GSA 2016-Monday September 26

Hey Readers,
This is Matt Carey and I will be writing about the past couple days at the GSA 2016 conference.  I had the opportunity yesterday to sit in on a talk given by Dr. DeAngelis, on a class he taught a couple of semesters ago about planetary geology.  Dr. DeAngelis is a fantastic speaker and his enthusiasm for teaching is very clear.  After that Jason and I checked out the Celebration of Lakes technical session.  The most interesting talk I heard was on Garibaldi Lake of British Columbia, Canada.  This lake was formed volcanically by a dacite flow damming snowmelt.   The research was mostly focused on bathymetry calculations and orthoimagery created from drone photography.  The use of drones is a popular thing I've noticed and has got me interested in learning how to use one for my own research.  Later that day, after some Indian buffet and a nap, I checked out the poster presentations.  I met a man from the University of Santa Barbara who has been studying giant stromatolites in the Green River Formation of northwest Colorado.  Let me tell you, these suckers are huge.  A standard size was 5 meters tall by 7 meters wide.  At the bottom of most of these stromatolites were logs.  The logs served as a base for the stromatolites to grow off of.  Having only been exposed to stromatolites that formed within marine type environments, it was so cool to have something new to compare with my past knowledge.  Earlier this morning I sat in on talk titled Unearthing the History of Women in Geosciences.  Geological history is something I have not been exposed to much and after the talk I want more.  I heard the life story of a woman named Tilly Edinger.  She was the founder of a paleontological subfield called paleoneurology.  If you would like to know more about this come find me and I will blabber wildly about it.  Another great thing about today was I have got to spend time with my greatest friends ever and UALR graduate Ashley Horton.  Conferences are great for reconnecting with friends who I do not get to see often.  Thanks for the read.