1 Spring, 2016 (From left to right) OSU graduate students Sam Dawson and Bryan Clappe and Patrick Chindandali of the Geological Survey Department of Malawi infront of highly deformed rocks of the Mwembeshi Shear Zone, a major Proterozoic shear zone that transects Malawi, Zambia, Namibia and Brazil.
2 In this issue Page Department Head’s Welcome 3 Faculty Honors and Awards 4 Student Honors and Awards 4 Field Camp 2006 to 2015 - A Decade of Change 5 Mississippi Consortium 6 Hydrogeology of Carbonate Platforms 6 Spotlight on International Research 7 News from Faculty 10 News from Staff 18 Spotlight on Students 21 Spotlight on Student Organizations 23 Congratulations to our 2015 Graduates 24 A Message from the Boone Pickens School of Geology Advisory Board 25 Focus: Top 11 Characteristics a Geoscientist Needs to be a Professional 26 Focus: Alumni Awards 26 Focus: Upcoming Events at the School of Geology 26 Focus: A Final Message and Request from the Boone Pickens School of Geology 27 Flooding along Lake Ngami, Botswana Sabrina Clinkenbeard, Junior in the School of Media and Strategic Communications helped with Newsletter design layout
3 Greetings from the Department Head Estella Atekwana This has been a very difficult year for our profession with the price of oil trading below $40/barrel, bringing back dark memories of the 80s. Major layoffs have affected some of our alums and our thoughts and prayers are with them. Nonetheless, we continue to move forward and we had another record year. Our students, faculty and alums (see articles in this issue) continue to win honors on campus and at national meetings and publish ground breaking research. This year, our students and faculty presented a record 150 papers at regional, national and international meetings; with our students winning best paper awards. Our undergraduate student enrollments are 157 down from 170 students in 2014. Nonetheless, our graduate enrollments continue to increase reaching an all-time high of 95 (25 PhDs and 70 MS), making us the second largest graduate program in the College of Arts and Sciences and the largest graduate program in STEM in the College. Graduate applications continue to be strong and we are now receiving applications from top tier geoscience programs nationwide and internationally. We introduced a freshman fieldtrip this year (see picture in this issue) and had 21 participants including graduate students and alumni. Dr. Puckette and I led the trip to Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen and the students were introduced to the geology of the Wichita Mountains and the rifting and filling of the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen. Thanks to the hard work of the faculty and students, we hosted the 2015 GSA South Central meeting and the word out in the street is that this was one of the best attended, organized, and financed South Central GSA meetings. We set the bar really high for future GSA South Central meetings. We graduated 31 BS and 20 MS students. Our Mississippian Consortium (see article in this issue) has just completed its third year and the Unconventional Hydrocarbon Cooperative in collaboration with the College of Engineering is up and running. Of course the drop in oil prices is also affecting us and we are experiencing a drop in our grant production numbers. For the third year in a row we continue to be #1 in the College of Arts & Science in funding/FTE faculty with more than $1.4 million dollars in external funding from faculty research grants. We spent $977,572 in graduate student support with ~$290,000 coming from alumni support. Six companies recruited in the School this year, down from thirteen. In addition, a few of our students received offers from the majors including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and BP. Finally, we are going electronic with some of our courses to better serve the students and the citizens of the state of Oklahoma. We now have two online courses (Geology and Human Affairs and Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Disasters). We are currently developing two more courses (National Parks and Historical Geology) to put online. With the talented faculty and students that are now in place and the support of our alums, we continue to be a department on the rise! Finally, when in Stillwater, be sure to stop by the department so we can show you around. We love to hear from you, so keep in touch. “With the talented faculty and students that are now in place and the support of our alums, we continue to be a department on the rise!”
4 Recognition and Awards Dr. Estella Atekwana, Regents Professor of Geology and Head, received the 2015 Eminent Faculty Award. This award is presented to one individual a year, and is designed to recognize the highest level of scholarly achievement at OSU. Dr. Todd Halihan, Professor of Geology, received the Award for Excellence in Advancement of the Land-Grant Mission of Oklahoma State University. This award is presented to a faculty member whose exemplary contributions promote the land-grant mission of Oklahoma State University. Dr. Puckette, Associate Professor and Geoscience Education Chair received the Oklahoma Geological Foundation 2015 Legend Award Ashley Dupont: Oklahoma City Geological Society Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship ($5,000) Yulun Wang: Oklahoma City Geological Society ($3500) Foundation Graduate Student Award Yulun Wang: BP American Scholarship ($1000) Beth Vanden Berg: Association of Women Geoscientists Lone Star Scholarship ($2500) Beth Vanden Berg: AAPG Grant in Aid (Gustavious Archie Memorial Grant) ($3000) Beth Vanden Berg: GSA Student Research Grant ($1875) Beth Vanden Berg: CSPG/SEPM Travel award to present at Mountjoy Meeting in Banff Beth Vanden Berg – invited talks: Tyler Texas Geological Society, Arkansas Geological Society, Tulsa Geological Society Ibukun Bode: Best Poster Award, National Association of Black Geoscientists annual meeting Khemraj Shukla: First Place Poster Award, 2016 Geophysics Tech Fest Luelseged Emishaw: Second Place Poster Award, 2016 Geophysics Tech Fest Jeff Miller received the best graduate student poster at South Central GSA Michelle Lutiker received the best undergraduate student poster, South Central GSA Emmanuel Njinju won best poster award in the Studies of the Earth’s Deep Interior Section at the 2015 AGU in San Francisco. Department News
