GSW: 2006 MEETING MINUTES
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1395th Meeting,
Wednesday, January 23, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
GSW President Rich Walker (a.k.a., El Supremo) called the 89±1 attendees to order at 8:00 pm.
The minutes of the 1394rd meeting were read and approved.
No new members were introduced
The following members introduced their guests: Tom Dutro introduced John Pojeta (retired paleontologist, who is a lapsed GSW member). Linda Rowan introduced Amy Spaziani and Jenny Fisher. Unknown member introduced his nephew Eddy Solomon. Jennifer Jackson introduced Pierre Beck (a GL/CIW post-doc). Tim Mock introduced Taka'aki Taira (a DTM/CIW post-doc) and his wife Akiko. Dave Diodato introduced himself
The president spoke briefly on the passing of former member Gene Robertson, and Tom Dutro made a presentation complete with modified versus from “It’s a long road from Tucumcari”.
E-an Zen delivered an SOS from Calum Bentley – there is a need for someone to teach a geology course at George Mason University.
Gordon Nord (our outreach coordinator) made an appeal for 2006 Science Fair Judges.
No informal communications.
Speakers:
Paul Silver’s talk entitled “Forming the Tibetan Plateau and resolving the orogeny paradox” spoke on thin viscous sheets (TVS), the Wilson cycle, the Tibet plateau, thick crust and lithosphere. With a silver tongue delivery Paul showed us that anisotropy just got shallower and that he has mapped the directional deformation field in the greater Tibetan region and demonstrated crust-mantle coupling and a weaken mantle flow.
QUESTIONS: Bill Herd (USGS), E-an Zen (UMD), Jennifer Jackson
Bernard Wood, (not the petrologist) who talked on “Human evolution, why do experts disagree?” presented us with a bluffer’s guide to the hotly debated issues surrounding human origins. He encouraged us to consider the analogy of the traffic accident and observed that great evidence yields multiple stories (think weapons of mass destruction). He concluded that we don’t know much about the TOL (tree of life), especially the top portion.
QUESTIONS: Paul Silver, Richard Walker, Bill Burton, Jenifer Jackson and ? Jones (USGS)
An authoritative presentation by Alan Boss on “Has an extrasolar Earth been found?” was longer than anticipated, but the answer was still no. Nonetheless, The Boss was up to the challenge; he showed us how to find planets and how NASA and its international counterparts intend to do this into the next few decades. Oh, and BTW, OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, a 5-earth mass object, orbiting at 2.6 AU around a red dwarf was just announced today by a US/European consortium.
QUESTIONS: Mac Ross, Brooks Hanson, Matt Harrow, Bill Burton, Linda Rowan, Eddy Solomon
The 1395th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 9:54 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1396th Meeting,
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
GSW President Rich Walker shepherd his 56 attendees to order at 8:00 pm.
The minutes of the 1395th meeting were read and approved.
One new member, Dave Diodato, was announced.
The following members introduced their guests: Bill McDonough introduced Fangzhen Teng (PhD from the University of Maryland). Mike Purucker introduced Luis Gaya Pique (a new research scientist at NASA/Goddard).
The president lamented briefly on the continued missed opportunities for informal communications – will someone please take up his challenge.
It was announced that the Potomac Geophysical Society will meet on February 16th.
No informal communications
Speakers: 3 were anxious to begin….
Nancy Chabot—Applied Physics Laboratory—spoke on- Iron meteorites and insights into planetary cores. Fearlessly, Nancy shed light on the densely complex process of core formation by revealing her experimental results and complementary thermodynamic models. Her work revealed insights into the behavior of elements during core crystallization and identified the planet wide budget of volatile elements, like sulfur and phosphorous, for different groups of Fe-meteorites and their parent bodies.
