Newsletter - NMSU: Geological Sciences

New Mexico State University
Department of Geological Sciences
Newsletter 2015
Department News
New 4WD Field Vehicle!
Thanks to the generosity of
alumni and support from the
College of Arts and Sciences, the
department purchased a new 4WD
Ford Expedition this year. The
vehicle seats 8 and has room for
equipment. We retired the 1996
Suburban; upkeep was eating too
much of our maintenance budget.
The vehicle fleet is used for class
field trips, including the Survey of
Geology class, for graduate and
faculty research, and to transport
groups of students to meetings.
Alumni Support
Alumni support is essential to having
a strong, vibrant department.
And there’s a new donation
matching opportunity if you give
to any of our scholarship funds on
December 1 (see p. 6).
Please visit:
<www.geology.nmsu.edu>
to find out how you can help NMSU
Geological sciences today.
Contents
Granitic orthogneiss in the San Andres Mountains.
Zircons from this sample yielded a U-Pb age of 1674
Ma, making it one of the oldest known samples in
southern New Mexico.
Hall of Fame Report
2
Grad Student News
3
Where are they now?
4
Alumni Support Options 5-8
Faculty Profiles
9-13
Field Camp14
More Photos15
Newsletter Editor: Jeff Amato
(send comments and updates:
amato@nmsu.edu)
1
Bob Newcomer (MS ‘84) Joins the
Geological Sciences Hall of Fame
Bob Newcomer joined the NMSU
Geological Sciences Hall of Fame
this month. Bob was honored
at a luncheon at the Farm and
Ranch Museum on October 23,
2015.
Bob Newcomer (MS, ‘84) was
our tenth alumnus inducted
into the Geological Sciences Hall
of Fame in October, 2015. Bob
has over 30 years of experience
in the environmental field,
mostly in Albuquerque, NM.
Currently, he is an Associate
and Program Leader at Golder
Associates. He has worked all
over New Mexico on variety
of problems, including water
resource development and
assessment, mine permitting
and environmental compliance,
environmental concerns
associated with groundwater
quality related to drilling for oil
and gas, and has been involved
in litigation and regulatory
hearings. It is great to see the
impact our alumni are making in
the geosciences.
Bob Newcomer and Nancy McMillan at the Alumni luncheon
(above and below) NMSU Geologists on the Alumni Field
Trip to Kilbourne Hole.
Congratulations,
Bob, on an
excellent career
and welcome to
the Geology Hall of
Fame!
2
NMSU Graduate Student News
Student Defenses: There were seven MS
defenses since last year. These include
Gary Hunt, John Curry, Cory Paliewicz,
Rod Blackford, Mark Brown, Chelsea
Ottenfeld, and Nic Slater (pictured at left
with his advisor, Frank Ramos).
Student Awards: GSA awarded Graduate
Student Research Grants to Sid Pinkerton,
Monica Mustain, Austin Hansen, and
Jenna Lente, who is pictured at left on
a ridge in Soledad Canyon of the Organ
Mountains, looking for the base of
the Squaw Mountain Tuff. Jenna also
received a grant from the Association
of Women Geoscientists. Cody Stopka
received a SEPM grant.
NMSU Geological Sciences had a large
contingent at the 2015 NMGS Fall
Field Conference in the Las Vegas, NM
area. From left to right, Keith Davis,
Dr. Brian Hampton, graduate students
Ryan Creitz, Steve Levesque, and Jascha
Coddington, undergraduate Shoshanna
Farnsworth-Pinkerton, graduate students
Sid Pinkerton and Vanessa Swenton, and
Dr. Frank Ramos.
3
Where are they now?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you would like to have your status updates included in future newsletters, please send your info to
amato@nmsu.edu. Also let us know if you do not want your information included in the newsletter.
