2012-13 Alumni Magazine by LSU Geology & Geophysics

the

2012-13

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

College of

Science

Department of Geology & Geophysics

SUPPORT THE STUDENT

EXPERIENCE Tradition stands that we teach G&G students to think for themselves. We do this by offering our students learning experiences in the classroom, in the laboratory, and in the field. As our programs grow, we need to increase the type and the number of experiences and opportunities that we offer. How wonderful would it be for our undergraduate students to have the chance to participate in an International Field Trip course (similar to the Iceland trip in 2011 pictured to the right) every year? Or if we could enhance our ongoing field experiences by linking samples collected during fieldwork with analytical work in state-of-the-art laboratories? In order to provide these opportunities to our students, we need help from you, our alumni and friends, who have been a source of unwavering support for students in geology and geophysics. You can help us support the student experience by contributing to the following funds: â&#x20AC;˘ Geology Student Field Trip Support Fund â&#x20AC;˘ Geology & Geophysics Student Research Fund Please contact the department chair to learn more.

Give online at www.lsufoundation.org/contribute

From the Department Chair Greetings, Alumni and Friends! Another exciting year has come and gone in the Department of Geology & Geophysics. In the past two years, we have made big strides in hiring seven new faculty members with the additions of Drs. Clift, Herrmann, Karunatillake, Luther, Luttrell, Roberts, and Wang. As LSU moves forward with strategic initiatives in coastal resources, materials research, and computational sciences, Geology & Geophysics has stepped into leadership roles. Dr. Sam Bentley is now the director of the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI). Drs. Clift, Herrmann, and Roberts have joined the cause and are affiliated with the CSI as well. Drs. Dutrow and Henry have been instrumental in organizing the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Initiative, including a new graduate minor in MSE. Along with colleagues in the Center for Computation & Technology, Drs. Wang and Luttrell will bring their respective expertise in geochemistry and geophysics and actively contribute to the computational science initiative. Conventional and unconventional energy is the University’s final strategic initiative and G&G plans to have a central role in it as well. Renovations of student cabins at field camp have been completed! Luckily, they were ready just in time for the field camp class of 2013 students. These renovations would not have been possible without the generosity of alumni and supporters, such as you. You can see pictures of the renovated cabins on the department’s website or Facebook pages. We had an extremely successful summer at field camp. Attendance was at capacity and forest fires were only a minor concern. Student enrollment is strong. Our undergraduate population has remained at more than 100 students for the last three years. Hopefully, LSU will bring in another record-breaking class of new students filled

with more geologists! Our master’s students are still in high demand by industry with nearly all MS students having internships and/or permanent positions. Our doctoral program has experienced rapid growth and will result in new research directions and productivity. As we prepare for the next academic year to begin, I reflect on the progress this department has been able to make through the challenges of dealing with state budget cuts. Through all of this, we have continued to educate students, to form partnerships with industry, and to develop strong relationships with our wonderful alumni and friends. Much of our success (as noted above) was due to our extraordinary supporters. Thank you for all that you do to continue helping G&G remain cutting edge and providing the level of education that our students deserve. Geaux Tigers!

Carol M. Wicks Chair, Department of Geology & Geophysics

C ontents: 3 CHAIR’S WELCOME 5 YEAR IN REVIEW 8 STUDENT AWARDS & HONORS 10 STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS 12 FIELD CAMP 14 FACULTY DIGEST 22 DEVELOPMENT & ALUMNI INFORMATION

6 By Darrell J. Henry anD

Center Photo by robert Weldon, © GemoloGiCal institute of ameriCa, rePrinted by Permission/sPeCimen Courtesy of the harvard mineraloGiCal museum, liddiCoatite (hmm#: 138276, anjanabonoina, betafo, antananarivo, madaGasCar) © CoPyriGht 2012, President and felloWs of harvard ColleGe. all riGhts reserved.

BarBara l. Dutrow

Green crystal of elbaite tourmaline is associated with translucent gray quartz, white albite, and purple lepidolite. The specimen, from Brazil, is more than five inches long.

16 An eye-cAtching minerAl And its mAny fAcets

Two-inch-long, deep pink crystal of elbaite tourmaline is surrounded by a matrix of white muscovite crystals; to its right is a faceted pink tourmaline gemstone. Both display the mineral’s intense color.

Photo by robert Weldon/© GemoloGiCal institute of ameriCa, rePrinted by Permission

Photo by robert Weldon/©GemoloGiCal institute of ameriCa, rePrinted by Permission/ Gemstones Courtesy of Pala international

The Tourmaline Diaries

lthough recognized as a beautiful collectible mineral and source of semiprecious gemstones, tourmaline, to geologists, has long been little more than a curious minor component in certain rock types. However, recent years have brought advances in understanding tourmaline’s chemical and crystallographic complexities, and in using the isotopes of its varied elements to read the local rock environment as well as to date the rocks. That has led to new ways of reconstructing the processes that formed a tourmaline. In some instances a complete “life cycle,” from birth through growth, partial destruction, and rebirth, may be encapsulated in a single grain, which can preserve information on temperatures, pressures, and fluid compositions during the entire history of the rock in which the tourmaline developed—and, in some cases, the absolute age of the geologic events it underwent. Tourmaline also has other unusual properties that stimulated early advances in scientific thinking. The first known written reference in Western literature to what appears to be the mineral is in De lapidibus (“On Stones”) by the Greek philosopher and naturalist

n at u r a l h i s t o ry

A thin, crosssection slice of a tourmaline crystal, about five inches across, reveals color zones that reflect subtle changes in the crystal’s chemical composition as it grew. The internal triangular pattern, as well as the overall rounded triangular (or hexagonal-like) shape, reflect the threefold symmetry of the basic crystal structure. The crystal, from Madagascar, is liddicoatite, one of twenty-one recognized species of tourmaline.

March 2012

DESIGNER: Chris Henry

ON THE COVER: Students explore Big Bend National Park during a field trip for Structural Geology. The group of 30 constructed cross sections of Tuff Canyon, examined structures in Santa Elena Canyon, Boqillos Canyon, and Ernst Tinaja, and did field mapping exercises in the area. Photo courtesy Nick Decker, MS 2013

CONTRIBUTORS: Chris Henry Carol Wicks Anne Brennan Hunter Berch Geology & Geophysics Faculty Emilia Gilbert Adrian Owen

EDITORS: Chris Henry Carol Wicks Information is correct at press time. Check geology.lsu.edu for updates. Send Alumni News and Updates to: Alumni Magazine LSU Geology & Geophysics E235 Howe-Russell-Kniffen Bldg Baton Rouge, LA 70803 PHONE: 225-578-3426 FAX: 225-578-2302 EMAIL: geology@lsu.edu

Year in Review Farewell Dean Carman This year we said goodbye to College of Science Dean Kevin Carman. After a 23-year career at LSU, Dean Carman accepted the position of executive vice president and provost at the University of Nevada, Reno. We wish Kevin well and know that his experience at LSU has prepared him to lead at UNR. At LSU, a national search is underway to find the next dean of College of Science.