QUESTIONS: Liz Cottrell (GL/CIW), Catherine Heir-Majunder (DTM/CIW), George Cody (GL/CIW), Steve Kwan (Congressional Fellow)
Jordan Muller—NASA Goddard—spoke on--Airborne laser mapping reveals seismic hazards in the Pacific Northwest. While revealed the wonders of LIDAR mapping, which are really cool, Jordan showed us the seismicity map of Seattle, a town with more than just coffee jitters. LIDAR exposes clearly and effectively fault traces and fault scarps and when combined with site specific details it will placing a 3D perspective on the nature of the magnitude 7.3 quakes in the regional basin.
QUESTIONS: Liz Cottrell (GL/CIW), Bill McDonough (UMD) Brooks Hanson (Science) Adam Mansur (UMD) and Mark Ingle (USGS)
George Cody—Geophysical Laboratory— spoke on--The history of the early solar system encoded in extraterrestrial organics. In the lonely world of studying organics in meteorites, Commander Cody and his team told us a tale of worry about ill-constrained and unclassified IOM (the insoluble organic matter). These complex aromatics formed at low to moderate temperatures, but where, when and how remains a mystery.
QUESTIONS: Bob Burruss (USGS) Rich Walker (UMD) Brooks Hanson (Science), Jeff Grossman (USGS) and Bill McDonough (UMD)
The 1396th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 9:45 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1397th Meeting,
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:00 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 55 attendees.
The minutes of the 1396th meeting were read and approved.
The following members introduced their guests: Doug Rumble introduced Rachel Frey (visitor from Univ of Freiburg). Liz Cottrell introduced Karolina Wojtuszewska (University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland). Matthew Delusu (USGS, Menlo Park) introduced himself. Dick Smith (USGS, Reston) was a member 25 yrs ago. Rich Walker introduced Julie Hui (a student at Winston Churchill High School, Potomac, Maryland). Bill McDonough introduced Dusty Aeiker (undergrad from Univ of MD)
2 new members: Julie Hui and Nancy Chabot were announced.
Karen Prestegaard (UMD) presented an informal communications – it was a memorial remembrance of the life and work of Luna Leopold; Luna was the 64th president of the GSW. His accomplishments were many and great in the field of quantitative groundwater and geomorphology.
Dave Diodato announced a position at the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
Speakers:
Mark Engel—USGS, Reston —spoke on - Speciation and cycling of atmospheric mercury in southern Alabama.
Mark spoke on the residence time, speciation and concentration of Hg in the atmosphere in an inland waterway near the Gulf of Mexico where he set up a real-time monitoring system. Wind directional analyses and particle absorption effects were correlated.
QUESTIONS: Rich Walker (UMD), Glenn Sherry (USGS), Sandy Neuzil (USGS), Karen Prestegaard (UMD)
Sarah Penniston-Dorland—University of Maryland—spoke on — Do quartz veins represent large-scale or local mass transfer during regional metamorphism?
Chemical maps of rock thin sections from different zones of a NH metamorphic complex was examined for its alteration and fluid transport characteristics. Vein selvages revealed considerable SiO2 and K2O transport and enrichment, indicative of up temperature fluid fluxing.
QUESTIONS: John Sykes (USGS, Reston), Bob Burruss (USGS), Liz Cottrell (GL/CIW) Glenn Sherry (USGS) Brooks Hans (Science)
James A. Edmonds— Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — spoke on —The role of technology in addressing the challenge of climate change.
An economist’s view of changing the atmospheric CO2 budget was given with numerous pie charts, along with the analysis of the technology solutions. The ensuing question time provided amplification of views, but with pessimistic predictions.
QUESTIONS: Liz Cottrell (GL/CIW), Dave Diodato (Nucl. Waste Rev. Bd.) and another unknown member.
The 1397th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 9:55 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1398th Meeting,
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:00 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 75 attendees.
The minutes of the 1397th meeting were read and approved.
No new members were announced.
The following members introduced their guests: Jonathan Price introduced Elizabeth Price, Mave Boland (Colorado School of Mines), John Dilles (OSU) and Roy Breckenridge (Idaho State Geologist). Tina Silber (a former member of GSW) acknowledged her return to GSW after 27 years.
