Pueblo. In Texas the C–T interval is in Field Camp in Colorado, where students the Eagleford Shale and in Louisiana the examined the Cretaceous stratigraphy Tuscaloosa Marine Shale. exposed from Pueblo to La Junta, In the fall, Brooks is teaching Colorado. Students built a fence diagram stratigraphy, and the class project will including three sections they measured involve Eocene–Oligocene boundary associated with the Cenomanian– locations in eastern Mississippi. The class Turonian boundary exposed at many will work on two stratigraphic outcrop intervals where the boundary is exposed.

One is a classic locality first published in 1860. The fieldwork will involve lithologic, geophysical and gamma ray measurements in outcrop that will be compared to wire-line data to be recovered by the Mississippi Geological Survey. The survey will drill a well for the class near the stratigraphic sections studied in outcrop, and recover core that includes the entire interval to be studied in outcrop. Students will log the core in the laboratory and make some geochemical and geophysical measurements on samples recovered from the core, for comparison to the field measurements of lithology, geophysical and gamma-ray outcrop measurement, and well-log wire-line data sets.

Ship on the Desert, a research house for scientists working in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Guadalupe Mountains can be seen in the background.

Louisiana State University

Barb Dutrow Adolphe G. Gueymard Professor Three major research efforts continue to provide excitement and opportunities for discovery in Dr. Dutrow’s group. As part of an NSF-funded project, three LSU students joined Dr. Dutrow to experience fieldwork at high elevations (10,000’) and to collect samples for their research in the Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho. Here, a roof pendant exposes rare metamorphic rocks in the region that provide insights into the tectonics and crustal development during the Precambrian. Eleanor Smith, analyzed aluminous gneisses to provide new pressure-temperature data and defended her undergraduate thesis in May. She is continuing at LSU in our accelerated MS program. A second area of focus is computational modeling to understand heat and fluid flow during metamorphism and the effects on mineral nucleation and growth. These studies utilize 3-D visualization to decipher the complex non-linear feedbacks in the system. The third focus area addresses the large amount of geological information contained in the chemistry of the tourmaline (tur) supergroup minerals. Recent discoveries highlight the chemical signatures related to the use of tur as a fluid-flow monitor. This work was presented as a keynote talk at the 2014 Goldschmidt Geochemistry

conference, held in Sacramento, California, during a two-day session celebrating 10 years of Elements magazine.

Tourmaline as a guide to precious gem deposits was the topic of an invited presentation at the 2014 GSA meeting in Vancouver. A new area of tur research involves using the chemical signature of tourmaline, obtained by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), as a provenance indicator.

Preliminary findings were presented at the International Mineralogical Association meeting held in Johannesburg, South Africa. Prior to the conference, Dr. Dutrow participated in the “Big Five and Big Five” field trip - to visit the big five mines (gold, platinum, diamond, copper, and iron) and see the big five animals (elephants, water buffalo, lions, leopards, rhinos). It was a spectacular trip with successful sightings.

Other group activities include: Tessa Hermes defending her M.S.

African Elephant herd at the Palabora Copper Mine.

Department of Geology & Geophysics

Top: Elly Smith, Ashley Thrower, and Tasha Hoffmann conducting field stuides high above Sawtooth Lake, Idaho.

Bottom: Prof. Dutrow, Elly Smith, Megan Borel, Ashley Thrower, and Tasha Hoffmann after the Rock Star Poster Competition.

thesis on the geothermal potential in northeastern Louisiana, funded by the Loisiana Board of Regents, and six group members participating in the Rock Star Poster competition, many taking top honors.

Dutrow continues her professional service as chair of the executive committee for Elements magazine, a joint venture of 17 international mineralogical, petrological and geochemical societies. She was recently elected to the Geological Society of American Foundation Board. She also serves as an associate editor for the American Journal of Science and as a review panel member for Deptartment of Energy (DoE) Geothermal Energy program, for examples.

