GSW: 2004 MEETING MINUTES

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1373rd Meeting,

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

On a frightfully, frigid night, President Grossman called the 37 huddled attendees to order at 8:03 pm.  The minutes of the 1372nd meeting were read and there were no corrections. Two guests braved the cold to join our cozy group: Aliyeva Elmira and Jim Zimbelman’s spouse. Nine new members were announced. President Grossman announced the passing of Nancy G. Ryan and there was a moment of silence. Gordon Nord announced that GSW judges are needed for 8 regional science fairs in March and April. More details about the science fairs are available on the website,  flyers and sign-up sheets displayed at the meetings and an email announcement sent to members. You can also email Gordon to get more details and to volunteer.

There were no informal communications.

The first talk by Christopher Keane from the American Geological Institute was entitled “The Human and Real Economy of the Geosciences”. As of the end of 2000, 20% of geoscientists were employed in academia, 16% in government,  30% in the petroleum industry, 14% in the environmental industry and 8% in mining. A bachelor of science degree is not worth very much in the job market and the average starting salary has plummeted to only $13,000.  A master’s degree is optimal if you have decided to study rocks for a living with a “show me the money” attitude. The starting salaries range from $25,000 to $70,000. A doctoral degree will fetch average starting salaries between $35,000  to $70,000.  The petroleum industry has increased the economic value of their geoscientists, while the environmental industry has decreased the value of their geoscientists. The estimated economic value of government and academic geoscientists has not changed and is far below the values of other industries. Chris encouraged government and academic geoscientists to show the funding agencies their value, if they wanted the agencies to show them more money. Questions by Brooks Hanson, E-an Zen, Margaret Baker and Jeff Grossman.

The second talk by Dadash Huseynov from the Geology Institute of Azerbaijan was entitled “Mud Volcanoes of the South Caspian Sea”.  Mud volcanoes, which resemble cow pies in shape,  have wide bases that range in diameter from tens to thousands of meters and stumpy heights that range from flat to hundreds of meters. Some of the largest mud volcanoes are in Azerbaijan.  The volcanoes sporadically erupt muds, fluids and methane-rich gas, some with spectacular flames of burning gas that reach hundreds of meters. The volcanoes are associated with the tectonically active and very thick sedimentary basin of the south Caspian Sea. Based on seismic data, the muds and fluids come up through channels that can extend as much as 25 kilometers in depth to the crystalline basement. Dadash had prepared a one-hour talk for his 20 minute time slot and did not have enough time to explain the mechanisms that cause the eruptions.  George Helz valiantly tried to ask several leading questions to get Dadash to present the rest of his talk, however,  President Grossman cleanly ended the muddy quest by suggesting they discuss it later. E-an Zen and Bill McDonough asked different questions to avoid any presidential mud slinging.

The third talk by Jim Zimbelman from the National Air and Space Museum was entitled “The Art of Being Mobile on Mars”. Jim described the entry, descent, landing and initial scientific results of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit bounced onto the martian surface within Gusev crater  on January 4, UTC, after surviving a risky descent through some weird wind shears. Panoramic mosaics reveal  a dusty surface with rock fragments strewn everywhere.  Initial Mossbauer analyses suggest that there is olivine in the soil and geologists will need to consider why the olivine has not weathered  away.  Opportunity rolled onto Meridiani Planum on January 25 and images show some enticing outcrops of bedrock not far from the rover. Both rovers will continue their work for at least 3 months and possibly until November.  A full size model of the rover is on display at the museum, but you can’t take it for a ride. Questions by Robert Toulimin, Jeff Grossman, Callan Bentley and Bill McDonough.

President Grossman announced that Linda Gunderson is the new program chair.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:46 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1374th Meeting,

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

On a crisp and clear evening, President Grossman called the 56 attendees to order at 8:02 pm.  The minutes of the 1373rd meeting were read and there were no corrections. Gordon Nord repeated his call for volunteers for the metro-area science fairs in March and added a plea from a local elementary school teacher for a geologist to help with their career day event. There were three guests, Robert Chinery, Kalin Tatu and Wang Bing Bing.

There were no informal communications, only light chatter from those at the back of the room, closest to the cold brewskies.