2 upcoming Potomac Geophysical meeting dates were announced (20 April and 18 May).
Schedule and plans for the GSW Spring fieldtrip are beginning to take shape.
An informal communication was presented by Liz Cottrell (Geophysical Lab/Carnegie Inst. Washington) who provided an alternative to Edmonds' presentation at the last GSW meeting. In contrast to Edmonds’ claim that climate change technologies pose a far greater challenge than the Manhattan Project did, Cottrell’s presentation noted that we have invested nowhere near the resources into climate change mitigation as had been done for the Manhattan Project. Armed with GAO budgetary data, Liz showed how a comparison with the Manhattan Project was inappropriate from a budgetary comparison.
Questions from Mark McBride (Consultant), Bob Burruss and Rick Wunderman (Smithsonian)
Marilyn Sutter (NSF) announced that the Potomac Chapter of the AWG (Association of Women in Geosciences) has a scholarship program with an April 30th deadline for applications.
Speakers:
Robert C. Burruss – USGS, Reston - The conundrum of dangerous interference with the climate system:
It is a basic question of the atmospheric carbon budget and its sequestration, therefore it is an issue of management, how much is enough and how do we create public policy. His thesis is that there is a need to have a total change of the global energy infrastructure.
QUESTIONS: Steve Kwan; E-an Zen, Craig Schiffries, and Jordan Muller
Kathy Sawyer – (freelance writer) - The rock from Mars: A detective story on two planets:
Sawyer provided a heroic review (now in book form….) of the life and times of ALHA 84001 and the scientists who made it famous. It was a conscience-raising story about the rollercoaster phenomena that accompanies the public airing of science of origin of life and especially questions about extra terrestrial life.
QUESTIONS: Rich Walker, Jeff Flaser, Mike Peruker and Jeff Grossman.
Paul D. Lowman, Jr. – (Goddard Space Flight Center) - Structure and composition of the lunar crust: A new interpretation:
Dr. Lowman asserted that the Lunar Highland Crust is old, 20-30 km thick and a regolith of high-Al and feldspathic-hypersthene basalt; it is not anorthositic. The implications of this crustal composition is significant for those developing synthetic Lunar Regolith Simulant, needed for testing and preparation for a return trip to the Moon.
QUESTIONS: Craig Schiffries, Danny Milton, Jeff Grossman and Mike Purucker.
The 1398th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 10:10 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1399th Meeting,
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:00 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 45 attendees.
The minutes of the 1398th meeting were read and approved.
Karolina Wojtuszewska was introduced as a new member.
The following members introduced their guests: Doug Rumble introduced Marco Fiorentini, a visiting scientist from Univ of Western Australia. Mark Engel introduced Kostiantyn Kozlov from the Ukraine Academy Medical Science Institute for Occupational Health (Kiev). Robert Rain introduced himself as a visitor from a university in the UK. Jim Tucker introduced himself as visitor to the region; he is based in Saudi Arabia and works in the Oil & Gas exploration business in the Kingdom. Angela Botzer introduced herself as a former (1979) member of GSW, Angela works at the National Geographic Magazine.
Local science fair judges and Gordon Nord were thanked for their efforts and the GSW president called out the names and titles of the top 2 winners who will be invited to give GSW talks.
Bret Leslie (US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) announced the opening of a number of new positions in the commission.
Former GSW President Jeff Grossman, in a moment of pure indulgence, informed GSW President Rich Walker that he needed to have the members vote to accept the minutes of the past 4 meetings. Once alerted, President Walker decisively moved toward a membership vote for accepting the minutes of the past 4 meetings and thus avoided a societal controversy of unspeakable dimension.
An announcement (of an “informal communication” length) was presented by Jay Kaufman who talked about the details of the upcoming field trip (29 April) – to the NeoProterozoic of Virginia and in search of Snowball Earth stories.
Capitalizing on the geobiology conference of that week held in D.C., it was a Paleo-Bio-Geo Hat-trick!