Dr. Amato visited with two NMSU Geological Sciences alumni while attending the Spring Meeting of the
GSA Cordilleran Section in Anchorage, Alaska, this past May. He met with Chris Clinkscales (MS ‘11)
who is working for Conoco Phillips in Anchorage. He also met with Kyle Graff (MS ‘03) who lives in the
Anchorage area with his wife, Jen Aschoff (MS ‘03). Jen is now a professor at the University of Alaska,
Anchorage, and Kyle is a GIS analyst for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. He also met Rosie
Williams (MS ‘15) and John Gilbert (MS ‘12) who visited the department while in town for a friend’s
wedding, and who were recently engaged to be married in 2016.
We received some responses after sending out last year’s newsletter. Here are some updates in no
particular order.
Earl Redman (BS ‘70) is living in Ireland, and he wrote a book about mining in Alaska. He also
accompanied his wife on a climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where he spotted some obsidian. Matt Bogar (MS
‘05) is married and has a two-year old daughter, they live in Taos where he works for the New Mexico
Environment Department. Rita (Schuster) Alexander (MS ‘91) is working for the Missouri Department
of Natural Resources. Stephanie (Furgal) McKenna (MS ‘06) is still working for Chevron but now lives
in Houston.
Ben Parker (BS ‘00) has some spectacular photos at his website:
<benjaminparkerphotography.squarespace.com/photoblog>. Clay Kiesling (BS ‘01) is the Senior
Geoscientist at Souder Miller in Las Cruces. Gabby St. Pierre (BS ‘13) is working on a Ph.D. at the
University of Utah. Luis Morales (BS ‘84) is an Environmental Manager at the Environmental Health and
Safety Department at NMSU. Thomas Hearon (MS ‘08) is working for Conoco Phillips in Houston.
Tom Carroll (BS ‘75) is a Senior Hydrogeologist at GHD, a geological engineering firm in Houston.
Jennifer Williams (BS ‘05) is the Project, Outreach, and Sample Coordinator at the Susquehanna Shale
Hills Critical Zone Observatory at Penn State. Send me your updates for inclusion in future newsletters.
THANK YOU ALUMNI FOR YOUR DONATIONS!
Many of you donated since the last newsletter. We received donations for the graduate research
fund, the general geology fund, and the new Lawton and Mack Scholarships. We appreciate your
support of NMSU Geological Sciences.
Kyle
Graff
Chris
Clinkscales
4
Alumni Support Opportunities
Alumni Giving can be made through the NMSU Foundation. We are currently asking you to consider
donations for two urgent needs. The first is that graduate research is costly, and traditional avenues of
support for student research are becoming even more competitive. We have set up a fund that will be
used specifically to fund student research, and we are calling it the “Graduate Student Research Grant
Fund.” Our goal is to raise $2000 to fund a research grant for one of our students. Direct donations to
the Graduate Student Research Grant Fund online or in the memo line of check (see below). As always,
general contrubutions can be made to the Department via the General Gift Fund (#102190). Let us know
if you would like to be recognized for your donations in a future newsletter. As always your support
is greatly appreciated. Please contact Jeff Amato (Chair of the Alumni Relations Committee) by email
(amato@nmsu.edu) or phone (575-646-3017) if you have questions.
Please see the next three pages for other alumni support options, including “Giving Tuesday,” an
unprecedented matching opportunity. Double your support by donating on December 1.
All donations are tax-deductible and can be made in two ways:
1) Online donations can be made via the NMSU Foundation at https://advancing.nmsu.edu/givenow.
CLick on “Search for a Fund” and enter a specific fund, or “Geology” or “Lawton” or “Mack” (see next
pages for info).
2) Checks can be made out to “NMSU Foundation” and include the Department and fund number in the
memo line or in an accompanying letter.
Mail to: NMSU Foundation, Inc.
Dove Hall, Room 212
1305 N. Horseshoe Dr.
PO Box 3590
Las Cruces, NM 88003-3590
Dr. Amato’s Geology 470 Class from Spring 2015.
5
#GivingTuesday is an NMSU-wide initiative in which Aggies from all
over the world can come together and impact the lives of students at
NMSU. We hope you will join us! Gifts made to any scholarship fund
on December 1, 2015 will be matched dollar-for-dollar.