Fall 2012 Corporate Recruiting The fall corporate recruiting season was highly successful. Ten companies traveled to LSU to interview our students for a variety of internships and fulltime positions. Companies that participated in on-campus recruiting included: BP, Cabot, Chevron, Concho, Devon, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, Newfield, Schlumberger, and Shell. A group of graduate students also traveled to the AAPG SEG Student Expo in Houston where they had opportunities to interview with many other companies.

Rock Star Poster Competition The 4th annual Rock Star Poster Competition took place October 26. Students filled the Clarence Cazalot Atrium with a variety of research posters competing for scholarship awards graciously donated by the Marathon Oil Corporation. In a change from previous years, undergraduate and graduate students were judged in separate categories with first, second, and third places being awarded for each group. Judging the competition this year were Lia O’Black, Angela Thomas, and faculty judge Sam Bentley. Also new this year, a graduate seminar class contributed posters which were evaluated by Dr. Art Saller.

Students listen intently during a poster discussion

Bayou Corne Sinkhole Draws Attention of G&G Scientists In the summer of 2012, strange bubbles began to appear on the surface of Bayou Corne in Assumption Parish. Concerned residents of the area alerted the authorities to the anomaly and after an investigation, it was discovered a massive salt dome had collapsed causing a sinkhole to form in the bayou.

The Bayou Corne Sinkhole Photo courtesy: Assumption Police Jury

As the situation unfolded, faculty members Jeff Nunn and Juan Lorenzo began to conduct research in the area to help assess the situation. Dr. Nunn discussed his findings relating to the causes leading up to the salt dome’s collapse at a Baton Rouge Geological Society meeting asserting that the dome’s structure included an overhang which could have collapsed creating a domino effect throughout the cavern. Dr. Lorenzo took a team of students to conduct seismic noise tests for his reflection seismology course.

“Aerial” view of the competition

Lecture & Seminar Series A host of distinguished speakers journeyed to Baton Rouge to participate in the department’s lecture and seminar series. These special talks allow students, faculty, and the campus community to join together and learn more about a wide variety of subject areas outside their norm. Coordinated by Drs. Barb Dutrow and Sophie Warny, the lecture and seminar series takes place almost every other Friday and has become a popular endof-the-week celebration. Travel and accomodations for visiting lecturers are made possible by the L J Wilbert Endowment, Grover Murray Educational fund, and Marathon Oil Distinguished Speaker Series fund. The complete roster of speakers is above.

Dr. Don DePaolo speaks to a packed house during his special lecture: “Nanoscience and Carbon Sequestration”

Speaker

Affiliation

Dr. Barry Katz

Chevron

Prof. Jeff Nunn

Louisiana State University

Prof. Donald DePaolo

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Dr. Yanxia Ma

Coastal Carolina University

Prof. Youxue Zhang

University of Michigan

Dr. Alex Robinson

University of Houston

John Dribus

Schlumberger Oil Field Services

Prof. Torbjorn Tornqvist

Tulane University

Dr. Melanie Stiegler

Louisiana State University

Prof. Harm Van Avendonk

University of Texas – Austin

Dr. Brian Schubert

University of Louisiana Lafayette

Dr. Achim Herrmann

Louisiana State University

Prof. Elizabeth Catlos

University of Texas – Austin

Prof. Clara Chan

University of Delaware

Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty

Louisiana State University

Dr. Ramon Carbonell

CSIC Institute of Earth Sciences, Barcelona

“Swamp” Rock We are not strangers to phone calls and other requests to identify meteorites and strange rocks, but last fall, one call to inspect a potential meteorite had Dr. Gary Byerly and Rick Young heading off to take a closer look. The “meteorite” in question had been found by Bruce Mitchell, one of cast members of the History Channel’s Swamp People. Gary and Rick traveled to inspect the rock and carefully went through a number of tests in an attempt to identify the physical and chemical properties of the rock in order to determine its likely origin. In the end, the “swamp” rock turned out to be “bog iron” which is commonly found in Louisiana in places where the water table represents a redox boundary and iron is precipitated out of solution. Sadly their feature did not make on air.

The meteorite turned out to be a “meteorwrong” but Rick and Gary definitely enjoyed the experience

Did you notice?

That’s Shane Cone, 2013 geology graduate, whose picture was featured in LSU recruiting ads run on national television during football games.

Year in Review LSU IBA Team Competes The 2013 Imperial Barrel Award competition featured a total of 107 teams from 30 countries vying to evaluate the petroleum potential of a sedimentary basin and creatively present their findings to a group of industry experts. This year’s team from LSU was supervised by Dr. Jeff Nunn along with industry advisors Chris Travis of BP, Jennifer Connelly of Shell, and Angela Thomas also of Shell.

prospect evaluation (volumetrics and risk). Unfortunately, the LSU team did not place at the regional competition but all of the team members affirm they had a truly significant learning experience throughout the competition. “After having done IBA, we can say that we have gained substantial internship-like experience, which will greatly help us in our future petroleum careers. The IBA course has been one of the more challenging and timeconsuming aspects of our graduate experiences, but the knowledge we’ve gained regarding analysis of different aspects of petroleum systems has been extremely rewarding.” – Ashley Howell, IBA Team Member

2013 IBA Team: Ryan Ellis, Ashley Howell, Jie Shen, Candice Pettijohn, and Kathryn Denomme

The team competed at the annual AAPG Gulf Coast Sectional in April utilizing a dataset from offshore Nova Scotia. The team was given two months to analyze a compilation of 2-D and 3-D seismic data as well as a suite of well log data. Using the available dataset for the lease provided, the team organized a comprehensive petroleum system analysis including components such as geological background knowledge, source rock evaluation, reservoir rock evaluation and sealing capacity, trapping mechanisms and migration, and

James Painter speaks at Commencement The College of Science celebrated its 280th commencement in May. The occasion was made even more memorable for Geology & Geophysics by having alumnus James Painter featured as the commencement speaker. His memorable address advised the new graduates to focus on their passions and to find a job at an organization that celebrates the same values and goals as they hold themselves. James is a member of the College of Science Dean’s Circle, Dean’s Executive Committee, and the Geology & Geophysics Alumni Council.

