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

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Evolution in Grenada, Spain and a workshop on thermal modeling in Aussois, France. Despite that, and the ever expanding job as Director of Graduate Studies, we managed to publish papers on the Basin and Range Province (Tectonics, GSA Special Paper), the Pyrenees (Earth and Planetary Science Letters), the Transantarctic Mountains (Tectonics) and the Adirondacks (GSA Bulletin) with other papers (Pyrenees, Alaska) in various stages of revision. The summer of 2010 will end with a group of us attending the 12 th International Thermochronology Conference with activity, including new non-toxic, water-based mineral separation techniques. Perhaps the biggest news from Hoke’s corner is that I landed my first major NSF grant from Campsite close to the Sesitna Glacier. in Scotland where I am one of the keynote speakers. PhD students Josh Taylor and Stephanie Perry are in the final stages of writing up their extensive thermochronology-tectonic PhD’s with both accepting positions at Exxon. Gregory Hoke I just finished my first full academic year at Syracuse, complete with two graduate students to guide though their respective M.S. projects in tectonic geomorphology. Needless to say, it was an eventful year. Both of my students are working at elevations ≥ 3000 m (9,900 ft) in the Andes near Mendoza, Argentina. In order to take advantage of the warm summer conditions at these altitudes, we all spent New Year’s Eve in the air on our way to Argentina for 3 weeks of very productive fieldwork. While in Argentina, I also began a pilot project with a collaborator at the University of Washington, instrumenting soil pits over a range of elevations and collecting samples to measure the temperature of soil carbonate formation, using a relatively new technique called “clumped isotope thermometry.” Back at Syracuse, the tectonic and geomorphology lab is busy Advisor, field guide and cook! the Tectonics Program. The project titled, “Basin evolution and elevation history of the SE margin of the Tibetan Plateau: constraints on the timing and mechanisms of surface uplift”, is a three-year, $365,000 (SU part) endeavor with collaborators from the University of Rochester, University of Michigan and the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research in China. Last fall I was invited to participate in a oneday symposium on mountains at Cornell University, chaired a topical session at the annual GSA meeting in Portland Oregon, and gave an invited talk on my work in the Altiplano at AGU. I am a co-author of a paper in press in the journal Tectonics and am currently contributing to several manuscripts. This fall I will attend the IAS congress in Mendoza, Argentina where an Argentine undergraduate I helped supervise will present her work. Linda Ivany I took a semester-long sabbatical this past spring after ten years and four consecutive semesters teaching the Department’s largest survey course, EAR 105, Earth Science. During the sabbatical, I made significant progress on manuscripts with students and colleagues. A paper with former student Andrew Haveles (M.S. 2009) is in press at Palaios. Derived from Andrew’s thesis, the paper uses high-resolution stable isotope analysis on fossil mollusks from the US Gulf Coastal Plain to reveal how changes in growth rate led to larger body sizes in a famous Eocene unit called the Gosport Sand. A paper stemming
from Caitlin Keating-Bitonti’s thesis (B.S. 2009) is also submitted for publication, and relates work with Prof. Scott Samson, and also colleagues at Yale University (Hagit Affek and Peter Douglas), to establish paleotemperatures in the Gulf Coast during the early Eocene climatic optimum, the warmest time in the Cenozoic. Caitlin’s high-resolution isotope work on fossil bivalves, combined with multiple other independent geochemical proxies for temperature, provides one of the most strongly supported estimates yet published, and yields values somewhat cooler than expected at low latitudes during this interval. Manuscripts with two other former students, Christy Visaggi (M.S. 2004) and Patrick Wall (Ph.D. 2009) are currently in revision as well. Christy’s paper in Palaios documents paleoecological patterns in Oligocene mollusk faunas from the US Gulf Coast. Patrick’s paper, in Paleobiology and with coauthor Carlton Brett (University of Cincinnati), quantifies the effect of the geographic distribution of paleontological samples on the turnover rates calculated from them in the Devonian Hamilton Group in NY. Carl’s colleague at Cincinnati, Arnold Miller, and one of his students visited our paleo lab this past summer to microsample mollusks for stable isotope analysis to evaluate differences in growth rate among populations of the bivalve in the Caribbean. long-lived fossil bivalves and wood from Antarctica offer evidence for the existence of ENSO variation during the Eocene greenhouse climate. Work with post-doc Jocelyn Sessa progresses on building a large comprehensive database on the faunal and climate record of the US Gulf Coast Paleogene. A paper on the K-T extinction and recovery is currently submitted to Paleobiology, and work with Jocelyn, Trevor Schlossnagle (B.S. at ESF 2009) and Scott Samson on oxygen and strontium isotope variation along the early Eocene Gulf Coast paleoshoreline is nearing completion. Finally, work with colleague Bruce Runnegar at UCLA comes to fruition with a paper in press at Geology exploring the significance of stable oxygen isotope values from a large Permian bivalve called Eurydesma. The data offer tentative support for the hypothesis that the oxygen isotope value of global oceans was more negative in Earth’s past. Bruce, his graduate student Dan Petrizzo and I recently completed three weeks of field work in SE Australia, collecting additional specimens from early Permian rocks to further test that hypothesis. Jeffrey Karson Over the past year administrative responsibilities have continued to take up much of my time, but thanks to collaborations with research associates Dan Curewitz and Aisha Morris, and graduate students Andrew Horst, Aleece Nanfito, and Drew Siler, our research programs have stayed on track and grown. Our group focuses on the Tectonics A pair of wombats stand in for the more typical Estwing hammer as scale in this shot of an early Permian bedding plane covered with large Eurydesma bivalves; Maria Island, Tasmania. Photo by Linda Ivany. A paper submitted with Tom Brey (Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research), Matt Huber (Purdue University), former student Devin Buick (B.S. 2004), and Bernd Schöne (University of Mainz) proposes that patterns in growth increment widths in Research group in Iceland. of Oceanic Lithosphere and related processes. Ongoing projects include studies of subaerial seafloor spreading in Iceland, core complexes on the Mid- Atlantic Ridge, and upper crustal construction along
Page 1 and 2: Syracuse University Department of E
Page 3 and 4: GRADUATE STUDENTS James Andrew Bear
Page 5 and 6: Clean Water Initiative at Syracuse
Page 7 and 8: SU LAVA Project In a fusion of scie
Page 9 and 10: Departmental Awards of Distinction
Page 11 and 12: from the outer islands of Milne Bay
Page 13 and 14: services of stream corridors. I am
Page 15 and 16: advisor, Professor Linda Ivany, and
Page 17 and 18: from the lake and its tributary. La
Page 19 and 20: ealize they do not know as much as
Page 21 and 22: doing this work, and I would like t
Page 23 and 24: illion year time-scales. As a potas
Page 25: FACULTY RESEARCH Suzanne Baldwin An
Page 29 and 30: Hansen, Doidge, along with Hume, Po
Page 31 and 32: and dredge samples during the field
Page 33 and 34: EMERITUS CORNER James Brower I have
Page 35 and 36: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY ROCKS & ROLLS S
Page 37 and 38: GRADUATES - Undergraduate Bachelor
Page 39 and 40: ConocoPhillips in the Exploration s
Page 41 and 42: New Arrivals! There are several bra
Page 43 and 44: Annual Fall Pignic Hosted by Drs. I

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

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?