10 before I left. Morgan Unrast finished her thesis on the comparison of depositional and diagenetic settings between the Mississippian mudmounds on the Cherokee Platform and the Waulsortian mudmounds in Ireland. Jackie Berryman finished her thesis on the geochemistry of carbonate cements in fractures in the Woodford Shale. And Natalie Gentry finished her thesis on mineralization of the Arbuckle dolomites in the Davis, Oklahoma area. After leaving for The Netherlands I continued to work with Cesar Silva and Brian Smith, making good use of Skype, and they finished their theses on the West Carney Hunton Field, defending when I came home over the Thanksgiving holiday. That leaves only Sahar Mohammadi, who is starting her Ph.D. thesis on the Mississippian. I am particularly looking forward to hitting the ground running on the Mississippian project that we have started when I return and recruiting my next group of students and start a few more projects. Todd Halihan: 2012 was another busy year. Tyler Swinea and Drew Dressler defended their Masters Theses. Tyler is now working for Chesapeake and Drew is working in Denver for QEP. In May, we conducted field work in New Mexico at the Tierra Amarilla mound springs evaluating free convective processes in faults. We then continued our gravel work in Oklahoma in the Barren Fork area looking at phosphorous transport in the subsurface. In August, we headed to Colorado to work on tank experiments for Chevron. At GSA, I have continued my role as Emcee at the student reception along with my duties as a board member for the Hydrogeology Division. For 2013 I am the chair of the Hydrogeology Division. Organizing the meetings and keeping track of the division functions is an entertaining pursuit. Aestus, LLC continues to evaluate contaminated sites using OSU intellectual property developed in my lab. This has been their busiest year and growth seems like it will continue. On the home front, my home hydro lab demonstrated how low the lake level can go in a drought. I collected some data on the property this year, but I still don’t think I will beat Pettyjohn for the total number of piezometers on my site. Martha still wants to do more home repair and improvement. My son, Maclain, is seven now and is interested in World War II. We’ll see if he learns the lessons from history. Mary Hileman: I am pleased to begin my fifth year as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Boone Pickens School of Geology. This past year I began teaching two courses each semester instead of one, as I had done from 2009 through 2011. Every semester I teach GEOL 3413, Petroleum Geology for Engineers. This is the initial core course for the Minor in Petroleum Engineering. It is an entry-level geology course for engineering students who have no prior training in Geology. Although the course starts with the basics of rocks and minerals, Earth structure and plate tectonics, the topics quickly move on to basic well log analysis, sedimentary depositional systems, sequence stratigraphy, drilling and completion techniques, horizontal drilling, geophysics, hydrocarbon geochemistry, basics of hydrocarbon reservoirs, well economics and risk analysis. The lab each week gives students hands-on experience with rocks, well log interpretation, structural and stratigraphic mapping. A field trip provides students the opportunity to observe channel sandstones and use a portable natural gamma spectrometer to record values across an outcrop that later are graphed and compared with nearby well logs. For the term project, students work in teams to prepare a prospect package to include: cross-sections, net pay isopach and structure maps, geologic interpretation, economic evaluation and proposed drilling package. Each team makes a formal power point presentation and is evaluated for data interpretation and logic of their proposed deal. Each semester the class is full (22 students). Geology of the National Parks (GEOL 3043) is the completely revised version of “Geology of Scenic Regions” that continues to be a popular elective Geology course for Junior and Senior non-science majors. The focus for this course is to learn and understand basic geologic concepts using 22 of the U. S. National Parks as examples. The influence of plate tectonics on the development of North America is a central theme for this course. In addition to 3 exams, students are required to write a six to eight page term paper that is a Guidebook to the Geology of a National Park or National Monument of their choice that is not covered in lecture. This course was taught twice in 2012 because historically it had been offered in the spring, but will now be taught annually in the fall semester. Enrollment grew from 42 students in the spring to 55 students in the fall term. This spring I am teaching “Advanced Well Log Interpretation”. I feel privileged to teach a course that Dr. Puckette has taught for many years. This course is the expansion of a popular course for graduate students (GEOL 5353) taught for many years. During the development of the undergraduate Minor in Petroleum Engineering, Advance Well Log Analysis became a core course, was given a new designation (GEOL 4323) and is the final Geology course required for this Minor. At the time GEOL 4323 was created, it was opened to upper division Geology majors. This course has always been popular in BPSG and interest in well log interpretation has grown tremendously even more than when it was taught last year. This semester there are 63 students enrolled: 16 graduate students in GEOL 5353 and 47 undergraduate students (27 engineering and 20 geology students) enrolled in GEOL 4323. The combined GEOL 4323/5353 meets once a week, for a 2 ½ hour evening lecture, discussion and problem solving session. Topics cover evaluation of both the standard suite of vertical hole wireline well logs, as well as modern microimaging logs run in lateral boreholes. In addition to lecture and discussion, eight homework assignments provide opportunities for students to become capable of independent, fundamental, reliable analysis of standard wireline logs and to use principles of evaluation to solve subsurface geological problems. The homework problems provided for graduate students (GEOL 5353) are more challenging, and require additional analysis and critical thinking. I believe my 14 years experience as a petroleum geologist and exploration
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