“Find something that really gets you going in the morning.” –James Painter

s r o n o t H n e d u t S & Awards Scholarship Recipients Marathon GeoDE Fellows: Cindy Colon, Dennis Donaldson, Kate Griener, Marie Thomas

Marathon GeoDE Undergraduate Scholars: Elizabeth Ingram, Eleanor Smith, Edward Lo, Sara Ates, Alex Palacio, Ashley Thrower, MaryKate Core

Grant Winners Jie Shen, PhD:

Charles L. Jones Scholarship: Shane Cone

Patrick F. Taylor Scholarship:

AAPG Donald F. Towse Memorial Grant

Lindsay Prothro

Ashley Howell, MS:

Sid & Peggy Bonner Scholarship:

AAPG Edward B. Picou, Jr. Named Grant

Matthew Smith

Ashley Howell, MS: “Clay Mineral Provenance Study of the Northern Pandora Trough Continental Margin, Gulf of Papua”

Crawford White, PhD: “Influences of Hurricanes, Floods, and Organic Production on River-Delta Evolution”

Shannon Ferguson, PhD: “Is punctuated environmental change in Texas bays linked to accelerated global sea-level rise or decreases in sediment supply during periods of local aridification: A palynological study from Texas bays”

Crawford White, PhD: “Influences of Hurricanes, Floods, and Organic Production on River-Delta Evolution”

Jie Shen, PhD: Travel grant from Geometrics, Inc. to attend the 2013 SAGEEP conference in Denver, Colorado

Marathon Oil Geophysics Scholarship: Hongjiao Yu

Marathon Oil Geology Scholarship: Crawford White, Bryan Killingsworth, Tara Jonell, Jacob Grosskopf

Schlumberger Doctoral Scholarship: Benjamin Maas

New Orleans Geological Society Scholars: James Smith, Matthew Smith, Kathryn Denommee, Tara Jonell

Candace Hays & Ronnie Johnson Scholarship: Eric Orphys, Edward Lo

Harriet Belchic Memorial Scholarship: Sara Ates, Elizabeth Ingram

W.A. Van Den Bold Memorial Scholarship: Nicholas Daigle

Ben Stanley Geology Camp Scholarship: David Rau, Matthew Smith

Billy & Ann Harrison Field Camp Scholarship: James Smith

Halliburton Field Camp Scholar: Connor Morrow

Jillian Banks and Shane Cone were the 2012 winners of the Rock Star Poster Competition. The pair each won a $500 scholarship as the prize for winning their category.

Ben Maas won the PhD Dissertation Fellowship awarded by the LSU Graduate School. This $18,000 fellowship will allow Ben to continue researching for his dissertation, “Geochemical signatures of basinal fluids from modern carbonate springs to the rock record.”

Tara Jonell, PhD student, presented her poster “Quaternary Indus River Terraces in Response to Summer Monsoon Variability” at the 2013 European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria.

Geology students were once again honored at the College of Science Choppin Honors Convocation. (Left) Sarah Ates: Outstanding Junior, (Center) James Smith: Outstanding Sophomore, (Right) Lindsay Prothro: Outstanding Senior

Geology Club

Palmer Means showing off the new GeoClub shirt at Louisiana Earth Day

The Geology Club spent this year focusing on community service. As always, the club tries to bring together students in the department in order to expand friendships and connections amongst its members. In addition, the club aims at increasing interest in geological sciences in classrooms around Baton Rouge. Through regular meetings, an active Facebook page, and social events the club has continued its mission to share a passion for geology with others. In the fall, the club participated in several outreach events including Ocean Commotion and Super Science Saturday, both held in the LSU Pete Maravich Center, and Wild Things! at the Big Branch Marsh Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe, LA. At these outreach events the club has a booth where it displays an exhibit created by Lindsay Prothro, a recent graduate, called “Minerals of Our Lives.”

In the spring, members participated in the Audubon Zoo’s Earth Fest, the BREC Ashley Thrower, Elly Smith, Anne Brennan, and Jennifer Kenyon at the Zoo’s Party for the Planet, Baton Rouge Zoo and the Louisiana Earth Day festival. While participating in these events is a great educational experience the club is also able to make connections with outside organizations, such as the Baton Rouge Mineralogical society and alumni of the department. The club even made it into the Daily Reveille.

Students explore stratigraphy during Eric Orphys’s demonstration

stratigraphy. Eric filled cardboard tubes with different colored clays and asked the children to cut into the clay sections. The children were then directed to measure each clay layer and write down any thing they thought was important about that layer. The end goal was to have them examine the depositional environments and create a timeline of the different depositional layers based on “fossil” content. The club has even been active this summer as well. Elly Smith and Tyler Hebert spoke at KidCam Summer Camp about geology and how it can relate to their lives. They gave a brief introduction on geology in general, presented the “Minerals of Our Lives” exhibit, and discussed career possibilities with the children. With a set of new officers stepping into leadership roles, the club is hoping to keep the future going in an exciting direction. They are currently working on finding guest speakers to talk at meetings and organizing several trips for this year.

The club treasurer, Eric Orphys, spearheaded an event of his own. During the spring semester, he created a project for kids in Covington, La to describe the concept of

GeoClub members teaching young students at Ocean Commotion in the PMAC

AAPG

Student Chapter

It has been quite a busy year for the LSU AAPG Student Chapter. The year began with about 15 members of the chapter attending the AAPG-SEG Student Career Expo in Houston. There, several operators and service companies showcased career opportunities in the petroleum industry and interviewed potential job candidates. The students made a great showing and several members of the chapter received job offers of which four accepted with companies including BHP Billiton and Conoco. The chapter also hosted learning events corroboratively with BP and ExxonMobil. BP taught a two-day course on seismic interpretation in OpenWorks and ExxonMobil taught a two-day course on facies modeling and flow simulation using outcrop data.

Members of the AAPG Student Chapter tailgating before a football game

football. If you’re on campus for football next season, stop by and join us!