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Darrell Henry Campanile Charities Professor of Geology Dr. Henry continues his research on tourmaline as well as on the Archean rocks (at least 2.8 billion years old) of the Beartooth Mountains and Yellowstone. The tourmaline work has been well-received by the international community, and Dr. Henry gave a keynote speech on “the petrologic potential of tourmaline” at the International Mineralogical Association in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr. Henry was part of a team that included Canadian and Japanese colleagues to establish a new tourmaline species, maruyamaite. This tourmaline is of note because the type material is from an ultra-high pressure metamorphic terrain in Kazakhstan and it actually has inclusions of diamond in the tourmaline. The latest research on the Archean rocks of Yellowstone was part of a Research Experience for Undergraduate project that involved 24 undergraduate students from across the U.S. The

research has resulted in several papers and presentations on the development of a 2.8 billion year old continental arc system still preserved in the mountains.

It also provided important background data on how geology students learn in a field environment. The chlorine-rich minerals (biotite and amphibole) of the Archean iron formations of the Beartooth Mountains were the focus of an MS study done by Nick Daigle who graduated in summer 2015.

After almost four years, Darrell Henry finished his duties as LSU Director of Reaffirmation of SACSCOC Accreditation when SACSCOC fully reaffirmed LSU’s accreditation with no recommendations at their annual meeting in December 2014. This is like getting a perfect score on an exam. Normally, this would mean that LSU would not have to do another full reaffirmation

compliance report for another 10 years.

However, in April 2015 LSU realigned with the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, i.e., the Law Center was reintegrated into LSU as a separate academic unit.

This meant that LSU had to write a Substantive Change Report by June and have another on-site visit by SACSCOC in August. As such, Dr. Henry and a few other LSU administrators and staff were recruited to address 40+ Principles of Accreditation that dealt with the realignment of LSU and the Law Center.

Another 500 page report was prepared and a SACSCOC on-site committee visited in early August. Fortunately, LSU received another exceptionally positive result on the report and the committee made no recommendations. The final official outcome will be announced at the SACSCOC annual meeting in December 2015.

Jianwei Wang Assistant Professor The past year was the second year for Dr. Wang at LSU. His research group has grown in the last year with two new PhD graduate students and one postdoc currently working with him. His research topics range from gas hydrate nucleation and formation at mineral surfaces, nuclear waste forms development, to hydrocarbon storage and transport in geologic media.

On the teaching front, Dr. Wang has developed two new courses in computation. One is atomistic scale computer modeling in earth materials and geochemistry with enrolled students from geology & geophysics and chemical engineering. The other course is computer programming and statistical data analysis in earth sciences.

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In March, Dr. Wang was invited to give a department seminar at the Department of Geography & Geology, University of Southern Mississippi, on molecular simulations of earth materials and geochemistry for environment and energy applications. He also gave an invited lecture to graduate students in the Department of Chemistry at LSU on computational earth materials and geochemistry in April. In August, Dr. Wang presented an invited talk at the Geochemical Division, American Chemical Society meeting in Boston on structure and reactivity of mineral-fluid interfaces. In the past year, Dr. Wang joined the editorial boards of Frontiers in Energy Research and Frontiers in Earth and Planetary Materials and currently serves as an associate editor of the latter.

Louisiana State University

Huiming Bao Charles L. Jones Professor of Geology The past academic year was marked by a trip to East Finnmark, guided by Dr. Hugh Rice from University of Vienna, installing new machines in the upgraded stable isotope laboratory, and the addition of Dr.Yongbo Peng as an assistant professor in research to our group. Two students, Dustin Boyd and Bryan Killingsworth, graduated and Ziran Wei joined the group. Scholarly, the year was highlighted by the publication of one invited review in Chemical Geology and the submission of another invited review to Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Four other papers were also published including two led by PhD students, Bryan Killingsworth and Justin Hayles. Bao also served the profession by being on an NSF panel and co-organizing a session at the AGU meeting. He is increasingly interested in the pursuit of fundamental stable isotope fractionation processes and is venturing into a new phase of growth that requires a bigger platform.

Peter Clift Charles T. McCord Chair of Petroleum Geology During the last academic year, Dr. Clift continued his research interests in relation to sediment transport and trying to understand the processes that control the erosion of the continents and in particular active mountain belts, much of it supported by the Charles T. McCord, Jr. Chair in Petroleum Geology. Although he is working on a variety of timescales, many of his graduate students are focusing on problems that span the relatively recent geological past, the Quaternary.

