Author Archives: Michael Purucker

Please find attached here a draft of the Oct 13 meeting for members to evaluate. If you have any corrections or additions please email them to our meeting secretary, Beth Doyle at edoyle[at]nvcc.edu.

DR. ELIZABETH COTTRELL, Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History, “From Arctic Volcanoes to Furnaces: The Generation of Earth’s Crust”

The 129th ANNUAL MEETING & BUSINESS MEETING will follow the Presidential Address. The Annual Meeting features reports from the Treasurer, GSW Committees, Presentation of Prizes and Awards, and Election of 2022 GSW Officers.

These meetings will be hybrid. We will be in person at the Cosmos Club and online via Zoom. The Zoom link has been sent to members. For non-members who wish to attend, please email Mong-Han Huang (mhhuang[at]umd.edu) for information. The flyer for the combined meetings is here.

Join us at 7:30 PM for socializing. The Presidential address will begin at 8 PM.

This one-day field trip will focus on the tectonic and landscape evolution history at the boundaries of the Blue Ridge Anticlinorium. We will examine the early Cambrian Chilhowee group exposed at Thoroughfare Gap at the western edge of the Culpeper basin and see where Mesozoic rocks of the basin are in fault contact with the Blue Ridge Anticlinorium. The trip will continue and move towards the western limb of the anticlinorium and into the Shenandoah Valley where we will discuss Alleghenian compression leading to ductile deformation, as well as some ambiguous breccia bodies in the Antietam formation. We will also see sites and discuss recently acquired cosmogenic burial age dates of surficial deposits that reveal the history of Shenandoah River incision. 

Come prepared for inclement, cold weather and some minimal walking over uneven, steep terrain.  

Please RSVP to Dan Doctor (dhdoctor at usgs.gov) by Nov. 18 if you wish to attend. Meeting time: 9 AM. Meeting point: Sheetz in Haymarket, Virginia at the intersection of Rt. 55 and Rt. 15. Leaders: Alan Pitts, Dan Doctor, Will Odom.

The flyer is here, and a map of the area is here. Hope to see you there for our annual field trip!

The trip can accommodate a limited number of vehicles; car-pools will be arranged as needed and vehicles left at the Sheetz station meeting site. All field trip attendees will be required to bring a mask and wear it while car-pooling in vehicles. We will ask to see proof of vaccination against COVID-19, and will require attendees who have not been fully vaccinated against COVD-19 to drive in a separate vehicle. In addition, field trip attendees will be asked to sign a liability waiver to attend the trip.

Dr. Plank is a geochemist recognized for her work on element recycling at subduction zones, and the role of volatiles in magma generation, ascent, and migration. Dr. Plank is on the faculty of Columbia University, and was a MacArthur Foundation Fellow from 2013-2017. The Bradley lecture is GSW’s named lecture, and this year the lecture will be presented in a hybrid format, both virtual and at the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Headquarters building at 2020 Florida Av. NW, Washington DC, 2009, only a few blocks north of the Cosmos Club. The virtual meeting will be conducted on Zoom and GSW members have already received information as to how to attend it. Others should contact Mong-Han Huang (mhhuang at umd.edu) for the Zoom link. For those of you coming to the AGU building, proof of vaccination with corresponding identification will be required upon arrival at the building. Wearing masks will also be required at all times inside the building, except when actively eating or drinking. The building will open for socializing/eating/drinking at 7:30 PM, and the program will start at 8 PM. The meeting announcement is here. Hope to see you there for this special event!

Please take a look at the draft minutes and see if you have any corrections or additions. If so, please send those ideas to Meeting Secretary Beth Doyle at edoyle[at]nvcc.edu.

Meetings minutes. PDF format.

This meeting will return to the virtual-only format, via Zoom. The last two meetings this fall will be hybrid, with both a virtual and in-person component. We have a full schedule of three talks on 13 Oct. Details, including the Zoom link, have been sent to members. For non-members who wish to attend, please email Mong-Han Huang (mhhuang[at]umd.edu) for the Zoom link. Join us at 7:30 PM for socializing. The meeting will begin at 8 PM.

Please take a look at the draft minutes and see if you have any corrections or additions. If so, please send those ideas to Meeting Secretary Beth Doyle at edoyle[at]nvcc.edu.

Meeting minutes [PDF format].

Our second meeting this Fall will be held at the Cosmos Club, and will not include an online component. Please wear a mask at all times because of the Delta variant, taking your mask off only for drinking or eating. The doors will open at 7:30, and the talks will commence at 8 PM. We have a full schedule of three talks with presentations from Dr. Paul Betka (George Mason) on tectonics within the IndoBurman subduction zone, Dr. Valerie Finlayson (UMCP) on siderophile anomalies in the Easter plume, and Dr. Francesca Miozzi (Carnegie) on carbon-rich exoplanets. We look forward to seeing many of you in the flesh again!

Our first meeting this Fall will be held at the Cosmos Club, and will not include an online component. Please wear a mask at all times because of the Delta variant, taking your mask off only for drinking or eating. The doors will open at 7:30, and the talks will commence at 8 PM. We have a full schedule of three talks, with presentations from Dr. Peter Valley (USGS) on geologic mapping and mineralization in the Adirondacks, Dr. Will Odom (USGS) on cosmogenic nuclide dating of Plio-Pleistocene surfaces, and Dr. Mojhgan Haghnegahdar (UMCP) on methane isotopes sources and sinks. We look forward to seeing many of you in the flesh after more than a year!

In spring of 2021, GSW Councilors and Officers convened to consider our meeting options for 2021 and beyond, debating the merits of in-person, hybrid, and virtual-format meetings for our metro area and remote members. Informed by our spring 2021 membership survey, we decided that hybrid meetings (in-person with a virtual option) would result in low attendance and an unwelcoming atmosphere for our local speakers.  At the same time, we see the benefits of virtual to engage our non-metro area members. We resolved to have 2 regular in-person meetings this fall (no virtual option), 1 virtual-only meeting, and two hybrid meetings (in-person and zoom). Our first hybrid meeting will the Bradley Lecture and will be held at the AGU building. Our second will be the combined Annual Meeting/Business Meeting at the Cosmos Club.

Please take a look at the draft minutes and see if you have any corrections or additions. If so, please send those ideas to Meeting Secretary Beth Doyle at edoyle[at]nvcc.edu.

Meeting minutes [PDF format].