Candice Pettijohn and Jie Shen taking some pointers from alumnus Chris Travis of BP during a short course

Socially, the chapter hosted several events. They continued the tradition of hosting the monthly “TGIF mixer” following the department seminar lecture. These mixers allowed students, professors, alumni, and guest speakers to mingle over food and beverages and learn more about new research in the geosciences. To show their support for the LSU football team, the chapter hosted tailgates for each home game behind the Howe-Russell-Kniffen building. There, students, professors, and alumni were able to enjoy good food and beverages while staying up to speed on the day’s developments in the world of college

Given the amount of demand in the petroleum industry, the LSU AAPG Student Chapter has made it a priority to produce graduates prepared to meet the demands of the energy industry through collaboration with industry partners. About 80 percent of the chapter took part in industry recruitment this year, and about 90 percent accepted either an internship or fulltime employment offer with employers including Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, BHP Billiton, Anadarko, Marathon, Concho, Nexen, Devon, Conoco, and Cabot. The chapter is very proud of their recruitment statistics, and are especially grateful to their industry partners for their support. “As you can see, the 2012-13 academic year was an especially good one, and we have even bigger plans for 2013-14. As the outgoing chapter president, I’m very proud of what our chapter has become, and I look forward to being an active alumnus.” -Hunter Berch 2012-13 AAPG Student Chapter President

Cabin renovations left to right: Swiss Chalet, Bachelors Officers Quarters, view of several cabins, The Asylum Too, Upper Ferrell

Field Camp

The 2013 Field Camp was filled to capacity with a great crop of students. Freshman camp was composed of 19 students fresh from their high school graduations ready to get a head start in the geology or petroleum engineering careers. Twentyfour juniors and seniors from LSU and a handful of other universities made up the senior camp. Dr. Dan Kelley graciously led the six-week-long camp activities for one more summer.

Meet Amy Luther: I am very excited to join LSU as an assistant professor and field camp director. My specialties lie in structural geology, field mapping, and fault mechanics. Field geology has been my passion since I participated in my own undergraduate field camp near Park City, Utah. It is such an important time in every geology studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s education, particularly because of the combined physical and mental challenge that the course presents. I have always enjoyed being a part of this transformation from student to geologist.

Dr. Amy Luther

Over the summer, I was able to join the LSU field camp for a week. I was very impressed with the beauty of the property, the amazing cabins and their new renovations, and the quality of the students. The freshmen camped most of the week, so I joined the seniors while they were doing stratigraphy and correlation of the Dakota Formation. Dr. Dan Kelley introduced me to the key people in the area, showed me the geology of the property, and guided me through the details of running such an amazing field course! I am looking forward to meeting many new students and alumni in the coming years.

Faculty Digest Huiming Bao Charles L. Jones Professor

The 2012-13 academic year has been a year of resetting for Dr. Bao after three PhD students graduated from his group within the year. Three wonderful new additions have since joined his team who have all been immensely helpful discovering and fixing an unstable source problem on an isotope ratio mass spectrometry after several months of frustration. Research in the group is expanding into four new areas: material sciences, stable isotope behavior in nonequilibrium processes, a new type of sedimentary archive for ancient atmospheric ozone, and global biogeochemical modeling. Postdoc and graduate students are having all the fun with their new adventures, while Dr. Bao is stuck writing and revising the “left-behind” science stories of those recently graduated.

Huiming Bao with the attendees of ISI2012

Dr. Bao also co-convened ISI2012, the Sixth International Symposium on Isotopomers, in Washington D.C. It was a wonderful opportunity for graduate students to talk to senior scientists face to face for a week. In addition, Dr. Bao traveled to the University of Manitoba, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Tulane University to give seminars. Field trips to central China, Nevada, and Nebraska were the most memorable of the year.

Barun Sen Gupta Emeritus Professor

Dr. Sen Gupta was in Natal, Brazil, from May to August 2013 as a special visiting professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). The sojourn was sponsored by the “Science without Frontiers” program of the Brazilian Ministry of Education. Barun is participating in a three-year

research project concerning coastal environmental changes that have affected fringing coral reefs. In addition, he taught a short course at UFRN on the ecology and geology of foraminifera, and gave a keynote address at the biennial meeting of the Brazilian Association for Quaternary Studies; the subject was “The beginning of environmental micropaleontology in the Americas.”

Peter Clift

Charles T. McCord Professor Slowly and steadily Dr. Clift has been building up his research team by recruiting graduate students. He has also been working with visiting scholars on ongoing research into the development of the Asian monsoon and its impacts on the structural development of the mountains of South and East Asia as well as on the continental margins of the surrounding oceans. Using the endowment of his chair, he has been able to undertake initial fieldwork in northern India collecting materials from river terraces in an attempt to try and understand how sediment flows from the mountain sources to the delta of the Indus in Pakistan. He hopes to discover what causes sediment to be stored and released in the upper part of the catchment and how this process might affect the development of delta stratigraphy in the ocean. He has also been working on the birth of the Yangtze River and its drainage development in relation to the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. Apart from research, Dr. Clift’s time has been spent teaching a new class in petroleum geology as well as more established classes in basin analysis. He attended eight professional meetings in the past year and continues to be involved in the management structure of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program as well as the Deep Carbon Observatory, a global carbon cataloging enterprise coordinated by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He has also been busy writing proposals with other faculty members and hopes to start a new project on the development of meander systems in the Mississippi River in Louisiana with Dr. Lorenzo, as well as collaborating with Dr. Webb on related interests in the Himalayan areas in India.

Barun Sen Gupta and his students pose in a classroom at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande Norte

