GSA 2016 - Denver, Co

Kevin Gardner :

Hello, UALR!!!

 I have yet to post to until now due to the adventurous journey from Little Rock to Kansas, Kansas to Denver, in Denver, and then the flight home. But I will admit, waiting to blog until now was a huge mistake! I have so much to talk about!

THE JOURNEY:

Let us begin with the drive. Simply, it was great! I have never been north of Belle Vista, Ar on I-49 until this trip. Observing the scenery was a wonderful experience! We stopped at the Joplin History and Mineral Museum that had rock and mineral specimens from the mines in the area, and lots of historical artifacts and replicas. Though I enjoy unique rocks and minerals, I will say that at this stop I enjoyed the history more. The stories and pictures from the old, original town and mines were interesting to see and put the work that went into establishing the area into major perspective.

We spent the night in Salina, Kansas and continued our journey the next day. The windmills were EVERYWHERE!!! I'm talking ~400 feet tall! The blades that are manufactured near the LR airport are actually being put to use in rural Kansas... Pretty cool!

We made a stop at the Fort Hays University Museum of Natural History where we able to see an extensive collection of live rattlesnake species (photos not allowed for snake safety/stress on the snakes), which was fascinating. They also had lots of fossil displays, and even showed how they removed the fossils from rock to display them within the museum.

You may have heard of the newer fish species that can breath outside of water and has arms that allow them to walk across land... Well, here you go! The little fella actually does breath air outside of water and has real, little arms!

Even though I enjoyed this stop very much, I will say that I had a constant feeling of insecurity. I'm not quite sure what the problem was, but I felt uneasy, followed, and VERY SMALL! I even heard strange noises behind me at times (image below)... Perhaps we will never know the real reason behind these feelings?

We eventually arrived in Colorado and, after a short time, the Rocky Mountains were visible. We entered Denver and were all very excited to be there. I never realized that Denver sits before the front range of the Rocky Mountains and is actually a flat city. The mountainous landscape in the background sure was good for pictures though!

The GSA meeting began with an "Ice-Breaker" social gathering for all attendees. It was nice, but very crowded. We rested off our road trip tiredness and prepared for the busy schedule of talks and presentations ahead.

TALKS:

I attended lots of great sessions, posters, discussions, and talks of current work being done in the earth science field. One of the talks was from Dr. David London, University of Oklahoma. Dr. London is working on pegmatite (a large, course grained, igneous rock) research. I had the privilege of visiting OU and Dr. London about two weeks ago for my own research presentation being presented in Denver at this meeting. Dr. London in his talk was attempting to identify why the zoning of minerals normally always occurs in pegmatites, and what causes the zoning of the minerals in very uniformed and predictable ways. Long story short, through his experiments, Dr. London was able to correlate the host rock of the pegmatite intrusion to the zoning across the pegmatite. If the host rock where the intrusive melt makes contact is calcium (Ca) rich, then the melt begins to crystallize Ca-rich minerals first, against the Ca-rich host material. The melt will deplete its Ca content as it works towards the center, making component substitutions as it loses components in the melt. This, overall, will give the appearance of zoned minerals in the pegmatite once it has cooled and viewed as a whole. Very interesting stuff, especially since my research presentation is on pegmatites. I also attended a mineralogy/petrology teaching talk. It was amazing!!! I can not wait to talk to Dr. DeAngelis about the details of this teaching research and the new tools for teaching the material that I observed.

I gave my presentation on the last night of the conference and enjoyed my experience very much. This was the first time that I have presented any material outside of the UALR campus and the EIT research expo. I was a bit nervous initially, but quickly got over it as the evening progressed.

(Photos courtesy of Dr. Wendi Williams)

I was able to meet several interesting people from across the country and world that all have an interest in pegmatites and the minerals that form them. One notable attendee that I spoke with was from the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. and is friends with one of my references/sources that I have used in my research presentation(s).

It was a great trip and atmosphere to experience. I hope that I am privileged with another opportunity to attend a GSA meeting and present further research in the future.

*** More to come shortly: an amazing Feed Your Brain discussion that was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Fulfillment of Dreams at GSA

Wow! What an exceptional great time I have had attending the 2016 Geological Society of America conference in Denver, Colorado the "Mile High City". This was not my first GSA conference, nor will it be my last.

What can I talk about that won't be a bazillion words long?

I attended so many talks in these past few days. Much of my time has been spent literately "camping" out in one room all morning. Much of this time has been spent with me mouth open in aww with all the exciting topics coming out of the Hydrogeology division and the Karst division. I went to other talks as well regarding Geoinformatics, Energy Conservation, and even Geology and Religion.

This year was the first year that I knew what people were talking about in the talks. I can safely say that after all of my core classes in the UALR Geology program that it has made me gained the knowledge that is needed to think like a Geo-scientist. I feel like I have taken something away from this conference and that is that I cannot wait to spend everyday with awesome professionals and researchers doing the things I enjoy. Learning, Collaborating, Motivating.

While at GSA, I met with so many bright and intelligent people. I was selected to participate in the GSA Hydrogeology Division lunch and award ceremony where I had the opportunity again to use my formal dinner etiquette skills. I also had a table full of top researchers from schools like Nebraska and UC Davis.

