GEOLOGICAL RECORD BYU Geological Sciences Magazine // Spring 2015
Alumni Spotlight: Robert Rowley p. 5 Student Spotlight: Colby Hazard p. 7 Geology Alumni Bahamas Trip p. 8 SPRING 2015
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MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR
PRODUCTION Editor: Aimee Robbins Graphic Designer: Ye Liang
CONTACT US Have a comment or question? Would you like to nominate someone to spotlight in our next issue? Contact the Alumni Relations Committee:
Thomas H. Morris 801-422-3761 thomas_morris@byu.edu Brooks B. Britt 801-422-7316 brooks_britt@byu.edu Sam Hudson 801-422-4657 sam.hudson@byu.edu
Dear BYU Geology Alumni and Friends, The signal event in the department since our last issue of the Geological Record was the addition to our faculty of Dr. Sam Hudson, formerly with ConocoPhillips. Sam describes his research interest as understanding “the processes responsible for transportation, deposition, and preservation of clastic sediments and apply these ‘rules’ to real problems . . . and the various elements of a working petroleum system.” One of Sam’s goals is the establishment of a lab to measure total organic carbon in fine-grained clastic reservoirs. Despite the dramatic drop in the price of crude oil, we continue to be blessed with financial contributions to the department, including a recent, very generous donation of over $100,000 that will strengthen our ability to pre-
pare students for geology careers. More good news: Professor Tom Morris recently received the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences award for outstanding teaching by faculty with more than 10 years’ experience (last year, Professor Randy Skinner won this same award for faculty with less than 10 years’ experience). These awards are continuing evidence of the department’s strong interest in teaching and student preparation. To maintain our vital links to alumni, our October Homecoming “Field Trip” venue in 2014 was the BYU Museum of Paleontology, followed by a catered dinner. The event, organized by Dr. Rod Scheetz, was a great success and included a record number of attendees. Rod received a BYU “Staff and Administrative Employee Recognition Award” for his efforts. The annual college
Student Research Conference in March included almost 50 Geology student presentations—a new record; and the annual Quey Hebrew Memorial Lecture, was presented this year by Dr. Benjamin Pykles, Historic Sites Curator with the LDS Church History Department, on “Using Remote Sensing Technologies at Church Historic Sites.” We hope you enjoy this issue of the Geological Record. As you read the Geological Record, consider ways to support the department and our outstanding students. We look forward to hearing from (and about) you!
John McBride Professor and Chair Geological Sciences, BYU
SELECTED DEPARTMENTAL PUBLICATIONS Utah Geologic Highway Map Lehi F. Hintze $15 The classic geologic map includes seven strat columns, cross sections, a condensed geologic history, relief map, and photographs of selected scenic geology, all on one 36 x 24 inch folded sheet. Don’t drive through Utah without it.
Beyond the Visible Landscape W. Kenneth Hamblin. 2004. $65
Geologic History of Utah Lehi F. Hintze & Bart J. Kowallis, updated 2009 edition. $33
Everyone heard Ken exclaim, “Stop the van—I feel a lecture coming on.” Travel though Utah’s deep time in the comfort of your living room with this 300 page hardcover featuring panoramic photos on every page accompanied by geological insights.
To purchase, go to geology.byu.edu, click on Books & Maps, and Books For Purchase.
You may have cut your teeth on the smaller, yellow-covered edition of this tome. It’s time to upgrade to the latest edition of this field guide to Utah’s geology. Fully updated with current tectonic interpretations and 116 detailed strat sections.
ROCK
MESSAGE FROM THE ALUMNI CHAIR
BOX Geological Samples
PHOTOS: cover, courtesy of Thomas Morris; top left, courtesy of BYU Photo; top right, courtesy of Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc.
Giant, Filter-feeding Arthropod
We’ve all heard of Anomalocaris, the largest predator of the Cambrian, with killer jaws and large oral appendages whose disarticulated body parts were originally named as several different genera. In March 2015, a more peaceful anomalocarid from Morocco was announced. Named Aegirocassis, this Ordovician arthropod has a length of more than seven feet, making it one of the largest arthropods in Earth’s history. Unlike its predaceous Cambrian ancestors, Aegirocassis was a filter feeder. In the predaceous anamalocarids the jointed oral appendages were used to grasp and place prey into the jaws, but in Aegirocassis the bottom of each oral appendage bore rows of feather-like structures that formed a plankton-trapping “net” in front of the mouth. The most important aspect of Aegirocassis, however, was the preservation of paired fins on each side of the body segments that represent a primitive level of the development of the two-branched limbs that are found on today’s marine arthropods. Peter Van Roy, Allison C. Daley, Derek E. G. Briggs. Anomalocaridid trunk limb homology revealed by a giant filter-feeder with paired flaps. Nature, 2015; DOI: 10.1038/nature14256
Slip-sliding Away
Late in 2014, geologists published a new interpretation of the Markagunt volcanic breccia, which they call the Markagunt gravity slide, in southwestern Utah between Bryce Canyon and Beaver. Preliminary work shows this slide covers at least 1,300 square miles. Once it is fully mapped, it could be larger than the Heart Mountain slide in Wyoming, currently the world’s largest know terrestrial slide. The slide occurred circa 21 million years ago (Miocene) and moved some 450 cubic miles of andesitic breccias, lava flows, ash, tuffs, and sandstone. The slide is hypothesized to have been caused by magmatic inflation of the Marysvale volcanic field. The slip plane (located in the tuffaceous Brian Head Formation) consists of cataclastics and sheared breccia along with pseudotachylyite (glass), all of which indicate the entire slide catastrophically moved in a matter of moments as a single unit. This paper interprets the Markagunt volcanic breccia, which previous workers considered to be due to a large number of small landslides, to be the result of a single, giant, catastrophic slide. D. B. Hacker, R. F. Biek, P. D. Rowley. Catastrophic emplacement of the gigantic Markagunt gravity slide, southwest Utah (USA): Implications for hazards associated with sector collapse of volcanic fields. Geology, 2014; 42 (11): 943 DOI: 10.1130/G35896.1