Barb Dutrow

Adolphe G. Gueymard Professor Dr. Dutrow and her students had an exciting year of discoveries, defenses and new starts. NSF-funded field research to discover the age and tectonic affinity of metamorphic rocks in the Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, that were once at the western research group hiking up the lateral morraine to MS students: Philip Bergeron, Tessa Hermes, Isis Fukai, Charlie edge of the Precambrian North American Dr. Dutrow’s their field areas in the Sawtooth Mountains, Indiana the Helper, and Andy Whitty ready to hit the trail craton, continues. Camping at 9,500’ near a cirque lake provides an ideal home scientific leadership with Elements and the Mineralogical base for study in this wilderness area and an escape from the Society of America (Past President). Dutrow now serves as a Louisiana summers. MS student Philip Bergeron collected, Geological Society of America Councilor and on several AGU mapped, and dated detrital zircons from the quartzites and and Geochemical Society committees. gneisses to constrain the depositional age of the units to be near one billion years. MS student Isis Fukai undertook a detailed, high-resolution study of a series of calc-silicate rocks to establish their pressure-temperature-fluid history. Using a variety of analytical techniques, her work discovered that the Emeritus Professor calc-silicates represent a continuous sedimentary sequence, This was a busy year for Dr. Hanor and his master’s likely mature passive margin sediments, that record deep to students. Miles McCammon, now an environmental geologist shallow water facies changes. Despite the fact that these rocks in California, helped him realize a long-term research goal of record multiple deformations and at least two medium-high investigating salt-sediment-fluid relations all the way from grade thermal events, they preserve information about their the Gulf rim in Arkansas to the deep-water allochthonous salt sedimentary history. Isis defended her thesis and received a sheets Miles studied. Callie Anderson helped demonstrate that Mickey Leland Fellowship with the Department of Energy. She saline waters contaminating the Baton Rouge aquifer system is now working on carbon sequestration and hydrofracturing have migrated laterally across the Baton Rouge fault rather than at the National Energy Research Lab. Both students presented vertically up the fault from below, as had been proposed. Liz their work at the AGU meeting. Austin Bennett began his Chamberlain interpreted the geologic architecture of the Baton MS studies and spent a few weeks collecting metapelites in Rouge aquifer system in a sequence stratigraphic framework the Sawtooths for determination of lower crustal pressureand showed that fluctuations in sea-level played a significant temperature conditions. role in creating the aquifer sands and confining units. Laurie Richards was co-advised by Jeff Nunn and established patterns Dr. Dutrow’s research on 4-D computational modeling of fluid flow at the Bay Marchand field. to understand the complex feedbacks among heat transport and

Jeff Hanor

fluid flow in the development of contact metamorphic aureoles was the topic of one of six invited lectures at the Adamello 4-D conference held recently in Bagolino, Italy. Her talk focused on the formation and evolution of metamorphic mineral textures and assemblages via combined modeling and provided a new method to interpret mineral textures. The conference was organized by a consortium of Swiss Universities and included a week-long field trip to the Adamello Massif in the Italian Alps to observe contact aureoles and their related plutons.

Other notable highlights of Dr. Dutrow’s year include an article in Natural History magazine and an interview with EAG. Studies of the crystal chemistry and utility of tourmaline were the topic of an Elements issue in 2011 co-edited by Dutrow and Dr. Darrell Henry. Editors of The Natural History magazine saw this and invited Dutrow and Henry to write a general article on Tourmaline for Natural History, that reached an audience of about 60,000 people. At the 2012 Goldschmidt Geochemistry meeting, Dutrow was interviewed by the European Association of Geochemistry as one of three outstanding women scientists. Her interview is posted on their website and describes her career path, exciting challenges, work-life balance, and her well-known work in science and her

Dr. Hanor is also part of a group, headed by petroleum engineering, investigating the feasibility of extracting energy from geothermal-geopressured sediments in Louisiana using down-hole heat exchangers. These concepts inspired the research of Marielle Ausburn, who uses data on formation water chemistry to look at potential mineral precipitation reactions resulting from the extraction of heat from a reservoir and from the mixing of waters of diverse compositions through heat exchangers.

Jeff Hanor and his research group Miles McCammon, Callie Anderson, and Marielle Ausburn

plate tectonics. (3) Detrital zircon grains in quartzites contain geochemical evidence for the transition of plume-style tectonics to more modern plate tectonics as occurring at about 3.5 billion years ago in this area. Over the last year, Darrell Henry continued as Director of Reaffirmation of Accreditation for LSU and the pace of the effort has greatly accelerated with the submission of SACSCOC compliance report due in September 2013.

LEFT: Brooks Ellwood on Permo-Triassic rocks in Vietnam. Here Brooks is using a cement saw to continuously sample an interval that he and his colleagues are studying. This boundary represents the top extinction event in Earth history. RIGHT: Devonian outcrop in Morocco - Frasnian-Famennian Boundary sampling for a paper that will deal with this boundary from sections all over the world - This boundary represents one of the top extinction events in Earth history.

George Hart exploring the Okavango Delta in Botswana along with Tony Cessford, one of his former students.

Brooks Ellwood

Robey H. Clark Distuinguished Professor Dr. Ellwood spent the 2012-13 year on sabbatical, providing him ample time to conduct research in the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado, Vietnam, Morocco, and the Great Basin National Park, Nevada. His research involves working on rocks covering the EoceneOligocene, Permo-Triassic, Upper Middle Devonian, and Middle Cambrian boundaries, respectively. In addition, he has revised his textbook Geology of America's National Park Areas, and will put it to use in the fall semester teaching GEOL 1111: Geology of National Parks. Students enrolled in the course will even be provided a digital textbook at no cost to them.

George Hart Emeritus Professor

Most of Dr. Hart’s time has been spent with summers on the mountain top in Boulder County, Colorado, and winters on Galveston Island, Texas. Galveston has been fascinating to Dr. Hart ever since reading the Shell Oil study of the island in the 1960s and discovering an interest in its subsurface detrital reservoir geometry. It is still an excellent field example of a barrier island. In the mountains, he has mainly been a chain saw monster--cutting down as many Ponderosa pines as he has the energy to handle. With 35 acres to fire mitigate it seems a never-ending task. Geologically, Dr. Hart has been preparing an eBook on “Application of the R statistical language to geological problems.” He has been involved with R since it was S and hopes to start giving short courses on its use during 2013.

Darrell Henry Campanile Charities Professor

Front page of “The Tourmaline Diaires” published in March 2012 issue of Natural History Magazine by Darrell Henry & Barb Dutrow

By Darrell J. Henry anD BarBara l. Dutrow

Green crystal of elbaite tourmaline is associated with translucent gray quartz, white albite, and purple lepidolite. The specimen, from Brazil, is more than five inches long.