  Also I got to meet with several different graduate schools.

My most exciting moment of this trip was when I had the opportunity to me with Jason Polk from Western Kentucky University, a professor in the Karst division. I talked to him and his students about the exciting things going on at WKU. It's a top school on my list of schools I will be applying to for the Fall '17.

Another person I got to speak with was John Mylroie, professor emeritus from Mississippi State University. Mylroie is one of the leading researchers for Karst environments on San Salvador, Bahamas. I have read several papers that he has published and when we saw each other both of our faces lit up. He remembered me from attending a talk that he did at UALR. Mylroie is my idol in the Geoscience world.

Overall, this has been a great trip!

I want to think the University and the Department of Earth Science for allowing me to attend this conference.

Ryan J. Hefley

Quandaries and Questions: A GSA Experience

At the end of each conference day, it's all come down to questions. 

Today is Wednesday, and we have only a few more hours left at GSA 2016. I've gone to over thirty different talks on everything from preservation of rivers in the rock record to the role sexual versus asexual reproduction plays in survival likelihood during major extinction events. During these presentations I've been struck by a number of different emotions: excitement, boredom (I do not give a single damn about microbial mats, no matter how hard I try), confusion, and (on Monday after seemingly endless fancy statistical analyses that I couldn't make heads or tails of) utter despair that I'll ever be smart enough to make any meaningful contributions to the geologic community. 

However, my main take-away from these technical sessions hasn't been discouragement but overwhelming curiosity. Almost every talk has inspired new questions. After several discussions about megafaunal extinctions at the end-Pleistocene, I want to learn more about the influence of body size on survival chances during extinction events. A geoscience education talk about using phylogenetic trees in a non-major historical geology class made me wonder what other creative tools could be used to engage non-science majors in geology classes. In a session about the conflict between the conservative religious and the scientific communities, I started thinking about how some of the approaches presented by the speakers could be incorporated into introductory geology courses. 

Even though I felt as lost as an accountant in a mineralogy class in a good portion of the talks, what I did understand greatly enhanced my knowledge base and, even more importantly in my opinion, started me thinking in terms of potential research directions that I myself would like to pursue rather than simply learning from the research of others. And this, I believe, is the first step towards the next phase of my career. 

-Kellum Tate

Best GSA Ever

Good Morning, 

Today is the last day of GSA, and I feel like I have taken full advantage of the conference. Monday and Tuesday I volunteered, with yesterday  being the most interactive day.  I hung around the speaker ready room helping presenters upload their presentations.  This was really fun, and a great opportunity to meet as many professors from all over.  It was also great to meet Phil Wernette from Texas A and M.  We talked a lot about research, and had an immediate bond, and connection due to our fondness of geology.  I will go to as many talks today as possible, and take off some time around noon to catch my flight at 3:45.  For now this is me signing off.  

Chris 

Harper's GSA Poster

Poster Time! Man I need to lose some weight!

Sunday was time to present and I was a little apprehensive, but after a few moments and several visits from my compadre's from UALR, relaxation finally set in. Many people came by who were interested in the carbonatites. Dr. Peter Modreski shared with me the similarities between the carbonites at Magnet Cove with those of the Iron Hill Carbonatite Complex in Colorado. Another related them to those in the Rift Valley of Africa.

One of the more interesting visits was with Dr. Nelson Eby from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He has done EPMA analysis on the mica of Magnet Cove and steered me to his website. There he has a wealth of information on the mica. This should be of great help with the future work I want to do regarding the Magnet Cove Mica.

So, the contacts I have made here at GSA have made the trip worthwhile. Looking forward to our remaining time here and the people I will meet and information I will attain.

David H.

Feed Your Brain

Monday afternoon, I attended a "Feed Your Brain" lunch time discussion. The discussion was led by Jen Russel-Houston. Jen works at Osum Oil Sands Corp. located in Alberta, Canada.


What are oil sands you may ask? Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, saturated with a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen.


Canada is right behind Saudi Arabia for number or oil reservoirs. Most of this oil that comes from Canada will filter to the United States for refining. Canada ranks in at number 3 and the United States ranks in at number 6 for producing oil. Together however, we are ranked number 1.


In Jen's talk, she stated that retrieving oil from oil sands is hard. Her company is developing new ways in better locating and extracting it. One method that the company uses is called Steam Assisted Gravity Drilling or (SAGD)


Using such method requires a lot of wells, more water, and a larger footprint


Jen's goals is to eventually lower cost, safer operations, lower water use, and reduce the footprint


In the future she [Jen] wishes to optimize and become more efficient with steam, she wants to put more wells on one pad, and wants to have better well placement and reservoir quality


~Ryan J. Hefley

Monday Blues

Attended a couple of excellent sessions today. The first was on Evolution of the Rocky Mountains. The discussion of the Larimide orogeny was informative. The second session I enjoyed was on petrology and orogenic systems. Use of garnet-spinel-corundum ternary diagrams brought back fond memories of Igneous Metamorphic Petrology.

David