Dear Fellow Alumni, Charles Dickens penned the famous line “[i]t was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Although the context in which Charles Dickens wrote those words (the French Revolution) bears no resemblance to the energy industry today, the recent sudden drop in oil prices has caused some of our alumni to end up on both ends of that thought. For those of you who are dependent on filling your gas tank or are not in the energy industry, it has been a boon. For those that work in the energy industry the price drop has led to layoffs and challenging workplace environments. This recent displacement reminds me of the value of good friends and the strength that comes from networking. Being able to reach out to those you’ve associated with when times are hard begins with maintaining the highest ethical and moral standards, then patiently and consistently working at developing and maintaining a network of friends and contacts when times are good. When I lost my job in a merger seven years ago, I began my job search by calling my contacts for leads, floating my resume with every company that made sense, and contacting those who knew someone in the company if they
could recommend me. It was the willingness of a friend to vouch for me that had a significant impact in placing me in my current job. BYU’s new website, BYU Bridge, is a professional networking site for alumni with jobs to offer, and for students and alumni looking for jobs. Go to bridge.byu. edu, log in, fill out a profile, and get involved. It is easy; even an old geezer like me figured it out. In addition, the department has set up a BYU Department of Geological Sciences LinkedIn group. Check that out as well. A solid network of contacts and associates is crucial to success. Our department’s alumni organization is a valuable network that you are already a part of. I hope that you sense that. This magazine is an effort to foster that feeling. Make yourself available to students and fellow alumni through the BYU Bridge and our department LinkedIn group to connect with old friends and to provide or receive, job advice, leads, or just an encouraging word. You will be happy you did and grateful when someone does the same for you one day. I was. All the best! Gerry Morton Alumni Chair Geological Sciences, BYU
ON THE COVER The Onion Creek salt diapir is the focus of Dr. Sam Hudson’s research. The salt feature is exposed northeast of Moab, Utah. Students are investigating halokenetic sequence stratigraphy, rafted blocks, and salt movement effects on fluvial architecture of the adjacent Cutler Formation.
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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Using Seismic Attributes to Find the Missing Pieces
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very morning Evan Staples wakes up t ha n k f u l to be a geophysicist. “I love that each day brings a new challenge and something different,” he said. “It makes me excited to go to work in the morning because there is always something new and different to work on.” During his undergraduate studies, two courses really stood out to Staples—structural geology and seismic interpretation. In the structural geology course, Staples enjoyed collecting
measurements in the field and putting together the bigger structural picture. In the seismic interpretation class, he loved learning that through seismic attributes, people could predict things from fracture zones to rock type to reservoir properties. After that class, he was hooked on geophysics, and he graduated from the Department of Geological Sciences in 2009. He then went to the University of Oklahoma to earn a master’s degree in geophysics. There he combined his interests in structure and geophysics into a project where he calibrated seismic attribute responses from surface seismic to subsurface fractures interpreted from image logs. After his first year, Staples worked as an intern for Marathon Oil Company where he reconstructed two anticlines to determine periods of sedimentation and tectonic activity. During his internship, he also explored using seismic attributes and ended up generating a prospect lead for his group. This project piqued his interest in the oil industry and helped him realize that
he enjoyed hunting for oil. In 2011, Staples began working for ConocoPhillips in the Gulf of Mexico. He was assigned to work on a seismic re-imaging project and was able to continue his seismic attribute work by performing AVO analysis in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2013 he began providing geophysical support for unconventional exploration in the Permian Basin specializing in structural seismic interpretation, attribute analysis, and microseismic interpretation. “I enjoy my work because it’s like putting a puzzle together,” Staples said. “You have some data and you have to figure out why oil is [in] one area and not in another. You get to fill in the missing gaps and put it all together.” In his current project, Staples works with seismic data to study the structural complexity of the Permian Basin so ConocoPhillips can avoid encountering geohazards during drilling that would make wells unproductive. He also uses seismic attributes to help predict “sweet spots” or areas that might make wells more productive. Staples works on an integrated team of other geologists, engineers, petrophysicists, and business people. He enjoys his colleagues because they help
him see how each person’s job is important for the success of the company. “Working in a team has been rewarding because my co-workers help me gain new points of view and better understand the oil industry as a whole,” he said. In addition to his regular projects, Staples has had the opportunity to be a mentor to a new hire and two interns. As a mentor, he assesses where the new employees’ strengths are and helps train them so they can develop skills that will be useful for them and the company. Staples values the mentoring process because he had an excellent mentor who helped him get up to speed quickly so he could begin contributing right away. When he isn’t working as a geophysicist, Staples enjoys being outside with his wife and two young children. They enjoy hiking trails near their home, visiting the park, playing in the backyard, and riding bikes. He loves having the time to be with his wife and children, but Staples is also very thankful to enjoy his career. “[Aside from my family,] my job is probably one of the best things I’ve been able to get in my life,” he said. “I feel very fortunate that I found such a good fit.”
