6 mile. We covered on the average 100 miles per day and in all, covered total distance of more than 2000 miles, which we covered by working 5 days a week from about 8 in the morning to 5 in the evening. In both the geochemistry and geophysics surveys, we got to see extensive parts of this portion of subtropical Africa. The geology was amazing, the topography was highly varied, and the vegetation especially in the valleys was lush. Even the air was fresh. The trip was extremely enjoyable and the people were very friendly. We were exposed to varied cultures and the multitudes of activities going on, especially in the markets in the many places we visited. We found it strange especially in Zambia that there were fires all over the place. For the most part, people did not seem to care as they walked past raging fires. On questioning some of the locals, they indicated that fires were set during the dry season to avoid the bigger fires that may result in the main dry season; thus a preventative measure. Preliminary results of the geochemistry and geophysics surveys were presented at the Geological Survey of America Annual meeting in Denver, CO and at the American Geophysical Union Annual meeting in San Francisco, CA. ALUMNI COMMITTEE CREATES PETROLEUM WATER RESOURCES COURSE By Todd Halihan The 2013 IPWRM students visit Dr. Wayne and Phyllis Pettyjohn’s home along with the guest speakers, Jerry and Mike Thornhill. While visiting Mr. Pickens’ ranch in 2012, a group of alumni and Dr. Halihan saw a need for a petroleum water resources course. A committee was formed consisting of Barrett Cieutat, Kyla Coker, Bart Gaskill, Mary O’Kelley and Mike Thornhill. After a few rounds of discussion and organizing, the Integrated Petroleum Water Resources Management (IPWRM) course was born. Thanks to the support of the alumni in supporting speaker travel and accommodations, the course trained 18 graduate students in petroleum water management. The students acted as hosts for the speakers and many courses went past the allotted time as people were interested in learning as much as possible. Dr. Pettyjohn hosted several after class functions for the speakers and students to continue the educational process. Thanks once again to all of the students and instructors that made the course great. Due to tremendous demand, the course will be offered again during the spring of 2015. . NEWS FROM THE FACULTY Dr. Mohamed Abdelsalam Hello everyone. I am starting my second year in the Boone Pickens School of Geology at Oklahoma State University and I am looking forward to many years to come. I joined the School as the Boone Pickens Chair of Applied Geophysics and Professor of Geology in the fall of 2012 coming from the Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. My family and I have settled down nicely in Stillwater and we enjoy being part of the School’s family. Last year I taught four classes: Physical Geology with ~250 students, Plate Tectonics with ~40 students, Structural Geology with ~35 students and Spectral Signal Processing with 6 students. I have enjoyed teaching these courses, especially going back to teaching Structural Geology after seven years. It is great to see that the enrollment in the School of Geology is growing and that there is an increasing interest in geology. The interest in geology finally reached my family. My daughter Hala is now taking courses at Oklahoma State University preparing herself to enroll in the MS program at the School of Geology. I became the graduate advisor at the School of Geology starting July 2013 and I think I have passed the steeper part of my learning curve. We are seeing an amazing increase in the interest in our graduate program. We have received over 100 applications for the fall 2013 and spring 2014 admission. Many of these applications are of high-quality and the students come from schools in all parts of the US as well as other countries. Currently, our enrolled graduate students are from half of the states in the US in addition to 20 other countries. I couldn’t be more excited about my research than now. My colleagues Drs. Estella Atekwana and Daniel Laó Dávila and I formed a Tectonics research group that involves 4 PhD and 5 MS students. We have funding to keep us going in the next two years, but we have also been very active in trying to secure future funding. So far we have a number of proposals submitted to National Science Foundation (NSF) to study different tectonic processes, especially continental rifting. My Geodynamic and Geospatial Science Lab is now almost complete. It is great to see it is now populated with active graduate and undergraduate students. We have been working on enabling the lab for new technologies including SeroVision (for three-dimensional capture of geological outcrops using terrestrial photogrammetry) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) (for mm scale surface change including crustal deformation using Satellite RADAR data). We are currently in
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