Maverick Science mag 2013-14

The Laramide Orogeny deformed
the foreland basin of the
Sevier fold-thrust belt into a
high orogenic plateau with high
relief during the Late Cretaceous
through the Eocene epoch, Fan
said. The Sevier orogeny was a
mountain-building event that
affected western North America
from what is now Canada in the
north to what is now Mexico in
the south, and was caused by
tectonic plate activity between
140 and 50 million years ago.
The current model is too simple
to explain the great duration of
the Laramide Orogeny – around
40 million years – and the internal
connections among the regional
tectonic units and
processes in the western United
States, Fan said.
“We are combining multidisciplinary
basin analysis – sedimentology,
stratigraphy, isotope
paleoaltimetry, and detrital geochemistry
– and basement apatite
fission track thermochronology
to reconstruct the
temporal and spatial patterns of
Laramide uplift,” Fan said. This
work has led to an accepted paper in the journal Tectonics.
A
fter earning a B.S. in Geology from Lanzhou University
in China in 2000, Fan decided to begin graduate school.
The summer before starting work on her master’s degree
at Lanzhou, she got the chance to participate in a collaborative
project between Lanzhou and the University of
Arizona. The study’s goal was to understand the tectonic
processes forming the high Tibetan Plateau by studying
the sedimentary rocks preserved in topographic lows,
called sedimentary basins, in northwestern China. She worked as a field assistant
for two University of Arizona researchers over that summer and the
next.
“I learned from these two knowledgeable geologists way more than the
help I could provide at that time,” she said. “I was particularly impressed by
their broad ranges of interest in nature, their determination to pursue a multidisciplinary
approach to solve problems, their diligent work habits, and
their patience with students. They became my role models, and the experience
shaped my professional track significantly.”
After earning an M.S. from Lanzhou in 2003, she applied for and was accepted
to the University of Arizona for further graduate work. She earned a
master’s in Geoscience in 2005 and then began work on her Ph.D. in Geoscience.
In the summer of 2009, she worked as an intern geologist with
ExxonMobil in Houston. She completed her
Ph.D. the following semester while also working
as a lecturer at Arizona, then spent the next 18
months as a postdoctoral fellow at the University
of Wyoming. In early 2011, she interviewed
for a faculty position at UT Arlington and was
impressed with the diversity of the faculty and
students. She started in August 2011 as an assistant
professor.
“Their diversity represents different perspectives
to shape our campus culture,” she
said. “When I was interviewed in the spring of
2011, the minute I saw the diverse populations
walking around the green campus in the warm
early spring, I said to myself this
is the place I would be very
happy to be.”
Fan’s
students
love working
with her because
she is supportive
and
eager to help
them succeed.
Ohood Al salem, a second-year
master’s student in Fan’s lab, is
studying the history of subsidence
(the sinking of the
Earth’s surface due to geologic
causes) of the Fort Worth
Basin, which was formed 280 to
250 million years ago by the
collision between the supercontinent
Gondwana and Laurentia,
a large, stable portion of
continental craton (part of a
continental lithosphere) which
forms the ancient geological
core of the North American
continent.
“The subsidence history of
the Fort Worth Basin is not only
important to the understanding
of tectonic processes during the
collision, but also to the maturation and migration of oil and gas in the basin,”
Fan said.
Al salem plans to complete her master’s degree this spring and then hopes
to begin work on a doctoral degree, with Fan as her mentor.
“Dr. Fan is the best mentor. She always offers help and support to her students,”
Al salem said. “She is a very hard worker and very talented, which
gives me the motivation to do my best in my research. That’s why I really
want to do my Ph.D. with her. I believe our work together will lead to excellent
scientific research.”
Sara Ayyash, a first-year master’s student, is studying rock samples collected
by Fan from the White River Formation near Douglas, Wyoming, to
learn more about the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment during the late
Eocene and early Oligocene epochs, approximately 34 million years ago.
“Dr. Fan is extremely dedicated to her work and teaching,” Ayyash said.
“You can tell that she truly enjoys learning new things or subjects that she is
not familiar with. She puts a tremendous amount of effort into what she does,
whether it’s teaching or research and it shows during lectures or when you
speak with her.”
Fan finds her work as a geoscientist fulfilling and enjoys taking the knowledge
she has acquired and passing it on to her students and helping them as
they embark on their careers.
“Because research is the only way to advance knowledge created in the
past, I feel excited about the role I am playing in advancing knowledge,” Fan
said. “I enjoy passing knowledge along in a variety
of ways to students, and spending time
with students in the classroom, lab, and field in
order to help them gain the skills to make geologic
observations, interpretations, and discoveries.Geology
offers me the opportunity to
conduct fieldwork and examine the Earth with
colleagues and students in the wilderness. Such
experiences are very rewarding because we discover
the beauty of nature that most people do
not see and forge long-term relationships.
“Doing geology research is sometimes challenging.
However, once in a while, I discover
something that takes my breath away.” n
Above, Fan uses a pen for scale next to a sandstone formation showing climbing ripples,
located in the Wind River Basin of Wyoming. Below, Fan shows Aragonitic freshwater
bivalve fossils found in the early Eocene Wasatch Formation on the west side
of the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. The oxygen isotope ratio of the fossil will be
used to collect information regarding the paleoelevation of the mountains bounding
the basin. Photos courtesy of Majie Fan.
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