Speakers:
David J. Bottjer—University of Southern California—Geobiology and the fossil record: eukaryotes, microbes and their interactions.
Views and interpretations of the fossil record have been, in part, influenced by differences in perspectives: the Phanerozic folks studied the big “animals”, while the PreCambrian folks focused on microbes. The “Cambrian Explosion”, its causes and consequences in the bridge in this science gap and an important place for understanding the Tree of Life.
QUESTIONS: Danny Milton, Rich Walker, Jen Eigenbroden and E-an Zen.
Kevin J. Peterson —Dartmouth College —Molecular paleobiological insights in the origin of animal phyla and the Cambrian explosion.
With no vestige of a beginning and no prospect of an end, Dr. Peterson brought us the exciting details of the “Cambrian Explosion”. From there he showed us that for some genes the Jelly fish and man are the same, but then again we might have guessed that for some of us. The complexity of life can be found in micro RNA.
QUESTIONS: Jen Eigenbroden Jay Kaufman, John Repetsky, Rich Walker and Jeff Grossman
Douglas H. Erwin—National Museum of Natural History—Paleontology beyond paleobiology.
Preston Cloud’s 3 threads of Paleontology are disciplinary studies in Descriptive Paleontology, Paleobiology and Geobiology. Therefore, these studies continue to be intertwined in studies of Pattern, Process and Rate, as characterized by Steve Gould.
QUESTIONS: Rich Walker, E-an Zen, John Repetsky and Bill McDonough
The 1399th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 9:48 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1400th Meeting,
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:00 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 65 attendees.
The minutes of the 1399th meeting were read and approved.
Four, count them, 4, new members were introduced: Ryan Kerrigan, Sarah Penniston Dorland, Kathyrina Kloscho (ALL FROM THE UMD) and Jonathan Castro (Smithsonian).
The following members introduced their guests: Rich Walker introduced the stranded and passport-poor Nick Arndt, a visiting scientist from Univ of Grenoble. Doug Rumble introduced David Mittlefehldt from the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Bevan French introduced David Kring from University of Arizona.
Bill Burton (USGS) reminded everybody of the upcoming GSW Annual Field trip on Sat, 29 April, which would be meeting at 9 AM in VA.
President Rich Walker somberly announced the impending 2 hour shutdown of the GSW website on the upcoming Friday morning…..
Bill Burton (USGS) gave an informal communication about his visit on April 8, 2006 to the Anatakan volcano, Mariana arc. USGS researchers inspected the active volcano and tested the groundwater, gases and soil for their compositions as a potential monitor of the volcanoes activity. Clearly, these guys were having way too much fun checking it out, based on the cool slide show.
Speakers:
Richard K. Bambach —Harvard/VPI—Constraining possible kill mechanisms for the Permian extinction.
With the loss of >56% of the genera, life really changed on the earth. I learned what hypercapnia means and I’m looking forward to a chance to use this word sometime. That aside, it was announced that there was selected killing of marine animals was due to CO2 poisoning. Ah but why all the CO2 in the air?…. Some of us, however, already knew that Nick Arndt was roaring to tell us it was the eruption of the Siberian Traps that was the driving force… Stay tuned….
QUESTIONS: Liz Cottrell, Nick Arndt, Malcolm Ross, Dan Milton, Brooks Hanson, Jay Kaufman and Peter Stifel.
Andrew J. Campbell —University of Maryland —Thermal and chemical history of metal in the early solar system.
The IVB iron meteorites have some funky chemical attributes that provided Andy with clues to processes of condensation in the solar nebula, as well as processes occurring during planetesimal accretion and redox-sensitive metal-silicate differentiation. He was quick to reveal that the IVB metal core was likely surrounded by an Angrite-like silicate shell. I wondered what that would be like….
QUESTIONS: Rich Walker and Bill McDonough
David Applegate —USGS—The centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and prospects for the next one.