5 Following the destructive flood of July 5, 2006, planning began immediately to improve field camp facilities. By summer 2007, new restroom and shower facilities were ready to use and six new cabins were constructed and almost ready for occupancy. For several weeks, students were housed in the map room, dormitory style, until we were given approved certificates of occupancy. Our attendance in 2007 was only 44 students as a result of our housing shortage. By summer 2008, all eight new cabins were completed giving us housing for 60 students, which has remained our enrollment target. As the numbers of OSU students attending field camp fluctuated, the number of non-OSU students was adjusted to bring the complement to sixty. The curriculum has remained similar over the years with projects in Grape Creek, Mixing Bowl, Gnat Hollow, Big Orange, Blue Ridge and Twin Mountains, among others, with field trips to Great Sand Dunes National Park, Pikes Peak, Leadville and Cripple Creek. The summers of 2009 through 2013, were trials by smoke and fire. Most fires were not close to camp, but large fires in Arizona and southwestern New Mexico as well as small fires close to Cañon City made smoke as issue. During the summer 2013 session, the Royal Gorge Fire forced evacuation from the Mixing Bowl and burned much of the old Priest Canyon project area. Fortunately, the fire was stopped before it could cross US Highway 50 and burn Twin Mountain. Unfortunately, the Mixing Bowl itself did not burn and Piñon trees killed by the extended drought and bark beetles still litter the area. Moisture returned to the Cañon City Embayment and surrounding mountains in winter 2013. As a result, snowpack in the Wet Mountains and Front Range was normal and Grape and Eightmile Creeks were flowing in summer 2014. Rains during the first two weeks of the 2015 camp had us wishing for sunshine and drier weather. The creek undercut a large cottonwood tree that fell normal to the channel, generating a dam that forced the stream against the bank west of the kitchen. By the next day fifteen to twenty linear feet of bank was gone and the location of the old cook’s cabin was washed away. The rain of 2015 resulted in a continuous flow or water in the stream in the Mixing Bowl and the stream on the west end of South Twin Mountain. Several field areas were not accessible in 2015 as a result of high water or washed out roads. While the water caused us some inconvenience, it was a welcome sight and we enjoyed a smoke- and fire-free summer. We look forward to a green summer and ample water supply in 2016 as El Niño brings needed precipitation to the western U.S. Field Camp 2006 to 2015: A Decade of Change
6 Reservoir Distribution and Characterization of Mid-Continent Mississippian Carbonates – A Major Unconventional Resource Play The “MISS” Consortium is wrapping up its 3rd year and the end of Phase I. Last year we presented 21 papers from students and faculty at the 2nd Year Annual Meeting. We wrap-up the 3rd Year with another 15+ technical presentations. We have announced plans for a Phase II of the MISS Consortium at the 3rd Year meeting. The economic climate in the industry isn’t the best for the announcement of a new consortium, but the success of the first Phase has us cautiously optimistic that companies will want to join Phase II. In the last year, students and faculty have presented 21 papers at professional meetings on their MISS Consortium work. From the School’s perspective, to date the Consortium has brought in a bit over $1.2 million in research funds and student support to the BPSG, with an additional $700,000 of research funds in company-specific grants for off-shoot projects. We have partially or fully supported 20 graduate students and 8 undergraduates. Mike Grammer / Jim Puckette / Jay Gregg Priyank Jaiswal Hydrogeology of Carbonate Platforms December 2015: Joulter Cays, Andros Island, Bahamas, home of newborn ooids. Along with Dr. Halihan, Dr. Liz Roth from the art department and 10 OSU students spent a week on Andros learning about carbonate hydrogeology. Dr. Halihan offered a new course over Christmas Break 2015. With a dozen in the group, they explored Andros Island in the Bahamas looking at the hydrogeology of this famous active carbonate platform. Based at Forfar Field Station, the students explored the coral reef and marine environment. Several students were certified divers and explored both the marine environment and did a dive in an inland blue hole that Jacques Cousteau once explored. The students had a great day at the oolitic shoals exploring the formation of modern carbonates. Andros is home to the largest freshwater lens in the Bahamas and was of great interest. Additionally, with the support of Liz Roth from the art department, the students had the opportunity to improve their field sketching skills. Along the way, they spent time with the locals, including a trip to the local church to learn about Androsian culture. Burlington/Keokuk Formation (MISS) in Arkansas
7 Spotlight on International Research OSU researchers study the Benguela Upwelling System By Jessica Cofrancesco (MS Student) Jessica Cofrancesco worked aboard the Research Vessel MIRABILIS out of the port of Walvis Bay, Namibia, sampling water and sediments from the Benguela Upwelling System. In the summer of 2015, Jessica Cofrancesco, a second year graduate student at Oklahoma State University-Boone Pickens School of Geology, was selected to take part in the 2nd African Research Discovery Camp of the Regional Graduate Network in Oceanography (RGNO) program. This is an international program held at the University of Namibia in which graduate students from around the world come together for a multidisciplinary collaboration project. It was an incredible experience! Our group consisted of thirteen young scientists (geologists, microbiologists, and geobiologists) from Namibia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Estonia, UK, Chile, and USA. From left to right is Katharina Siedenberg, Lorenzo Lagostina, Jessica Cofrancesco and Felipe Salas de Freitas at the University of Namibia in Henties Baai. While in Namibia, we attended classes for a few weeks to learn about microbial and geochemical oceanography, in particular about ways in which microbes participate in geochemical cycles in upwelling ecosystems and how chemical, physical and atmospheric processes in turn influence microbial physiology. The