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Associate Professor of Geology (B.A. University of California at Santa Barbara, 1983; M.S., Ph.D. University of California at Davis, 1986, 1991; Wooster since 1992). In the Fall of 1999, Lori had special research leave from the College funded by the Luce Fund for Distinguished Scholarship; she taught Petrology, Oceanography, and a section of Junior I.S. in the Spring of 2000. Lori was a member of the Teaching Staff and Tenure Committee this year. Lori advised two I.S. students during 1998-1999. Miranda Loflin ('00) participated in the Keck Geology Consortium project on the Bonanza Caldera, Colorado, directed by Lori and Bob Varga. Miranda spent four weeks in Colorado working on acid sulfate alteration of an exogenous dome in the caldera, specifically concentrating on the occurrence of the mineral alunite. She had the opportunity to work with Dr. Robert Rye at the USGS in Denver where she collected oxygen and hydrogen isotope data on her alunite samples. Her isotope work, in conjunction with the fluid inclusion and trace element work of two other Keck participants (Jen Lenz, Smith College, and Patrick Roehrdanz, Carleton College), indicates that the acid sulfate alteration of the dome had a magmatic hydrothermal origin. Ryan Oates ('00) continued Lori's ongoing project to understand the sulfur isotope systematics of the hydrothermal system preserved in the Troodos Ophiolite, Cyprus. He separated pyrites from altered rocks of the sheeted intrusive complex and obtained sulfur isotope data from Dr. Robert Zierenberg at the University of California, Davis. Ryan was able to spend three weeks in Davis during the summer of 1999 learning reflected light microscopy and how to use the mass spectrometer. Lori continued her involvement with the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) by serving as a member of the Geology Council and acting as National Co-Chair (with Don Jacobs, Physics) of the Eighth National Conference of CUR (CUR 2000: The Many Facets of Undergraduate Research) held at Wooster from June 22-24, 2000. Over 600 faculty and administrators were on campus for the 2 1/2 day conference, attending workshops, plenary sessions, and field trips. The campus looked terrific and the College's programs and facilities were showcased to the delight of everyone. Lori was a presenter at two of the CUR 2000 workshops. Mark Wilson (also a workshop presenter at the conference) helped Amy White coordinate the departmental open house that was held during the conference. In addition to her work with the CUR 2000 meeting, Lori has been a co-leader of CUR workshops on undergraduate research at the national GSA annual meetings. This July, Lori served as a facilitator at the CUR Grantsmanship workshop at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Lori made three campus visits this year as a NAGT Distinguished Lecturer. She gave talks on undergraduate research and ran workshops giving tips on funding undergraduate research projects at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse, and at Indiana University/Purdue University Indiana. Lori had a manuscript entitled "Pb Isotope Systematics of a Fossil Hydrothermal System from the Troodos Ophiolite, Cyprus: Evidence for a Polyphased Alteration History," with co-authors Ernst Booij (Vrije Universitat, Amsterdam), Hubert Staudigel (Scripps Oceanographic Institute), and Dori Farthing ('95) (Johns Hopkins University), accepted by Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. Lori also is continuing to work on a manuscript reporting the results of the petrogenetic studies of volcanics in the Black Mountains, Arizona. Lori has a research leave during 2000-2001 and is looking forward to completing the many unfinished projects she's accumulated during her eight years working with undergraduates on I.S. projects. She also has a busy year ahead with cub scouts, as she takes over as Cubmaster for Pack 61 at Layton Elementary School in Wooster. Her two sons, Matt (10) and Will (7) are both cub scouts. Shoolroy Professor of Natural Resources (B.S., M.S., Arizona, 1974, 1976; Ph.D. University of California at Davis, 1980; Wooster since 1992). Bob was on leave during the Spring of 2000 and currently is teaching Structural Geology and a First-Year Seminar entitled "Myths, Legends, and Earth Sciences of the Mediterranean Region." Bob worked with two I.S. students during the Fall semester of 1999 prior to his leave. Evan Berliner ('00) used various field geophysical surveys to assess several active archaeological sites in northwest Ohio. His work identified subsurface features of probable cultural significance that will help guide future excavations in those areas. A nice outgrowth of his work was the interfacing of some of our older equipment with modern analytical software. Evan also used some of our newly acquired field susceptibility equipment provided by a College of Wooster faculty development grant awarded to Bob, Greg Wiles, and Nick Kardulias (Archaeology). Mike Gluck ('00) looked at the relative timing of extension-related tilting of dikes within the Troodos ophiolite, Cyprus. A long-standing controversy in the ophiolite has been whether such tilting happened at a ridge crest or at some later time. Mike approached this situation by looking at the tilt histories of cross-cutting dikes using their paleomagnetic signatures. His work confirms a ridge crest origin for this tilting. Bob would like to thank Greg Wiles and Lori Bettison-Varga for taking charge of Evan and Mike, respectively, during his leave in the Spring semester. Bob's Spring semester leave was devoted to his research and publication on