The USGS, thousands of Californians, and others recognized the centennial anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake earlier in the month with memorials, remembrances and public awareness programs. David gave us an eye opening and conscience raising presentation about the history of our science in this perspective, an assessment of what we can do-plan-predict in preparation of “another one”, and a reminder that what we do for fun is both scientifically and socially important to communicate to all.
QUESTIONS: Bill Burton, Rich Walker, and Tom Blackburn
The 1400th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 9:54 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1401th Meeting,
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:00 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 47 attendees.
The minutes of the 1400th meeting were read and approved.
Two new members were introduced: Adam Mansur and Andy Campbell (both from the UMD).
The following were introduced:
Rich Walker introduced Dr. Liane Benning (Univ of Leeds) who is on a sabbatical at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute of Washington.
Dr. Suzanne Garvie of the Carnegie Institute of Washington was introduced.
No announcements were made.
Dr. Jay Kaufman (UMD) gave a brief informal communication on the field trip to Northern Virginia, where GSW members learned about NeoProterozic glacial deposits and aspects of the Snowball Earth hypothesis.
SPEAKERS:
Jessica M. Sunshine—Science Applications International Corporation—Distinguishing nebular and igneous histories in asteroids and meteorites.
Jessica observed that although it would be great to visit many asteroidal bodies, she noted that it is not going to happen too soon. However, we continue to acquire reflectance spectra data for many asteroidal bodies. She provided comparisons of laboratory based in-situ infrared signatures with those from asteroidal bodies. Improvements in wiggle matching, isolation of variables and identification of specific patterns with known minerals have lead to significant advances in identifying the compositions of asteroidal surfaces.
QUESTIONS: Rich Walker (twice) Jeff Grossman, Robin Brett and Alan Kolker.
Andrew Steele—Geophysical Laboratory—Life detection on early Earth and Mars: a tale of biology versus chemistry.
Andrew spoke about putting the biology in Astrobiology. There is abiotic – prebiotic – biotic states. There is an ever increasing set of tools for looking at the states of organic matter in hopes of identifying “things” that were once “alive”.
QUESTIONS: Rich Walker Robin Brett and Rick Carlson
Richard W. Carlson—Department of Terrestrial Magnetism—Composition of Earth's interior: the importance of early events.
The Earth and chondrites show differences in their 142Nd isotopic composition. Consequently, this upsets the boat – since planets must have “chondritic” Nd isotopic compositions. Therefore, somewhere deep in the Earth there is an isolated anti-Fort Knox location for this depleted 142Nd material, this is the complement, needed to balance the Earth’s chondritic value. This reservoir is enriched in lots of incompatible elements (including K, Th & U), it is small in volume, and it is perhaps residing on the CMB. Such a putative mantle component can be shown to provide a chemical balance for the silicate Earth.
QUESTIONS: Liz Cottrell (twice), Liane Benning, Robin Brett, Bill McDonough, Jeff Grossman and Brooks Hanson.
The 1401th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 9:53 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1402th Meeting,
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:02 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 96 attendees.
The minutes of the 1401th meeting were read and approved.
Dr. Katie Sawyer was introduced as our newest member.
The following guests were introduced:
Bevin French introduced Dr. Andrew Cohen of the National Museum
Dr. Rick Waite of the USGS – a Menden Hall scholar was introduced.
Dr. Jack Haster was introduced.
Nick Woodward introduced Dr. Patrick Dobson
Dr. Christine Reves was introduced.
Dr. Katie Cooper a post-doc scholar at the DTM/CIW was introduced.
Dr. Rachel Leshin from AGI was introduced.
President Rich Walker announced the names of GSW members who have passed away since our last meeting; these past members include – Karen Weir (USGS), George Wetherill (DTM/ICW) and Ellis Yochelson.
Tom Dutro gave a brief remembrance of Ellis Yochelson, a friend and author of a two-volume biography of the renowned paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott.
President Rich Walker reported to members that the upcoming GSW Fall 2006 Field Trip - Military Geology of Antietam Battlefield – is on Saturday, October 28th.