class, led by Dr. Kurt Hanselmann and Dr. Timothy Eglinton of the University of Zurich gave us many of the tools that we would need for the six day cruises on which we were about to embark. Together with scientists from the National Marine Information and Research Center (Nat MIRC), we performed in situ measurements in the Benguela Upwelling System, and collected samples to help with their studies, as well as for our own research projects. I was able to collect four surface sediment cores from the shelf and upper slope in order to study sediment trace metal geochemistry and its relation to the organic matter that is preserved in the sediments of the most productive upwelling region in the ocean. The reconstruction of paleo-redox conditions and paleo-depositional environments has become a key step in petroleum exploration. This study aims to shed light on some of the “paleo-proxy” contradictions found in some of the black shales from the Western Interior Seaways, through the application of geochemical proxies in a modern analogue of a black shale formation. It was a very unique experience studying and working abroad. I got to see exactly what it takes to work and live in another country. Travelling internationally to Namibia with all of my personal gear and sampling supplies was a learning experience in and of itself. Additionally, I learned to live in a research environment by staying in dormitories with the other students. I experienced the local culture through their food, and occasionally, shopping in their markets. By obtaining my own samples onboard a research vessel, instead of simply reading about doing it in a journal article, I was able to see where the samples came from. Knowing this gave me a better understanding of the overall geological setting, which helped with future lab experiments. Being there also gave me an appreciation of the work involved in retrieving the samples, as well as the care it takes to make sure they are stored in the proper environment for analysis. I shipped my samples back to my own lab in the U.S. This involved preparing the samples with correct packaging as to not be spilled or spoiled while in transit. The rules and regulations of international customs had to be met as well. Finally, the cost and payment of shipping was an issue that I had to manage as well. From left to right, Felipe Salas de Freites and Jessica Cofrancesco sieving seafloor sediments on board the RV MIRABILIS. This experience was valuable for my career in geology. I encourage other students to take part in international studies like this one at every opportunity available. I made many new friends while working in close cooperation with the other scientists.
8 Cowboys abroad in Malawi study how continental rifting is initiated By Sam Dawson (MS Student) From left to right: Courtney Hull, Tiara Johnson, Sam Dawson, Dr. Estella Atekwana, Bryan Clappe, Dr. Daniel Laó Dávila on the 2.5 km high Nyika Plateau. Malawi has rightfully been termed “the warm heart of Africa.” Our research group, consisting of Dr. Estella Atekwana, Dr. Daniel Laó Dávila, Bryan Clappe, Courtney Hull, Tiara Johnson, and myself, got to experience this firsthand this past summer. The six of us spent four weeks trekking around farms, rocks, and national parks, collecting data on the Malawi Rift and experiencing life in another country. We went on an NSF-funded trip to Malawi (international Research Experience for Students (IRES)) to study how a magma-poor continental rift develops in a terrain dominated by stronglyfoliated basement rocks. One of our tasks was to use electrical resistivity to image faults from a sequence of earthquakes that occurred in 2009. This was a series of magnitude 5.4 - 5.9 earthquakes that damaged the local city of Karonga and its surrounding area. The picture below shows the IRES team sitting on the footwall of one of the fault splays in the rupture zone. IRES research team sitting on the footwall block of the surface rupture (0.6 – 1 m) of the 2009 Mw 5.9 Karonga earthquake. Our first day out in the field, it was immediately apparent that the local communities were very interested in our research. A Karonga radio host interviewed us about the work we were doing and most of the villagers had vivid memories of the earthquakes. No fewer than 20 kids would be keeping an inquisitive eye on us at any one time, eager to test their English and inspect our equipment. One of our drivers, Kennedy (pictured in the orange vest to the left), taught us phrases in Chichewa to interact with them in their first language. Apparently American accents are pretty thick, but that didn’t stop us from trying. This trip wasn’t all work and no play, however. Malawi is home to numerous parks that feature a wide array of wildlife. Throughout the Lilongwe Wildlife Center and Nyika and Liwonde National Parks, we saw hippos, elephants, alligators, different types of deer, and even watched a serval cat hunt for field mice. We followed the dazzle of zebra pictured on the right until they obliged us for a photo, and we woke up to even more zebra grazing outside our window the next day. From left to right: Bryan Clappe Tiara Johnson, Sam Dawson and Dr. Estella Atekwana taking a gravity reading. Note curious kids in background. The city of Karonga provided entertainment for us as well. The Karonga cultural museum documented the entire history of Malawi since inhabitants first settled down here. We took trips to the beach to watch people fish from canoes and see the sun set behind the mountains. Lake Malawi is host to over 200 different types of fish, and two of the most popular (kampango and chambo) often ended up on our dinner plates. The famous Mzuzu coffee fueled us out in the field, and the hot sauce was delicious enough to bring back for others to try. In an increasingly interconnected world, field experiences like this one provide students a way to set themselves apart. Collecting thesis data in unknown terrain far from access to most modern technologies can be a daunting task, but this experience gave us confidence that we can successfully execute a research plan no matter the conditions. Malawi is a beautiful country to conduct field work in, and I’m excited for the next batch of geologists to experience the welcoming people and world-class geology it has to offer. From left to right: Courtney Hull and Bryan Clappe taking strike and dip measurements at an outcrop.