You can send a check dated December 1, 2015 to the department at
the address below. We need to receive the check on or before 1
December. For online giving, NMSU will open a secure online giving
page that will be active on December 1:
<https://advancing.nmsu.edu/givingtuesday>
You can search on that page for the scholarship to which you would
like to donate.
We are hoping to endow two new scholarships on Giving Tuesday:
Greg Mack Endowed Scholarship
Timothy Frost Lawton Endowed Scholarship
Gifts to the General Geology Scholarship will also have an enormous
positive impact on Geology undergraduate and graduate students.
All contributions are tax-deductible. Some corporations will match
your donation.
Checks should be made out to NMSU Foundation. Write the name of
the scholarship on the comment line. Send a check to:
Nancy J. McMillan
Department of Geological Sciences/MSC 3AB
New Mexico State University
PO Box 30001
Las Cruces, NM 88003
Questions? email Jeff Amato (amato@nmsu.edu)
6
Timothy Frost Lawton Endowed Scholarship
in the NMSU Department of Geological Sciences
Beth and Ira Bradford, together with an
employer match, have donated $10,000
towards an endowed scholarship to
honor Tim’s many contributions to his
students, the department, and the field of
sedimentary geology and tectonics.
This endowment will be used to fund
student projects involving sedimentology,
stratigraphy, and tectonics. As a former
Tim Lawton advisee, please consider
donating to this scholarship to help NMSU
graduate students fund their research
projects in sedimentology and tectonics.
Checks should be made out to the NMSU Foundation
and please write “Fund 972594” in the memo, and/
or include a note indicating that your contribution is
for the Timothy Frost Lawton Endowed Scholarship,
Department of Geological Sciences. Alternatively, you
can go to the link:
<https://advancing.nmsu.edu/givenow>
on the “Fund” dropdown menu, where you can search
for “Lawton” and the fund will show up. Then you can
use your credit or debit card to make a donation.
Thank you for considering a gift to this scholarship.
7
Department of
Geological Sciences
Greg Mack Endowed
Scholarship
CONSIDER HONORING GREG’S LEGACY..
Keith Rasmussen, Greg’s first graduate student, has donated $10,000 to build towards $25,000 for an
endowed scholarship to honor Greg’s many contributions to his students over the years.
Keith writes: “Greg was my instructor and thesis adviser and always went the extra mile to help me succeed. His dedication to the geological sciences, and his genuine care for his students, helped him become
highly successful in research, the classroom and the field. I owe a lot of my professional success to Dr.
Mack.”
If you feel the same, please consider a gift to the Greg Mack Endowed Scholarship. You can donate online
at http://giving.nmsu.edu/giving.php. Click on “Find a Giving Area/Fund” and type “Greg Mack” in the box.
Or, you can send a check made out to NMSU Foundation to: NMSU Foundation, Inc.; 1305 N. Horseshoe Drive,
Dove Hall, Room 212, Las Cruces, NM 88003-3590. Please write “Greg Mack Scholarship 982593-209” on
the comment line of your check.
Thank you for considering a gift to this scholarship! You will be helping Greg’s commitment to students and
enthusiasm for geology live for ever at NMSU.
Department of Geological
Sciences
Box 30001, MSC 3AB
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces
NM 88003
Phone: 575-646-2708
Fax: 575-646-1059
E-mail: geology@nmsu.edu
8
Faculty Profile: Dr. Jeff Amato
After a five-year break,
Jeff finally made it back to
Anchorage, Alaska this spring,
but unfortunately it was only
for the Cordilleran Section GSA
meeting, not field work (though
he did collect a few samples
while he was in the area). This
trip was partially funded by a
$1000 grant he received from
the College of Arts and Sciences.
He gave two talks, one on his
long-term project on the Bering
Straight region, and the other on
his recently published paper on
a suture zone in northeastern
Russia. The field work for
that project was way back in
2002, so he is relieved that it is
finally published. It came out in
Geosphere this summer. While in
Anchorage, Jeff met with NMSU
MS alums Kyle Graff (MS ’03) and
Chris Clinkscales (MS ’11) at the
Moose’s Tooth Pub and Pizzeria.
