GEOSCIENCES DEPARTMENT

After decades of stability in size and areas of emphasis, Geosciences evolved rapidly during 2001-2002 when the College approved our request to hire in the area of Earth Systems Science and Heather Stoll ’94 returned to teach, first as a visitor and then as a tenure track assistant professor. Heather’s expertise is in climate change at various time scales and its measurement using a suite of geochemical techniques. Heather will be teaching in these areas, as well as in environmental geology and environmental sciences. She works with coccoliths (marine algae) and had her research lab up and running within weeks of her arrival. It is exciting to have Heather at Williams and to expand our teaching and research horizons.

Four students worked on summer research projects. Nate Cardoos ’02 finished field studies by the end of summer 2001 in Maine and began his school year work as a thesis student. Caleb Fassett ’02 completed an NSF-sponsored summer internship at the University of Hawaii; he presented the results of his study on Pacific basin bathymetry at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Hawaii in February 2002. Karl Remsen ’03 studied the Holocene history of an Ontario lake as part of an NSF-sponsored summer internship at the University of Minnesota; Matt Jungers ’03 worked on reconstructing the recent erosional history of a small basin in Hopkins Memorial Forest, funded by the Center for Environmental Studies.

During the Winter Study Period, Markes Johnson and David Backus took Paul Crittenden ’03 on an extended geologic mapping and sampling trip to Baja California and Willard Morgan ’96 gave a Winter Study course “Survival in a Winter Landscape” that studied wintry processes near Williamstown and on a winter camping trip in northern Vermont.

Four faculty members (Cox, Dethier, Johnson and Karabinos) and Research Associate David Backus gave papers at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Boston, Massachusetts, in late October 2001. One undergraduate (Karl Remsen ’03) and at least ten Williams alumni including Darius Mitchell ’01 also presented results of their research at the conference. Mid-December saw Heather Stoll and another dozen alumni present their research at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California, where Professor Wobus acted as the Williams host and organizer for more than 20 West Coast geology alums. The spring term was a busy time for the department as faculty and students presented their research results at the March Northeastern Sectional Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Springfield, Massachusetts, and at the 15th annual Keck Research Symposium in Geology held in early April in Amherst, Massachusetts. Paul Karabinos and Rónadh Cox gave talks at the Springfield meeting and Nate Cardoos gave a poster presentation with his faculty advisor Bud Wobus. Bud Wobus and Nate Cardoos also gave presentations at the Keck Symposium. Student participation in the various meetings was partially supported by the McAleenan and Labaree funds in the Geosciences Department and by the Keck Geology Consortium.

Over the commencement weekend, Nate Cardoos ’02 was inducted into Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and Caleb Fassett ’02 was named the winner of the David Major Prize in Geology. Nine rising seniors will be working in the field this summer in areas ranging from Berkshire County and nearby Vermont to Colorado and Wyoming and northern Norway. Another senior will be working on a geoscience-related internship at a museum in Bend, Oregon, sponsored by the Center for Environmental Studies. Summer research is supported by the Sperry Research Fund, the Keck Geology Consortium, the Center for Environmental Studies and grants to individual members of the Department from the National Science Foundation and the Petroleum Research Fund.

Rónadh Cox spent late summer 2001 doing fieldwork in northern Madagascar with Nick Nelson ’03 and Malagasy student Tsilavo Raharimahefa. As an outgrowth of Rónadh's involvement with the Université d'Antananarivo, Tsilavo spent spring semester 2002 as a registered full-time visiting student in the Geosciences Department at Williams, as a result of which he was recently accepted into the graduate program at St. Louis University.

April saw publication in the journal Geology of work on the origins of quartz-pebble conglomerates, co-authored by Ethan Gutmann ’99 and Patty Hines ’00. Rónadh presented these results at the Northeastern GSA meeting over spring break, and presented data from the Virgin Islands Mary Creek Reef project at the National GSA meeting in November of last year. Work on the Madagascar project is also ongoing, but plans to return there in August, again with Nick Nelson ’03, are currently on hold as we wait to see how the political situation will develop. Currently, road blockades have isolated the capital and so key field supplies, especially fuel, are difficult or impossible to find.

