2007 Annual Report - School of Geosciences - The University of ...

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2007 represented the final year in which the
School of Geosciences was physically divided
between two buildings, the Madsen Building and
the Demountable “Baxter” Building in Codrington
Street. Several staff changes occurred in 2007
with Prof. Peter Davies, A/Prof. Deirdre Dragovich,
Prof. Iain Mason and Prof. Andrew Short retiring,
Message
from the
Head of
School
and Dr. Michael Hughes and Dr.
Julie Dickinson departing for
positions outside the university
sector.
Prof. Phil Hirsch,
A/Prof. Bill Pritchard, and Dr.
Melissa Neave were successful
in their academic promotion applications.
In 2007 the School welcomed Dr. Ana Vila-
Concejo as APDI Fellow, working on flood-tide
delta morphodynamics and shoreline implications
in Port Stephens as part of an ARC Linkage
project. A/Prof Pritchard and Dr Neave successfully
obtained funding of $325,000 from the Rural
Industries Research & Development Corporation
and the NSW Department of Primary Industries
to develop a GIS-based platform for examining
the social and environmental effects of farm
consolidation and fragmentation. This project
enabled the employment of Ms Deanne Hickey as
an Associate Lecturer in the School for 2008.
One of the traditional highlights of the year
has invariably been the month long Third Year
Geography field course (GEOS 3053/3054)
undertaken in the South Pacific in January and
February. Some 23 students went with Professor
John Connell to Vanuatu. At the last
minute plans were disrupted after the coup
in Fiji prevented the usual ‘compare and contrast’
between the two countries across a range
of themes. The military cloud had a silver lining
since for the first time it meant that there
was time to stay in two quite different villages
in the north of the main island Efate enabling
comparisons between various urban and rural
topics. On return one student almost immediately
turned around and went back to spend
two months in the capital Port Vila, undertaking
what became a First Class Fourth Year
Honours thesis on the role of microcredit for
women’s business development in Vanuatu.
In July 2007, a party of 50 people made
the journey to Broken Hill then Plumbago
Station (SA) to attend the third year Geology and
Geophysics Field Course (GEOS 3008), jointly
organized with Macquarie University. This
group, the largest in the past six years, also
included half a dozen students from the University
of Newcastle. Lithologies, structural features
and metamorphic assemblages were dutifully
recorded in field books, maps and crosssections;
all becoming more colourful as the days
went by. Most students mastered the basic skills
that make good field geologists, and even some
new geological features were discovered, including
a sheared conglomerate with spectacular
stretching lineations.