geology newsletter

GEOLOGICAL RECORD BYU Geological Sciences Magazine // Spring 2014

Alumni Spotlight: Allan Driggs p. 5 Student Spotlight: Josh Maurer p. 6 Geology Alumni England Trip p. 8 SPRING 2014

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MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

PRODUCTION Editor: Aimee Robbins Graphic Designer: Trista Jarvis

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 Jani Radebaugh 801-422-9127 jani_radebaugh@byu.edu

Dear BYU Geology Alumni and Friends, I am pleased to introduce our first issue of the Department of Geological Sciences’ new magazine, the Geological Record.

The purpose of this new venture is to showcase the successes and activities of our alumni and highlight the work of current students and faculty. We intend for the magazine to provide connections to role models for current students, who will soon join you, as alumni, in the workforce. Our students are highly motivated to secure employment as geoscientists, both as interns and as permanent hires following graduation.

This motivates us to orient the magazine toward strengthening crucial ties between geology students and alumni.

Undergraduate and graduate enrollments have risen steeply over the past five years. The

increasing influx of new students fur nishes the depar tment with great opportunities to influence students who seek the integrated spiritual and academic environment of BYU. We consider additional students to be a blessing for the department. With increased enrollment come challenges, especially in the face of limited budgets. The faculty is meeting these challenges by ramping up efforts to attract financial backing from agencies like the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy.

We continue to enjoy generous financial support from industry friends. Faculty members also dedicate much of their time to mentor undergraduate students by incorporating them into their research projects, in addition to advising more than 30 MS graduate students. Out of over 120 undergraduate students (fall 2013), more than half collaborated with faculty on mentored research projects.

Another goal for the

Geological Record is to showcase and encourage ideas for alumni participation with faculty in order to support and interact with students. With this spirit in mind, we introduce our inaugural issue with a focus on one of BYU’s many successful alumni (Allan Driggs, MS ’76; Anadarko) and a recent graduate (Chris Savage, MS, ’11; Chevron). The success we continually enjoy mentoring and advising our students is exemplified by the experience of Alex Ahern (undergraduate student) and Josh Maurer (graduate student), who are featured in this issue.

We hope you will enjoy this issue of the Geological Record, the first of many to come. 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 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 Publications, and Books For Purchase.

Geologic History of Utah Lehi F. Hintze & Bart J. Kowallis, updated 2009 edition. $33 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 Jani Radebaugh; top left, courtesy of BYU Photo; top right, courtesy of Carrizo Oil & Gas, Inc.

Carbonado Diamonds—A Hard Hypothesis

Carbonado diamonds (also known as black diamonds) are unusual. They resemble porous, black charcoal and are only found in two places on Earth—the Central African Republic and Brazil.

In 2006, it was proposed that these diamonds are relics of a star. Some 2.3 billion years ago, a relic of this star, as an asteroid, hit earth on a continent that later broke into South American and Africa. The star-origin hypothesis is based on the spectrum of the hydrogen in the diamonds, which matches interstellar hydrogen. Carbonado diamonds are harder than other natural diamonds because they are a monomineralic rock composed of microcrystals. The amalgam of microcrystals obfuscates the weakness of diamonds—four perfect cleavage planes. Because of this increased hardness, carbonado diamonds cannot be cut or polished by normal diamonds. There are other hypotheses for the origin of carbonado. None, however, are widely accepted.

Bari, Jozsef, Haggerty S.E., Rekhi, S, Chance, M. 2016. Inrared absorption investigations confirm the extraterrestrial origin of carbonado diamonds. The Astrophysical Journal, 653(2): L53 doi:10.1086/510451

Giant Continents as Early as 2.7 Billion Years Ago

The 2.7 Ga banded iron formation portion of the Temagami greenstone belt of Ontario, Canada, precipitated from ocean water. Surprisingly, the ratios of 176hafnium and 143neodymium in these strata are nearly identical to those in today’s oceans. 176hafnium is derived from the erosion and weathering of continents and transported into oceans where it is incorporated into the sediments. The observation that 176hafnium and 143neodymium in Neoarchean marine sediments in a ratio paralleling today’s seawater indicates the presence of large continental landmasses. Until now, Archean landmasses were thought to be small.

Viehmann, S., Hoffmann, J.E., Munker, C., Bau, M. 2013.

Decoupled Hf-Nd isotopes in Neoarchean seawater reveal weathering of emerged continents. Geology, 2013; DOI: 10.1130/G35014.1

Dear Fellow Alumni, I am writing this letter from China, where I am on a business trip this week. The last leg of my trip found me sitting on a domestic Chinese airline flight next to a 20 something young man watching Frozen on the inflight entertainment in Chinese. It caused me to reflect on the things that the US exports these days. Other than Disney movies, KFC, and McDonalds, I find that one of the “hottest exports” the US enjoys these days is our expertise in unconventional resource plays.

When I graduated over 30 years ago, neither the computer animation skills and concept of Frozen, nor unconventional resource developments were on the radar screen. I struggled through Optical Mineralogy (thank you Dr. Griffin) and graduated with a degree (engineering geology), both of which are as extinct today as a stegosaurus. Nevertheless, the skills I acquired, and the principles that I learned at BYU (back in the Paleozoic) are still useful and relevant to me today.

