12 My research includes a variety of projects. This year I am wrapping up a DOEsponsored project on the characterization and management of Black Warrior coalbed methane reservoirs. Another project on CO2-enhanced oil recovery in the eastern Gulf of Mexico basin that is being conducted in partnership with UAB, Denbury Resources, and Southern Company also is in the closing stages. I am participating in some new CO2-enhanced coalbed methane and shale gas recovery projects in the Appalachians, which are sponsored by DOE and Virginia Tech and hosted by CNX Gas. To add to all the excitement, Jim Puckette and I are beginning a 2-year initiative on shale characterization that is sponsored by RPSEA (Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America). This initiative involves researchers in the new Petroleum Engineering program in the School of Chemical Engineering, and I am involved in a number of interdisciplinary initiatives that are intended to broaden the scope of energy outreach and research at OSU. Feel free to stop by and say hello next time you are in Stillwater, and please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail if I can be of assistance. Jim Puckette: It is said that time passes more quickly with age and 2012 seemed to affirm this old adage. For me, the year presented unique opportunities to continue research and learn. In October, I was fortunate to travel to China, where I represented the Mississippian research team and presented some of our findings at a workshop hosted by the Chinese University of Petroleum (East) in Qingdao/Huadong. As one who had not been to China, this was an exciting event. Fortunately, Qingdao is on the coast and we were blessed with sea breezes that allowed us to escape the air quality issues that plague Beijing. The presentation was mostly a summation of the ongoing and completed research of Darwin, Cory Godwin, Min Zhao and Morgan Unrast. The M.S. students that I am fortunate to mentor graduated at a pace that equaled 2011. Jeff Cook completed his thesis on the Tussy (Desmoinesian) sandstones in Love and Carter Counties, OK and demonstrated how careful core-driven determination of depositional environment and reservoir characterization can facilitate successful exploration and development. Following graduation, Jeff took a position with Texland Petroleum in Fort Worth. The Anadarko Basin was the subject of two theses completed in 2012. Tim Phillips completed his thesis on the stratigraphic framework and reservoir characteristics of the “Springer” gas-bearing sandstones in the eastern Anadarko Basin. Tim is employed with Newfield Exploration in Tulsa, but has shelved his Springer gas prospects and is prospecting more liquids-prone reservoirs while natural gas prices remain soft. Alex Fitzjarrald worked on the northern shelf of the Anadarko Basin and completed his thesis on the Tonkawa Sandstone in Roger Mills and Ellis Counties. Alex began applying his thesis work immediately at XTO Energy in Fort Worth where it is told that he is exploring the Tonkawa Sandstone. Cody Bacon investigated the stratigraphy and reservoir characteristics of the “Cleveland” sandstones in central Oklahoma. Cody discovered that when these sandstone bodies are placed in a sequence stratigraphic framework constrained by core shales, that most of the sandstone bodies in central Oklahoma labeled “Cleveland” are in fact in the Marmaton interval. Following this revelation, Cody left Oklahoma of his own accord to work for Concho Resources in Midland. David Milburn chose northern Louisiana as the location of his thesis topic. David worked on the thick Cotton Valley Sandstone section in Vernon Field, Jackson Parish, where he described textbook tidalflat deposits in the Cotton Valley interval and related reservoir properties to diagenetic history and facies. David is not pursuing the overpressured-dry-gas reservoirs in the Cotton Valley, but is working for Mid-Continent Well Logging in Oklahoma City. I was fortunate to coadvise Dan Bassett, who completed his thesis on chemostratigraphy in the Permian Basin under the mentorship of Dr. Anna Cruse at Samson Resources. Dan is employed at SM Energy in Tulsa. Research continues on tight rocks, with an emphasis on the Mississippian carbonates and siliciclastic mudrocks. In fall 2012, the Mississippian consortium was launched that will occupy a considerable amount of our research time and effort. Students also continue to work on the Cleveland Sandstone in western and northeastern Oklahoma as well as the magnetic susceptibility of petroliferous and nonpetroliferous shales. Other projects include continued workshops on geoscience education for science teachers and long term variations in the temperature of groundwater in karst aquifers in the Ozarks. Be watching for presentations on our work at the AAPG Midcontinent Section Meeting in Wichita. Tracy Quan: Hello again from the Boone Pickens School of Geology, sediment geochemistry division. It’s been a rather entertaining year, made extra special by the addition of four new professors to the department. It’s amazing what a difference that has made—we’re all super excited by the opportunity to exchange new ideas and start new joint research investigations. My research work into the utilization of nitrogen isotopes as paleoredox and paleoenvironmental proxies is continuing to expand and develop. My lab is still progressing in our analysis of the nitrogen cycle through the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction, a project sponsored by the NSF. We are starting to get some interesting data about how the carbon and nitrogen cycles were altered and the timing of their recovery after the K-Pg boundary, which was recently presented at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting. I have also continued to use nitrogen isotopes to investigate the paleoredox changes and nitrogen dynamics at other periods of time; I have recently published papers in Nature Geoscience and Paleoceanography on these topics in conjunction with collaborators from several institutions. The projects in the Black Sea, Copano Bay, and Southern Kansas coal layers are still ongoing. I have also continued to investigate the use of nitrogen isotopes as paleoredox
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