crustal extension in northwestern Arizona. He has been mapping in that area for several years and is now at the point of finishing up geologic maps of complete 7.5' quadrangles. The maps will be published by the Arizona Geological Survey in Tucson. Bob visited their facility this past Spring to learn about publishing maps using GIS (Geographical Information System) software. Much of this work will be done in the new GIS laboratory, brought to us through the efforts of Greg Wiles and Lyn Loveless (Biology). Related to this work, Bob submitted a manuscript for publication describing some of his work entitled "Development of Extensional Folds in the Grasshopper Junction segment of the Black Mountains Accommodation Zone, Colorado River Extensional Corridor." He also did some new field work in Arizona during his leave, largely devoted to developing new projects and student I.S. opportunities. One of these projects will be a geochemical and paleomagnetic assessment of pre-extensional ash flow units in the Colorado River near Kingman, Arizona. Sorting out these units and their stratigraphic relationships is critical to understanding the timing and nature of crustal extension in that area. Bob continued his work during the past year on samples collected during his ALVIN dives to the Hess Deep area in 1999. During the Fall of 1999, Jerome Hall ('02) and Bob were able to complete demagnetization experiments in our lab of the first fully-oriented suite of gabbros collected from the modern oceans. A poster on this work, entitled "Paleomagnetic Investigations of Tectonic Tilting, North Wall of the Hess Deep, Equatorial Pacific" was presented at the 1999 American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. Bob also presented an additional poster at that meeting entitled "Styles of Ridge Crest Extensional Faulting: Comparison of the Troodos Ophiolite with ARGO II Imagery and ALVIN Investigations of the Hess Deep North Wall, Equatorial Pacific"; colleagues from Duke University were co-authors of these presentations. A manuscript describing some of their findings was submitted for publication this past summer. He gave several talks on the Hess Deep project this past year, including the inaugural presentation of the College's new Faculty- at-Large lecture series on campus and a presentation at the Board of Trustees meeting in the Fall. This past Spring Bob presented a summary of the findings of the 1999 Colorado Keck project on the Bonanza Caldera, co-directed by Bob, Lori Bettison-Varga, Shelby Boardman (Carleton) and Diane Smith (Trinity) at the annual Keck Symposium in Walla Walla, Washington. It was great to see the students that participated in the project and to hear of their research insights and successes since returning to their respective campuses. Assistant Professor of Geology (B.A. Beloit, 1984; M.S. SUNY Binghamton, 1987, University at Buffalo, 1992; Wooster since 1998). Greg taught First-Year Seminar and Processes and Concepts in the Fall of 1999 and Geomorphology, Environmental Geology, and a section of Junior I.S. in the Spring of 2000. Greg advised three Senior Independent Study students during 1999-2000. Ryan McAllister ('00) completed a study using dendrogeomorphological techniques and radiocarbon dating to reconstruct the history of the reactivated Tana Dune Field in the northern Chugach Mountains, Alaska. Ryan's work was part of an ongoing NSF-funded project examining the last two thousand years of geomorphic and climate change in the WrangellSt. Elias Mountains of Alaska. Fieldwork during the Summer of 1999 was in cooperation with researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Ryan presented the results of his study at Northeastern GSA. Ryan Hanson ('00) worked on assessing the viability of using tree-rings on the spectacularly preserved 20,000 year old spruce forests in southwestern Ohio. Ryan spent time in the field with Dr. Tom Lowell of the University of Cincinnati, who provided samples for the project. Tree rings can be used as a correlation tool for these glacial forest beds and may give us insights into what the climate was like during full glacial conditions. Greg also helped advise the work of Evan Berliner ('00) while Bob Varga and Nick Kardulias (Archaeology) were on leave in the Spring. Evan used a variety of geomagnetic techniques to survey two archaeological sites in northeast Ohio. Greg continues to work on glaciation and climate change in the North Pacific. He is a co-author on a paper with Rosanne D'Arrigo, Gordon Jacoby, and Ricardo Villalba that appeared in Geophysical Research Letters describing the use of tree-rings along the Pacific Rim as records of sea surface temperature variations. Greg made research presentations during the year to the Geological Society of America, The University of Akron, and The International Tree-Ring Meeting in Mendoza, Argentina, where he organized a special session in Geomorphology and Tree Rings. In Mendoza, two presentations were given on reconstructing glacial variations and recent environmental change in the Wrangell Mountains of Alaska that included Sarah Skelly ('99) and Ryan McAllister ('00) as co-authors. Currently, Greg is advising two Senior Independent Study students. Kirk Lapham ('01) is reconstructing the recent advance history of the calving Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Kirk received and NSF-REU grant to fund his field work. Aaron Shear ('01) also is working in Alaska reconstructing the glacial fluctuations of the major land-terminating glacier in Columbia Bay. The work of Aaron and Kirk will be based on calendar-dating glacial changes using the record from an extensive set of glacially overrun