They have formed the foundation upon which I have been blessed to build a successful career and which I treasure to this day. Further,

many of the friendships that I made back then still impact my life and career. I am sure that you, my fellow alumni, feel similarly.

We owe a debt to the institution that provided the foundation upon which we build our lives and careers every day in ways that we could not have imagined when we graduated as freshly minted geologists. At the same time, the department that we left continues to change and grow in ways that we would hardly recognize.

I am genuinely excited about the direction that the department is taking and the research, student mentoring, and other initiatives that John McBride and the rest of the faculty are pursuing. They and the students in the department deserve our support and assistance.

I encourage all of us to consider how our careers and lives are daily blessed by our association with BYU and the department and to think about what we can do to make a difference for those that come after us.

All the best!

Gerry Morton Alumni Chair Geological Sciences, BYU

ON THE COVER The cozy, southern summer residence of BYU Geological Sciences’ faculty member Jani Radebaugh. She works with the Antarctic Search for Meteorites team. Antarctica is unrivaled as a source of meteorites, which provide insights into the age and formation of the Solar System and, rarely, bits of the Moon and Mars.

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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Alumnus Update from the Delaware Basin

Alumnus Chris Savage now works as a geologist for Chevron.

“I could study rocks and get paid decently for it? I had to find out more.”

By Madison Parks

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h en Chris Savage (MS ’11) was a student at BYU, he didn’t realize that geology provided so many career opportunities. He only took a couple of geology classes before deciding to change his major to geology.

“I was taking Dr. Kowallis’s intro geology class and he passed around an info sheet with some of the career opportunities and the average pay for geologists. I couldn’t believe it. I could study rocks and get paid decently for it?

I had to find out more,” Savage said. “So I went to talk to Dr. Kowallis, got more information, and went straight to the college office to change my major. [It was] one of the best decisions I ever made.”

In the years that have passed since he sat in Dr. Kowallis’s class, Savage went to work in Wyoming and then last year moved to Texas to work as a company geologist for Chevron.

“Working for Chevron is great. I wanted a company that affords its employees a lot of different learning and advancement opportunities as well as a good work-life balance. I had big concerns that I would not have enough family and personal

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time before coming to work, but Chevron respects the fact that the employees have other things they need and want to do besides work,” Savage said.

Savage’s job involves doing a lot of research, and as a company geologist, he realizes there are certain boundaries set by feasibility that he must consider. This makes his job more challenging because of the limited amount of data they can collect.

“I learned from my first mentor that there are geologists and then there are company geologists. The geologist says, ‘Let’s get every log possible and core while we’re at it.’ The company geologist has to scale it back and realize there are financial as well as technical restrictions that come up and you usually don’t get what you want.

It’s a difficult shift in thinking

especially since the geologist’s way is more fun,” Savage said.

Despite the restrictions in the amount of data he can collect, Savage still has plenty to oversee. He is responsible for the Delaware Basin in New Mexico.

In the six months he has been there, he has worked on the Bone Spring, Wolfcamp, and Cisco formations.

“My days are filled with doing log correlations and formation evaluations, doing stratigraphy, conducting research, and making various kinds of subsurface maps. I just put together a presentation for the area manager to approve a joint venture well to be drilled this year and am currently working on several others,” Savage said.

Even though Savage is far from BYU campus, he still uses what he learned in his day-to-day activities.

“I use a lot of what I learned in my geology classes very frequently. I realized after I got out of school what a great geology education I got from the geology department. I frequently think back to field trips we went on or specific examples of things we learned in class to help with problems I am trying to solve here at work,” Savage said.

Savage’s MS project was on dunes on Saturn’s moon Titan from Cassini spacecraft data with BYU planetary scientist Dr. Jani Radebaugh, though he also draws on other aspects of his broad geology education at BYU. While working at Chevron, Savage has developed a curiosity for petrophysics. Savage may study more of that in Chevron’s two-year development program for petrophysicists or work in deepwater exploration and development.

Looking back, Savage said he wishes he had realized that all of his classes were in some way applicable to his work. “I might have paid more attention in some of my classes. I also would have gone out into the field more,” Savage explained. “There are just not as many opportunities to go on field trips once you get out of school. Plus, living in Houston, you really start to miss seeing rocks.”

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Learning How to Learn

By Meg Monk

PHOTOS: left, courtesy of Chris Savage; right, courtesy of Allan Driggs

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llan Driggs (MA ’76) feels he was inspired to become a geologist.

“I was going back to BYU as a sophomore and didn’t have a major, so I prayerfully sat down with a BYU catalog and went through every single major and looked at what things I liked,” he said. “At the end of the day, I felt sure I should major in geology.”

Driggs stuck with his plan, earning a bachelor’s degree from BYU in geology in 1975 and a master’s degree in 1976. Much has changed in the field of geology since he finished school, but Driggs still considers his BYU education valuable because it taught him how to learn, a skill he has used every day in his career as a geologist.