Jeff also was co-author on three
other papers that were published
this year, resulting from various
collaborations. One was on
southern Alaska geology, another
was on Grenville-age zircons in
Cambrian sandstones, and the
last one was on the age of the
plutonic and volcanic rocks of
the Organ Mountains. As always,
there is a long list of potential
papers to be written in the
coming months.
In August, Jeff received another
$10,000 grant to continue his
work on the geology of the new
Prehistoric Trackways National
Monument in the nearby
Robledo Mountains. Currently he
is focusing on the relationship
between basalt magmatism and
extensional faulting and the
origin of pyroxenite xenoliths
found within the basalt units.
Dr. Amato at a rheomorphically folded rhyolite flow in the Burro
Mountains. This is a lava flow associated with the 35 Ma Schoolhouse
Mountain Caldera.
In September, his student,
Chelsea Ottenfeld, defended her
MS thesis on the Proterozoic
geology of the San Andres
Mountains and surrounding
areas. She is his 15th MS student
in the 16 years he has been at
NMSU. He has a new MS student
this year, Vanessa Swenton, who
came from Central Connecticut
State University. Vanessa
is continuing work on the
Schoolhouse Mountain Caldera
in the Burro Mountains, a project
started by former student Tara
Jonell (MS ’12).
His daughter, Sofia, is seven
years old and in addition to being
an avid reader, she also has an
impressive rock collection, is on
a swim team, a gymnastics team,
and is playing piano. Wesley
is now five, and he is playing
baseball and soccer while getting
ready for kindergarten next
year. Both will be running with
me at the Desert Dash race this
weekend. The family enjoyed
going to Arizona for to see some
of baseball’s spring training
games and summer trips to
California, Colorado, and Hawaii.
Field work in Alaska.
9
Faculty Profile: Dr. Reed Burgette
Reed Burgette and the NMSU
Neotectonics group have had a
productive and exciting year. Reed
spent much of the summer working
with M.S. student Austin Hanson
on a project to better characterize
the slip rate of the Sierra Madre
fault, which thrusts the San Gabriel
Mountains over basins of the LA
metropolitan area. He is collaborating with Dr. Katherine Scharer
at the USGS on this project, which
is funded by grants from the USGS
External Hazards Research Program and the Southern California
Earthquake Center (SCEC). This
work involves measuring deformation recorded by offset alluvial
fan surfaces using LiDAR-derived
high resolution topographic data
and Quaternary mapping. Much
of their focus is on quantifying
precise ages for the offset surfaces
using 10Be cosmogenic dating and
luminscence dating. Hanson presented
preliminary results of the project at the
Fall SCEC meeting in Palm Springs,
CA, and this fall he traveled to labs at
Utah State and Purdue Universities to
prepare samples for luminescence and
cosmogenic dating, respectively.
Incoming student Jascha Coddington
has joined the Neotectonics group, and
he is interested in better understanding
the process of active mountain
building in the Tien Shan Mountains
of central Asia. Reed is planning
summer fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan
funded by an internal grant from the
NMSU College of Arts and Sciences.
He looks forward to returning to the
mountains where he did much of his
PhD research. Dr. Burgette continues
to research the rates of interseismic
vertical deformation along the West
Coast of the U.S. using tide gauge
and leveling data. His current focus
is in understanding the pattern of
relative sea level rise along the entire
coastline, as well as the detailed
spatial pattern of uplift rates in the
Ventura basin area and the broader
western Transverse Ranges of
southern California. This work has
also been funded by SCEC and he
is collaborating with colleagues
who specialize in satellite geodesy
and numerical modeling. Reed
is honored to have been chosen
as a Distinguished Speaker for
the NSF EarthScope Program,
and he has given talks on his
vertical geodesy work this fall
at Penn State and Portland State
Universities, and he will be
traveling to the Universities of
Utah, Arizona, and Wisconsin in
the spring.
