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

FACULTY RESEARCH
Suzanne Baldwin
Another exciting year has flown by and we
celebrated many successes in our research group.
For me, the highlight was being honored with a
chancellor’s citation at an awards ceremony in April,
during which time I was recognized for leading
collaborative NSF and NASA funded research
programs, and co-coordinating the Women in Science
and Engineering faculty mentoring program, among
other achievements.
Fieldwork in Papua New Guinea this year took
Profs Paul Fitzgerald, Laura Webb, and MS student
Joseph Catalano and me to the remote islands of the
Woodlark Rise in the Milne Bay Province. There we
collected volcanic samples that will give us clues as
to the timing and conditions (e.g., source, P, T) of
magmatism associated with rifting. The field season
was made even more exciting by a category 5 cyclone
that threatened to “take us all out”, a close encounter
with a shark, and running aground on a coral reef.
There was never a dull moment.
Suzane near some uplifted pillow basalts on the northern
rifted margin of the Woodlark Rift.
This fall I am especially looking forward
to convening a new research seminar on
Thermochronology of planetary surfaces”. Invited
talks at the Tectonics Crossroads GSA Global
Meeting, in Turkey and at the NSF sponsored
GeoPRISMS Rift Initiation and Evolution workshop
in Santa Fe, New Mexico are also planned. And, I¹m
looking forward to convening sessions at the 2010
annual GSA meeting with Dr. Joseph Kula, and at the
2010 fall AGU meeting with Dr. Laura Webb. If you
plan to attend any of these meetings I look forward to
catching up with you then.
Paul Fitzgerald
Topping this summer was a tremendously
successful field season in the eastern Alaska Range
with new MS student Steve Riccio and colleagues
Collecting rocks close to the Susitna Glacier
from the University of Alaska and UC Davis.
In this newly funded NSF project, we are
investigating the formation of the Alaska Range, with
fieldwork focusing along the Denali fault. Steve and
I mainly worked in the Susitna Glacier region where
in 2002 a major thrust fault was discovered, but only
because a M7.9 earthquake initiated there.
We were in incredible country and geology,
but maximum satisfaction was due to zero bear
encounters. In March we (Suzanne Baldwin, Joe
Catalano and Laura Webb and I) had three weeks
fieldwork in eastern Papua New Guinea on our NSF
funded Continental Dynamics project investigating the
development of the Woodlark rift and the exhumation
of the world’s youngest eclogites. Initially we were
based on Woodlark Island with fantastic support (the
executive quarters!) by the gold mining operation
there, followed by visiting selected islands over a large
region, the first time many of these remote islands
have seen geologists since the 1960’s. This trip was
successful, scenic and eventful – as we avoided a
category 5 hurricane and only hit one reef. I have
also been working on papers for our NSF supported
Pyrenees project with post-doc Jim Metcalf, co-PI
Suzanne Baldwin and our Spanish colleagues from
the University of Barcelona, prompting submission
of another proposal in July. The fall of 2009 was a bit
of a blur as I taught three classes, two of those being
new, and attended 5 conferences/workshops including
the 1 st International Conference on Antarctic Climate