David Dethier continued as Chair of the Geosciences Department during 2001-02. His research focused mainly on long-term erosion rates and sediment storage in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming, supported by grants from NSF and the Petroleum Research Fund. In conjunction with Taylor Schildgen ’00, Will Ouimet ’01 and Paul Bierman ’85 (University of Vermont), Dethier continued his studies of erosion using cosmogenic isotope techniques. He published “Pleistocene Incision Rates in the Western United States Calibrated Using Lava Creek B Tephra” in Geology (v. 29 (9), p. 783-786). Dethier and his co-authors presented results from the cosmogenic studies at the Geological Society of America National Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, in October 2001.

He also worked with Will Ouimet ’01 and with Matt Jungers ’03 on contemporary and historical sediment transport and storage in the Birch Brook and Ford Glen catchments, Hopkins Memorial Forest. These geomorphic studies are part of long-term hydrogeochemical studies in the Forest. Dethier helps coordinate ongoing collection of weather, streamflow, precipitation chemistry and other environmental data from the Forest and their analysis in the Environmental Science Lab in the Morley Science Center.

Professor Markes Johnson attended the Annual Conference of the New England Association for Asian Studies held October 12-14, 2001, in Williamstown, where he made a presentation entitled “Historical Geology in Modern China: Linkages to the New York-Peking Axis of 1920-1937.” Professor Johnson was elected a fellow of the Geological Society of America, as was publicly announced during the Annual Meeting of the GSA in Boston on November 4. At that conference, Markes delivered a paper entitled “Pliocene Ramp Facies at El Mangle, Baja California Sur: Sequence Stratigraphy in the Gulf of California.” He also was a co-author with David Backus in a presentation on “Evidence of Late Pliocene Transtensional Tectonics, Punta El Mangle, Baja California Sur, Mexico” and a poster with Darius E Mitchell ’02 and David Backus entitled “Opalized Wood from the Upper Pliocene of Baja California Sur: A Coastal-Plain Deposit on the Gulf of California.”

During the 2002 Winter Study Period, Markes Johnson and David Backus were back in the field in Baja California assisted by Paul M. Crittenden ’03 on a research project supported by the Petroleum Research Fund (American Chemical Society). Broadly defined, their project looked at modern and ancient hot springs in the rock record with an emphasis on the fossilization of plant material. On February 14, 2002, Professor Johnson gave the first presentation in the Faculty Lecture Series, which had as its theme “Islam and the World After September 11.” His lecture was on “Paleogeography of Oil and Water: Blessing or Burden of Nature?” During the first week of spring break, Markes returned to Baja California for a field trip attended by five students in his tutorial on Paleoecology. The trip focused on the Cretaceous geology along the Pacific coast of northern Baja California. He returned for a third time to Baja California to attend the Sixth International Meeting on Geology of the Baja California Peninsula, held April 4-6 in La Paz, Baja California Sur, and gave a talk entitled “Mass Gravity Slide from the Upper Pliocene of Mesa Barracas, Baja California Sur, Mexico.” He was also a co-author on a presentation made by David Backus on “Structural Features of a Transform Fault Termination at El Mangle Block, Baja California Sur, Mexico.” The latter talk won the conference award for best oral presentation by a professional.