9 Cowboys help Egypt find new sources of water: The Kharga Experience By Dr. Priyank Jaiswal There is an increasing need for finding new freshwater resources Worldwide, especially in arid regions. Experts suggest that meeting basic human needs for freshwater remains a huge challenge and that more than 1 billion people globally still lack safe drinking water. Finding new freshwater resources is even more pressing in Egypt, which gets almost all of its freshwater from the River Nile. Currently, about 99% of Egypt’s 85 million population live along the Nile Valley and the Nile Delta which constitute only ~5% of the 1 million km2 area of Egypt. The main reason for this high population density along the River Nile is due to the availability of water as well as fertile lands for agriculture. However, overcrowding of the Nile Valley threatens the very existence of the people due to contamination of water from fertilization of the fields. OSU scientists are taking the lead to help solve water problems in Egypt through a US-Egypt grant funded by NSF. The crane used as a weight-drop source to get the energy out to 4 km. Recently, I was in Egypt with Raj (PhD student) acquiring seismic data in Egypt. I am co-PI together with Jeff Brynes and Mohamed Abdelsalam in a project led by Estella Atekwana on determining groundwater recharge mechanism in an Egyptian oasis, the Kharga depression. The wireless recording system against the backdrop of a small farm in the oasis. My job was to collect seismic data to image the sedimentary section down to the basement to understand the recharge mechanism of this overstressed acquirer. We are trying to understand what role faults play in keeping the Kharga Oasis alive. In the last year, Shawna Parks, the MS student on this project on the remote sensing aspect, had developed some basic facture density maps using freely available satellite data. From her maps, we realized that to further characterize the faults at a fundamental level we needed seismic profiles that are at least 4 km long. Our neighboring Ponca City is home to a company called iSeis, which makes one of the world’s most advanced wireless acquisition systems. The owner, Dr. John Jiles, is a long-time friend and benefactor of OSU. I met him at the New Orleans SEG and discussed our needs. Not sure if it was the beer, the city, or his love for OSU that he decided to loan me $300,000 worth of equipment to take to the Egyptian desert. Hats off to his spirits. Top left: Scott and me fixing a channel. Bottom left: Drs. Gamal (left front) and Assam (right front) and the hired-hands. Right: Raj and I setting the shot point location Field was fun, it always it. A typical day would start at 5 AM in the morning and ends whenever folks can go no further. The first few days were spent in deciding where to shoot. It is not that the Egypt desert had any shortage of barren land, our source, which was a crane, had very restricted mobility. Finally, we found an intersection where a) the roads were straight out to at least 5 km, b) the traffic could be momentarily stopped for shooting and c) the ranchers/farmer/date-growers along the road were excited about a seismic shoot. Then we started shooting. The crane took half hour to move from one spot to another, which meant we could not do more than 20-25 shots a day. I have always found acquisition folks to be very patient and persistent; now I know why. After 14 days of back breaking work, we finally acquired two- 4 km long profiles. In the process we lost two batteries (someone needier than us borrowed them without informing us), one cable, broke two axels, damaged a pickup. What kept us going was the excellent data quality – we could see clear diffraction patterns in the raw data representative of basement faults. In 14 days, we had become a family. The cook, a middle-aged woman named Nagla, would make sure everyone was happy at the dinner table (Raj got a vegetarian option every day). Magdy would get up before all of us and make sure our day started with warm bread. Drs. Gamal and Assam (colleagues from Assuit University) made sure that every shot was taken as perfectly as possible. The hired-hands were on their toes all along. Neither Raj not Scott nor I knew Arabic, but we never had any problems explaining anything to anyone. On a related note, I must say that I found myself in the company of friendliest people ever. After the acquisition ended, our crew was very to see us go. All’s well that ends well. We are now working day and night to process the data and finally understand the life of the Kharga aquifer.
10 NEWS FROM THE FACULTY Dr. Mohamed Abdelsalam Professor; Boone Pickens Chair; Graduate Coordinator Hello everyone. I am starting my fourth year in the Boone Pickens School of Geology. 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 are enjoying being part of the School’s family. My son Montasir is finishing his BS degree this year in the Boone Pickens School of Geology. It is a great feeling. Last year I taught Structural Geology with 47 students. I must admit that I have enjoyed teaching the class and I am delighted to see such high quality of undergraduate students in our School. Currently I am teaching the graduate course Spectral Signal Processing and Applications in Geology. As the graduate advisor of the School, I am delighted to see tremendous increase in the interest in our graduate program. We received over 150 applications for admision in the spring and fall semesters of 2015. This year we have received 100 applications for the fall semester 2016 admission. Many of these applications are of high-quality and applicants come from schools in all parts of the US as well as other countries. Currently, our graduate students are from half of the states in the US in addition to 20 other countries. We had 46 theses defense since I became the graduate advisor in July 2013. The current enrollment in our graduate program stands at 24 PhD students and 64 MS students. The Tectonics Research Group which is a research collaboration between myself and my colleagues Drs. Estella Atekwana and Daniel Dao Davila is growing stronger with the involvement of 6 PhD students, 11 MS students and 6 undergraduate students. We have funding to keep us going this year, but we have been very active in trying to secure future funding. So far we have a number of proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study different tectonic processes, especially continental rifting in the East African Rift System. My Geodynamic and Geospatial Science Lab is now complete. It is great to see it 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 have acquired 10 broadband seismic stations and these are now deployed around Stillwater, OK for active faults mapping as part of the PhD research of Tim Sickbert. Please come over and visit. I would love to hear from you regarding research ideas and how my lab and expertise can be of use to you. Undergraduate students, from close to far, Steve Zotto, Amy Pritt, Jordan Morgan and Stuart Turnipseed conducting digital image processing research in the Geospatial Sciences and Geodynamics Lab.