There they have the luxury of both good age control and a relatively detailed understanding of how the climate has varied. This then allows them to understand how this may have impacted erosion and sedimentation processes. In doing so they are able to identify other influences such as tectonics.

He has been working on the False River point system, just north of Baton Rouge, in an attempt to understand how this large sedimentary complex was constructed. Together with Juan Lorenzo they have been drilling and collecting seismic information to see how and why the sedimentary architecture changes around the bend of the meander. This project has industrial applications since point bar sediments are often prolific hydrocarbon reservoirs. Dr. Clift is very interested in trying to understand the impact that human settlement of North America

Clift on the rig floor of the JOIDES Resolution as the logging engineer prepares to deploy the “triple combo” downhole geophysical tool.

Department of Geology & Geophysics

Dr. Bao on the northern tip of Norway

Upgraded stable Isotope Laboratory at LSU Geology & Geophysics

has had on the sediment that we now see in the Mississippi River. He strongly believes disentangling the impact of human settlement from natural processes is essential if we hope to use the modern system to try understand the ancient deposits in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many of Dr. Clift’s students have been working on the impact of the Asian monsoon on major river systems and their offshore equivalents. Samples that were collected during a research drilling cruise in the South China Sea last year are now being analyzed. They appear to have new evidence for the birth of the Mekong River starting in the late Miocene. Meanwhile, in the Western Himalayas Dr. Clift continues to work both on and offshore exploring the idea that times of strong monsoon resulted in faster erosion. In spring 2015, he was fortunate enough to be co-chief scientist on a drilling expedition in the Arabian Sea. There they spent almost 60 days coring more than 1 km into the sea floor and collecting some of the oldest sediments eroded from the Himalayas. He is particularly interested in trying to understand the processes responsible for the opening of the Indian Ocean as India separated from Madagascar and the Seychelles at the end of the Cretaceous.

Clift and visiting scientist Weiwei Ding from the Chinese Academy of Sciences selecting sediment samples for their work in the South China Sea.

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Suniti Karunatillake Assistant Professor Members of the Planetary Science Lab (PSL) led by Dr. Suniti Karunatillake progressed on several aspects of their research mission to explore processes on planetary bodies extending from the weathering of surfaces to the depths of igneous evolution.

As over the last two years, their work focused on Mars, given their vision inspired by the possibility of life beyond Earth, to explore, discover, and share the frontiers of planetary science.

Sharing the frontiers included a presentation to members of SciPort in Shreveport, Louisiana. It also involved welcoming five undergraduates (Viviane Chaves, Wellinton Nogueira, Lucas Ribeiro, Franciele dos Santos, Wildson Vasconcelos) from several Brazilian universities to conduct summer research at PSL. This was funded by the Brazil Science Mobility Program (BSMP).

Recent science advances by PSL, on the mineralogic basis to bulk soil hydration on Mars, were highlighted by EOS after publication

by Geophysical Research Letters. True to the spirit of questioning that permeates PSL’s research environment, Don Hood, PhD student at PSL, is now leading a project to challenge the discovery.

This relates to the many reservoirs of H2O on Mars established in the form of solid ice, which nevertheless fails to explain the ubiquitous detection of H2O by remote sensing. With the nature of this H2O yet to be definitively established, Don Hood is trying to establish a chemical reservoir for the H2O observed by the Mars Odyssey Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS). The GRS provides widespread coverage, and penetrates decimeters into the subsurface, an ideal depth for analyzing the unconsolidated rock materials covering Mars. He would use principal component analysis in a multidimensional space that includes the degree of fine material mantling across Mars to assess the connection between H2O and other elements in the shallow subsurface.

Particular attention would be given to sulfur and chlorine as primary components of possibly H2O-bearing minerals.

Expanding the scope of exploring the martian surface, PSL’s BSMP student cohort, affectionately called the “AI”-Analytical Intelligentsia (AI) group-supported by the rest of the PSL teamdubbed the Enterprise Team (ET)-approached the challenge of advancing the semi-automated photo-analysis code published by Dr. Karunatillake et al. [2014 a, b]. They successfully modified the code to detect individual clasts in the soil of Gale Crater, which even contributed to a mid-summer NASA proposal. This enabled further comparisons with alternative software such as BaseGrain.