The first talk, by Katie Kelley from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was entitled “The Role of Water in the Formation of Subduction Zone Magmas”. Katie focused on the measurements of water contents in melt inclusions trapped in grains from the most primitive subduction zone magmas along the Mariana volcanic arc. Each magma reservoir yielded a linear correlation between water  abundance and melt fraction. The slope of this correlation varied depending on the location of the magmatic source. Thus the different slopes can provide a method to estimate the pressure and temperature conditions at the source using only the melt inclusions. There were questions by Jim Rubenstone, Allan Halter,  E-an Zen,  Joe Taylor, George Helz and Jeff Ryan. The questions were equally divided over the fore arc and back arc of the room, indicating that there is no correlation between  closeness to the brewskies and the ability of attendees  to ask lucid questions. [20 minutes]

The second talk, by Walt Snyder from Boise State University (which is in the state of Idaho), was entitled “Upper Paleozoic Tectostratigraphy of the Western US: What Happened Between  the Antler and Sonoma Orogenies?” In the Paleozoic, the western margin of North America was assumed to be a passive margin, interrupted in its passivity by only two orogenies, the Antler and the Sonoma. Real, honest field work by Walt and his unsuspecting students revealed that there are major unconformities throughout the well preserved stratigraphic sections of the Paleozoic in Nevada (which is not in the state of Idaho). The unconformities must correspond to tectonic episodes and thus the margin was not so passive in the Paleozoic.  Walt emphasized that field work, particularly trundling up and down ranges, crawling on your knees, getting dirty and abusing students was essential for understanding the wild west in the Paleozoic. There were questions from Joe Taylor, Linda Gunderson and E-an Zen. [17 minutes]

The third talk, by Rhonda Stroud from the Naval Research Laboratory, was entitled “A Physicist Gone Bad: Clues to Stellar Evolution from the Microscopy of Stardust”. Meteorites contain materials from other stars, often called stardust. Rhonda and her cohorts have developed a new method to extract stardust from meteorites using the powerful Focused Ion Beam microscope or FIB. When the FIB’s gallium ion source is set to run at a high current,  they can sputter away material with a 10 nanometer ion beam. With this very fine slicer and dicer, they can extract 100 nanometer-thick sections of stardust grains with its surrounding matrix. Early work on a few extracted sections are stellar. One extracted corundum grain contained amorphous alumina which is consistent with infrared spectra of oxygen-rich AGB stars, providing some ground truth for models of chemical evolution in stars beyond the solar system. There were two questions by our all-things-extraterrestrial  expert,  President Jeff Grossman. [22 minutes]

The meeting was adjourned at 9:32 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1375th Meeting,

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

On a suspiciously chilly night, President Grossman called the 105 attendees (plus or minus a few men in black) to order at 8:04 pm.  The minutes of the 1374th meeting were read and there was one correction. There were many guests, including Wen Lee, Prof. James Stars, Lee Hardin, Horace Pritcher, Aron Beatty McCray and Joy Fergatella. One new member was announced and we observed a moment of silence for the passing of John Rogers, who was on the faculty of Yale University and known widely as Mr Appalachian geology. There was one suspicious announcement that there would be no announcements about Science fairs this week (which seemed to this secretary liked an announcement about Science fairs?).

There was an informal communication, by Judy Ehlen, entitled “Demolition of the Embrey Dam”.  On February 23, 2004, an Army dive team and an Air Force demolition team got together to blow a hole in the Embrey Dam (circa 1855). The purpose was to create a pathway for spawning fish, such as shad and striped bass, to return to the Chesapeake where such fish are considered essential for the health of the bay. On the first attempt, only 10% of the charge exploded, so they had to try it again. On the second try they succeeded in blowing a large hole, allowing the water, fish and potentially toxic sediments long trapped behind the dam to flow downstream. Canals were built below the dam and these are now filled with sediment,  mucking up the neighborhood.  Judy favored keeping the dam and was saddened by its partial destruction. There were questions by Tom Dutro, Tom Speck and Mark McBride.

The first talk, by Maureen Bottrel from the Federal Bureau of Investigations was entitled “Forensic Geology from the FBI”. Forensic geology is not a particularly glamorous science because the focus is on the 3 “c”s: corrosion, crap and crud and the three “d”s: dirt, dust and debris. Maureen described three cases where they used color, texture, petrology, and chemical analysis of “c”’s and “d”’s to solve the crimes.  Everybody in the audience minded their “p”’s and “q”’s and there was only one question from Fred Simon [25 minutes]