11 Dr. Eliot Atekwana Professor; Stable Isotope Geochemistry; Hydrogeology Greetings to all alumni and friends! I report to you a successful 2015. I spent the spring semester at the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) in Botswana on sabbatical leave. I was back to OSU in the fall. I continue to teach, maintain an active research program and supervise students. In the spring, I taught GEOL-303 Geochemistry and Exploration at BIUST. At OSU, I taught GEOL-5000-359 Master's Thesis, GEOL-4300-001 Geology Colloquium, GEOL-5300-001 Geology Colloquium and GEOL-5243-001 Research Methods and Techniques in Geoscience in the fall semester. In international activities, I worked with my collaborator Dr. L. Molwalefhe and graduate students at BIUST to investigate carbon cycling in the Okavango River, carbon cycling in Lake Ngami in the Okavango Delta and paleoenvironmental change in the middle Kalahari. The sediments for investigating paleoenvironmental change were collected during the drilling of shot points for our National Science Foundation (NSF) active seismic experiment by our collaborators from MIT and UTEP. This is part of our NSF funded research “Collaborative Research: Integrated studies of early stages of continental extension: From incipient (Okavango) to young (Malawi) rifts”. My collaborators, students and I made eight presentations at scientific meetings and published papers in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Journal of Hydrology, Chemical Geology, and Applied Geochemistry. We also had papers accepted for publication in Hydrological Processes and Science of The Total Environment. I continue to work on projects funded by Newfield Exploration Company, Chevron Energy Technology Company and the National Science Foundation. I continue to work with my MS students Stephanie Wisler, Nicole Paizis and Krystal Heibel and two undergraduate students. I served on several MS and PhD thesis committees throughout the year. Dr. Estella Atekwana Department Head; Regents Professor and Sun Chair; Biogeophysics; Near Surface Geophysics; Tectonophysics I hope this newsletter meets you all in good health. As usual this was a hectic year for me as I wore multiple hats. In the spring semester I taught my gravity and magnetics course in exploration. I had a very lively course and as is the tradition, I had a representative from Geosoft Inc. in Toronto Canada offer a three day workshop. Students learned how to process and interpret data for mineral and oil and gas exploration. Of particular interest was the use of gravity and magnetic data for constraining seismic data in salt environments. In May, I was part of a team of US scientists invited to participate in a "Research Partnership Workshop on Water Resources for Women Scientists from the US and Africa" in Windhoek, Namibia, May 10-12, 2015. Through this networking event, we now have collaborators at Namibia University of Science and Technology. In July I gave an invited keynote address at the Near Surface Asia Pacific Conference - 7-10 July 2015 in Waikoloa, Hawaii. I then left for Malawi mid-July to early August to work on our new NSF International Research Experience for Students project. In October I was in New Orleans for SEG where I chaired a session on potential fields. For the first time we also had a recruiting booth at SEG. Kudos to the SEG student chapter for initiating this. I attended AGU in San Francisco in December. OSU was well represented as we had seven student presentations. I ended the year in Cameroon where Eliot, Hendratta Ali (PhD 2009) and I had an international outreach event at three different institutions (The University of Bamenda, University of Buea, University of Douala and Institute of Mining and Petroleum). We held workshops for students and faculty and presented some of our research. We hope to use this initial visit to build partnerships with these institutions. In January, we presented the results of Year 4 activity to the remediation group at Chevron in Houston Texas. Unfortunately the oil prices have negatively affected the funding of this project and the funding has been severely reduced. In December I was asked to serve as Chair for a new AGU Honors Program: The Africa Awards for Research Excellence in Earth and Space Science. Three MS (Kitso Matende, Daniel Morse and Vincent Somwe) students graduated. Four new students and one postdoc have joined my research group. On the home front, Eliot and I are now empty nesters. Kyle now lives in Maryland, Kyra in Dubai, and Kyne (Fungtu) is a freshman at Georgia Tech. My nephew Nissi is a freshman at OSU. Please drop by to say hello when next you are in town or send me an email if you have any questions regarding the School. View of the fountains of fire, Kilauea Crater, Hawaii
12 Dr. Jeffrey Byrnes Assistant Professor; Volcanology; Planetary Geology and Remote Sensing Jeffrey Byrnes: As my time in OSU’s Boone Pickens School of Geology draws to a close, I have spent time reflecting on the years I have devoted to the department as well as time looking forward to the possibilities ahead of me. I have been fortunate to have developed close relationships with many colleagues during my time at OSU and have been laying the foundation to continue some collaborations in the future. I will greatly miss interacting with the students in the department, both through teaching and research; I hope to stay in touch with many of you after I leave. Leading up to my departure, I have continued to be busy with my research, teaching, service, and other responsibilities. My research activities have focused primarily on helping the students I have been mentoring complete their research projects. I also have been a part of proposal efforts outside the School of Geology to secure funding for various geophysics/remote sensing activities, some of which have been successful. Additionally, I have been fortunate to actively continue my exploration geophysics/remote sensing consulting work assessing onshore prospects for hydrocarbon potential despite the difficult times in the petroleum industry. Finally, in keeping with the Land Grant mission of the University, I conducted a small research project coupling remote sensing and geomorphology to help constrain the history of the Red River. Although my future plans include continued learning, informal teaching, and mentoring, finishing each of the courses I offer for what will likely be the last time I ever teach them has been bittersweet. On the personal front, my family continues to do well. My wife’s research program has taken on an international scope and my kids continue to thrive, both in and out of school. I managed to break my femur in a bicycling accident, but am now back on two feet (and two wheels) and continue the long recovery process. Dr. Michael Grammer Professor; Chesapeake Energy Chair of Petroleum Geology; Carbonate Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, Petroleum Geology Dear Alumni and Friends of the BPSoG: It has been another busy and challenging year, but as always, very rewarding on multiple levels. Year 3 of the Mississippian Unconventional Reservoir Consortium had another very successful year (more on that elsewhere in the Newsletter) and has kept myself and others quite busy. In the Fall, we entered into discussions with AAPG about developing an AAPG Memoir that combines our work here at OSU and as well as at other institutions over the last few years. We are pleased to announce that our subsequent proposal was accepted, and that we have 27 papers committed to the volume, which will be entitled “Mississippian Reservoirs of the Mid-Continent, U.S.A.”