FIELD NOTES Rockin’ the Pandemic I just walked down the hall from my office into the 102 classroom here in the Geology building -- check out this photograph I took. Masked students, fewer in number and socially distanced, taking their first exam of the fall semester. A bucket of disinfectants at the front of the class. This is a typical scene in the department these days. But you know, it is going quite well, at least so far! We hobbled to the finish line this past spring semester after sending students home and teaching remotely. Then we approached this current academic year with a lot of planning. One of our large courses is split into student cohorts that attend lecture on different days. We changed a couple others to being live-streamed, figured out how many people could be in our rooms while maintaining a 6-foot distance, posted many signs, and secured a lot of sanitation materials. Geosciences is lucky. Many of our service courses taught to general students were already online or distance-delivered before Covid-19. Our major’s courses are small enough that we can still hold them in person for those students who choose to come in, while others watch on their computer screens. And yes – we are still running field trips, at least the local ones, although the students often choose to drive themselves to the stops individually rather than hop in our department vehicles. As I am writing this, the Field Methods class is out there in the local canyons trying to make sense of the generations of faults across the mountain front.
I do miss that academic hubbub and the normal bustle of a college campus, and I know that students miss connecting with others as much as usual. We normally would be launching
Fall 2020
regional field trips and going to conferences and hosting visiting speakers. Indeed, this spectacular fall season in Cache Valley was going to be the setting for our 2nd Summit Alumni Field Trip – following upon the awesome 1st Summit Alumni Trip to Moab last fall. Well – next year for sure, right? This issue of Field Notes highlights as usual some of our great students as well as changes with faculty -- those who have retired and those exciting young professors who have just arrived. In addition, Dr. Tammy Rittenour has been promoted to full Professor and Dr. Alexis Ault gained tenure and promotion to Associate Professor – congratulations! Finally, I want to foreshadow two timely new efforts in our department, which you will be hearing more about in the future -- we are currently designing our new “GeoWorkforce” undergrad degree program with the help of alumni advisors, and we have formed a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion taskforce to help guide us to a better future. Drop a line sometime, Joel
to all who have donated to any of the USU Geosciences Department Funds <1>
Outreach (NASMP) At the beginning of June, two groups of students worked with faculty to teach geology to students in the Native American Summer Mentorship Program.
Grad Students Kayla Smith and Ema Armstrong, and undergrads Anna Paulding and Jared Bryan worked with Kelly Bradbury to deliver a week-long remote learning experience to two NASMP students on the subject of Earthquake Geology. They mailed a few kits ahead of time for the students to keep that included minerals and fault rock samples and cookies! As part of the learning module, they created several videos, lectures, etc. While this experience was challenging due to internet access and the COVID-19 crisis for everyone, they had fun and learned a lot about communicating geoscience topics to non-majors. Natalie Tanski and Harriet Cornachione worked with Tammy Rittenour to deliver a remote learning experience in Geomorphology for two NASMP students. The students each received a field kit containing 5 vials of different sands from the USU Luminescence Lab, 3 empty vials, a minifield notebook, grain size card, hand lens, and some swag from USU Geosciences. Students collected and characterized local sands and their sample notes and locations were used to teach them about their local geomorphology. The students shipped back their three sand samples to become part of the lab’s collection of “Sands Across the World”. The group also developed videos and a short curriculum for the NASMP students.
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The 2020 Event: Rock-n-Fossil Day The 26th annual Rock-n-Fossil Day was an optimistic start to the year. The 1200 guests were able to see and do more due to the addition of time tickets for the museum—no more line to wait in. This year introduced a fun new way for the little visitors to get involved with the chance to become a Junior Geologist. Each child went from station to station to learn about geology and then recorded what they had learned, either with words or art. At the end, on their way to get a dino cookie, they could pick up their official Junior Geologist sticker. Other fun highlights were the traditional stations of playdough fossils, pet rocks, and pipe cleaner dinosaurs. Please watch for information of our 2021 event on Facebook and our webpage (geo.usu.edu).
Inaugural Summit Alumni Fieldtrip Fall of 2019 brought a new tradition to USU’s Geosciences Department. The first annual Alumni Field Trip took place October 4-6 in the geologic playland of Moab, UT. Approximately 50 people turned out for the trip, from past faculty (Don Fiesinger & Bob Oaks) to undergrads looking at becoming geology majors. Guests traveled from many places, including the furthest of Calgary, Canada. As Department Head Joel Pederson said, “We had great weather, enough time, no vehicle troubles, no one fell off a cliff, no one went hungry, and no one stumbled into a campfire. Not bad!” There were many hikes, teaching moments, meals, and geologic wonders shared. Although plans had been in place to hold the second annual Summit Alumni Fieldtrip in Fall of 2020, those memories will instead be made in 2021, this time in beautiful Cache Valley.