Ongoing advances may complement established mining industry software such as FragScan, Simagis, and WipFrag.

Karunatillake was awarded a research enhancement grant from the Louisiana Space Consortium for a proposal titled, “Remote Sensing, Ground Infrared and Neutron Spectroscopy to Support Planetary Analog Exploration.” Karunatillake submitted the grant with postdoctoral researcher J.R. Skok. The grant will support research collaborations between Karunatillake and the LSU Planetary Laboratory and the NASA Ames Research Center’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute.

Figure 1: Segmentation of sol 704. Example of of photoanalyzing MAHLI soil images with our code code [Karunatillake et al., 2013a]. 704. 704. Image Credit: NASA/JPL­Caltech/MSSS. Mars Analyst website identifies corresponding ChemCam, APXS, and DAN data.

Guangsheng Zhuang Assistant Professor Dr. Guangsheng Zhuang joined the Department of Geology & Geophysics in the fall of 2015. Guangsheng obtained his PhD degree in earth sciences from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2011. His PhD dissertation work was focused on the tectonic evolution of Northern Tibetan Plateau and the impact of plateau uplift on the regional climate. He was trained in three disciplines, including basin analysis, paleoclimatology, and (UTh)/He thermochronology. From 2011 to 2013, Guangsheng was funded through Bateman Fund as a postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at Yale University.

Guangsheng was trained in organic geochemistry. He applied novel technologies, including compound-specific isotope analysis and temperature proxies from organic geochemistry to provide quantitative constraints on the surface uplift history of active orogenic belts and to study the relationships between the plateau growth and the C3-C4 ecological transition and the development of monsoon. From 2013 to 2015, Guangsheng was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow based at Lancaster University (U.K.).

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He and his colleagues were studying the ancient sedimentary rocks, ranging in age from late Cretaceous to the Pleistocene, in order to understand the collision and pre-collision tectonic configuration between India and Asia.

Guangsheng’s main research interests focus on the interactions of tectonism, climate change, and ecological evolution.

He is keen to develop an integrated approach, including basin analysis, stable isotopes, low-temperature thermochronology, and organic geochemistry to solve hotly debated scientific problems in earth sciences.

Louisiana State University

Sophie Warny Associate Professor and Curator The past year has been busy and exciting for Dr. Wanry and her research group. Three CENEX students were hired as biostratigraphers (paleontologists who use microfossils to provide age control of deposits) by the oil and gas industry. The Center for Excellence in Palynology (CENEX) at LSU is one of a handful of university programs that is still training biostratigraphers.

Programs such as this one are always endangered when a state is facing budget cuts. That said, she Isil, her husband and Dr. Sophie is happy to report that in the past Warny at Isil’s graduation. seven years, all of her graduated students have been employed by the oil and gas industry in the U.S., U.K., and Turkey. This confirms that they are serving a very important niche, providing critical training here at LSU. Isil Akyus, who finished her MS in Palynology from CENEX, was hired as a biostratigrapher with the Turkish Petroleum Institute. Marie Thomas, who defended her PhD in Palynology in May (in CENEX as well) was hired as a biostratigrapher with HESS in Houston. Carlos Santos who completed a MS degree at CENEX, was hired as a biostratigrapher with B.P. in London.

Dr. Kate Griener was selected to receive the Distinguished Dissertation Award at the 40th Annual College of Science Honors Convocation. Each year doctoral dissertations are screened from every department and separated into two categories: arts, humanities, and social sciences and science, engineering, and technology. Three nominees from each category are chosen based on the quality of their presentation and for the exceptional

scientific impact they have made in their disciplines. Griener won with her dissertation entitled “Changes in Climate and Moisture Availability in the Antarctic Eocene, Oligocene, and Miocene: Evidence from Palynological and Stable Isotope Geochemical Analyses of the SHALDRIL and ANDRILL Cores.” She published three peer-reviewed papers from her PhD research. Her research is also featured in a permanent exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The “Earthquake” exhibit displays some of the plant fossils Griener and Warny found in Antarctica, which attest to previous connections to South America. One of the SEM pictures taken by Griener and Warny at LSU made the cover of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). She now works as a geologist at BHP Billiton in Houston. She is to be commended for working on her publication revisions despite the demand of a new career out of state.