. The Editors of the Volume include the OSU group (myself, Jay Gregg, Jim Puckette, Priyank Jaiswal) as well as Sal Mazzullo (Wichita State), Matt Pranter (OU) and Bob Goldstein (Univ. of Kansas). Nearly all of the papers from OSU are either first authored or co-authored by our students. Just to ensure that I wouldn’t have too much extra time to get myself into trouble after my Memoir duties, I also accepted an invitation from GSA to be lead editor on a GSA Special Publication. Following another lengthy proposal process and search for papers, we are well underway with a Special Publication on the “Paleozoic Stratigraphy and Resources of the Michigan Basin”, co-edited by my former colleagues at Western Michigan University, Bill Harrison and Dave Barnes. We have 19 papers committed for this volume, which will summarize a lot of the modern sedimentological and stratigraphic work done over the last decade or so in the Michigan Basin, much of which was done at WMU. Field Seminar to the Bahamas In the past year, a number of students have successfully completed their graduate degrees from our group. Miranda Childress (MS, now at Devon), Keller Flinton (MS, now at AEP) and just last week, Taylor Thompson (MS, moving to Pennsylvania for an Environmental position) leave a full group of students still working feverishly down in the Grammer Dungeon in the basement of NRC. Space limitations preclude me going into detail, but all of the students are doing well and include: Beth Vanden Berg, PhD student (carbonate nano-porosity and permeability prediction), Yulun Wang, PhD student (integrated sequence stratigraphic and chemostratigraphic reservoir characterization), Ibukun Bode, PhD student (NMR characterization of carbonate nanopore systems), Ahmed El Belasy, PhD student, (linking diagenesis with sequence stratigraphy, Sinai, Egypt), Ashley Dupont, MS student (chemostratigraphy to identify global signals in the Mississippian and for regional correlation), Lara Jaeckel, MS student (high resolution sequence stratigraphy from core and logs), Scott Shelly, MS student (outcrop 3D modeling of later Mississippian strata), C.J. Appelseth, M.S. student (regional
13 sequence stratigraphy from core and logs), and our newest member, Elizabeth Elium, M.S. student (also doing regional sequence stratigraphy using core and logs). Field Work in the Paradox Basin of Utah One of the focal part of our group’s educational activities is field trips to world class carbonate systems. While we have not yet done one this year, the Bahamas and Paradox Basin are on our priority list. Gracious financial donations by recent graduates Buddy Price (M.S., now at Devon), Stephanie LeBlanc (M.S., now at ExxonMobil) and Miranda Childress (M.S., now at Devon) will make these trips possible and are tremendously appreciated by both me and the group. Best Wishes to all, Mike Grammer Dr. Jay Gregg Professor; V. Brown Monnett Chair of Petroleum Geology; Carbonate Petrology, Sedimentology and Sedimentary Greetings to all of the alumni and friends! We are in the last year of the Mississippian Consortium and my Ph.D. student, Sahar Mohammadi and I are trying to get things wrapped up. We have the Ozark-Cherokee Platform part of the study finished and Sahar is nearly done writing that up. We also have all of the data for the northcentral Oklahoma portion of the study and are trying to make sense out of it. Taylor Ewald has finished his study on the diagenesis of Mississippian rocks in northCentral Oklahoma and we will be incorporating that into the overall study. Britney Temple is making progress on her M.S. thesis on the Ordovician underlying the Tri-State (Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas) area. At this writing she is collecting fluid inclusion data, which is a rather tedious task. Her thesis should provide clues to the origin of fluids that we see in the overlying Mississippian of that region. Gina Callaway is working on her M.S. study of the Middle Ordovician of the Michigan Basin and getting some very nice results with her cathodoluminescence petrography. Jordan Ray is starting his M.S. thesis on Silurian rocks of north-central Oklahoma. A new student has joined our little group; Gina Lukoczki from Budapest Hungary (by way of Edmonton, Alberta) is starting a Ph.D. program with us. She will be working on the diagenetic history of Middle Triassic carbonates in the Mecsek Mountains of southwestern Hungary (pronounced like “the Magic Mountains”). So we will be planning some field excursions to central Europe soon. Anybody want to go with us? Gina tells me that Hungarian wines are quite good. In May we all are planning to attend the PACROF XIII conference (PanAmerican Current Research on Fluid Inclusions) to be held in Columbia, Missouri. Several of the students are intend to give presentations. I have two papers that finally came out this past year, both in the journal “Sedimentology”. One on work on the Isle of Man and the second a review of dolomite mineralogy and the microbial model for dolomitization. This year I am working with my colleagues here at OSU on an AAPG memoir on the Mississippian of the Midcontinent. Last summer I attended the 15th Bathurst Meeting of Carbonate Sedimentologists in Edinburgh, Scotland. Aside from the great whiskies that I tasted I got to go on a fieldtrip to visit Hutton’s Unconformity at Siccar Point. From Scotland I traveled on to Ireland where Mickey was staying with a friend and we spent a couple of weeks driving to Connemara in the west and then back to Dublin. In September I traveled to the inaugural Mountjoy Conference on carbonate reservoirs where Mike Grammer and I chaired a session on unconventional carbonate reservoirs. The conference was held in Banff, a beautiful location, but was marred by a smoky haze from the forest