This year, Driggs will celebrate thirty-three years at Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, where he is the senior geological advisor in the International New Ventures group. One of his favorite aspects of the job is having the opportunity to always be learning new things.

“My job is quite diverse,” Driggs said. “In a day I may be studying geology in two or three different continents, so I’ll do a different thing all the time.

It’s extremely interesting, and there is never a dull moment.”

Driggs describes his entry into international geology as “an opportunity that dropped into his lap.” Toward the end of his graduate work, he was invited to accompany a professor on a research project in Tunisia, Africa. The group spent five weeks in southern Tunisia doing fieldwork, which provided the basis for Driggs’s graduate thesis.

That first experience in North Africa hooked Driggs on going international. After graduation, he worked as a North American geologist for a period of time before eagerly accepting the opportunity to work internationally. For the past two decades, Driggs has spent much of his time in North Africa seeking new petroleum ventures for Anadarko.

Driggs’s job involves analyzing terrain to predict whether a location has the probability of containing petroleum. When a location is deemed to be a good candidate for drilling, Driggs and his team begin the process of negotiation with the local government on behalf of Anadarko. Because this process involves a great deal of overseas communication, Driggs is grateful for the development of technologies that make his job possible.

“Life has changed a lot since I started,” he said.

“The important thing is being able to embrace technology and use it to do our work more efficiently and be able to do things that need to be done.”

Driggs encourages young scientists who are just beginning their careers to learn how to communicate and work with others, something that has proved to be highly valuable in his long career. In fact, he cites the interaction he has with his colleagues to be one of the things he likes best about his job.

“I think probably the most satisfying thing about my job is working with other people here at the company and building relationships,” he said. “I love working together in a team to build something useful.”

Driggs doing research in Tunisia during grad school.

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

By Mackenzie Brown

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here are many things on Earth a person might want to spy on, though the massive Himalayas would probably not make that Top 100 list. However, that is exactly what glaciology graduate student Josh Maurer is doing with the help of an old spy satellite.

“I have these declassified spy images from the Hexagon satellite that flew back in the ’70s and ’80s, and I use them to estimate glacier ice volume changes over about thirty to forty year time period,” Maurer said.

Maurer is using the images to learn how Himalayan glaciers change over time. Similar studies have been accomplished by taking a three-to-four week trip to a glacier in Bhutan and using fieldbased methods, but Maurer is able to do his work from the comfort of his lab.

“My research focuses on remote sensing of Himalayan glaciers because they are so hard to get to,” Maurer said. “It is much easier if we can use

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satellite images to figure out how the glaciers are changing over time.”

The Hexagon satellite was able to take stereo images as well as standalone images of the terrain.

Maurer uses these data to create a 3D model of the glacier from the ’70s and compare it to the more high-precision shape of the glacier today.

“Some of the external orientation data for the spy satellite is still classified. We had to develop a new method to estimate the orientation of the satellite as it took the images,” Maurer said. “That makes it a lot more difficult to figure out the 3D model. We actually had to develop our own way to figure out the orientation of the satellite when it took the picture.”

By seeing the trends in how the glaciers have changed in the past, Maurer and his colleagues, under the direction of BYU paleoclimate and glaciologist, Dr. Summer Rupper, can predict how they will likely change in the future. This is good news for the people and farms in the region that depend on the meltwater from the glaciers to survive.

Rupper has been working in the Bhutan glacier area of the Himalayas for some time, and in 2012 published the results of her research on the shrinking glaciers in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Maurer’s interest in glaciology was initially piqued in Rupper’s Introduction to Glaciology course during his undergraduate years. Maurer really appreciated the opportunities to study and really delve into glaciology as an undergraduate.

“Here at BYU, especially as an undergrad, there are tons of opportunities to do mentored research,” Maurer said. “Just doing any type of project, where you actually just come up with a research idea and you work towards solving a problem, or try to figure something out is just really good experience for later in life as a scientist, a professor, as someone in the industry, etc.”

Maurer, who will apply for his PhD after he earns his master’s degree, is interested in eventually working as a professor or a researcher.

“I have always been interested in science, and I like being outdoors a lot, so it’s kind of natural to just mix the two: science and outdoors. It’s geology—studying how Earth works,” Maurer said.

Though rocks are interesting to him, glaciology will always really be his passion.

“Glacier dynamics can be measured on a time scale much shorter than many other geological processes, such as tectonic uplift or erosion,” Maurer said. “It’s really neat to see the dynamics of a glacier in such a short time period. It’s just a big piece of flowing ice. It’s really cool; am I right?”

Maurer and Rupper working on the Bhutan glacier area of the Himalayas.

“...at BYU... there are tons of opportunities to do mentored research...”

Maurer doing fieldwork in the Himalayas.

PHOTOS: left and top right, courtesy of BYU Photo; bottom right, courtesy of Josh Maurer

Spying On The Himalayas

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Not Just Another Number

By Meg Monk

Ahern enjoying the geological features of Dead Horse Point.

PHOTO: courtesy of Alex Ahern

PHOTOS: left and top right, courtesy of BYU Photo; bottom right, courtesy of Josh Maurer

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lexandra Ahern blames her love of geology on her mother.