Staples on a fieldtrip to Niobrara in 2013, looking for unconventional analogs in the outcrops in the DJ Basin.
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GEOLOGICAL RECORD
PHOTO: courtesy of Evan Staples
By Meg Monk
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
Left: Dr. Kenneth L. Cook (project lead) with a magnetometer circa 1950. Middle: Rowley working with an assistant at the US Bureau of Mines circa 1944. Right: Rowley and his wife, Katrine, in December 2011.
Ninety Years of Geology and Counting By Jennifer Johnson
PHOTOS: courtesy of Robert Rowley
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obert Rowley’s geological career started with ping-pong on Tuesday nights.
As a young adult, the now ninety-year-old man studied geology at Branch Agriculture College (BAC), which is now Southern Utah University, in Cedar City, Utah. He played ping-pong with his roommate in the institute basement after activities, and one night, BYU geologist Paul Dean Proctor joined their game. Proctor learned that Rowley was looking for a summer job and helped Rowley land a position working on the US Bureau of Mines magnetic survey of the Iron Springs area in southern Utah. Rowley started out as the chainman. Soon he was assigned to take notes, and his responsibilities didn’t stop growing there. “Then a couple of days later, Dr. Kenneth L. Cook (the lead on the project) taught me how to use the magnetometer. Pretty soon I was running the crew and Dr. Cook was doing his work in the office,” Rowley said. Rowley worked with Dr. Cook from the summer of 1944 to the summer of 1945. When he graduated from BAC, he decided to pursue a geology degree at BYU. He said his interest in geology stemmed from a desire to know more about how the earth developed. “[I like] to be able to look at the rock in the countryside and try to decide how it got there,” he said. “That was part of it, and part of it was that I was interested in finding buried iron ore deposits.” At BYU, he spent about as much time with music as he did with geology, playing trumpet in as many bands as he could. “My hobby is music, and when I got up there [to BYU] I played with the concert band,” he said. “I played in a local dance orchestra, too.” Before he graduated from BYU in 1948, he met Samuel Sargis in a chance encounter at Walgreen’s. Sargis worked for Geneva Steel, and he helped Rowley secure a position at Columbia Iron Mining Company. Rowley worked at Columbia Iron running magnetometer surveys for several years. He explored magnetic anomalies with core drilling
and found several large ore deposits. When Columbia moved its operation to Wyoming, however, Rowley had already completed the magnetic survey there, and he was left without a job. Eventually he found another job with the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT). There he started out as a materials engineer, progressed to become a project engineer, and eventually ended his career as the assistant district director. In these different positions, he became familiar with all phases of highway construction, from obtaining materials to directing a crew of eleven men. He was closely involved in the construction of the stretch of I-15 from Cedar City to Paragonah. “Every time I go to Cedar, I look at my own road,” he said. “I drive that highway often, and I still get a good feeling.” He worked at UDOT until he retired at age sixty-eight, but retirement hasn’t slowed him down. He has kept himself busy pursuing his love of music. Rowley has participated in several dance bands, even until he was eighty-four years old. He has also sung in many choirs. After he retired, he and his wife, Katrine, sang in the Southern Utah Chorale before he started his own choir. “From Parowan we had two sopranos, one alto, two tenors, and two basses,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, if we could just pick up another alto, we’d have a good singing group of our own!’ So we did, and I organized it and called it Vermilion Voices.” Rowley has also kept busy in his retirement by taking lecture courses on DVD to continue learning. The courses include astronomy, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and major transitions in evolution. His favorite course is called “Origin and Evolution of Earth: From the Big Bang to the Future of Human Existence.” “[That course] shows the importance of all the sciences, including continental drift, working together to bring us to the present understanding of the universe and what the future may bring for human life,” he said. SPRING 2015
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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Ignited with Geological Discovery By Danica Baird
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GEOLOGICAL RECORD
hazards, and geochemistry. “They’re really passionate about this stuff. Just being around them and being ignited with geological discovery is incredible,” Argyle said. Argyle says that every time he goes on a trip like this, it makes him want to get back out into the field even more. Every trip reminds him of why he loves geology. That’s why Argyle is thankful for opportunities to go on field studies as an undergraduate. One of the meaningful studies he went on was a BYU sponsored field study in the Bahamas. In the Bahamas, he studied an active carbonate dispositional setting. On the trip, the students and professors looked at reefs, carbonate mud, and ooids. For Argyle, it was an experience that helped cement his passion for geology. Being out in the field and crunching the data is what he loves about geology. But this passion for geology isn’t a recent development—it spans back to his childhood. While other kids’ science experiments consisted of the classic baking soda and vinegar volcanoes, Argyle turned in a project analyzing how erosion rates affected vegetation on a mountain near his home. “For a fifth grade project, I actually had collected some pretty decent data,” Argyle says. From that point on, he was always