Isil Akyuz, Madison Kymes, Marie Thomas, and Steve Babcock also had papers published in peer-reviewed journals this past academic year.

In addition to her research program, Dr. Warny and Phil Bart spear-headed the remodeling of the old geology building (see article on Museum Hall Update).

Warny ended the year by offering two geology classes in France over the summer to 16 geology and petroleum engineering students (see article on LSU in Paris and picture above).

Yanxia Ma Instructor Yanxia Ma joined the department in August 2014 as an instructor. Prior to this position, her research involved the dispersal of river-borne sediment on the continental shelf, sediment dynamics and morphologies in coastal zone, and sediment diversion in the lower Mississippi River. Ma teaches historical geology and earth materials for petroleum engineering, and supervises multiple historical geology labs. She is also a fellow of LSU Coastal Studies Institute. During the academic year 2014-15, she was dedicated to designing and improving the teaching materials, as well as enhancing student engagement in large classes.

Beyond her teaching highlights, Ma worked on a project funded by South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, entitled “Observational and Modeling Studies to Benefit the Management and Selection of Borrow Sites for Beach Nourishment in South Carolina.” Her contribution on the project was the analyses of field data including waves, currents and sediments, and the sediment dynamics over a sediment dredging borrow site during fair-weather and storm conditions. In May 2015, she attended a faculty summer institute at LSU, held for faculty who are dedicated to undergraduate teaching and learning; she plans to apply what she learned from the institute in her teaching for the fall semester. Over the summer, she traveled to China and collaborated with colleagues at East China Normal University on a project funded by National Natural Science Foundation in China, entitled “The impacts of the Three Gorges Dam on sediment dynamics and morphologies of Yangtze River Delta.”

Department of Geology & Geophysics

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Phil Bart Associate Professor Dr. Bart spent much of the fall 2014 semester preparing for a nine week research cruise to Ross Sea, Antarctica (see article Antarctica Expedition). Bart along with students, Matthew DeCesare, Ben Krogmeier, Dan Mullally, Madeline Meyers, Jack Cadigan, and Jerry Elwood, left Baton Rouge on January 14 to begin their scientific expedition.

Upon his return to campus, Bart taught “Sequence Stratigraphy.” The course focused on principles of physical stratigraphy with emphasis on contemporary concepts about the interaction of tectonics, sea level, and sediment supply in generating a predictable architecture of sedimentary basin fills.

Graduate student Dan Mullally successfully defended his MS thesis. Bart and Mullally utilized the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM) to numerically simulate the last 120 kyrs of Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution using different marine and landscape elevations.

The current land- and marine-scape elevation was used as a baseline simulation. We created six successively shallower marine scapes using MATLAB. We performed the same forcing on the shallower marine scapes to determine the degree to which ice sheet evolution is influenced by shelf depth and profile. The PISM simulations were performed using the LSU High Performance Computing Center. The simulations clearly show that ice sheet dynamics are significantly affected by shelf depth. Relative to a deep shelf, advance of grounded ice is very

rapid on a shallow shelf and a significantly larger ice volume is attained when full glacial forcing is applied. During the transition from full glacial to full interglacial, conditions are applied resulting in an ice sheet on an over-deepened shelf, like the modern configuration, to experience rapid retreat and deflation.

Conversely, on shallower shelves, the grounding line experiences minimal retreat, and the ice sheet experiences minimal deflation.

The modeling results suggest to us that shelf depth boundary condition is a major control of ice sheet behavior that should be considered when interpreting the long term ice sheet history over time intervals when it is likely that the shelf depth changed from shallow to deep (as a consequence of erosion and isostatic adjustments).

Over the summer, Dr. Bart and Dr. Sophie Warny traveled to Paris where he assisted with the two LSU summer abroad courses she taught to LSU undergraduates in Paris and Villeneuf sur Mer (see LSU in Paris article).