“She would always buy me books about volcanoes and earthquakes because she likes that kind of thing too,” she explained.

“I got this book about Mount St. Helens at the book fair and I made her read it to me every single day.”

Ahern began the geology graduate program this past fall.

She decided to stay at BYU for her graduate work because of the many wonderful opportunities she had as an undergraduate in the Department of Geological Sciences.

Ahern knew she wanted to go into a field with math and science, but as a freshman, was unsure which field she should choose. She started as a physics major and then switched to mechanical engineering, but Ahern still didn’t feel like she had found the right fit.

“I started looking at majors, trying to decide what to do,” she said. “I didn’t realize everything I liked was in one major— geology.”

Ahern was hooked after taking the first few classes in the program. She particularly loved the large amount of fieldwork she had the opportunity to do

as an undergraduate that allowed her to “see geology in action.”

During her first year in the major, Ahern was able to travel with a group on a field study in the Bahamas. Her geology adventures didn’t end there.

Throughout her undergraduate years, Ahern was able to travel all over Utah, gaining experience in her own backyard.

“Utah has plenty of opportunities for fieldwork,” she explained. “[Through fieldwork] I get to solve my own problems, which is really helpful.”

Aher n was also able to do mentored research as an underg raduate. Under the direction of Dr. Brooks Britt, Ahern studied the fossils in the Triassic Ankareh Formation near Spanish Fork, Utah. This work gave her the opportunity to learn how to present at research

conferences at national meetings.

Ahern had the chance to travel with a group to England to study the history of geology during her last year as an undergraduate.

Ahern’s participation, as well as that of all the other students, was made possible by the Hamblin

“I get to go into the field and do something myself.”

Global Geology Field Trip Fund, which offsets a portion of student costs on the global geology-focused annual field trips. On this trip, the students visited the homes of some of the earliest geologists, wandered through museums containing

their original samples, and visited the actual sites these scientists had studied.

When it came time to decide where to go to graduate school, Ahern chose to stay at BYU because she knew her experience as a graduate student in the geology department would be just as excellent as her undergraduate years had been.

“It was a financially smart option,” Ahern said. “I get to work with an actual planetary scientist (Dr. Jani Radebaugh), I know the members of the department really well, and BYU has great connections.”

This summer Ahern will work as an intern for Chevron before she finishes her last year in the graduate program. She plans to go on to earn a PhD in planetary geology and is interested in going into academia so she can mentor other young scientists.

“BYU showed me that I wasn’t just another number,” Ahern said. “I get to go into the field and do something myself.”

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GEOLOGY ALUMNI ENGLAND TRIP

By Scott Ritter Canal boats on remaining segment of the Somerset Coal Canal south of Bath, England.

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he science of geology traces its roots back to publication of Scotsman James Hutton’s “Theory of Earth” (1795), wherein he suggests that Earth is old and that its rock and fossil record can be deciphered in terms of present-day natural (as opposed to supernatural) laws and processes. The principles and applications of this newly minted science were put in place by early nineteenth century devotees of geology that consisted of university dons, amateur fossilists, dinosaur hunters, government men, and landed gentry with an interest in coal, or in making a name for themselves in this new field of discovery. Many, if not most, of these early geologists were British and many of their key discoveries were made on British soil. As a result, the history of geology is inextricably linked with the quarries, landscapes, and seacoasts of the British Isles.

In May 2013, a group of alumni from the Department of Geological Sciences spent ten days—May 9 through May 18— in southern England following in the footsteps of their geological forebears.

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The trip began early on May 9 at Heathrow Airport where jet-lagged participants loaded into the chartered coach and headed directly to Lyme Regis on the Dorset Coast with stops at Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. Lyme Regis was home to Mary Anning, the most prolific fossilist of her day and discoverer of the first ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and flying reptiles, among other things. Participants enjoyed the charm of this coastal village while visiting Miss Anning’s former home, Blue Lias outcrops at Monmouth Beach, her burial site at St. Mary’s church, and the Philpot Museum where many of her specimens and personal effects are on display.

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PHOTOS: courtesy of Scott Ritter

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Rugbourne Farm near High Littleton, England. Lodgings of the young William “Strata” Smith while he worked on the Somerset Coal Canal and developed his ideas on faunal succession, stratigraphic paleontology, and geological mapping.

On the morning of May 10, we headed north to Bath, where William “Strata” Smith discovered the principle of faunal succession and where he began mapping “the underside” of the British Isles.

Since it was coal that brought the young apprentice surveyor to Somersetshire in 1800, we first paid a visit to the Radstock Museum to immerse ourselves in the history of the Somersetshire coalfields, where we enjoyed a new exhibit on the use—and abuse—of children in the mines. Bath is full of sites important to the development of Smith as a geologist and to the science of geology. The group stopped at many of these sites including a visit to Rugbourne Farm, a beautiful hike along the Cam Valley, and stops at the Swan Inn, Reverend Richardson’s home on Great Pulteney Street, the Smith and Cruse surveying shop, and the Roman baths. The group also visited the home of William and Caroline Hirschel, who discovered the planet Uranus, in addition to many comets and galaxies; the Jane Austen museum; and the Roman baths. We also gained great respect for our bus driver’s ability to navigate narrow, winding lanes with his coach.