attracted to the sciences. Argyle’s school didn’t offer any geology classes, so his favorite class was chemistry. However, when he discovered he could apply chemistry and physics to geology, his path was set. “Your education is what you put into it,” Argyle said. Following his own advice, Argyle will be participating in another field study in geophysics, and this time the stop is Saudi Arabia. For two and a half months this spring, he will working with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Argyle will help with projects like a ground water study at Wadi Qadeid, a robotic land-streamer survey, a super-resolution field experiment and tracking near surface faults. “I’m excited to see what’s out there and experience new adventures. It should be a great experience,” Argyle said. After returning from Saudi Arabia, Argyle plans to continue his education at BYU. After that, he plans to get his master’s degree and possibly even a PhD. He wants to work in an area that is both applicable to industry and academia. “I don’t know if I’ll end up in seismology or studying volcanoes, but any experience in the field is worthwhile,” he said. PHOTOS: courtesy of James PHOTO: Argyle courtesy of James Argyle
H
awaii is a popular destination for honeymooners, but for geologist James Argyle, it was the perfect opportunity to utilize skills learned as an undergraduate student in the BYU Department of Geological Sciences. This February Argyle spent two weeks in Hawaii with the University of Alaska Fairbanks studying ocean islands and volcanism. While in Hawaii, Argyle saw lava flows, craters, spatter cones, and volcanoes. He even walked over lava flows—not the usual tourist activity, but for Argyle it was the perfect way to supplement his education. “Everything I saw I’d already learned in class. But just going out and seeing it . . . it’s one thing to learn about it in a classroom, [but] it’s another to see it,” Argyle said. Argyle particularly enjoyed using GPS to track the movement of the south flank of the volcano Kilauea. A year ago, students from the University of Alaska Fairbanks tracked its measurement, allowing this year’s students to see how fast the volcano is moving. “That was really neat because it’s moving really fast. Geologically speaking, it’s hauling,” Argyle said. He also enjoyed spending time at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, where he was able to talk to experts in various fields—seismology, crustal deformation,
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Shaped for Geology By Mackenzie Brown
PHOTOS: courtesy of Colby Hazard
W
hen Colby Hazard set out for college, he wasn’t sure what field to enter. Then geology caught his attention. His decision was rock solid from there. “Honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life when I started college,” Hazard said. “I spent the first year and a half just taking all different kinds of classes. I finally took a geology class, and I realized I had been subconsciously preparing to be a geologist throughout my entire life.” Hazard received his bachelor’s degree in geology from BYU-Idaho in 2011. After earning his degree, he spent a summer as an intern for the LDS Natural Resources Department-Energy Group and later interned for Enerplus Oil and Gas Corporation as well as Chevron. After receiving his master’s degree in geology from BYU, he will work for Chevron as a geoscientist. “I grew up doing a lot of whitewater rafting, kayaking, and mountain climbing with my parents and five siblings all over the country,” Hazard said. “Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was developing a natural interest in geology. I later decided that if I was going to be outdoors, I might as well learn about all the spectacular scenery I was seeing.” Spectacular scenery is what inspired his thesis. He did his
thesis research in the Bahamas, studying the processes that shaped the limestone on Andros Island. Hazard used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to image the upper twenty-five feet of the subsurface at a schoolyard on northwest Andros Island, searching the three-dimensional relationships and preservation of carbonate sedimentary features ubiquitous in the modern realm, but often left unobserved in 2D studies of outcrop and core. “I worked with Dr. McBride, Dr. Ritter, and Dr. Tingey to study two 3D GPR data sets (200 and 400 MHz) that allowed for interpretation of the subsurface at two different resolutions and depths,” Hazard said. “The datasets revealed a sixty-foot-wide subaqueous sand dune that migrated northwest through about half of the study area. This ancient dune was dissected by a forty-footwide tidal channel, and the entire package of limestone was finally capped by a thin layer of ancient Bahamian sand before sea level dropped ~115,00 years ago and exposed what is now Andros Island.” Hazard didn’t stop there. When he observed the ancient dune and tidal channel, he knew he needed to get more information about the surrounding geologic features. To do this, he did the only reasonable thing: he snorkeled. “The dune, tidal channel, and
Top left: Hazard drilling core at a study site on northwest Andros Island, Bahamas. Left: Hazard using 3D visualization software to interpret radar data from a study area. Bottom left: Hazard analyzing thin sections.
limestone are surrounded and underlain by lagoonal mud deposits,” Hazard said. “A deeper, irregular radar surface can be seen at twenty-one-foot depth dipping gently to the west. The interpretation of these ancient features was enhanced by studying similar features in the nearby modern environments [underwater] and by three cores and fifty-six thin sections.” After he left the Bahamas, Hazard had the opportunity to present his research at conventions in Vancouver, Canada, and Denver, Colorado, and to publish a brief article with his advisor and others in the AAPG Explorer, a popular magazine among petroleum geologists. He hopes to be able to publish his findings in the Journal of Sedimentary Research once his thesis is completed. He loved his experience of researching in the Bahamas, but he is excited to start the next stage of his life in the corporate world.
“The knowledge I gained through research at BYU and the Bahamas applies directly to what I will be doing for Chevron, especially in west Texas where complex limestone formations are the primary targets for oil and gas,” Hazard said. Hazard is grateful for the opportunity to study at BYU and interact with the people here. “I was accepted to two other graduate programs, but I realized almost immediately after starting at BYU that this was where I was supposed to be,” Hazard said. “The professors here are fantastic, and my graduate committee was there to help me whenever I needed them. I have no regrets about coming to BYU, and I can’t imagine getting a better education anywhere else.”