Through the generosity of our alumni and friends, our department is able to provide meaningful tuition, field camp, and research scholarships to over 20 students every year, and our students and faculty are very grateful. The Summit Initiative is a three-year effort to enhance these goals by initiating and increasing select endowments. More information can be found on our website: https://geo.usu.edu/information/giving-tousu-geology/index.
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Utah State University Geosciences Department
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2019-2020 Retirees Michelle Fleck (1984-2020) My husband retired from his job as a coal geologist with PacifiCorp at the end of 2019, prompting my own retirement from USU Eastern at the end of the 2020 academic year. I was hired as an adjunct instructor at College of Eastern Utah (CEU) in 1984 and became full-time faculty there in 1987. While at CEU, I taught Introduction to Geology, Physical Geology, Historical Geology, Physical Geography, Geology of Utah, Introduction to Chemistry, several lower-division math courses, and freshman orientation courses. I served seven years as the dean of the Arts & Sciences Division and as Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs in 2008-2009. When CEU became part of USU in 2010, I returned to full-time teaching as Associate Professor of Geology. Following retirement, my husband and I will be splitting our time between our children & families in the Salt Lake Valley and my extended family in Tennessee.
completing his MS soon! For the most part, my students either worked on modern carbonate environments in the Caribbean or on more local Cambrian and Ordovician rocks. I served as graduate Program Director from 2000-2010, Assistant Dept Head from 2006-2010 and Dept Head from 2010-2016. I had hoped that I would travel widely after retirement, but then Covid-19 struck. It is ironic that I applied for a new passport just before the outbreak! I am looking forward to eventually escaping quarantine and visitIng children and grand children. For recreation I like to hike and snowshoe our local trails with my German Shepherd, Max. I still have several Cambrian and Ordovician projects that I am working on - but, as they say in Jamaica, “Soon come!”
Sue Morgan (1986-2020)
Dave Liddell (1981-2020)
I arrived at USU in December, 1981 during a blizzard - quite a contrast from living in New Orleans! The Dept Head at the time, Clyde Hardy, had to drive out to near my house to pick me up so I could teach my first classes because my road was closed by snow drifts. During my 38 plus years at USU I witnessed many changes in the department. When I started, the department consisted of 5 full-time faculty and one office staffer with no instructors, research faculty or technician support. There was no PhD program. The typical course load was 6 plus courses. We were also scattered over several floors in Old Main and Widtsoe Hall. During my time at USU I advised 18 MS students, co-advised 2 more MS students, and had 1 PhD student (in Biological Sciences). And I still have one final MS student that should be
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My teaching started as a lecturer at USU in the late 80s when I used chalk to write class notes and draw illustrations on a chalkboard. Wow – things changed over time! I took a hiatus in the early 90s but returned as a lecturer in fall 92 till 2009 when my husband John and I moved to Alaska. For the last 10 years I taught online classes while in Alaska. I enjoyed all my classes but my favorite was Earth History because the class was small, students were interested and each semester ended with a weekend field trip to southern Utah. Last year John retired and we moved to Cortez, Colorado - an area with a long history of ancient people. I'm very interested in learning more about SW archaeology and joined a local club and became a steward of a few archaeology sites. I hope to continue delving into the area's archaeology and visit dwelling and rock art sites. There are also endless trails to hike, and I have a few backpack trips in mind. John and I plan to journey around the west on birding trips and attend regional bird festivals, explore the many national parks and monuments in the west, and visit family and friends.
Check out the rockin’ Geominutes on our YouTube channel: USU Geosciences Some current videos: Time Scale in Grand Canyon Fossil Finding Groundwater Drilling
2020 New Hires Evey Gannaway Dalton Assistant Professor-Price
Greetings! I am thrilled to be starting my role as Assistant Professor at Utah State University Eastern this Fall 2020! A native Memphian, I attended Sewanee: The University of the South for undergrad and then spent a year in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar at the Technische Universität München. Eventually, I made my way to the University of Texas at El Paso for graduate school. There I received my M.S. in 2014 and my Ph.D. in 2019, studying clastic and carbonate sedimentology and stratigraphy with specific application to salt tectonics. Because salt is prone to going missing – whether by dissolution, migration, or erosion – I use the sedimentary record to investigate and interpret the influence salt structures have on the depositional and deformational patterns that develop above and around them. My research has taken me all over the world; from the Flinders and Willouran Ranges of South Australia to the Pyrenees of Spain to the Dead Sea in Isreal to the Paradox Basin in Colorado and Utah. As a sedimentologist, I certainly landed in the perfect spot, with the Book Cliffs on my horizon as I walk home from the office every day. My position in Price will let me spend most of my time doing what I love – teaching and engaging with students – getting them as excited about the world they live in as I am. Alongside my teaching, the proximity to salt tectonic problems throughout the Colorado Plateau will allow me to continue my research into understanding the dynamic and delicate interplay between evolving salt structures and the adjacent depositional and deformational systems.