Two members announced that there are job openings at the US Nuclear Regulator Commission and the USGS.
SPEAKERS:
Allison MacFarlane —George Mason University—Yucca Mountain and high-level nuclear waste: remaining unresolved technical issues.
What can be said about Yucca Mtn and high-level nuclear waste that is positive? There are lots of issues, lots of waste and lots of opinions, but little in the way of a resolution and future direction. Future prospects are not bright, and this problem is not going away.
QUESTIONS (and mini lectures followed): lets just says some ideas, concerns and questions were raised by Jamie Allan, Allen Tyler, Mac Ross, Sarah Penniston-Dorland, Dick Fiske, Lenny Conico, Dr. French, and Brooks Hanson.
Wright Horton —USGS —Drilling a mile into the Chesapeake Bay impact structure.
Dr. Horton’s interesting presentation fortunately had less of an impact than the event that shook-up Washington DC some 35 million years before this GSW meeting. Nonetheless, with the comfort and safety afforded by time and space Dr. Horton revealed the shocking details of the structures and lithologies encountered in this recently completed, multinational, drilling program, which was conducted in our backyard.
QUESTIONS: Sean Weddie, Mac Ross, Brian Toomley, Lenny Conico
Saswata Heir-Majunder—University of Maryland—Magma migration and storage in the Earth’s mantle.
Sash discussed 2-phase flow – melt on grain boundaries and how melts move in the mantle. The presentation introduced us to different aspects of tension – surface, capillary and that between some hypotheses. This new perspective reveals a mechanistic model for the mobility of low degree melts in mantle.
QUESTIONS: Jamie Allen and Liz Cottrell.
The 1402th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 10:03 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1403rd Meeting,
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:01 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 62 attendees.
The minutes of the 1402nd meeting were read and approved.
The following guests were introduced:
Dr. Nick Woodward introduced Dr. Marsha Bollinger the AAAS Fellow at DOE.
Dr. Igor Puchtel introduced Ms. Lynette Picher an undergraduate from the University of Maryland.
Three new members were announced by Pres. Walker:
Mr. Ricardo Arevalo and Mr. Michael Mengason, both of the University of Maryland, Department of Geology, and Dr. Jack Hess of the Geological Society of America.
President Rich Walker made 3 announcements:
· the upcoming GSW Fall 2006 Field Trip - Military Geology of Antietam Battlefield – is on Saturday, October 28th.
· there will be a celebration of the life and work of Ellis L. Yochelson at the Museum of Natural History.
· the next GSW Program Director will be Dr. Linda Rowan (AGI).
A member announced the upcoming Virginia Geological Field Conference - Geology of the Southside Virginia, Piedmont – this coming November 17-18.
SPEAKERS:
Rosalind T. Helz—USGS—Behavior of the platinum-group elements and Re in Kilauea Iki lava lake, Hawai`i.
The eruption of Kilauea Iki in November 1959 and subsequently filling of its lava lake resulted in the development of a wonderful natural laboratory for studying the behavior of a crystallizing magma chamber. This coupled with recent developments in analytical methods provided an unprecedented opportunity to study the behavior of the platinum-group elements, aka PGEs, during basalt crystallization. Differentiation trends for MgO versus the PGEs, however, led to the inevitable question of who-dunit – my bet is on Professor chromite in the olivines with the candle stick!
QUESTIONS from Pat Dobson, Brooks Hanson and Rich Walker.
Dayanthie Weeraratne—Department of Terrestrial Magnetism—Seismic and rheological behavior of the asthenosphere beneath intraplate seamount chains in the South Pacific.
Spreading ridges often have adjacent seamounts chains, which are distributed in linear arrays parallel to plate direction. This observation can be linked to small-scale flow in the underlying asthenosphere, the potential kinematics of which was discussed. A bonus of this fun talk was the passing of a piece of MORB – it is not often that a geophysicist hands around a rock for geologist to view….