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Basking in the Bahamas: Hamblin Global Geology Trip 2014 By Scott Ritter
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oel James famously said, “The core of carbonate sedimentology lies in warm, tropical waters because these sediments are clear analogs for many ancient limestones” and that “noone can seriously work in the carbonate rock record without having swum over a modern reef, baked on a tidal flat, slogged through lime mud or watched ooids bounce along the seafloor.”
To provide participants of the 2014 Hamblin Global Geology fieldtrip with the opportunity to swim, bake, and slog their way to becoming serious students of carbonate sedimentology, faculty and students from the Department of Geological Sciences traveled to the Bahamas for a week-long field school on modern and Pleistocene carbonate sedimentology and ecology. The trip was led by Drs. Scott Ritter, John Mc-
Students exploring the meteoric environment in Bahamian blue hole.
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Bride, and Jani Radebaugh with contributions from Gene Wolf (Halliburton) and staff members at the Forfar Field Station located in the Bahamas. In contrast to past trips, we did not visit classic carbonate sites in South Florida. Instead, we spent the entire week on Andros Island in the Bahamas. Being just in the Bahamas gave us time to do a more in-depth analysis of modern settings and to add a component of Pleis-
tocene sedimentology centered upon a thesis-based Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) study of subsurface rocks at Red Bays. Each day’s activities included fieldwork in a specific modern environment. These environments included reef, backreef, and shelf environments off the seaward side of the Field Station; ooid shoal, channel, beach, and dune facies at Joulter’s Cay; and carbonate tidal flat facies
Students analyzing the texture and composition of samples collected from a tidal flat to reef transect.
Traversing the intertidal to subtidal transition on the West Andros tidal flats.
ry of the main concepts gleaned from the day’s activities. One day was spent collecting GPR data from the football field across from the Red Bays School on the northwest side of Andros Island. This activity corresponded with 3D data sets previously collected by Colby Hazard (a graduate student) as part of his recent thesis work. Participants also evaluated the texture and composition of core samples collected from
the GPR volume. The combined GPR and rock data permitted students to determine that Red Bays was much like the lagoon-ward side of modern-day Joulter’s Cay during late Pleistocene time. Students also had the chance to study Pleistocene eolianites and coral reefs in road cut and seacoast exposures. After swimming across reefs, drifting through tidal channels, and slogging through mud, each
participant came away from the 2014 Hamblin Global Geology Trip with a clearer understanding of carbonate sediments, rocks, and depositional systems. Additionally, participants gained an appreciation for the Bahamian culture by interacting with local sponge farmers, fabric designers, fisherman, and basket makers.
PHOTOS: courtesy of Scott Ritter
on the west side of Andros Island. Each environment or sub-environment was characterized with respect to water depth, salinity, temperature, sedimentary structures, sediment texture, and content. After the fieldwork each day, participants spent the rest of the day analyzing suites of sediment samples collected from transects of depositional environment. Evenings consisted of presentations and a summa-
Comparative sedimentology at Joulter’s Cay.
Backreef area dominated by fire coral and soft coral.
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STUDENT RESEARCH
Getting a Sneak Peek into Oil Exploration
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n the current down-sizing oil economy, it can be difficult for students to get jobs right out of college; however, Preston Cook, Kris Powell, Jesse Dean Shumway, Sam Hillam and Brad Bishop are putting their nervous energy into resume gold: the Imperial Barrel Award Competition. The Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) competition was created by the Imperial College of London for graduate geology students. Every year in May, participating universities from all over the world choose five of their best prepared geology graduate students to represent them at the competition. For the first time this year, BYU will be participating and sending a team of geologists to compete. The teams are given seismic data of an area and a history of the field. Their job is to put together an evaluation of the field, which is often easier said than done. “It’s been stressful, but they’re doing a great job,” said Sam Hudson, faculty advisor to the team. “You will put in about 200 hours over ten weeks before you’re done with this project. That’s a part-time job and a lot of work.” The competition is multi-faceted. Students are judged primarily on their presentation, but there are a multitude of other things the judges are looking for. “They are judged on their critical thinking and organizational skills [as well as] on the extra work that they do,” Hudson said. “They are told to present on a prospect, but winning teams will usually do more. They’ll do some engineering or basic economics – something beyond what is asked. It’s all about integrating anything they can and putting together a really nice, complete prospect.” The competition is tough, and graduate students are often pushed to the limit of their abilities to complete their presentation. “I feel overwhelmed,” said BYU graduate student Kris Powell, who is a part of the team. “We’ve been taught a little about the interpretation of data, but we’ve never had to load the data in its raw form, almost code. And that’s where the learning curve is the steepest.” BYU graduate student Preston Cook, another student on the
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team, has had an especially busy couple of weeks with his wife having a baby on top of all the competition work. “It’s a serious commitment,” Cook said. “I don’t think any of us really understood how much time it would take to put together a serious, competitive presentation for the competition. We’ve a long way to go still and progress is a lot slower than expected pretty much in every way, shape, and form.” The students originally felt as though they would be able to finish organizing the preliminary data within the first few weeks, but it didn’t quite go as they expected. “Since we’d never loaded the data before, we thought we’d be able to jump right in and be at the point we were at three weeks ago, almost four weeks ago,” Cook said. “We had zero idea of how to work with the data. Once we worked with the professors, we got a grasp of it, and now we’re making progress and feeling like we are understanding things.” According to the competition rules, the graduate students are allowed to be mentored by faculty members for one hour a week each. Dr. Hudson (who introduced the students to the competition), Bill Keach, and Scott Ritter mentor the students and help them learn the programs and critical thinking skills they need to be successful in the competition. Hudson is excited for the students to present at the competition. “[I’ve] been a recruiter for the last three years in industry, and the IBA always made an impression on me in a resume,” Hudson said. “If I saw someone who worked hard at that, it was always a big plus. As a recruiter, I saw that it helped students get jobs.” Despite the long hours and difficult work, the students are grateful for the experience. “There’s a big difference between academic geology and making money and finding oil, and that’s what we are trying to understand right now,” Powell said. “We’ve done pieces of these processes in classes, but to put it all together, to have to be in charge of it, I definitely have had to step up my critical thinking. We get a sneak peek at a career. It’s a priceless experience.”