Don Penman
Assistant Professor Don Penman first got hooked on Earth Sciences as an geology major at Carleton College. After graduating he spent two years gaining research experience as a lab tech at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Columbia University). At Lamont he was first exposed to the fields of Paleoclimatology and Paleoceanography auditing a class taught by Wally Broecker, and decided to pursue a PhD in that field
at the University of California Santa Cruz in the lab of Jim Zachos. After his PhD he spent 5 years as a postdoc at Yale University. Don’s research uses the geochemistry of the sedimentary record to reconstruct Earth’s climatological and chemical evolution over geologic time. He is a frequent seagoing sedimentologist with the International Ocean Drilling Program, and looks forward to participating and leading scientific drilling operations for the rest of his career. At USU, he is currently putting together a lab focused on processing marine sediments and generating geochemical records with a new ICP mass spectrometer.
Katherine (Katie) Potter
Professional Practice Assistant Professor Many of you might’ve already heard my name associated with other USU Geosciences positions (PhD student, instructor), and I’ve recently moved into a new role in the Geosciences department: in March, I was hired as the GeoWorkforce Assistant Professor of Professional Practice. Despite the misgivings of my friends and family, it turns out that having experience in a variety of geoscience fields (mining, oil and gas, government, education) paid off! For a bit of background, the Geosciences department was awarded a grant from the Utah Governor’s Office in the spring of 2019 to create and implement a workforce-focused undergraduate degree emphasis. The goal of the GeoWorkforce program is to develop practical geoscience curriculum, recruit high school students, and provide undergraduates with the skills and experience necessary to be competitive in the geosciences job market--and to be flexible as this job market evolves. Our hope is that our efforts not only boost undergraduate enrollment, but also increase the number of underrepresented students in our program. Aside from my GeoWorkforce responsibilities, I’ve been continuing my work on Snake River Plain volcanics, specifically exploring the link between the Lu-Hf signature of volcanogenic zircons erupted from Yellowstone-Snake River Plain silicic volcanic centers and underlying basement architecture. I’ll also be heading to the south Atlantic in December of 2020 as part of the shipboard scientific team on International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 391: Walvis Ridge Hotspot. For fun, I enjoy exploring areas within Logan’s marvelous 4hour radius while in a boat, on a mountain bike, or wearing my running shoes. This last month I adopted Henry, a very distinguished-looking airedale-border collie puppy. So far, all of my shoes are intact.
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Student Highlights Ema Armstrong
Jared Bryan
Ema Armstrong is a second-year MSc student, co-advised by Dr. Alexis Ault and Dr. Kelly Bradbury. Ema is the recipient of a 2020 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRF). The NSF GRF program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students committed to research, education, and outreach. Ema’s thesis project uses low-temperature thermochronology methods – tools that quantify the temperature history of a rock – to identify earthquake friction-generated heat on the Punchbowl Fault in California. The goal of the project is to develop tools to recognize past earthquakes in fault zones and understand how earthquakes initiate and propagate. Ema, Alexis, Kelly, and fellow graduate student Alex DiMonte collected samples from the Punchbowl Fault (which is ~3 miles from the San Andreas Fault in southern California) last January and she has spent the summer months processing samples to isolate individual apatite and zircon grains for thermochronology. She will begin low-temperature thermochronology analysis at University of Arizona in October and will collect more samples in November. Ema’s work is also supported by the Geological Society of America Student Research Grant program and she is the recipient of the Structural Geology and Tectonics Division Student travel award for her excellent proposal. In addition, Ema is leading an outreach project that demonstrates the importance of scientific drilling at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD), mentored by Dr. Kelly Bradbury. The activity and associated video for this project will be presented in the non-majors Natural Disasters class. She also participated in the Native American Science Mentoring Program (NASMP) last June to promote geoscience to Native American students from the USU Blanding campus.