Lyme Regis on the Dorset Coast, England. Home of paleontologist Mary Anning and locality from which she collected the first ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterodactyls.

Now having overcome jet lag, we set our sights on the Welsh Borders and the stratotype of Murchison’s Silurian System on day three. But first, our path led us west through the Cheddar Gorge and to the type locality of cheddar cheese. From there we made our way from Bristol

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up the Severn Vale toward the medieval town of Ludlow. On the way, we stopped in Berkeley to visit the hometown of Revell and Lyle Phillips’ grandfather and great-grandfather. Farther up the Severn Valley, we came to the lovely town of Great Malvern situated at the east foot of the Malvern Hills. When Charles Darwin took ill, he would travel to Great Malvern to take the water cures from Dr. Gully.

When London doctors could not treat his ten-year-old daughter Annie for bilious fever, he took her to see Dr. Gully in Great Malvern, where she shortly died.

After seeing Dr. Gully’s hospital, the group paid respects at Annie’s grave and then proceeded north to Ludlow.

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12 Participants of the History of Geology Alumni Trip at Ludlow, England. Ludlow is the type locality of Murchison’s Ludlovian Series of the Silurian System. From left to right: Arthur Bushman, Gene Bushman, Jackie Phillips, Jarod Phillips, Lyle Phillips, David Alexander, Jay Gatten, Tora Gatten, Sue Alexander, Michelle Bushman, Dean Richmond, Kathie Ritter, Scott Ritter, Ray Rutledge, Kaye Rutledge, Revell Phillips, Ferd Meyer, Randy Skinner, Dedi Skinner. Not pictured: Revell Phillips, Jani Radebaugh.

On May 12, we spent a delightful, but chilly morning in the Mortimer Forest, located on the west edge of Ludlow. The Mortimer Forest was important to Murchison as he sorted out the stratigraphy and biostratigraphy of his Silurian System. It is important today as the stratotype for several series and stages of the modern Silurian System. We also investigated the Ludlow Bone Bed on Ludford Lane, the bed that Murchison designated as the boundary between the Silurian and Devonian Systems. The Ludlow Museum on Castle Square houses materials such as fossils and cross sections used by Sir Roderick in promoting the Silurian System. North of Ludlow

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Early the next day, May 13, we loaded onto the coach and made our way to Dudley, situated on the crest of a small anticline that overlooks the countryside. The limbs of the fold are comprised of fossiliferous Silurian limestone from which Roderick and Charlotte Murchison collected extensively. A large proportion of specimens that figure in the Silurian System were derived from the flanks of the Wren’s Nest anticline. After collecting Silurian fossils on the crest of the structure, we took a subterranean boat tour into the limestone quarries beneath the anticline. Here we learned why

we had a relaxing hike along the Onny River, another of Murchison’s Upper Silurian outcrops, to examine a subtle angular unconformity that now marks the Ordovician-Silurian boundary. The day’s final destination was Shrewsbury, the capital of Shropshire and childhood home of Charles Darwin. Our first stop was the Mount, the Darwin family home and Charles Darwin’s birthplace. Now a municipal building, the current occupants gave us a tour of the room where he was born. From there we strolled across the Severn River and into the center of town to a variety of sites that were important in young Darwin’s life.

the abundance of iron ore, coal, and limestone flux made this the birthplace of the modern Iron Age. Farther east in the southern suburbs of Birmingham we crossed paths with William Smith once again as we visited his burial site outside of St. Peter’s church in Northampton. From there we set our sights on the university town of Cambridge.

We arrived at King’s College Cathedral just in time for Even Song, which was a cultural highlight of the trip. No visit to Cambridge is complete without a visit to Adam Sedgwick’s base of operations, now housing the Sedgwick Natural History

Museum. Darwin also has history at Cambridge. There he studied for the Anglican clergy and met Professor John Stevens Henslow, who was instrumental in getting Darwin a position on the HMS Beagle.

Emeritus Professor Revell Phillips and alumnus Lyle Phillips at Down House; Downe, England.

PHOTOS: courtesy of Scott Ritter

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Current faculty member Randy Skinner discusses the dinosaur replicas that amazed visitors at the 1852 Great Exhibition; Sydenham, England.

14 On day six, we quit Cambridge for London. First stop was the Down House, where Charles and Emma Darwin spent most of their married lives and where Darwin continued his post-Beagle experiments on natural selection.

The home is now a World Heritage Site and a beautiful and thought-provoking place to visit.

On the outskirts of London we

disembarked from the bus at Syndenham, site of the 1852 Great Exhibition. Although the Crystal Palace no longer stands on the site, the life-sized concrete dinosaurs that were the centerpiece of the exhibition are still standing, although they have received a few coats of paint in the ensuing 160plus years.

Geological Sciences alumni at Reverend Butler’s School where Charles Darwin attended primary school as a young boy; Shrewsbury, England.