An eye-cAtching minerAl And its mAny fAcets

Photo by robert Weldon/© GemoloGiCal institute of ameriCa, rePrinted by Permission

Photo by robert Weldon/©GemoloGiCal institute of ameriCa, rePrinted by Permission/ Gemstones Courtesy of Pala international

The Tourmaline Diaries

Dr. Henry continues to do research and publish on tourmaline and the ancient (Archean) rocks of the Yellowstone area, but his focus has necessarily shifted to getting LSU accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC–the LSU regional accrediting organization). The research part of Henry’s efforts involved graduate students Celina Will (MS completed) and Erin Walden, colleagues from Montana State University and University of Florida, and 12 undergraduate students from across the U.S as part of an NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) program in the northern part of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Since the beginning of 2012, Henry has authored or co-authored six published articles in professional journals and 18 presentations at national/international professional meetings. Tourmaline topics range from general historical and geological context for the formation of tourmaline, to specific details of tourmaline crystallography, and to development of tourmaline in diagenetic conditions. The research on the Archean rocks done with the REU students, and other colleagues, have provided important clues to the evolution of the early Earth: (1) There is a 2.8 billion year old crosssection of continental crust that extends from the eastern Beartooth Mtns (original depth of 20-25 km) to the northern YNP (original depth of 10-15 km) and this provides a wellconstrained geologic framework for this ancient tectonic environment. (2) This old continent was built of granitic rocks that were derived from processes comparable to modern-style

n at u r a l h i s t o ry

March 2012

Achim Herrmann Dr. Herrmann’s first year with the Department of Geology & Geophysics has been tremendously successful. His research interests have been focused on large-scale environmental and stratigraphic changes in response to perturbations of different components of the oceanclimate system. In particular, he wants to understand the coupling between Achim Herrmann takes a break from his research climate and to enjoy the scenery in the Bahamas the geosphere through integrated sedimentological, geochemical, and numerical model studies. His recent research projects focus on earth systems changes across the Permian-Triassic boundary, the Early Late Ordovician, and the Late Pennsylvanian. In addition, he studies the sedimentary geochemistry of carbonate rocks in the Bahamas which is going well and thriving due to a growing research group. Last year Dr. Herrmann taught “Carbonate depositional systems” and “History of the Biosphere.” The carbonate class was built around a class project that used some of his carbonate samples from the Bahamas. In “History of the Biosphere,” the class went on a great field trip to LUMCON in Cocodrie, Lousiana. Dr. Herrmann also serves as the faculty advisor for the Geology Club. “Overall, my family and I had an exciting first year and we are looking forward to many more years here at LSU!”

Suniti Karunatillake

After arriving at LSU in January 2013, Dr. Karunatillake has been developing research themes of the Planetary Science Laboratory (PSL). Presently, the team focuses on computational and analytical methods to assess geological process on Mars with a vision inspired by the possibility of life beyond Earth, seeking to explore, discover, and share the frontiers of planetary science. A highlight of projects underway at the PSL with NASA grant support includes modeling the processes yielding a chemical province along the southeastern lava flows of Elysium Mons. Dating to the most recent geologic epoch, the Amazonian, on

Mars, these lava flows and underlying region may bear evidence of ancient lava-volatile interactions, perhaps involving shallow groundwater proximal to the Cerberus Fossae fissures. PSL’s postdoctoral associate, Dr. John Skok, has expertise in visible and near infrared spectroscopy and terrain analyses enable the team to assess the mineralogy and geomorphology of this area using data from both the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) and HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment). They are also leading a multi-institutional investigation of hydrous iron sulfates as a mineral group driving the hydration of bulk “soil” in the ancient Southern Highlands of Mars. Incoming PhD student Nicole Button will start her research comparing Martian regions enriched in chlorine as seen at regional scales using gamma spectroscopy, with localized areas bearing halides as identified from emission spectroscopy. In this initial project, she will exploit the lack of spatial overlap between the two deposit types to identify distinctive aqueous processes that leave chemical signatures in outcrops versus those leaving fingerprints in bulk planetary “soil.” Of several ongoing projects nearing completion, chemical evidence consistent with halogens volatilized into the Martian atmosphere from soil mutually reinforces a counterpart laboratory investigation underway at Stony Brook University. Meanwhile, detailed volumetric and geomorphologic assessments of potential hydrothermal deposits with intact geologic context at Nili Patera continues to provide a deeper understanding of underlying geologic processes. Beyond ongoing projects, two proposal submissions to NASA that would expand their field and in situ work caused a flurry of activity at PSL this summer. Dr. Karunatillake and his team look forward to more infusions of enthusiasm from undergraduate research participants next fall, as well as to expand collaborations between geology and life sciences.

Gary Byerly

Richard and Betty Fenton Alumni Professor Dr. Byerly continues to serve LSU as the dean of the Graduate School along with his work for the department. He recently saw Nick Decker, a master’s student, finish his thesis on the stratigraphy and geochronology of Mendon in South Africa. Dr. Byerly’s collaborative work with the Louisiana Geological Survey on the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa recently won the group the Best Reference Map award given by the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. He is spending time this summer continuing his research on the African continent.

Volcanic cone in the Nili Patera caldrea on Mars

Sam Bentley Billy & Ann Harrison Chair

Dr. Bentley has kept busy in the past year working with his graduate students, teaching Deltaic Geology and undergraduate and graduate sedimentology classes, and in his new role as director of the newly expanded LSU Coastal Studies Institute, as of January 2013. Fieldwork for Bentley’s group began last year in a survey of the southwest Louisiana continental shelf for PhD student Kathryn Denommee’s research. ABOVE: Rigging sonars on the R/V Coastal The work was funded in part Profiler, operated by the Coastal Studies Institute by three grants received by Kathryn from geological societies, and part by the Billy and Ann Harrison Chair, held by Bentley. BELOW: The group poses with a vibracore collected during a field trip through the Lafourche During winter and spring 2013, Delta Complex in Elmer’s Island, Louisiana Bentley submitted a number of research proposals, of which three projects studying dynamics of the Mississippi Delta have been funded by the Water Institute of the Gulf and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, totaling $551,200 in support. In summer 2013, PhD student Crawford White began his field program under Bentley’s supervision with a vibracoring project near Port Fourchon, focused on geomorphic evolution of the Mississippi Delta. That work also is funded by grants received by White, and the Billy and Ann Harrison Chair. At the closing of the year, Bentley’s graduate student Ashley Howell is turning in her MS thesis for graduation. Her work on processes controlling muddy shelf stratigraphy has been funded mostly by grants that Ashley has earned herself from several geological societies.

Sophie Warny

Kate and Marie are supported by the Marathon GeoDE program. Marathon’s generous gift allowed LSU to recruit these students, and in Marie’s case, beat other top universities in attracting her! This is a very strong example on how industry support truly impacts the quality of a research program. Marie studies sedimentary systems offshore Papua New Guinea, a project in collaboration with Dr. Sam Bentley and Dr. Andre Droxler at Rice. Kate’s research is ABOVE: The BELOW: groundbreaking. “Earthquake” exhibit at SEM photograph of the California Academy of Antarctic Red Beech She couples Science Pollen taken by Dr. Warny isotopic and palynological analysis to better quantify past hydrological and climate changes. Her first results were submitted for publication to the journal Palaeo3. Kate and Marie both won two of the five awards given by the American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists in 2012. Kate and Dr. Warny’s palynomorph SEM photographs were also selected for the cover of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences magazine last year, and another SEM picture was selected to be part of the new permanent “Earthquake” exhibit at the California Academy of Science.