PHOTO: Scott Daly
By Mackenzie Brown
FACULTY RESEARCH
PHOTO: courtesy of Stephen Nelson
O
ne of Stephen Nelson’s favorite parts of being an isotope geochemist is the thrill of discovery. “I love when I’m working with some data and I realize I know something about how the world works that nobody else knows,” he said. That thrill is what has motivated Nelson to come to work every day since 1997 as a professor in the BYU Department of Geological Sciences. Nelson received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology from BYU in 1984 and 1987, respectively, and his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991. Following the completion of his doctoral work, Nelson began working as a consulting geologist, but after several years, found himself unfulfilled. “[Working as a consulting geologist] was a job that could have been very rewarding, but I was on a dysfunctional project for a dysfunctional federal agency and I wanted to get out,” he said. “There happened to be an opening [at BYU] at the right time and I had the right background for what they were looking for.”
A Source of Adventure By Meg Monk Nelson had always wanted to teach at BYU, but had four young children when he finished his doctoral work and going into academia wasn’t practical at the time. To prepare for his career switch, Nelson had to do research on his own time since his industry job was a management position. Research was difficult to do with a young family, but the consulting experience reinforced to Nelson that he had made the right choice in switching career tracks. “It really opened my eyes to where research could take me,” he said. Much of Nelson’s current research focuses on studying sediments and water samples through isotopes and instrumentation. Using tritium or
hydrogen-3 and carbon-14, Nelson can calculate the ages of the ground water to determine how long it takes nature to replenish the source. This testing is crucial for the preservation of natural resources so humans don’t deplete water sources faster than they can naturally replenish. Nelson’s tests can also tell him what time of year the water source was recharged and its flow path in the ground before it got to its current location. In addition to studying water sources, Nelson tests bog cores using carbon-14 and lead-210 to determine the ages of sediments from 0 to 35,000 years in age. These tests can reveal how the plant community and natural environments have changed
over time, and how humans impact the sedimentary record. “The interesting thing about being able to use lead-210 to date sediments 200 years back in time is that the pioneers arrived in Utah in 1847 and they came into Utah Valley about 1850,” Nelson said. “Therefore, we can tell what part of the sedimentary record has been influenced by Europeans. It allows us to get really precise ages on young sediments without having to guess.” Nelson currently has one graduate student working with him on research efforts, and he has mentored many others over the years. He finds it very rewarding to watch his students succeed in their graduate work and move on to other endeavors, knowing he helped them along the way. Outside of work Nelson, enjoys skiing, but he considers his favorite pastime his research. “To be honest, if I were independently wealthy, this is the sort of stuff I’d be doing just because I could afford to do it,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t believe I get paid for what I would do for a hobby.”
Nelson at a canal in eastern Nebraska.
SPRING 2015
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FACULTY SPOTLIGHT
Sharing New Knowledge with New Minds
W
hen Dr. Sam Hudson left industry employment to teach at BYU, a few of his friends thought he was insane. Hudson left the energy industry (his last position being with the petroleum giant, ConocoPhillips) to join the BYU Department of Geological Sciences in the fall of 2014. He received his BS and PhD degrees from the University of Utah, but he confessed that BYU has always been important to him as well. “Mostly I’m here because it is BYU. This is a unique opportunity and something that I think will be great for my family and me—it’s a great atmosphere. I decided to jump out of a job I loved and try something new.” Since he started here, he has enjoyed working in such a welcoming department and with the other faculty as well as learning from them. “This seemed like a really open department where everyone was friendly and engaged,” Hudson said. “I’ve enjoyed learning from the faculty here. They know so much in their
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own fields and it’s been a pleasure to associate with them.” Though leaving industry was hard, Hudson is grateful for the opportunity to direct his research, which focuses on fluvial systems and shale oil. “I look at fluvial systems, architectures of them—how they stack, how they evolve, things like that,” Hudson said. “I also look at unconventional shale gas and shale oil. They’re under some strain with current oil prices, but they’re still a big deal. This coming fall we’re going to be looking at depositional systems of shale; how organic material moves around and is deposited and preserved; and what that means for how we can optimize unconventional drilling.” Due to his research, Hudson works with several oil companies. Having just come from the industry himself, he utilizes and strengthens those ties specifically for the students. “We have support from several oil companies,” Hudson said. “We are actively working with industry on applied problems. We are keeping those ties strong and working directly
with industry partners to solve real-world problems.” Though Hudson is excited to bring his industry connections to the students, he is first and foremost here to teach and to share his passion about geology with the students. His first semester, he taught classes to upper-level students. Now he is teaching 100-level classes and enjoying every moment of them—especially when he is able to integrate religion into the discussion. “When I’m teaching, if I can get someone to catch the spark of curiosity and stop listening to me but think about it on their own, that’s the best part,” Hudson said. “In other environments, if people were to ask about religion I would
have to say, ‘No, we can’t talk about that in class.’ Here, I can talk about people’s personal beliefs without having to worry about whether it’s appropriate. It’s nice; it’s refreshing that I can talk about all the things I care about.” One of the best parts for Hudson about teaching the students is opening up their minds to the whole world—literally. Geology is essentially the story of the earth, and one of the best parts of his job, Hudson said, is sharing that with the students. “The best geology is where it’s not just facts—it’s a story,” Hudson said. “The best thing about teaching is that you get to put the story into the big picture and recreate everything.”