The second talk, by Bill Leith from the United States Geological Survey, was entitled “History of military geology in the USGS and the hunt for bin Laden” The USGS has been involved in military geology since World War 1. Military geology includes mapping strategic terrain, locating enemies or the source of enemy fire from rock outcrops, developing better ground penetration devices and  verifying nuclear test ban treaty compliance.  Bill ended his sampler by showing a still image of Ossama bin Laden from a videotape that showed  a large outcrop of rock with no vegetation.  Geologists, including Bill, were asked to identify the location of the outcrop and hence bin Laden, based on the geology. Jack Schroder from the University of Nebraska thought that the outcrop was in the Spendar Range of eastern Afghanistan, which was the Tora Bora area later targeted by US military forces. There were questions from Barbara Am Enden, Gil Rubenstone, Gene Rosenboom, Lee Haden, Tom Speck, Gene Robertson and Jeff Grossman. [26 minutes]

The third talk, by Peter Chirico from the United States Geological Survey, was entitled “Geomorphology of the Mesopotamian Plain: Implications for Military Ops” Peter and his colleagues had to design a route for the Army and Marines to get to Baghdad from the south during the Iraq War without getting caught in brackish water, irrigation canals, marshes or other natural logistical barriers. The alluvial and deltaic plain is bounded by the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and the area is extremely flat. So flat that the high ground is actually the river valleys that are levee deposits above the flat plain.  There were questions from E-an Zen and Bill Leith. [20 minutes]

The meeting was adjourned at 9:51 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1376th Meeting,

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

On a rainy night, President Grossman called the 70 attendees to order at precisely 8:00 pm.  The minutes of the 1375th meeting were read and there were no corrections. There was one guest, Becky Frederickson. Three new members were announced  and then President Grossman made three announcements.  First, he encouraged everyone to go out and recruit more new members because we need money. Everyone stayed in their seats, quietly guzzling their brews. Second, he noted that the meeting announcement  postcards are expensive and members should contact Alex Speer if they no longer need to receive these postcards. Third he indicated that AAPG is accepting nominations for their national and regional awards and GSW members are encouraged to nominate Jeff, I mean their colleagues.

There was one informal communication by Bevan French. He told us about a new website at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona at www.lpl.arizona.edu where you can check out meteorite impact scenarios. Find your favorite target, design your impactor and then plug the data into the model and see what happens.

The first talk, by Steve Bohlen, President of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions, was entitled “Ocean Drilling and Ocean Observing: Dealing with the Unknown Majority of the Planet”. Although Earth’s surface is covered mostly by oceans, we know little about the deep seas or how much damage we have done to them.  The damage we can see includes: increases in toxic chemicals in fish, decreases in the number and size of fish, increases in algal blooms,  and increases in the heat content that damage coral reefs. To reduce the damage, the Pew Ocean Study recommends creating an independent oceans agency, re-organizing government agencies, changing fisheries and developing sustainable aquaculture.  There were questions from Linda Gunderson, Judy Ehlen, Mac Ross and Diane McDaniel [26 minutes]

The second talk, by Jeff Plescia from Johns Hopkins University, was entitled “Terrestrial Impact Structures: The Hole Story”. Jeff took us on a tour of impact craters around the world from the simple craters of about 2 to 4 kilometers in diameter to larger complex craters with central peaks and faulted margins. The size of the impactor is roughly about 10% of the diameter of the crater and much of the impactor is vaporized, melted, fragmented and mixed with the target rock.  There were questions from Mark Zurek, Pete Toolman, Bevan French and Albert Colman. [21 minutes]

The third talk, by John Grant from the Smithsonian Institution, was entitled “The Mars Exploration Mission: A View from the Driver’s Seat”  John described how the Mars Exploration Rover teams that are driving the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars spend their days and nights. They seem to survive on ice cream, which was supplied in unlimited quantities until they were cut-off because they were consuming about $500 of ice cream per day.  Spirit, which landed in Gusev crater,  drove by Bonneville crater and stopped to analyze Mazatzal rock on its way to the Columbia Hills. Mazatzal has a reaction rind that may be the first sign of water in Gusev crater.  Opportunity, on the other hand, has found abundant evidence for water in reaction rinds, hematite concretions, jarosite and crystal molds. There were questions from Bob Burris, George Helz, Pete Toolman, Craig Schiffries, Linda Gunderson, Shaun Brennan and Bevan French. Then President Grossman stopped the question period because too much beer had been consumed and its more expensive than ice cream, particularly for GSW, which needs new members. [23 minutes]

The meeting was adjourned at 9:53 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1377th Meeting,