Dr. Warny is an assistant professor of palynology as well as a curator at LSU’s Museum of Natural Science. Dr. Warny’s research group keeps growing and is now composed of four fantastic PhD students: Kate Griener, Marie Thomas, Shannon Ferguson, and Jill Bambricks. Shannon and Jill

In addition to her doctoral students, three master’s students are also part of the group: Breigh Rainey Rhodes, Steve Babcock, and Isil Yildiz. Breigh and Steve are teachers at the LSU University Laboratory School. Their goal in pursuing a master’s in natural science is to improve their ability to teach K-12 science content. They are truly outstanding teachers and leaders in their field. Isil is our newest student, she comes from Turkey thanks to a fellowship from the Turkish petroleum industry. She is working on building the organic biostratigraphic framework of the Ferron sandstone.

AASP Professor in the Center for Excellence in Palynology

both began their palynological doctoral research last fall. They presented their proposal draft at the Microfossils III meeting held in Houston in the spring. Shannon is supported by a LSU curatorial assistantship. This assistantship will provide the funds to start digitizing the pollen collection donated to CENEX by the industry in 1995. The digital curation will be done using the SPECIFY software. Drs. Warny and Kluse, from the LSU Herbarium, hosted a SPECIFY workshop at LSU in September to get the project started and Dr. Warny is actively looking for two additional years of funding for this project. Digitizing the pollen collection is key in helping us with our stratigraphic and paleo-environmental research, but it can also be very important for forensic palynological application.

Tiffany Roberts

Dr. Roberts joined the Department of Geology & Geophysics in August 2012 as an instructor and course coordinator. She has introduced new teaching resources to the classroom and labs, such as Clicker technology and “Scope on a Rope” in the general education labs. After attending the LSU Communication Across the Curriculum Summer Institute and a CAS teaching workshop, she has been implementing several techniques for engaging students in large classrooms with over 45 students in her summer courses. In the spring of 2013, she joined the LSU Coastal Studies Institute and intends to facilitate collaborative research studies on coastal processes with fellow CSI researchers. Dr. Roberts attended two national conferences and coauthored the paper “Distribution of Surficial and Buried Oil Contaminants Across Sandy Beaches Along Northwest Florida and Alabama Coasts Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010” published this year in the Journal of Coastal Research. She continues to remain active within the national organization, American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA), and serves as a reviewer for several peerreviewed journals.

Alex Webb The structure and tectonics group experienced an adventurous 2012-13 academic year, replete with fieldwork, new students, and new research directions. Summer 2012 featured field expeditions to western China and northern India. Dr. Webb and PhD student Cindy Colón explored active tectonics of the Tian Shan and associated salt glacier deformation. Dr. Webb and PhD student Dennis Donaldson mapped major shear zones and Tethyan deformation in the Himalaya. PhD students (and newlyweds!) Dian He and Hongjiao Yu spent the summer in Houston completing internships with Shell, then spent most of the fall at University of Freiberg, Germany, where Hongjiao completed

low-temperature thermochronology work for her research on modes of active Himalayan deformation. In late November, Dian and Hongjiao journeyed on to Kathmandu, Nepal, where they joined Dr. Webb at the Himalaya-Karakoram-Tibet workshop. In collaboration with leading Nepali scientist Bishal Upreti, Dian and Dr. Webb led a conference field excursion along the main transect from their 2011 paper. This trio then headed directly to the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco, where they were joined by Dennis. Cindy then joined the team in a field mapping training trip in the Mojave desert of southern California bringing 2012 to a close.

On the road during the Mojave desert field mapping training trip. From left: Dennis Donaldson, Cindy Colón, Dian He, and Alex Webb

Winter 2013 saw the arrival of master’s student Chase Billeaudeau, who is now leading the group’s ongoing research on the evolution of the Nujiang suture zone in eastern Tibet. In the spring, Cindy spent a month at Cornell University in New York and took a brief trip to the Institute of Earth Sciences at Grenoble, France in order to develop her skills and collaborations for processing of remote sensing (satellite) data. On May 8, Dian He became the first PhD student in the group to defend his dissertation; he starts work with Shell’s structural geology specialists group in August. Tremendous contributions to their research were from efforts of a fantastic group of eight undergraduates. They accomplished a complete overhaul of mineral separation procedures and collected key data sets for ongoing research projects. Dr. Webb spent most of his time back home in Louisiana devoted to paper and proposal preparation. Two first-author papers were published in both Geological Society of America Bulletin and Geosphere. First-author papers by Dennis Donaldson and former undergraduate Remy Leger are in press (in Geology and Tectonics respectively). Finally, his team recently received word that their Tian Shan salt tectonics proposal has been funded by the American Chemical Society’s New Directions grant.

Alex Webb’s group leads a conference field trip in Nepal; here participants examine rocks in the Main Central thrust zone.

Jeff Nunn

Ernest & Alice Neal Professor Dr. Nunn spent the past year focused on education. He taught two classes in the Honors College: physical geology and critical thinking. Both of these classes are LSU Communication Across the Curriculum and service-learning certified. In Honors physical geology, students conduct research on a historical volcanic eruption, create a PowerPoint presentation, and then give the presentation to middle school students in East Baton Rouge Public Schools. The success of this project was recently featured in the spring Journal of Geoscience Education and was selected for the peer-reviewed collection of educational activities on the Cutting Edge website at Science Education Resource Center. It also led to Dr. Nunn earning the Pereboom Professor of Science Award from the Honors College. Continuing a seven-year tradition, Dr. Nunn also taught two four-day workshops for high school biology teachers during the summer to give them lesson plans and up-to-date information on evolution in the fossil record, geologic time, and biogeochemical cycles. This helps edge the geosciences into life science curriculums and hopefully plant seeds for students to pursue future studies in geology. In addition, Dr. Nunn continues to direct LSU’s Applied Depositional Geosystems program for master’s students who want to work in the Ground level view of the Bayou Corne Sinkhole oil and gas industry. Almost 40 students have now gone through the program since it began. Other activities include his service on the AAPG Education Committee and as the associate editor of Basin Research. Finally, Dr. Nunn has been collaborating with the Department of Natural Resources team investigating the Bayou Corne sinkhole in Assumption Parish. As an ongoing study, he is working on the microearthquake source as fault movement related to replacement of water by gas, which shifts the Mohr Circle because gas is compressible. This topic has been widely publicized in South Louisiana and Dr. Nunn has given a number of talks to professional societies about the sinkhole and associated methane bubbles and microearthquakes.