QUESTIONS: Liz Cottrell, Rich Walker, Brooks Hanson, E-an Zen, Sash Heir-Majunder and Mike Ryan
Larry Nittler—Department of Terrestrial Magnetism—A comet under the microscope: results of the Stardust mission.
With a starry eyed look Dr. Nittler revealed the latest findings from the Stardust sample-return mission. It went, it came back and now we conquer, that is the mysteries of the outer solar system. Teams of scientists from around the world are slicing up wafers of aerogel and conducting chemical and isotopic analyses on materials on a few microns across.
QUESTIONS: Rich Walker, Liz Cottrell, Jeff Grossman and Mike Ryan.
The 1403rd meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 9:50 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1404rd Meeting,
Wednesday, November 8, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:03 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 77 attendees.
The minutes of the 1403rd meeting were read and approved.
The following guests were introduced:
Richard Olea from the USGS, two students and some family members from George Mason University, Nora Noffke from Old Dominion University and Dick Smith (USGS)
Four new members were announced by Pres. Walker:
Saswata Hier-Majumder, University of Maryland
Marsha Bollinger, DOE
Lynette Pitcher, University of Maryland
Pierre Glynn, USGS
President Rich Walker announced the deaths of 3 GSW members, Ed Rodder, Marcus Milling (Former Executive Director of AGI) and Catherine Hier-Majumder (post-doc at the Carnegie Institution of Washington)
President Rich Walker announced the 2007 GSW slate of officers and Jamie Allan requested a correction to his name which was misspelled on the slate with an “e” as “Allen”.
Tom Dutro made announcements. There will be a Cosmos noon forum by Dick Fiske on the little volcano that wouldn’t keep quiet next Tuesday. There will be a talk on amber by Jorge Santiago at the Smithsonian tomorrow and next Wednesday, the Paleontological Society of Washington will host a dinner and talk by Godfrey Nolan on great Canadian fossils.
SPEAKERS:
Laurie A. Leshin —NASA Goddard Space Flight Center —Aqueous processes on Mars: Insights from Martian Meteorites.
Laurie provided a brief review of the evidence for water on Mars, talked about the global scale of water reservoirs and then focused on the microscopic data such as the rusty olivines, clays and salts that suggest low temperature aqueous alteration. Laurie highlighted the variations in hydrogen and oxygen isotopes which indicate the martian environment never reached chemical equilibrium. So while evidence for aqueous alteration may be prevalent in the meteoritic samples at hand or the surface samples at a rover’s arms length, aqueous alteration of the red planet was neither extensive nor complete.
QUESTIONS from Rich Walker, Daniel Knowlton, Pete Toulmin (2), George Helz and Brooks Hanson.
Antonio J. Busalacchi— University of Maryland —An overview of the Earth’s climate system (both variability and change).
Tony overcame a presidential pun from the now infamous punster Rich Walker about his talk being a “hot topic” to provide an overview of global to local climate change from 1860 to 2000, and noted that consensus global warming projections predict a 1.5 to 5 degree rise by 2090. Busalacchi noted in a “grandchild plot”, that even with carbon dioxide capping over 100 years it would still take 100 to 300 years for temperature to stabilize. He then talked about climate extremes in more local settings such as the intense 2005 Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, which coincided with the warmest sea surface temperatures recorded. He also talked about a long temperature record using the date of the pinot noir grape harvest recorded from 1370 to 2003. Such a long-term record can be used to show a correlation between rising temperatures and climate extremes, such as more heat waves.
QUESTIONS: Liz Cottrell, Matt Ross, Jay Kaufman, Bill Burton, Jamie Allan, and one unidentified person.
William P. Leeman—National Science Foundation —What happens when mantle plumes and continents collide? CSI: Yellowstone.
