alumni reception - Syracuse Universe Department of Earth Sciences ...

from the lake and its tributary. Lake Taihu is the
third largest freshwater lake in China, with an area of
about 2338 km 2 and a mean depth of 1.9 m, a typical
shallow lake located in the delta of the Yangtze River,
the most industrialized and urbanized area in China.
Its main function is supplying drinking water for
the surrounding cities, such as Wuxi, Suzhou, and
Shanghai, but tourism, aquaculture, fisheries, and
navigation are important as well. However, with the
economic development and increased population in
the lake basin, Lake Taihu has suffered increasingly
from serious eutrophication. The main reasons for
the continued deterioration of the environment of
Lake Taihu are increased water use and discharge;
changes in agricultural practices and in fisheries and
aquaculture; insufficient wastewater treatment; and an
unsuitable management system.
In order to figure out where the main sources
of contaminants which stimulate blue algae bloom
come from, we assume that different land use
has a strong relationship with different halogen
concentration ratios, which could be used for tracing
the contamination sources. The result should have
great meaning for pollution control. Also, from
our water samples, after the quality monitoring is
analyzed, we could get the general picture of the
contamination distribution in Lake Taihu Basin which
could provide necessary data information source for
further research.
Aleece Nanfito
Last summer I spent in the field working in
southwest Iceland on an enigmatic strike-slip fault
zone that is parallel to the rifts. I received generous
Aleece (left) in Iceland with colleague Amanda Loman.
support from a John J. Prucha award, which allowed
me to have a field vehicle and also purchase epoxies
needed for sample collection. My master’s work is
focusing on the Glufjura Fault Zone, which is a N-S
oriented, right-lateral fault. The fault zone cuts through
nearly flat-lying Tertiary lavas and is defined by a
tabular band of highly deformed breccia and gouge.
It has also been injected by almost 50 dikes that
span the life of the fault. Fault-scaling relationships
suggest km’s of displacement, significantly more than
previously estimated. Overall, this fault is far more
complex in 3-D structure than other faults in Iceland.
Other rift-parallel, strike-slip faults have been noticed
elsewhere in Iceland, but have not been addressed in
classical interpretations of rift processes.
This year I also participated in a lesson study
group, which focused on updating a glaciers exercise
in one of the introductory Earth Science courses.
Members from the Department of Earth Sciences and
the Department of Science Teaching worked together
to create a lesson that was more inquiry-based and
allowed the instructor to observe how the students
were learning. As the new lesson was delivered,
observers in the classroom collected feedback on
student thought processes. With the data collected on
student answers and discussion in class, the lesson
can be modified to ensure the objectives of the lesson
are met. The results are currently in preparation to be
submitted to the Journal of Geoscience Education.
Steve Riccio
My advisor Paul Fitzgerald and I conducted
research in the Eastern Alaska Range during June
2010 near the West Fork and Susitna Glaciers, the
location of 2002 Denali Fault earthquake epicenter
and initial rupture zone. We sampled granitoids on
the North and South of the Denali Fault, and on the
hanging wall and footwall on the south-splaying
Susitna Glacier thrust fault. Samples were collected
in several vertical profiles through plutons and along
a horizontal transect from the Denali fault across the
Susitna fault, in order to be able to understand the
exhumation patterns and relations between the two
faults.
I was awarded funds from the John Prucha
Research Fund in May 2010, intended for our
upcoming work in Alaska. The funding received was
put towards helicopter time, used for supply drops,
camp moves, reconnaissance, and sample collection.
With the funding I received we were able to sample
at a number of locations great distances along our
intended horizontal transect, and move our camp to