Carol Wicks

Frank W. and Patricia Harrison Family Professor Dr. Wick’s master’s students, Ally Suding and James Ayrer, completed their theses this year on saline-water issues in St. Charles and New Orleans areas, respectively. Both Ally and Jea will be presenting their research findings and have submitted manuscripts to GCAGS in New Orleans in

October. Doctoral candidates, Ben Maas and Randy Paylor, are wrapping up their field and laboratory work. Ben’s study integrates geochemistry and fluid flow in carbonate basins as a means to interpret water-rock interactions and paleo-flow directions. Ben has completed fieldwork at Bromide OK and on LSU field camp property. Randy’s work focuses on understanding the inorganic carbon budget including sediment transport in cave streams. In the image above, you can see the painted (the red, the white, and the yellow) cobbles that are also radio-chipped. Randy monitors the movement of each cobble that is driven by storm events. He also monitors suspended sediment load and dissolved load in his study. Ben and Randy will be presenting their research at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver in October. In addition Dr. Wicks has been invited to speak about her work using time series analysis to interpret karst hydrology at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco this December.

Juan Lorenzo

Dr. Lorenzo and his students have been conducting research in several areas including hydraulic microseismic event location and their spectral evolution, seismic estimation of saturation in unsaturated-saturated sands, and characterization of Cenozoic faults in the Gulf Coast region. Additionally, Dr. Lorenzo’s group had an active interest in the Bayou Corne sinkhole. The group visited the area twice in the fall to conduct research on the shallow seismic properties of the area thanks to a Louisiana Department of Natural Resources grant. Together with Arash Dahi Taleghani, assistant professor of petroleum engineering, Dr. Lorenzo also received funding to simulate real fracturing treatments through the establishment of a hydraulic fracturing lab, the first of its kind at LSU. Over the next two years, the Gas Technology Institute in Chicago will head a team of experts from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, LSU, and the private sector to develop advanced methods and techniques for design and execution of environmentally safe and economically efficient hydraulic fracturing. Dr. Lorenzo’s petroleum seismology class in front of a vibrator while investigating the salt dome at Bayou Corne

Not your typical Classroom

PhD Student Tara Jonell pauses from her work mapping river terraces 15,000 feet above sea level in the Indian Himalaya.

Sam Bentley watches as his students extract a core sample in Elmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Island, Louisiana.

Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s students Ali Al Dhamen and Ryan Ellis conduct seismic tests near the Bayou Corne sinkhole.

Bryan Killingsworth and Justin Hayles enjoy precambrian outcrops in China.

Eric Orphys hauls in a sample during an expedition of the Louisiana coast.

Students in history of the biosphere explore the coast of Louisiana.

Alex Webb discusses structural geology during a field trip to Big Bend.

Thank You!

for supporting Geology & Geophysics

Individuals $100,000 and above Billy & Ann Harrison

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Ronnie Johnson & Candace Hays

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Donor Impact Often the difference between a “yes” and a “no” when hiring new faculty is being able to provide the resources and equipment associated with start-up packages. While salaries are supported using university funds, start-up funding, which allow us to renovate lab space and purchase new research equipment unique to a potential hire’s area of research, is not. We created the Geology Faculty Start-Up Support Fund in late 2012 to assist with these endeavors. In the spring, an opportunity to hire a talented faculty member might have been missed had it not been for some dedicated alumni who stepped in and donated to this fund. Thank you to Scott Brodie (‘82), Clarence Cazalot (‘72), Keith Jordan (‘79), Laura Moffitt (‘79), James Painter (‘80), and Michael Stamatedes (‘82) for your help in continuing to strengthen our faculty talent.

Organizations $50,000 and above Marathon Oil Corporation ExxonMobil Corporation

$10,000 to $49,999 BP Devon Energy Corporation Newfield Exploration Company Shell Oil Company

Up to $9,999

Chevron Concho Resources Inc. Encana Oil & Gas Energy XXI Services, LLC Freeport Mineral Company Hess Corporation Patrick F. Taylor Foundation Plains Exploration and Production Co. Schlumberger Technology Corporation The Jack Webster Grigsby Foundation

*The individuals and organizations listed reflect donations made to the Department of Geology & Geophysics through the LSU Foundation between July 1, 2012 and June 31, 2013. Every effort is made to be as accurate as possible in reporting gifts to the department. If there is an error, please let us know.

What are YOU doing?! New job? Promoted? Earn your PhD? We want to know about your latest achievements and feature them in the next alumni magazine. Let us know what’s been happening by e-mailing: geology@lsu.edu.

IN MEMORIAM Cyril C. “Bunk” Denny BS Geology 1938 Murray F. Hawkins MS Geology 1940 Frank A. Welder MS Geology 1951 PhD Geology 1955 Robert P. “Bob” Post, Jr. BS Geology 1959 James X. Corgan, Jr. PhD Geology 1967 Michael P. O’Brien BS Geology 2010

Houston Happy Hour

The second annual Houston Happy Hour took place on June 21. This reception is held to celebrate the successes of our recent graduates and current students taking part in summer internships. We were very excited so many alumni came out to support these young professionals. Thank you to Ronnie Johnson and Candace Hays for hosting the event! Be on the lookout for the next Houston Happy Hour and other events happening next year.

The Alumni Council serves as a voice for all G&G alumni. The group meets in both the fall and spring semesters to lend insight into department matters and offer guidance and support. Additionally, the council hosts events throughout the year to connect G&G alumni, students, and faculty.

2012-13 Alumni Council

Left to right: Scott Brodie, Hodge Walker, Ronnie Johnson, Carol Wicks, Erik Scott, Laura Moffitt, Keith Jordan Not pictured: Allen Berlin, Frank Harrison, James Painter, Ed Picou, and Chester Young

UPCOMING EVENTS: Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies Annual Convention New Orleans, October 6-8

American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Convention & Exhibition Houston, April 6-9

*G&G will be hosting an exhibition booth at both conventions

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