The Geological Society of Washington

The draft minutes of our last meeting, on 5 March 2025, are attached for members to evaluate. If you have any additions or corrections please email them to our meeting secretary, Jessie Bersson, at BerssonJ[at]si.edu.

Theme of the event: Earth’s Mantle

VAL FINLAYSON, University of Maryland, College Park –A High Field Strength Perspective on Tungsten-182 Variability in Ocean Island Basalts

GIACOMO CRINITI, Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory – Mineral Physics Constraints on the Composition of the Lower Mantle

JINGCHUAN WANG, University of Maryland, College Park – Tracking Ancient Intraoceanic Subduction in the Deep Mantle: Insights from the Southeast Pacific

***THIS IS AN IN-PERSON MEETING ONLY***

Refreshments at 7:30 p.m., formal program at 8:00 p.m.

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, 2170 Florida Avenue NW, Washington D.C.

The new meeting secretary, Dr. Jessica Bersson (SI), has provided the GSW minutes from our meeting at the Carnegie on 29 Jan 2025. The minutes can be accessed here.

Apologies for the late notice, but the worsening forecast for tomorrow has forced us to cancel the in-person meeting on Feb 12th. We will be in touch with more information about rescheduling. 

***This meeting will be rescheduled*** : Theme of the event: M³ – Moon, Mars, Mercury

JACLYN CLARK, University of Maryland, College Park – The Moon Has its Faults

ANDREW STEELE, Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory – Martian Organic Geochemistry: A Tale of Meteorites, Curiosity, and Perseverance

SANDER GOOSSENS, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – Mercury, Moon, and Mars: from Crust to Core

***This meeting will be rescheduled***

Theme of the event: Ice

ELIZABETH TURTLE, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) APL — Exploring the Ocean Worlds Europa and Titan with Europa Clipper and Dragonfly

SINEAD FARRELL, University of Maryland (UMD) — Pole to Pole: Earth’s Declining Sea Ice

MARC NEVEU, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / UMD — How depressurization during cryovolcanic eruption affects relative abundances of amino and fatty acids sought as biosignatures on ocean worlds

Come at 7:30 PM to socialize and imbibe, the meeting begins at 8 PM, and ends by 10 PM.

The meeting will be held in the Greenewalt Building, Tuve Hall at the Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory, Broad Branch Road Campus. Directions are here: https://epl.carnegiescience.edu/about/our-campus/directions-to-epl

Parking is free on the campus, or on-street in the vicinity

Dear members:

We are in the process of updating our membership management services and dues renewal process. If you received an email message on Dec. 23 asking you to renew your dues by going to a WordPress website, please ignore the request as it was simply a test that was sent out by mistake.

An email reminding members to renew dues will be sent in late January, 2025 using the same process as in the past via the PayPal service. If you need your membership number in order to renew, please contact Ann Benbow at MSA via the Membership tab on the home page.

In mid-2025, we intend move to a more secure membership management system for which each member can establish an individual account and manage their access to membership more directly. Thank you for your continued support of the Geological Society of Washington while we make this transition!

The 3rd GSW meeting of the Fall featured three formal talks. The draft minutes from the meeting are here.

The 132nd Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of Washington will take place on December 4th, 2024 in the auditorium of the American Geophysical Union headquarters, 2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Washington D.C.

This will be a HYBRID meeting. In order to participate via online attendance, please register at this link before 4:00 pm Eastern time on Dec. 4th.

Dr. DANIEL DOCTOR will deliver the Presidential Address entitled “The Allegory of the Cave, redux: perception and reality in karst science“

Annual awards will be announced, and election of the 2025 GSW slate of officers and councilors will also take place.

Slate of Officers for 2025:

• President:  Ved Lekić* (Univ. of Maryland)
• 1st VP & President Elect:  Michael Ackerson* (Smithsonian)
• 2nd Vice President: Michael Walter (Carnegie EPL)
• Past President: Dan Doctor* (USGS)
• Treasurer: Andy Campbell** (NRC, retired)
• Meeting Secretary: Jessica Bersson (Smithsonian)
• Council Secretary: Beth Doyle* (NOVA Community College)
• Councilors: 
  • Linda Rowan (CRS)
  • Ross Salerno (USGS)
  • David Vanko (Towsen Univ., retired)
  • Pat Carr (Brooking Legislative Fellow, U.S. Congress)*
  • Mark Tyra (NIST)*
  • Anne Pommier (Carnegie EPL)*
• *Officers and councilors carrying over from 2024
• **Completing term of Treasurer Mark Fuhrmann

Please come at 7:30 p.m. to enjoy refreshments ahead of the meeting, which will begin at 8:00 pm.

FALL FIELD TRIP DECEMBER 7th to CORRIDOR H IN WEST VIRGINIA!

Please join us for fun half-day to full-day field trip along West Virginia Corridor H! We will delve into the fascinating Appalachian Paleozoic stratigraphy in the Valley and Ridge Province of Virginia and West Virginia. Our stops will provide the opportunity to explore the relations between the Paleozoic sedimentary rock record and the major tectonic events that shaped North America.

Trip Details:

• Meeting Point: Haymarket Commuter Park and Ride, 14861 Heathcote Boulevard, Haymarket, VA 20169
• Date: Saturday, December 7th
• Meeting Time: 8:30 AM

We will meet as a group and encourage carpooling to facilitate a smoother trip, though parking at the stops will not be an issue.

Rough Itinerary:

• Morning: Visits to key geological sites in Virginia and West Virginia.
• Lunch:  ~1:30pm A break in Moorefield, WV, where participants opting for the half-day can choose to depart.
• Afternoon: Continued exploration of outcrops west of Moorefield for full-day attendees.

Registration:

Please contact Alan Pitts at pitts.alan@gmail.com to register and receive pre-trip reading materials. Please click here for more details: GSW DEC. 7 FIELD TRIP TO CORRIDOR H

The draft minutes from this meeting are here. The meeting was cut short by a fire alarm, and the final talk of the evening was not presented.