Upon arrival in west London, we unloaded the bus for the last time and spent two days visiting museums, cathedrals, and other sites of geological interest. The final destination was the quarters of the Geological Society of London in Burlington House to see William Smith’s “map that changed the world.” From there, participants went off to enjoy sites of their choosing, with many meeting on the final evening to take in a show in the fashionable theatre district.

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Discovery of Oligocene Super Volcanoes in the Eastern Great Basin

By Myron G. Best and Eric H. Christiansen

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n the spring of 1967, Lehi Hintze, then department ch a i r, i nv i t e d M y r o n Best to help with the summer field course in western Utah.

Puzzling and annoying volcanic rocks concealed some of Lehi’s beloved Paleozoic sedimentary strata and he thought that Myron, a new faculty hire, might like to deal with those undesirables.

The rest is history, and what a history it has been, all because of Lehi’s invitation. Over the next three decades, with the help of some 600 undergraduate students, an enormous cluster of wholly unknown super volcanoes astride the Utah-Nevada state line was revealed through the geologic mapping of parts of

five mountain ranges.

On the first afternoon of the 1967 summer field course, Myron examined outcrops of red-brown ash-flow tuffs just west of the Desert Range Station, the site of the field camp in Pine Valley west of the Wah Wah Mountains.

Despite never having worked on volcanic rocks until then, Myron was nonetheless intrigued and hooked upon a major endeavor of his professional career.

Over the next few years, parts of the Wah Wah Mountains and the Needle Range to the west were mapped and the stratigraphy of a sequence of several tuff units began to unfold. Some of these units had been studied in southwestern

Utah by Professor J. Hoover Mackin of the University of Washington (later University of Texas) and his graduate students.

It had become apparent that two of Mackin’s units–the Needles Range and Isom Formations–had vast areal extents in southwestern Utah. Knowing that large-volume ash-flow tuffs were associated with large source calderas, questions arose as to where these collapse depressions might be located. The southern Needle Range appeared to be a feasible site marking where gas-charged magma had explosively erupted from chambers in the shallow crust.

As an undergraduate, in 1974 Richard Holmes mapped the

Eric Christiansen and Myron Best discovered super volcanoes at the Utah-Nevada state line.

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GREAT

40°

Indian Peak- Caliente caldera

Central NV caldera

Nevada

Utah

Elko

BASIN

Provo

Reno

Ely Marysvale

38°

42° Silicic Ignimbrite

field

EV

Tonopah

A A

0 0

50

100

Western NV caldera

Arizona Silicic42° Ignimbrite Andesite Lava Cal ifor nia

100

114°

GREAT

Cal ifor nia

40°

40°Nevada

112°

SIERRA

42°

116°

G Indian R E APeakT Caliente caldera

Nevada

Nevada

Utah

BA

Elko

BASIN

Elko Reno

Provo

Ely

Provo Ely

Tonopah

A

D

A

N

EV

A

D

A

N

EV

A

D

A

N

EV

A

D

A

N

EV

A

D

A

0

Wah Wah Springs, ignimbrite (30.06 Ma) Indian Peak caldera structural margin Indian Peak caldera topographic margin 36°

Thickness in meters

"

Baker 39°

"

"

400 400

1000

0

300

38° 200 100

"

"

116°

115°

Utah

Nevada

0

Caliente

114°

Marysvale

a n o t h e r w i dElye s p r e a d u n i t overlying the Wah Wah Springs Marysvale Tonopah Miles 0 50 100 Ely that we had been mapping for C Marysvale St. George field Tonopah Miles 0 50 100 a number of years with no sign 50 100 Kilometers Arizona CO LO R A D O Las Veg of its source.

Accompanying field St. George 0 50 100 36° 120° 118° 116° P her the next day to evaluate this Arizona Kilometers C O L O R ALasDVegas O St. George problem, Myron foundfieldthat Kim, 0 50 100 120° 118° 116° P L AT E A114° U Kilometers like Richard Holmes Vegas C OLasearlier, LArizona O R A Dwas O St. George 36° 100 Miles 0 50 correct.

However,116° the fossils were 50 100 120° 118° 112° P L 114° AT E A U Kilometers LasArizona Vegas in lenses of brecciated Paleozoic 36° 0 50 100 120° 118° 116° 112° limestone intercalated P L114° AT E Awithin U Kilometers Las Vegas the tuff.

She had discovered the Fig_8.03_NevUt Delta 120° 118° 116° 114° White Rock caldera–the112°source of the Lund tuff. ToFig_8.03_NevUtah celebrate Fillmore the discovery, Kim and Myron Fig_8.03_NevUtah found a comfortable rock to sit on; lacking Fig_8.03_NevUtahchampaign, they shared an available can of warm 7-Up. This caldera subsequently Fig_8.03_NevUtah turned out to be of the same super-volcano genre as the Indian Peak caldera, overlapping it on the west.

In 1986, Jack Rogers returned to Bloodstain Ranch, reporting Cedar another impossibility: older Lund City tuff atop the younger Ripgut tuff.

Brecciated older rocks had fallen 0 20 40 60 80 100 off the caldera wall as the Ripgut Km was erupting. Jack had discovered

Indian Peak caldera that spans across five mountain ranges and contains a thickness of as much as 5 km of intracaldera tuff (see Figure 1).