Reed continues to enjoy getting to
know the geology of New Mexico
through teaching. He had a great
time leading mapping projects
for his first NMSU summer field
camp in the Picuris and Jemez
Mountains, following on from
Dr. Hampton. Also new in 2015
he developed a GIS for Geology
class, which is introducing NMSU
students to a range of geologyspecific applications of this
powerful software.
Between trips to California, Reed
enjoyed assisting Emily with
her fieldwork in the Cascades
Mountains of Oregon- hiking and
foraging wild blackberries with
their son. They are also enjoying
the opportunities to explore New
Mexico.
Rowan hiking across lava flows with
North Sister in the background.
10
Faculty Profile: Dr. Brian Hampton
2015 has been busy year in
the Basin Research Lab at NMSU
and the group has been hard
at work on a diverse range of
basin/tectonic-themed projects
throughout southwestern Alaska,
the U.S. Midcontinent, and right
here in southern New Mexico.
Hampton spent much of the
year writing up stratigraphic
and provenance findings from
Silurian-Devonian strata of the
Farewell terrane in southwestern
Alaska as well as from upper
Paleozoic strata from the
Michigan basin. He also had
the opportunity to collaborate
with Dr. Amato on a Geosphere
manuscript that addressed the
Mesozoic tectonic development
of the South Anyui suture zone
in eastern Russia. It was a
rewarding experience to get into
a new suture zone and compare/
contrast stratigraphies with
age-equivalent suture provinces
we’ve studied in southern
Alaska!
Current graduate students
Mark Brown and Cody Stopka
have been making some
solid research contributions
with their MS projects. Mark
completed a nice stratigraphic
and provenance summary
of Meso-Neoproterozoic
synorogenic strata associated
with Midcontinent Rift System.
He recently defended his thesis
and will be graduating in
December, 2015. Cody is getting
started on the second year of his
project and presented some new
provenance data from Upper
Cretaceous strata of the Sevier
foreland basin in southern New
Mexico at the 2015 AAPG Annual
Convention and Expo in Denver
this past June.
The Basin Research Lab
welcomed a new graduate
student (Ryan Creitz) this past
year. Ryan came to NMSU from
Penn State University and is
getting started on a project that
will address the age range and
sediment dispersal trends from
Eocene volcaniclastic strata
associated with the latest stage
of the Laramide orogeny in
southern New Mexico.
On the teaching front, Hampton
was fortunate enough to get into
the field with undergraduate and
graduate students this past year
as part of his Sedimentology/
Stratigraphy and Tectonics and
Basin Analysis courses. He and
Dr. Burgette also co-taught the
2015 Geology Summer Field
Camp and worked with students
on a number of classic geologic
field localities throughout New
Mexico.
11
Faculty Profile: Dr. Emily Johnson
It was an exciting and busy
year for Dr. Emily Johnson and
her students. Her M.S. student
Jenna Lente is working hard to
finish up her research on the
pre-eruptive storage conditions
of the magmas erupted from
the Organ caldera. This involved
some fieldwork (including an
exciting hike up to the top of a
ridgeline in Soledad Canyon)
and two trips to the University of
Oregon to analyze her samples
in the Fourier Transform
Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy
lab. Jenna and Dr. Johnson spent
two productive weeks at the
lab in Oregon in July, where
Jenna measured the H2O and
CO2 contents of quartz-hosted
melt inclusions from the Cueva
Tuff. Jenna recently returned to
the lab on her own for further
analyses, and is hoping to finish
up her master’s research in the
coming year.
This summer Dr. Johnson
was thrilled to learn that her
proposal “Sediment recycling in
southern Cascadia: Insights from
seafloor sediment and mafic
volcanic rock geochemistry”,
submitted with Co-PI Dr. Ramos,
was successfully funded by
NSF. Luckily, Dr. Johnson was
already in Oregon when funding
of this project came through,
and she managed to squeeze in
a few days of fieldwork at Mt.