fires in Washington State. As always I am looking forward to seeing many of you at the annual banquet in April. Best wishes to everyone. Dr. Todd Halihan Professor; Hydrogeophysics; Hydrogeology of Fractured and Karstic Aquifiers For Dr. Halihan, 2015 was a busy year. Lauren Guidry and Valina Sefa defended their M.S. theses and his visiting Ph.D. student from Brazil, Paulo Galvao got through his dissertation defense at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Thirteen undergrads are part of the group as the BPSoG tries to get undergrads more experience for working or heading to a graduate program. Four M.S. and two Ph.D. students round out his group. At GSA, spring was spent organizing the sectional meeting for March 2015 which was held on the OSU Campus! With great donor support from companies around the U.S., and the faculty and students in organizing the event, OSU attracted 437 participants from around the world. Dr. Halihan’s company, Aestus, LLC, continues to evaluate contaminated sites using OSU intellectual property developed at the campus. This has been another busy year and growth seems like it will continue. The company presented at GSA and also hired another alum from the geology department, Greg Federko. On the home front, the Halihan home continues to host parties for the department. The home is starting to look like a research location with a seismograph and undergraduate projects going on. His
14 wife, Martha, is still teaching over at OSU Chemistry and enjoying about 300 undergrads per semester. His son, Maclain, is ten now and is already over 5 foot tall…trouble. Dr. Mary Hileman Visiting Assistant Professor; Sedimentology; Petroleum Geology The 2015-2016 school year marks my eighth year as a faculty member of the Boone Pickens School of Geology. I started teaching one course each semester in the Spring of 2009 and began teaching fulltime in the spring of 2011. I am now a Visiting Assistant Professor with responsibility for teaching 5 courses each year. My primary teaching responsibility is to be the Geology faculty link to the Minor in Petroleum Engineering. I wrote and taught the initial required course for the Minor: GEOL 3413 – Petroleum Geology for Engineers, based on my 14 years of experience in the petroleum industry. This practical course begins with mineral and rock identification and ends with a group term project presentation that recommends drilling 3 infill wells, giving project reserves, ROI evaluation and terms for participation in the project. Class size for this course has followed oil prices and employment trends in the industry. I taught this course once a year starting in the fall of 2009 (15 students) and fall of 2010 (16 students). Beginning with the fall 2011 through fall 2014, this course was taught every semester with an average enrollment of 23 students. In the fall of 2014, projections by the School of Engineering anticipated enrollments of 100 or more students each academic year. In fact, enrollment ballooned in 2015, with 46 students in the spring and 44 students in the fall semester. However, when the oil price dropped below $35 per barrel, enrollment for the Spring semester 2016 dropped from 44 to 18 students in one semester. With the oil price currently below $30 per barrel, with Engineering concurring, our plan is to return to offering this course once a year in the fall semester. The second Geology sequence course offered to Petroleum Engineering students is GEOL 4323 – Advanced Well Log Analysis for Engineers. This course was first offered to Engineering students who completed GEOL 3413, in the Spring 2010. I started teaching this course in the spring 2013 with 27 engineering students. There were 35 students enrolled in both the spring of 2014 and 2015. With a projected enrollment of 90 students who had completed GEOL 3413 in the prior spring and fall, offering this course only once a year would result in an impossibly large class size. Therefore, it was decided to offer this course in the fall semester as well as in the spring. Dr. Gary Stewart kindly agreed to teach this course in the fall 2015, with an anticipated enrollment of 46; however, only 22 students enrolled. This spring (2016) there are 36 students enrolled out of the 44 who completed GEOL 3413 in fall 2015. With a low enrollment of 22 students this fall in GEOL 3413, we project that this course again will be offered only once a year in the spring term. Historically GEOL 4323 and GEOL 5353, Advanced Well Log Analysis for graduate Geology students are offered at the same time – once a week for 3 hours in the evening for lecture, discussion and problem solving. Topics in GEOL 4323/5353 cover evaluation of both the standard suite of vertical hole wireline well logs, introduction to petrophysical evaluation, as well as modern microimaging logs run in lateral boreholes, and current BPSG research about unconventional reservoirs. In response to comments from several graduate students enrolled in GEOL 5353 last spring, who were disappointed that the graduate homework assignments were not more rigorous, this spring, in addition to the regular homework assignments, graduate students have four additional and more challenging homework problems. These include: (1) recognition of an overturned and faulted fold (correlation problem), (2) proper Gamma Ray Shale Volume (Vsh) calculation of a glauconiterich sandstone, (3) porosity evaluation of an oomoldic carbonate reservoir, and (4) a short paper to define expected log curve responses to natural fractures in a carbonate reservoir. I also teach GEOL 4313 – Introduction to Well Log Analysis for undergraduate Geology majors (spring semester). This course covers the fundamentals of standard wireline log interpretation to solve subsurface problems. Because this class meets twice a week, there is time for discussion and practice of techniques. This semester there are 11 students enrolled in the course, who all have completed GEOL 4023 – Petroleum Geology (Dr. Puckette). This means that this semester the class is primarily a seminar that integrates the student’s knowledge of petroleum concepts with specific wireline log interpretation. Finally, I teach GEOL 3043 – Geology of the National Parks in the fall semester. This basic Geology course continues to be a popular elective for Junior and Senior nonscience majors. The focus for this course is to learn and understand basic geologic concepts using 22 of the U. S. National Parks as examples. There were 39 students enrolled in this class last fall. The plan is to take the National Parks course online in the fall of 2016. I currently am the Thesis Advisor for 2 Masters students and I am a member of an additional 8 Master’s Thesis Committees.