A research paper entitled “Continental Island from the Upper Silurian (Ludfordian Stage) of Inner Mongolia: Implications for Eustasy and Paleogeography” was published with Professor Johnson as the senior author in the October 2001 issue of Geology. He was the junior author on another paper on “Miocene-Pleistocene Tectono-sedimentary Evolution of Bahía Concepción Region, Baja California Sur (Mexico)” inSedimentary Geology. On July 27, 2001, Markes signed a contract with the University of Arizona Press for the publication of his book Discovering the Geology of Baja California – Six Hikes on the Southern Gulf Coast. Proof pages were corrected in March and publication is expected in August 2002. Over the course of the academic year, Markes reviewed grant proposals for the National Science Foundation, Der Wissenschaftsfonds (Austrian counterpart of NSF), and the Petroleum Research Fund (American Chemical Society). He also reviewed manuscripts for the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences and forPalaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, and Palaeoecology.

During the summer of 2001, Paul Karabinos worked with Matt Student ’01 on a research project in southeastern Vermont entitled “Acadian Extension in the New England Appalachians.” This two-year project is funded by a grant from the Petroleum Research Fund, administered by the American Chemical Society. Karabinos also received a two-year grant for $73,800 from the National Science Foundation entitled “How Do Orogenies End? A Case Study from the Taconic Orogen.” This project will focus on the geochronology and geochemistry of rocks in southern Berkshire County.

Karabinos served the third of a three-year term on the Tectonics Panel of the Earth Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation. The panel assists the Tectonics Program Director in awarding approximately five million dollars in research grants twice a year. Karabinos was also elected chair of the Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America for the 2002-2003 academic year.

Karabinos attended the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Boston, Massachusetts, in November, 2001, where he organized a full-day symposium: “Arc Terranes in the Appalachians and Caledonides and Their Role in Paleozoic Orogenesis.” There were twenty-eight presentations; almost half of the contributing geologists were from outside the U.S. Karabinos presented a talk during this symposium entitled “How Do Orogenies End? An Example from the Taconic Orogeny in the Northern Appalachians.” In conjunction with the Geological Society of America Meeting in Boston, Karabinos organized and led a field trip for 40 geologists to show them recent research results based on work in western Massachusetts. He was also a co-author with Kevin Pogue and six students on a talk entitled “Geology of the City of Rocks National Reserve: New Insights from Keck Geology Consortium Undergraduate Research.” He also attended the Northeastern Sectional Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Springfield, Massachusetts, in March, 2001, where he presented an invited talk “Extensional Tectonics of the Acadian Orogeny.”

Heather Stoll attended the national meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California, in December, 2001, where she presented a poster on “Potential and Limitations of Paleoproxies from Sr/Ca Ratios in Coccolith Carbonate” and co-chaired a special session on “Transient Climates in the Geologic Record.” Stoll has set up a new lab for geochemical analysis of marine carbonate sediments. Work in the new lab has focused on calibrating the geochemistry of tiny coccolith microfossils as a new indicator of marine productivity, and appeared in the spring of 2002 in a special volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. This new indicator is being applied to infer productivity events in Early Cretaceous sediments of northern Italy, work that will be presented in July at a special workshop on Cretaceous Climate in Boulder, Colorado, with co-authors Fabrizio Tremolada, Elisabeta Erba (both University of Milan), and Alicia Arevalos ’05.

Stoll has reviewed grant proposals for the National Agency for Project Evaluation (ANEP, Spain). She also reviewed manuscripts for Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems; Earth and Planetary Science Letters;Marine Micropaleontology; Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology; and a special volume of the Society of Economic and Petroleum Geologists on A Multidisciplinary Approach to Cyclostratigraphy.

During the summer of 2001, Prof. Reinhard (Bud) Wobus was one of the three faculty leaders of an intercollegiate student-faculty research project sponsored by the Keck Geology Consortium (http://Keck.Carleton.edu). With colleagues Bob Wiebe (Franklin & Marshall) and David Hawkins (Denison) and seven students from six colleges including thesis advisee Nate Cardoos ’02, he completed a month of fieldwork studying a 420-million-year-old volcanic system on Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. The group returned to Williams after the fieldwork for several days of sample preparation. Later in the summer, he was the faculty representative for 35 Williams alumni on a 2-week Lindblad adventure in the Galapagos Islands.