Bill explained the geophysical and geochemical evidence for a Yellowstone hotspot trail associated with a mantle plume. He noted the difference between the Columbia River basalts, which formed on top of accreted terrains and the Yellowstone volcanics, which formed on top of thicker Archean cratonic crust. He suggested the differences in structure and composition of the volcanic eruptions were due to overburden that the magma must ascend through. Unfortunately, the forensic details one normally sees in a longer CSI episode were lost, when Bill ran out of time to show a large portion of his slides and had to jump to his conclusions.
QUESTIONS: Jamie Allan and Bill Burton.
The 1404th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 10:20 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Linda Rowan, past-secretary filling in for Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 1405th Meeting,
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
At 8:01 pm GSW President Rich Walker called to order the 63 attendees.
The minutes of the 1404th meeting were read and approved.
The following guests were introduced:
Tim Mock introduced Steve Richardson visiting DTM from the University of Cape Town.
President Elect John Slack introduced Dr. Margaret Yocum (John Slack’s wife) from George Mason University.
Two new members were announced by Pres. Walker:
Nore Noffke (Old Dominion University)
Riccardo Olen (USGS)
There were no informal communications.
The evening’s sole presentation, in keeping with the Society’s long tradition, was given by GSW President Rich Walker. President-elect John Slack introduced President Walker. The presentation by Rich was entitled, “Final stages of terrestrial planetary growth: Late accretions from the Washington D. C. region.” In this presentation, Rich gave us a perspective on the history of the field of chemical and isotopic studies in Platinium Group Element research. He revealed his latest finding on Chesapeake Bay impact structure that has been recently drilled down to depths of nearly 2 kms. This 35 million year old structure, outside the beltway has left its impact on the region. Rich reminded us that the kinetic energy associated with this event would have left a serious wake of destruction in its surroundings decimating all in the immediate area and destroying much along the East coast by triggering earthquakes and tsunamis. There were no questions asked after the annual presentation by the GSW President, as is tradition.
The 1405th meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 8:54 PM. Following that was the 114 Annual meeting of the Geological Society of Washington.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill McDonough
Geological Society of Washington
Minutes of the 114th Annual Meeting,
Wednesday, December 6, 2005
John Wesley Powell Auditorium,
Cosmos Club, Washington, D.C.
GSW President Richard J. Walker called the 63 attendees to order at 9:08 pm.
GSW Council Secretary (and former GSW Meeting Secretary) Chris Swezey read the minutes from the 113th Annual Meeting (which occurred on December 14, 2005), and these minutes were approved. Chris Swezey then provided a summary of the 2 GSW Council Meetings during 2005, indicating that these meetings focused on the themes of decreasing membership and decreasing revenues.
GSW Meeting Secretary Bill McDonough gave a presentation that reviewed the Society meetings during 2006. He reviewed meeting attendance numbers, duration, questions per meeting, the Secretary’s minutes, and the spectrum of presentation topics.
GSW Treasurer Harvey Belkin provided a summary of the financial status of the Society. In his presentation, Harvey noted that the total financial assets of the Society amount to ~$63K, and that the Society relies on contributions from members.
The GSW Auditing Committee report was presented by Mike Brown. Sandy Neuzil, the GSW Membership Chair, presented the “Membership Report” providing informative graphs on members statistics. The GSW Public Service Committee Report was presented by Gordon Nord.
Jeff Grossman, acting on behalf of the “ever traveling” Doug Rumble, was charged with “Soldiering On” for the presentation of the Best Paper Award (aka Bradley Prize) to Mark Engle and the Best Informal Communication (Great Dane Award) to Liz Cottrell. The Sleeping Bear Award was presented to Al Kolker.
GSW President Rich Walker announced the following new officer slate for 2006:
President: John Slack; 1st Vice President and President Elect: Craig Schiffries; 2nd Vice President: Sonia Esperanza; Treasurer: Odette James; Meeting Secretary: Sean Brennan; Council Secretary: Bill McDonough; Councilors: Jay Kaufman, Callen Bentley, Connie Bertka, Elizabeth Cottrell, Jamie Allan, and Lindsay McClelland, which was accepted by GSW members.
The 114th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of Washington was adjourned at 10:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
William F McDonough