forests from this part of Prince William Sound. Their work is part of a larger NSF-funded project concerned with developing long tree-ring and glacial records for Prince William Sound in cooperation with Parker Calkin (The University of Colorado at Boulder), David Barclay (The State University of New York at Cortland) and Austin Post (The United States Geological Survey). In addition to working with Aaron and Kirk, Greg is cooperating with Gordon Jacoby and Nicole Davi (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) sampling old growth trees in southeastern Alaska. This work is an extension of climate studies along the North Pacific Rim. During the Fall semester of 2000, Greg is teaching Processes and Concepts of Geology. He also is teaching Environmental Hydrogeology to which a laboratory section has been recently added as well as Geology 200 as a prerequisite. In addition to drawing on hydrogeologic work done in the Wooster area by Scott Bair ('73) and Terry Lahm ('89) for this class, Greg is using the new Hewlett-Mellon funded computer laboratory in Scovel. This lab, established in cooperation with Lyn Loveless (Biology), will be dedicated to PC applications and geographic information systems (GIS). Professor of Geology (B.A. Wooster, 1978; Ph.D. Berkeley, 1982; Wooster since 1981). Mark taught Invertebrate Paleontology and History of Life in the fall of 1999; Sedimentology & Stratigraphy, Processes & Concepts of Geology, and a section of Junior Independent Study in the spring of 2000. He also taught for a week in the Leadership Seminar course administered by Eric Moskowitz of the Political Science Department. Mark advised three Senior Independent Study students in 1999-2000. Allison Cornett ('00) studied the Eemian (Late Pleistocene) erosion surface in the Bahamas that Mark and his Smith College colleagues (Brian White and Al Curran) have been examining for several years. Allison concentrated on the isotopic contents of the corals above and below the unconformity, interpreting from them possible climatic signals. Allison and Mark received a fellowship from the Council on Undergraduate Research to support this project. Amanda Cook ('00) extended her summer internship at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (Colorado) into an I.S. project investigating the paleoecological relationships between the ancient butterfly and plant communities preserved so well there. Megan Hooker ('00) did an extensive petrographic and sedimentological study of limestone samples which had been collected from the Simsima Formation (Late Cretaceous) in Arabia the previous year by Mark and Paul Taylor (The Natural History Museum, London). Mark continued to pursue research during the past year. In January 2000, he visited the Dominican Republic and did preliminary fieldwork on a Mid-Holocene "rocky shore" just north of Lago Enriquillo in the southwestern part of the country (on the Haiti border). Al Curran (Smith College) and Lisa Greer (University of Miami) and Mark are now putting together two papers. The first is on the origin of unusual structures called either "worm mounds" or "tufa mounds" depending on the interpretation, and the second is on the bioerosion of the limestone shore. Mark had a paper on the echinoderm trace fossil Asteriacites published in the journal Ichnos during the year, as well as a paper with Paul Taylor in Palaeontology on a Late Cretaceous hard substrate community in the Qahlah Formation of the Arabian Peninsula. He also gave several professional presentations, including a talk on Ordovician borings and pseudoborings to the North-Central Section of the Geological Society of America, and an invited review of the geological history of bioerosion at the Spring 2000 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C. Mark also presented the results of the "Keck Ohio" project to the Keck Geology Symposium held in April 2000 at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Mark made numerous public presentations during the year. Most were to groups on campus and in town, but he also talked to audiences at the University of Cincinnati, Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the North Coast Fossil Club, and to a Wooster alumni group in Denver. Several of his lectures were defenses of the essential place of evolution in the curriculum of public schools; he had an essay published on this topic in the Spring 2000 issue of Wooster. After one of his pro-evolution letters appeared in The New York Times, Mark was a guest on a talk-radio show in New York City, during which he debated Ken Ham, a prominent creationist. Mark continues to serve as an Overseas Representative for the Palaeontological Association and as a member of the review boards for Choice and American Reference Books Annual. He was a member of the Teaching Staff & Tenure Committee at the College, on an ad hoc committee developing ideas for a new writing initiative at Wooster, on an ad hoc Committee on Faculty Development, and on the Advisory Board for the Campus Ministry program. Mark received an award from the Henry Luce III Fund for Distinguished Scholarship this year to support work with Paul Taylor on a review of hard substrate community paleoecology and evolution. He started in the summer of 2000 with a visit to Paul in London and work in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. They hope to produce a lengthy review paper by the end of the year, and then use that paper as the template for a book on the topic. Mark also worked this summer with Carol Tang (Arizona State University) on Jurassic hard substrate community evolution in Wyoming. Mark has two Senior Independent Study students this year.