In the fall, he attended the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Boston, where he served as the Williams representative (for the 15^th year) at the semi-annual business meeting of the Keck Geology Consortium. In November, he gave an illustrated lecture as part of the Sweetwood Winter Lecture Series on “The Greylock Island: A Half-Billion Years of Local Geologic History” and organized a display of local rocks and minerals at the North Adams Public Library. In December, he attended the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, where he organized a reunion of more than 20 Williams geology alumni.

During the spring, Wobus attended the meeting of the Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America and was co-author of a poster presented by his honors student, Nate Cardoos ’02, entitled “Intermediate Volcanics in a Bimodal Setting: Silurian Andesites of the Fox Islands, Maine.” He was also co-author of a presentation by a Bowdoin student, Lindsay Szramek, who is the advisee of Bowdoin Prof. Rachel Beane (Williams ’93); Lindsay’s topic was “Correlation and Stratigraphy of Exotic Blocks of the Seal Cove Formation in the Vinalhaven Pluton, Maine.” The GSA meeting was followed a few weeks later by the 15^th annual meeting of the Keck Geology Consortium at Amherst College, where he was co-author of a paper “The Geology of Vinalhaven Island, Maine,” published in the proceedings volume. In early May, he gave a Bronfman bag-lunch talk, “Enigmatic Andesites and other Fascinating Metavolcanic Rocks of Coastal Maine.”

He is senior author of a paper published during the winter by Rocky Mountain Geology entitled “Geochemistry and Tectonic Setting of Paleoproterozoic Metavolcanic Rocks of the Southern Front Range, Lower Arkansas River Canyon, and Northern Wet Mountains, Central Colorado.” Co-authors are Martha Folley ’97, Kate Wearn ’98, and Prof. Jeff Noblett of Colorado College.

Wobus continues as campus representative for the Geological Society of America, relaying to students the value of GSA membership and the news of GSA meetings and initiatives that can lead to summer jobs and internships. He also serves as liaison for summer field course opportunities for geoscience students, and was again a member of the selection committee that chooses 50-60 students nationwide each year to participate in Keck Geology Consortium research projects.

During the coming summer he will begin a new project in the Paleoproterozoic rocks of the southern Front Range in Colorado along with Karl Remsen ’03. While in Colorado he will lead, for the 17^th time, the Williams Alumni College in the Rockies, based at The Nature Place near Florissant. This begins the third decade of this weeklong event, which initiated the Alumni Travel-Study Program at Williams in 1981 (www.williams.edu/alumni/continuing_education/travel_opportunities).

Class of 1960 Scholars in Geosciences

GEOSCIENCES COLLOQUIA

GEOSCIENCES STUDENT COLLOQUIA

OFF-CAMPUS COLLOQUIA

POSTGRADUATE PLANS OF GEOSCIENCES MAJORS

Sarah M. Barger	One year working for Williams Alumni Relations followed by Business School in Non-Profit Management
Nathan C. Cardoos	Employment in Environmental Consulting
Caleb I. Fassett	Undecided
David M. Gioiello	Undecided
Eric A. Moore	Summer Research Assistant, Child Trends, Washington, DC
Thomas G. Sanders	Possible internship with Trout Unlimited, Jackson, WY

College	Journal Articles	Rank	Total Pages	Rank	Abstracts	Rank	Articles/ Faculty	Rank
Williams	49	1	525	1	92	3	8.2	1
Colgate	40	2	435	3	125	1	4.4	7
Wesleyan	34	3	462	2	90	4	4.3	9
Union	28	4	276	6	53	18	4.7	5
Franklin & M.	28	4	269	7	111	2	3.5	15
Hamilton	26	6	269	7	59	15	5.2	4
Colorado College	22	7	238	10	79	6	3.7	13
Smith	22	7	282	5	83	5	3.1	18
Vassar	19	9	172	13	37	28	6.3	2
Oberlin	18	10	296	4	68	13	6.0	3