Back on campus, Dr. Bart and his graduate students have been very busy processing and analyzing the Antarctic sediment core samples they acquired in the spring for grain-size, TOC, foraminiferal assemblage data, and pore water chemistry. Bart ended the year traveling with graduate students Matthew DeCesare and Austin McGlannan to Tallahassee, Florida, in late July to describe and sample the Jumbo Piston Cores obtained.

Achim Herrmann Assistant Professor Achim Herrmann’s research group is shrinking in size! His first two MS students defended their theses. Zach Wright graduated in August, and Max Lindaman will graduate in December. He wil now have one PhD student, five MS students, and three undergraduate students working with him.

Herrmann’s research group continues to study the environmental change during the so-called GICE interval (the Guttenberg Isotope Carbon excursion) of the Early Late Ordovician. Fieldwork in the last year took them to Alabama, Georgia,Virginia, and Tennessee. The Ordovician of the Southern Appalachians can only be described as amazing. The group recently published a paper summarizing their findings on “Carbon cycling across the southern margin of Laurentia during the Late Ordovician” (doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2015.08.020).

Dr. Herrmann also had the privilege to be part of the organizing committee for the International Sympoisoin of the Ordovician that was held in Virginia over the summer. In addition, he was one of the two leaders for a pre-conference field trip that explored the Ordovician of the Southern Appalachians.

Work also continued on developing a better understanding of the paleoceanographic conditions during the deposition of Pennsylvanian black shales. During the spring semester, the group published a paper that refined the depth-stratification model for the distribution of conodonts for the Late Pennsylvanian Midcontinent Sea (doi:10.1002/2014PA002725).

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Top: Dr. Herrmann sampling the Ordovician Walker Mountain Sandstone with his collaborator John Haynes (James Madison University).

Bottom: Dr. Herrmann at the University of Basel using a Selfrag machine.

Louisiana State University

Carol Wilson Assistant Professor Carol Wilson joined the department as an assistant professor in fall 2015, and is excited about returning to her roots here in Louisiana: she lived in New Orleans for 10 years and studied the eroding saltmarsh shorelines of the Mississippi Delta while pursuing a master’s degree at Tulane. Since then she has been traveling the world as a wetland eco-geomorphologist, interested in elucidating how biology (including anthropogenic alteration) is coupled with geology and hydrodynamics in coastal and deltaic areas. She has most recently been working in Bangladesh as a postdoctoral scholar at Vanderbilt University on the NSF-funded BanglaPIRE project understanding how rivers behave in the tectonically active Ganges-Brahmaputra delta. Major questions include what are the flooding and sediment distribution patterns created, and what material ultimately constructs that delta’s landscape, which is home to over 150 million people and considered at high risk to climate change. This project was recently spotlighted in a short educational film at the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Another project in this delta, funded by the Office of Naval Research, focuses on how polders in the coastal region (similar to levees in southeast Louisiana) have led to elevation deficits relative to mean high water, endangering local communities when embankment

failures occur (e.g., during storms or lateral channel erosion). This work was recently featured in a Nature Climate Change publication, highlighting what many people in Louisiana already know first-hand: anthropogenic modifications originally designed to protect coastal communities can have unintended and sometimes disastrous repercussions, and that these must be taken into account along with natural deltaic processes when considering any future mitigation projects.

Wilson has plans to return to Bangladesh this fall to continue monitoring these parameters, and is excited about visiting the natural Sundarbans mangrove preserve (where Bengal Tigers, like Mike, live). She is looking forward to synthesizing her research with colleagues here at LSU who study river and delta dynamics worldwide, and including LSU’s bright

undergraduate and future graduate students into her research program.

Gary Byerly Professor Emeritus Gary Byerly has moved into a new phase — retirement. Like many of his colleagues that have done this, he is still in his geology office every day, except when he doesn’t feel like it! His first month of retirement was spent in South Africa doing research that started nearly 40 years ago with a three-year NSF grant. Byerly is fortunate to have Don Lowe as his field partner. Lowe is five years older than Byerly, so they now do their mountains at a more leisurely pace.