Jared Bryan graduated May 2020 as a physics and geology major with a minor in mathematics. A 2016 graduate of Las Vegas’ West Career and Technical Academy, Jared entered USU on a Dean’s Scholarship in Fall 2016. He’s since received a number of academic scholarships and recognitions. Jared’s interest in understanding how the Earth deforms in response to tectonic and climatic forces led him to pursue an URCO-funded research project with Geosciences faculty mentor Tony Lowry at the start of his sophomore year. Jared developed numerical models to understand how forces from mantle flow lead to deformation of the Earth’s crust. Interested in learning more about deformation from earthquakes, Jared applied for and was awarded an internship at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, where he used numerical earthquake simulations to understand how seismic observations can be linked to earthquake rupture processes. He was awarded another internship at Harvard University, where he developed techniques to monitor earthquake damage and healing using ambient seismic noise. Jared worked with Kelly Bradbury on his last research project as an undergrad. They analyzed geophysical data from a borehole drilled across the San Andreas Fault to better image the fault zone and to provide better estimates of important material parameters used to create seismic hazard models. In addition to research, Jared served as a science writing tutor, a geochemistry lab assistant, and as a Mathematics Teaching Fellow. He has also helped as a volunteer for Rock-n -Fossil Day. Jared is now pursuing a PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working with William Frank. He was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the MIT Presidential Graduate Fellowship. He will study geophysics “to understand how the solid earth, oceans, and climate conspire to threaten human lives.”
Awards received this year:
• NSF GRFP • GSA student award and Structural Geology and Tectonics Division Student travel grant
• USU Geoscience graduate student JS Williams Scholarship
Join us on LinkedIn: Utah State University Geology Alumni
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Summer Adventures
Heather Upin “Last summer I did a solo hike to the top of Logan Peak, it was very empowering!”
Natalie Tanski “When not at the OSL lab or working on my samples, I have been able to spend time exploring local rivers and lakes.”
Carli Studnicky “This past summer, I adopted my dog Archie (short for Archimedes), and we have been enjoying getting out into the mountains for hikes and camping miniadventures.”
Dominique Shore “I have been able to spend some time chasing trout in SW Montana and Idaho. I have also spent plenty of time on the Beaverhead, Henry’s Fork, Big Lost, Madison, and Ruby Rivers in pursuit of large trout.”
Jesse Scholpp “This summer, I’ve been primarily working on my thesis, so I could graduate and start my Ph.D. On my days off, I usually go hiking or brew beer.”
Alison Hafner “I was very fortunate to be able to go do field work in late May with my advisor Jim, my partner Aidan, and our su-paw-visor Newton. We collected a bunch of samples that I have since either prepped for geochemical analyses or sent off to be made into thin sections!”
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Our Alumni Advisory Board Current members of the Advisory Board are: Angela Isaacs (Chair)—Sinclair Oil & Gas Yarrow Axford—Northwestern University Stephanie Carney—Utah Geological Survey Carrie Elliott—U.S. Geological Survey Paul Jamison—Logan School District (retired) Al Jones—Smiley Creek Lodge Dustin J. Keele—Chevron Corporation Steven Kerr—Millcreek Mining Group Mike Lowe—Utah Geological Survey Craig Nelson—Western Geologic LLC Elizabeth Petrie—Western State Colorado University Caleb Pollock—Pioneer Natural Resources Dan Rogers—Amsted Industries
Club Corner The Geology Club has started the new semester with lots of plans to gather with safety in mind. One of their first activities was to take the “Campus Geology Fieldtrip” while wearing masks. They will continue to connect with students and the community through the year. Stay up-to-date on their antics by following them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/USUgeoclub) or Instagram (@usugeoclub).
Graduate Students Completed 2019-2020 Leah Houser, MS, Nanotextural and Nanochemical Constraints
on the Role of Heat in the Development of Crystalline-hosted, Silica-rich Fault Mirrors in the Wasatch Fault Damage Zone, Utah, USA (Dr. Alexis Ault)
Rob McDermott, PhD, Thermochronometric, Microtextural,
and Numerical Modeling Approach to Deciphering the Rock Record of Deformation Processes in the Wasatch and Denali Fault Zones (Dr. Alexis Ault)
Jesse Scholpp, MS, Pre-eruptive Evolution of Izu-Bonin
Boninite Melts: Mixing, Cooling, and Crystallization (Dr. John Shervais)
Heather Upin, MS, Connections Between Hydrothermal
System Geochemistry and Microbiology: Traversing Tectonic Boundaries in the South-Central Peruvian Andes (Dr. Dennis Newell)
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Contact Information: Utah State University Department of Geosciences 4505 Old Main Hill Logan, UT 84322 Office: 435-797-1273 Fax: 435-797-1588 Email: geo@usu.edu Website: geo.usu.edu