Russ Kohrs ('01) is studying bioimmuration and other processes
in the Ordovician of the Cincinnati region, and Tim Conklin
('01) is exploring sedimentological and paleoenvironmental
models for the Logan Formation (Mississipian) of Ohio. Departments of Geology, Philosophy, and Pre-Law Advising (Wooster since 1985). It has often been said that if you want something done, ask a busy person. During the 1999-2000 year, Amy was definitely a busy person. Besides her usual day-to-day activities with Geology, Philosophy, and the Pre-Law Advising Program, she organized over ten additional events which included speakers, dinners, receptions, open houses, etc. She successfully coordinated two visiting professor position searches, one for Geology and one for Philosophy. She also continued to help with the organization of Geology Club and Philosophy Roundtable events as well as the planning and execution of the 2000 CUR (Council on Undergraduate Research) meeting, which was hosted by Wooster in June. Outside of Scovel, Amy continued her work with the Fighting Scot Football team's social gatherings, the Wayne Center for the Arts Children's Chorus, and the Wooster City Schools Music Improvement Team. She also was involved in two musical theatre productions in town: one with Stage Partners (orchestra) and one with Amarinic Productions (as a cast member), along with her two daughters, Emily (16) and Katy (13) Patterson. Department of Geology Intern (B.A. Wooster, 1999; Wooster 1999-2000). Liz spent the 1999-2000 year as an intern in the Department. She split her time between the Deans' Office and Geology, where she worked with various aspects of the department, including organizing maps and maintaining the seismic station. This Summer Liz began working as a park interpreter in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. We thank Liz for all of her hard work during this past school year! The Juliana Wilson Thompson Visiting Assistant Professor of Geology (B.A. Haverford College; Ph.D. Berkeley, 1998; Wooster 2000-2001). Allen joined the Department of Geology as a leave replacement for Lori Bettison-Varga during the 2000-2001 academic year. After completing his B.A. degree in Political Science from Haverford College, Allen completed his Ph.D. thesis in Geology ("Noble Gas Isotopes in Continental Basalts") at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a post-doctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and has taught at Peralta Community Colleges, Oakland, California, and Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Allen has had articles published in Chemical Geology, Geochemica et Cosmochimica Acta, and Earth and Planetary Sciences. He was also the recipient of a Berkeley Geochronology Center Fellowship. We are pleased and honored to have Allen as this year's recipient of The Juliana Wilson Thompson Lectureship. As recorded in the College Catalogue, this lectureship was established in 1993 by William Foss Thompson, a member of Wooster's Board of Trustees, in honor of his wife, Julie Thompson. This endowed position brings to the College an Assistant Professor of exceptional promise to teach courses in an appropriate department or program. In addition to the salary, this endowment provides support to assist individuals entering the profession to establish themselves as exemplary teachers and scholars early in their careers. While at Wooster, Allen is advising two Senior Independent Study students. Laura Clor ('01) participated in a Keck Consortium project in British Columbia this past Summer. The primary goal of this project was to construct the complete deformation and metamorphic history of the coast shear zone at the latitude of Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Debbie Prinkey ('01) participated in the Keck project in Greece. The main focus of this project was to examine, describe, and evaluate the results of relatively recent subduction on a variety of protoliths with particular attention focused on the mineralogic and textural consequences of exhuming these materials. During the Fall semester, Allen is teaching Geology of Natural Hazards and Mineralogy; in the Spring he will teach Environmental Geology and Petrology. Department of Geology Intern (B.A. Wooster, 1999; Wooster since 2000). After graduating from Wooster with a degree in Geology, Karrie spent the Summer of 1999 working as an interpretive intern with the National Park Service in Michigan before going to work at the East Fairfield Coal Company, the company with which she worked on her Senior I.S., in North Lima, Ohio, in September. In October, Karrie (then Karpinski) married Ryan McAllister ('00). They currently live at the edge of Wooster with their two dogs and eight chickens. During the 2000-2001 year, Karrie will work with the new GIS laboratory, seismic station, departmental outreach programs with local schools, the department's map and private collections, and anything else the staff can come up with. |