In 1984, Kim Sullivan38°returned late one afternoon to the field

camp at “Bloodstain Ranch” 38° located just west of the UtahReno 38° line, reporting that Nevada state she had found fossils within the 0 38° Lund tuff in her assigned map Tonopah Miles 0 50 Range 100 area in the Wilson Creek farther west.

The Lund was 36° Tonopah Miles 0 50 100

38°

EV

SIERRA

BASIN

N

SIERRA

SIERRA

Provo

Reno

Reno Fig_8.03_NevUtah

40°

Elko

Utah

Utah

Figure 2—The southern Great Basin ignimbrite province in Nevada and southwestern Utah resulted from an Elko B Aignimbrite SIN GREAT flareup 36 to 18 Ma. At least 43 calderas and 230 different eruptions shaped a landscape Reno like the modern central An40° des. The Central Nevada caldera complex (red) and the Indian Peak-Caliente caldera complex (blue) are where most of Elko BASIN GREAT the work at BYU has been focused. Calderas (green) in the Western Nevada field are smaller and not as tightly clustered.

40°

In

Central NV caldera

Indian Peak- Caliente caldera Nevada Utah

Central NV caldera

P L AT E A U Central NV Caliente Western NV G R E A TIndian Peakcaldera caldera caldera

Las Vegas 42° Silicic Ignimbrite Andesite Lava Cal ifor nia 118°

Central NV caldera

SIERRA

Kilometers 36° 120°

Western NV caldera

42° C O L O RAndesite Silicic Ignimbrite A D OLava Cal ifor nia St. George

D Miles 50

Western NV caldera

Andesite Lava Ca lifo r nia

Western NV caldera

Andesite Lava

Silicic Ignimbrite

N

PHOTOS: left, courtesy of BYU Photo; right, courtesy of Eric Christiansen

42°

SIERRA

northeast flank of Indian Peak that lay just to the south of where geology field camp students had mapped in the Needle Range. Richard found that the younger Wah Wah Springs Formation was overlain by the older Cottonwood Wash Tuff.

Myron went out to the field with Richard and found this apparent stratigraphic impossibility to be a fact. But, the Cottonwood Wash was a breccia—truly a “eureka” discovery: Richard had found the first conclusive evidence for the caldera of the Wah Wah Springs tuff that had been sought for so long. Subsequent mapping around Indian Peak disclosed numerous lenses of landslide breccias of older rock mingled with a very thick pile of unusually lithic Wah Wah Springs tuff. The landslides had sloughed off the unstable caldera wall made up of older rocks and had entered the subsiding depression as the Wah Wah Springs ash flows were being erupted and deposited. More mapping over several summers by hundreds of students revealed the approximately 40x60 km

Western NV caldera

Andesite Lava

113°

112°

Figure 1—Wah Wah Springs ignimbrite is one of the world’s largest eruptions with nearly 6,000 cubic kilometers of magma erupted in a single sustained eruption. The tuff is centered on the Indian Peak caldera which straddles the Utah-Nevada border. The tuff inside the caldera is as much as 4 km thick and ash flows extend 150 km away. Thicknesses are given in meters on the contour lines.

SPRING 2014

13

FACULTY NEWS

the Mount Wilson caldera source of the Ripgut.

The mapping of some 600 students from 1967 to 1998 was field checked, polished, and published by the US Geological Survey and the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology in many colorful geologic maps. It was not even dreamed of in 1967 that a swarm of super volcanoes lay across the Utah-Nevada state line, each individually erupting as much as 5900 km3 of gas-charged magma. No topographic expression exists today for these Oligocene super-volcanic calderas. Only through outcrop-by-outcrop mapping was it possible to delineate this colossal caldera complex. Following the BBC’s televison series on Yellowstone a decade ago, geologists adopted the moniker “super volcano,” which is now defined as one explosively erupting more than 1000 km3 of pyroclastic material in a single eruption. Our research farther south and especially west into Nevada has built on prior 14

GEOLOGICAL RECORD

mapping by the US Geological Survey. This work has disclosed at least 26 additional Oligocene super volcanoes in the Great Basin that were formed during the great middle Cenozoic “ignimbrite flareup” that is evident over a huge part of southwestern North America.

(Ignimbrite is another name for ash-flow tuff.) (See Figure 2.)

Several undergraduates who played a part in the mapping of the Indian Peak caldera complex are now faculty and staff members in the Department of Geological Sciences at BYU. They include Brooks Britt, Eric Christiansen, Michael Dorais, Jeffrey Keith, Bart Kowallis, Thomas Morris, Stephen Nelson, Scott Ritter, Kim Sullivan, and David Tingey.

Jeff is Associate Academic Vice President at BYU. Dave has supervised the chemical analyses of hundreds of rocks samples using three generations of x-ray fluorescence spectrometers.

Kim has managed the computer systems in the department. Mike

has made chemical analyses of hundreds of mineral grains using the department’s electron microprobe. After obtaining graduate degrees at Brown University and Arizona State University, Eric joined the faculty at BYU in 1986. He has been intimately involved in mapping the caldera complex, collaborating on laboratory work, interpreting the data, and writing up the work.