McLoughlin in the southern
Oregon Cascades (with Reed and
Rowan, of course). This project
also includes funding for two M.S.
students in the next three years,
the first of whom, Meredith Cole,
started at NMSU in August. Not
long after arriving in Las Cruces,
Meredith flew with Dr. Johnson
to the Cascades for five busy days
of fieldwork sampling basalts
erupted between Mt. Shasta
(northern California) and central
Oregon.
In addition to these research
projects, she also spent time
wrapping up fieldwork for a project
at a maar volcano, Blue Lake maar,
in central Oregon. She spent several
days digging pits around the crater
in order to measure the thickness
of the eruptive deposits and sample
the different stages of the eruption.
Other ongoing projects include
analyzing the volatile contents of
glasses from a submarine explosive
eruption in the Izu-Bonin Mariana
arc, and investigating along-arc
variations in basalt geochemistry in
the Cascades.
Although it was a busy year,
Emily, Reed, and their son, Rowan,
still had plenty of time for fun,
camping, hiking and exploring.
Happily, Rowan loved all of the
travelling they did this summer, and
even hiked part of the way up Mt.
McLoughlin! Somehow, Rowan is
already two-and-a-half; he is a joy
to explore with and, very proudly,
likes “lava rocks”.
Dr. Johnson at
Crater Lake,
while doing
fieldwork in
Oregon in
September.
12
Faculty Profile: Dr. Nancy McMillan
Nancy McMillan’s year in
research focused on applications
of Laser-Induced Breakdown
Spectroscopy (LIBS). She
published two papers this
year: an invited overview
paper in Geostandards and
Geoanalytical Research that
describes how LIBS can be
utilized in geologic research,
and the result of Kristen YetterKochelek’s thesis research on
determining the provenance of
ruby and sapphire; Catherine
Dowe-McManus was a coauthor on the paper. Other LIBS
projects include using backpack
LIBS to distinguish between
bacterially-influenced calcite
and inorganically crystallized
calcite in caves in the Carlsbad
area, developing a method to
use tourmaline for mineral
exploration and as a provenance
indicator in provenance studies,
quality control of highway
aggregates, and correlation of
lava flows of the Taos Plateau
Volcanic Field. Catherine
McManus and Nancy presented
at poster at the 2015 GSA
meeting in Baltimore on using
LIBS to determine the country,
and even mine, of origin, which
could limit the use of diamonds
as a conflict mineral. All in all,
LIBS technology is proving to be:
1) very interesting, 2) a way to
greatly expand applications of
geochemistry, and 3) a whole lot
of fun!
Being department head
continues to occupy a significant
chuck of Nancy’s time. This year,
the department is the first in the
College and the second in the
University to move through the
process of Academic Program
Review. The department
spent the Fall 2014 semester
discussing topics in an extensive
self-study report, which was
written in the Spring 2015
semester. A review team,
consisting of three geologists
from different universities and
the Dean of the Honor College,
will visit the department
in November to assess
departmental activities and help
guide us in developing our goals
for the next five years.
Raw sapphires.
Photo courtesy of Materialytics®
Colleagues from the USGS using the backpack LIBS on the Taos Plateau
volcanic field.
13
Summer 2015: Geological Sciences Field Camp
Photos from the 2015 Field Camp, taught by Dr. Hampton and Dr. Burgette. The Geology Summer Field
Camp was featured in the 10/16/15 Las Cruces Bulletin:
http://www.lascrucesbulletin.com/site/nmsu-geology-students-take-road-trip-to-map-state/
Aerial photo was taken from a helium balloon fitted with a camera for Dr. Burgette’s Neotectonics class.
14
The 2015 Continental Drifters, our intramural soccer team.
(above) At New Mexico Tech for the 2015
NMGS Spring Field Conference. From back
to front, Dr. Reed Burgette, and graduate
students Monica Mustain, Jenna Lente, Cody
Stopka, and Chelsea Ottenfeld. (upper right)
Geologists at the charity race “Run With
Your Docs” and (lower right) at the charity
race “Desert Dash” supporting the Asombro
Institute.
15