PHOTO: courtesy of Sam Hudson
By Mackenzie Brown
FACULTY RESEARCH
Geology in the Backyard By Meg Monk
PHOTOs: from left to right, Cameron Harrison, Timothy Goodsell, and Greg Carling
F
or hydrogeologist Greg Carling, there’s no better way to learn about geology than hands-on in the field. “It’s one thing to learn concepts in the classroom, but you actually have to get out there and see the rocks in order to really understand geology,” he said. Carling has been interested in geology since his first Earth Science class in eighth grade. Following high school graduation, Carling attended Adams State College (now Adams State University) in Colorado, on a basketball scholarship. During his junior year at Adams State, Carling took a hydrogeochemistry class and was fascinated by how water interacts with rocks and minerals. He knew immediately that geology was where he wanted to stay. “I jumped in and never looked back,” he said. After playing basketball for two years and receiving his associate’s degree in geology, Carling transferred to BYU and completed his BS in 2005. Carling decided to pursue an MS in hydrogeology at BYU working with Dr. Alan Mayo (now retired), which he completed in 2007. During his time as a master’s student, Dr. Mayo sug-
Carling records field notes while collecting water samples at the terminal moraine of Teepe Glacier in Grand Teton National Park.
gested that Carling pursue a PhD, which Carling had never previously considered. He continued his studies in hydrogeology at the University of Utah, receiving his PhD in 2012. Carling has been an assistant professor in the BYU Department of Geological Sciences since he completed his doctoral work. His research focuses on detecting isotopes and trace metals in groundwater, rivers, and snowpack. The department has the facilities to analyze most of the samples in-house, which gives students the opportunity to be more involved in lab work than they might be at other universities. “Working in the lab really is a team effort,” Carling said. “There’s no way a single graduate student could do everything by themselves. It teaches students to rely on each other and helps them feel like they are part of something important.” In addition to his work with students in the lab, Carling has the chance to interact with them in the classroom setting as a teacher. He teaches classes of all levels, from introductory geology to graduate classes, but one of his favorite roles is as coordinator of the geology capstone class in which students spend six weeks applying
Carling collects a water sample from the Provo River with help from geology students Brian Packer and Emily Keller.
their conceptual knowledge to fieldwork. The betst part, he said, is seeing students “get it” and get excited when they learn something new. Carling is grateful to have found his niche in a field he feels is very relevant to today’s greatest ecological issues, including how human and natural processes impact water quality. Utah is an interesting place to study hydrogeology, Carling said, because it is one of the driest states in the United States, so understanding the human impact on natural resources is critical. “Water issues are only going to get worse in the future, so it’s a good field to get into because the demand is never going to leave,” he said. Geologists like Carling and his students are in the perfect setting along the Wasatch Front for geological fieldwork because of the proximity of the mountains and national parks. “As far as geology goes, there’s no better place,” Carling said. “Utah has such spectacular geology and such a variety. There’s a reason schools all across the country come to Utah for field trips. . . . We just go out our backdoor and we run into some of the greatest geological features in the country.”
Students Cameron Harrison and Desmond O’Brien descend the Teton Glacier in Grand Teton National Park after collecting samples of glacier meltwater.
SPRING 2015
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FACULTY RESEARCH
By Jennifer Johnson
O
n a trip for a research conference last year, Dr. Jani Radebaugh stood in a Chinese desert on giant sand dunes, studying how they might have formed. Radebaugh, an associate professor in the BYU Department of Geological Sciences, knows deserts well, but these dunes were something new even for her. “[Those dunes] were a thousand feet high,” she said. “I’ve hiked to the top of a lot of dunes, but I’d never been to one that’s three hundred meters high. It took an hour and a half to get to the top of this dune.” Radebaugh, a planetary geologist, studies the geology of other bodies in space. She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy and a master’s degree in geology and planetary geology from BYU in 1993 and 1999, respectively. From there, she received a doctoral degree in planetary science at the University of Arizona in 2005. She uses the geology of Earth to make connections and discoveries about geology on other planets.