15 Dr. Priyank Jaiswal Assistant Professor; Seismology, Inverse Theory, Petroleum Systems; Gas Hydrates 2015 went fast. It started with Uzonna, MS student from Nigeria, trying to wind up his two publications and it ended with me in Egypt. In between that came two patent applications. One on a tertiary recovery method that I am collaborating with a local startup and another on fracture detection methodology we developed through Mississippian Consortium which sponsored Robert Holman’s thesis. The summer was all about “Frackaratus” – the lab based hydraulic stimulation devise that we are developing though an OCAST grant. The computational seismology lab keeps evolving. The latest gadget to arrive is a Tesla K-40 GPU accelerator, which is currently being used by Khemraj for his poroelastic modeling. On another front, ProMAX upgraded to SeisSpace and automatically downgraded our infrastructure so we “outsourced” SeisSpace to the PistolPete, the supercomputer owned by OSU. Our last SEG presence was good. I had three student posters – two geology and one math. We also set up a booth to advertise our program. The Math-Geology-Physics nexus at undergrad level is still in the making. Thanks to Sheri Orr for her tireless efforts. Dr. Daniel A. Laó Dávila Assistant Professor; Structural Geology; Plate Tectonics; Fault Slip Analysis and Carribiean Geology Hola! Greetings to all alumni and friends of the Boone Pickens School of Geology. This year has been very busy in the Structural Geology realm at the School. I have contributed in teaching 230 students from the Geology and Human Affairs course, and 10 graduate students from the Advanced Methods in Structural Geology course co-taught with Dr. Jack Pashin. I am supervising three graduate students in research. Sam Dawson is finishing up his research on the effects of Precambrian structures on new rifting in northern Malawi. Inés Barrios Galíndez is investigating active tectonics in the northeastern Caribbean and Bryan Clappe is beginning a project on the deformation of the Ouachita Mountains. Luel Emishaw defended his thesis successfully and started his PhD with Dr. Mohamed Abdelsalam. Research has been very active. Four students, Dr. Estella Atekwana, and I travelled to Malawi for 4 weeks to conduct research of continental rift initiation in Malawi. The students learned about tectonics in one of the best places to study continental rifting and then presented their research at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco. I co-authored 4 papers with collaborators and my students. My students and I also presented 11 conference papers at the AGU Fall Meeting and the South-Central GSA held in Stillwater, OK. We look forward to continue to conduct high-quality research, advanced education and service to Oklahoma and the world. Dr. Jack Pashin Professor; Devon Chair of Basin Research; Sedimentary Geology;Coalbed Methane; Shalegas; Structural Geology, Basin Analysis This was an eventful year in which a variety of old activities were wrapped up, and new ones were begun. Last year I cotaught Advanced Methods in Structural Geology with Daniel Láo Dávila, in which we explored the full range of extensional, compressional, and transcurrent tectonic styles in sedimentary basins. I also taught the Geology of Unconventional Reservoirs, in which students learn about everything from coalbed methane and shale reservoirs to gas hydrates. I am participating in an active CO2enhanced coalbed methane project in the Appalachians, which is sponsored by DOE and Virginia Tech and hosted by CNX Gas. Other projects include a RPSEA project that is led by Jim Puckette and is critically assessing procedures for the evaluation of shale reservoirs. I am in the final year of a CO2-enhanced oil recovery monitoring program in the Anadarko Basin and have begun a new project on geological characterization and CO2 storage potential of the eastern Gulf of Mexico shelf. Several students completed theses on a range of topics. Michael Powers finished his NSF fellowship for advanced imaging of shale using a micro-CT scanner, which enables non-destructive 3D x-ray imaging of shale. Ayobami Folaranmi and Jenny Meng completed theses related to CO2 storage and enhanced oil recovery in the Gulf of Mexico and Anadarko basins. Brandon Thibodeaux developed advanced burial and thermal history models that provide valuable information on the formation of giant deformed shale masses in foreland thrust systems. Jenny is
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