Many graduate students working on the igneous rocks of the Great Basin contributed immensely to our understanding of this fascinating region, including: Tara Allen, Deborah Barr, Glenn Blaylock, Dennis Campbell, Garret Hart, Norman Hogg, Dan Maughan, Larissa Levitre Maughan, Adam McKean, Chloe Skidmore Mills, Dan Moore, Peter Nielsen, Carlos Pierce, Lyle Radke, Paul Richardson, Jack Rogers, and Kurtus Woolf.

As a result of this work, we have constructed maps showing the distribution of the calderas,

calculated tuff volumes, worked out the details of their rock and mineral chemistry, and interpreted their pre-eruptive conditions. Ultimately, we have concluded that the vast outpouring of ash during the ignimbrite flareup was the result of a short-lived tectonic transition. Beginning about 36 Ma, a flat-slab subducting beneath North America rolled back and steepened while the San Andreas fault system developed along the Pacific coast.

You can watch a short video put together by BYU featuring our work, complete with a new animation depicting a super eruption and the accompanying collapse of a caldera on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=TXG8fv5VCwk

Select publications: Best, M.G., Christiansen, E.H., and Gromme, C.S., 2013, Introduction: The 36-18 Ma Southern Great Basin, USA ignimbrite province and flareup: Swarms of subduction-related, super volcanoes: Geosphere, v.9, no. 2, p. 260-274. doi:10.1130/GES00870.1 Best, M.G., Christiansen, E.H., Deino, A.L., Gromme, S., Hart, G. and Tingey, D.G., 2013, The 36-18 Ma Indian Peak-Caliente ignimbrite field and calderas, southeastern Great Basin, USA: Multicyclic super eruptions: Geosphere, v. 9, no. 4, 87 p.

Best, M.G., Christiansen, E.H., Gromme, S., Deino, A.L., Hart, G., and Tingey, D.G., 2013, The 36-18 Ma Central Nevada ignimbrite field and calderas, Great Basin, USA: Multicyclic super eruptions: Geosphere, v. 9, no. 6, p. 1-75. doi:10.1130/ GES00945.1.

PHOTOS: left, courtesy of Eric Christiansen; top right, courtesy of College of Engineering, University of Utah; back cover, courtesy of Jani Radebaugh

Field camp group from the mid-1980s working in the Indian Peak caldera complex. Myron Best middle row, second from left. Bart Kowallis, bottom row right side.

F

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QUEY HEBREW LECTURE

“Sustainability” of the Hydraulic Fracturing Process for Hydrocarbon Production

PHOTOS: left, courtesy of Eric Christiansen; top right, courtesy of College of Engineering, University of Utah; back cover, courtesy of Jani Radebaugh

By Madison Parks At this year’s Quey Hebrew lecture, BYU geologists listened to keynote speaker, John McLellan, speak about the sustainability of techniques involved in the operations of hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing involves inducing fractures to historically impermeable non-reservoir rocks wherein natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons can be produced economically.

For a long time in the ’90s, the petroleum industry worried that hydrocarbon reserves would be depleted, but with the new development of hydraulic fracturing, geologists and engineers have been able to extract hydrocarbons from shales that were previously thought to be incapable of production. As geoscientists and engineers gain experience in these operations, it is their opportunity to improve on these technological advances.

“Times have changed for the better because

with the discovery of these shales and the exploitation of these shales, they have dramatically increased our resources and frankly our reserves as well,” he said.

Shale formations naturally have very low permeability, lower than cement. To help these shales produce, technological intervention is necessary. However, that intervention has a few challenges associated with it. The challenges include the large volumes of water needed to do the frac job, the relatively large pad needed to host the frac equipment at the wellsite, and the potential for leakage of hyrdrocarbons (most often through the cemented casing) to the surface or near surface aquifers.

“We are obliged to hydraulically fracture, but we have to take into account some of the consequences of hydraulic fracturing and deal with the problems in that technology,” he said.

McLellan mentioned three challenges that need to be overcome if hydraulic fracturing is to be sustainable as a method of production.

“First of all we have a roll of environmental stewardship in this business. Second, this has to be economically appropriate. It has to make sense to produce natural gas or oil in this fashion,” he said.

“And third, it needs to be providing the public an energy supply that is geopolitically secure.”

McLellan said that the industry has twisted the arms of its suppliers and has bargained prices down as much as possible, and now the industry must focus on developing new technologies to continue cost reductions.

“Now the costs have to go down by developing new technologies and changing the methodologies for producing. That’s the first element of this sustainability,” he said.

Technological advances will hopefully help to reduce costs but they may also help to reduce the industry’s footprint on the environment and land surface. One of the examples McLellan mentioned was directional drilling many wells from a single pad. We have the technology now to drill as many as fifteen wells from a single pad dramatically reducing the surface footprint of oil field operations. But improvements can yet be made.

While technology continues to improve the operation side of hydraulic fracturing, there is much to be done by engineers and geologists alike. It will be exciting to see what improvements come next.

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Field Camp Geology 210 Education Week

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