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“[We’re] trying to understand the other planets in the solar system in the same way we understand Earth,” she said. She therefore spends a lot of her time studying the geological characteristics of our own planet, which is where the deserts come in. In the past few years she has traveled to deserts in Namibia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Australia, and China. At these deserts, she, her colleagues, and her students study the deserts using ground-penetrating radar to look at the layering of sand and how it has settled over the years. She said the device is the size of a little suitcase. “So one student is pulling and sometimes I push, and the controller will record all the signal,” she said. “Then you can see layers being built up in the subsurface, and they help us understand which way the dune has been moving over time.” Radebaugh and her crew also chart the path of dune crest lines by walking along the dune tops with a GPS. Then they can compare that path with either an older image or a new path
they chart a few years later. This way, it’s possible to measure the movement of the dunes over time. She’ll go back to the United Arab Emirates this year to re-chart some dunes she thinks are being destroyed. “We walked along the crest line there, so now I’m anxious to go and walk along that same crest line. It’s been two-and-ahalf years, and we’ll see if it has changed since then,” she said. Using research she has done on Earth, Radebaugh collaborates with researchers around the world to better understand the planets in our solar system, particularly the moons of Saturn, Jupiter, and Earth. Her current studies include examining the characteristics of dunes on the surface of Saturn’s moon, Titan. She compares information gathered by spacecraft with her knowledge of geological features on Earth’s surface, and from there she can deduce what likely occurs on the surface of Titan. Through a series of comparisons, Radebaugh and other researchers have eliminated the possibility of the Titan dunes
being made of quartz sand or water ice. They suspect that they are composed of solid organic particles formed by the breakup of methane. “When methane evaporates and gets transported high up into the atmosphere, it gets broken up and recombines into long chain organics,” she said. “It makes layers and maybe gets broken down into sand that is blown around and formed into sand dunes.” During her career, Radebaugh has observed significant discoveries in her field in addition to the sand dunes on Titan, including gases emitting from inside Earth’s Moon, lakes of lava on the surface and a magma ocean underneath the crust of Jupiter’s moon Io. “It is thrilling to be a planetary scientist right now because of all the exciting, fundamental new discoveries about planetary bodies in our solar system,” she said. “To be present for, or involved in, s such basic and thought-changing discoveries is a great opportunity and blessing.”
PHOTO: courtesy of Jani Radebaugh
On Space and Sand Dunes
QUEY HEBREW LECTURE
Using Remote Sensing Technologies at Church Historic Sites By Mackenzie Brown This year’s Quey Hebrew Lecture featured keynote speaker Dr. Benjamin Pykles, who works for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the church history department as a historic sites curator. Pykles has worked as a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Potsdam and is the author of Excavating Nauvoo: The Mormons and the Rise of Historical Archaeology in America, which won the Best First Book Award from the Mormon History Association in 2011. During his career, he has also done work in Iosepa, Utah, and researched the rise of historical archeology in the 1930s. Now he is using his skills to uncover the past of the pioneers from the 1840s. His lecture illustrated the value of remote-sensing technologies ranging from specialty-trained canines to ground-penetrating radar at the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Site, Historic Nauvoo,
Haun’s Mill, Far West Burial Ground, and the original Provo Tabernacle. Pykles is working with the Haun’s Mill and pioneer gravesites, and the two sites have offered ideal opportunities to test a variety of new technologies. “We set out to investigate this eighty-acre parcel [the pioneer cemetery site] using a variety of remote-sensing techniques,” Pykles said. “We used some very specially trained dogs, magnetometry, and ground-penetrating radar. We followed that with excavations.” A lot of people wonder why the Church places such importance, time, and resources into restoring these sites, Pykles said. “The easiest way to speak of this is to think of these two verbs that characterize our covenantal relationship to God . . . witness and remember,” Pykles said. “We see the historic sites
of the Church as three-dimension witnesses of the reality of the restoration of the gospel in this last dispensation.” In addition to his work at the Illinois sites, Pykles has done work at Nauvoo and at the Provo Tabernacle site. His team’s efforts were very successful at both sites, particularly at the Provo Tabernacle where Pykles and his team found many fascinating relics of the early 1900s. Directly north of the current tabernacle temple site lays the foundation of the older Provo Tabernacle, and to the west of that, on the same city block, lays the foundation for an old baptistery and gardener’s hut. The city block was once used exclusively by saints in the surrounding country for worshiping, and Pykles and his team were able to bring that heritage to light. Pykles feels very passionate about the work that he and his department are doing. He places huge importance on representing these historic sites accurately, meaning he wants buildings to be recreated in the exact same places they were over a hundred years ago. “These are the very spaces [where history happened], in some instances where God himself appeared,” Pykles said. “To make that location up, in some location where it didn’t really happen, seems disingenuous. It almost seems like an affront on the faith. We do the best we can to recreate that environment so that those sites are real and empowered to do what they are designed to do, which is to bear witness.”
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UPCOMING EVENTS MAY/JUNE May 4–June 13 AUGUST 17–29 17–21 SEPTEMBER 10 OCTOBER TBD TBD
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Field Camp Geology 210 Education Week Fall Social Homecoming Spectacular Block Seating Alumni Field Trip Evening BBQ at the Earth Science Museum Alumni Board Meeting
The Bitter Seep Wash Sandstone of the Middle Jurassic Entrada Sandstone in eastcentral Utah.