Two papers Byerly and his colleagues published over the past year researching large asteroid impacts, have brought considerable international attention. Their research focuses on what effects the asteroids had on life’s early emergence on Earth.

Dr. Byerly has a Blaustein Fellowship that will allow him to visit Stanford University this coming year, probably three trips and up to three months, including an allowance for travel and laboratory expenses. He is already planning for South Africa 2016, where he and Lowe will co-lead a five-day field conference associated with IGC2016, which will be in Cape Town.

Department of Geology & Geophysics

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Peter Doran John Franks Endowed Chair Peter Doran joined LSU G&G in January, after 15 years as faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He specializes in water, climate, and ecosystems in polar regions, mostly Antarctica. He also uses these environments as analogs for other icy worlds. Dr. Doran has progressively been getting settled in at Howe-Russell, including building a new -20C freezer facility on the third floor of the old building in order to house and work on his ice and sediment samples from Antarctica. The samples are still residing at his old institute in Illinois and will make the trip south in September. He hopes the old freezer up north will hold until then. The trip will be made in a rental truck with lots of dry ice and a long drive.

The spring semester and summer have been spent rounding out the move of his lab, writing papers, and submitting research proposals. A paper that was published in February in Nature Communications about the discovery and characterization of a new groundwater reservoir in Antarctica garnered international attention. One of two proposals submitted in the spring has already received notification of funding, and it is a big one. Dr. Doran will act as the science lead on a Phase A NASA study to develop an ice melting space probe that will be used on Earth to access subglacial environment, and hopefully eventually fly to Jupiter’s moon Europa and access the global ocean under the thick ice. The Phase A study will be about development, not building. Dr. Doran is tasked with organizing eight workshops in the next two years with the science team and invited guests. He and his postdoc also presented papers at international science meetings in Spain and India.

Dr. Doran was the conference chair for the 800-person NASA Astrobiology Science Conference at the Chicago Hilton in June, which by all accounts was a huge success. He also attended a number of meetings in his capacity as a sitting member of the NASA Planetary Protection Subcommittee.

Dr. Doran has spent a lot of time going back and forth to Chicago, finishing up with his old graduate students there. His first LSU students arrived in August. Jade Lawrence did her undergrad at UC Santa Barbara and has ample experience doing lake field work in Alaska. Jade was awarded a Board of Regents Fellowship at LSU. Krista Myers did her undergrad at UC Santa Cruz and also has Alaskan field experience. In fact, she met Dr. Doran while being a field assistant on a precursor project he is co-PI on, developing an ice probe that was being tested on the Matanuska Glacier (see top photo). Krista came to LSU holding a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

In August there was pure panic going on in the Doran lab as all hands were packing for their upcoming expedition to Antarctica. The shipping deadline is in August for the trip, which will begin in October. Doran will lead a team of his three graduate students (two from LSU, one from UIC), his postdoc, and a hired gun who will hopefully become a future postdoc. The team is involved in two funded projects in Antarctica, one with NSF and one with NASA. We look forward to hearing about the outcome of those projects this fall.

Jeff Hanor Professor Emeritus Emeritus Professor Jeff Hanor’s research continued in 2014-15 on salt-sediment-fluid interactions. His USGS colleague Yousif Kharaka and Dr. Hanor published an updated and greatly enlarged chapter on “Deep Fluids in Sedimentary Basins” in the second edition of the Treatise on Geochemistry. The 2014 GCAGS Transactions saw a paper by Hanor and LSU Alum Stephanie Bruno on “Dissolution of salt and perturbation of subsurface temperatures by salinity-driven free convection at the Bay Marchand Field, offshore Louisiana.” Subsurface temperatures are sometimes elevated near shallow salt domes because of the high thermal conductivity of salt. However, the sinking of a dense brine plume produced by the dissolution of salt at Bay Marchand is actually depressing temperatures on the southeast flank of the dome. Preliminary heat balance calculations suggest that lateral fluid flow rates on the order of 1 m/y could account for the observed temperature perturbations.

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Louisiana State University

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Thank you from the faculty, students, and staff in the Department of Geology & Geophysics.

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