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington, DC

President Grossman called the 55 attendees to order at 8:03 p.m. and introduced the acting secretary from the Precambrian (or somewhere in geologic time). The minutes of the 1376th meeting were read, and there were no corrections. Hal Gluskoter moved to approve; the motion was seconded and passed. Two guests were introduced: Judy Harden, from the University of South Florida at Tampa, and Christine Cope, George Washington University. President Grossman thanked all those who heeded his request of last meeting to switch to email notifications for meetings rather than those expensive postcards. He then noted that since the email notice for this meeting was never sent, probably none of those who switched were present to be thanked. Grossman promised that we’ll do better in future, so it’s safe to switch. He also reminded members that contributions to GSW are tax deductible and warned that unless money starts rolling in we may have to go to spring and fall membership drives…

On May 18, NOAA and a number of non-governmental organizations [Ecological Society of America, Society of American Foresters, etc.] are hosting the 26th Annual Science Day Conference on “The Role of Scientific Research in Sustaining Our Natural Resources.” There was some discussion on why no earth-science entities were among the sponsors, presenters, collaborators, etc; E-an Zen announced that GSA will be working with the group for next year to ensure better representation from geology.

Gordon Nord gave the 2004 Science Fair Report; 14 GSW members judged 5 fairs and chose 12 first-place winners, on topics from buffering quality of soil to mathematical models of gastropod spirals. Gordon’s efforts in organizing this important contribution to the local science community were warmly applauded.

The Jim O’Connor memorial field trip guide, Building Stones and Geomorphology of Washington, D.C., is now posted on the GSW website [at http://www.gswweb.org/oconnor-fieldtrip.pdf].

Finally, Mark Zorniak announced the New York State Geological Association annual meeting Sept. 17-19; more information is available at www.potsdam.edu/NYSGA

With no informal communications, we plunged ahead to the formal program, beginning with a discussion by Dorothy Hall, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, of  “Climate and the cryosphere: Glaciers, sea ice, permafrost, and snow cover.” In other words:  are the Earth’s snow and ice really melting or does it just seem that way, and  what about sea level rise? The Earth has been warming for about the past 20,000 years. Glaciers have been receding since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850 [or even before], and the rate has accelerated in the past 25 years. As the shiny white snow and ice recede, the exposed land and sea absorb more solar radiation. As the climate warms and the ice melts, sea level rises [complicated by glacial rebound in some areas]; this will cause big problems in New Orleans, 70% of which is 2.4 m below sea level, and even bigger problems in Bangladesh, where a 1-m rise would drown 17% of the countryside and displace 13 million people. However, most of the world’s ice is locked up in Greenland and Antarctica, and it would be useful to know just exactly how much is there. We have a good handle on the areal extent, but ice volume is much more difficult to assess. Airborne laser altimetry is building a picture of elevation change in the ice sheets over time; parts of Greenland are losing ice, but other parts are gaining in elevation. New satellite technologies are expected to provide better measurements of the ice volume. There were questions from Pete Toulmin, Glen Chinnery, Allan Tanner, Craig Schiffries, and Jeff Grossman.

Taking us from cold and wet to hot and dry, Nick Lancaster, USGS Reston, covered “Desert paleoenvironments: The dry end of the curve.” Roughly 30-40% of the Earth’s surface is arid, and about 1 billion people live in these arid regions; he noted that this is about the same as the number of dollars in the USGS budget, but only one of those numbers is increasing… Field work and satellite imagery in the western Sahara have demonstrated three generations of dunes, linear but not fully aligned, that represent the different wind/climate regimes of the three time periods. Sand was dated by old-fashioned stratigraphic methods as well as by optically stimulated luminescence. Dunes from the last glacial maximum were followed by a dune-building period during the Younger Dryas, with generally north-northeasterly winds and no summer monsoon. The third set of dunes, from the late Holocene, trends north-south and shows the effects of summer monsoon seasons and trade winds. There were questions from Glen Chinnery, Brooks Hanson, George Helz, and E-an Zen.

Brian Huber, of the Smithsonian Institution, took us from the Sahara Desert to the depths of the deep blue sea, with his talk “From icehouse to supergreenhouse: Cretaceous climate change on long and short time scales.” The presence of fossil wood and plesiosaurs on Seymour Island in the Antarctic, at a latitude that today is really, really cold suggests the world was very different during the Cretaceous. Benthic and planktic foraminifera from three locations (the Blake Plateau off Florida, the Equator, and the Falkland Plateau) showed much more climate variability than expected for oceans and atmosphere throughout the Cretaceous.  The late Cenomanian-early Campanian was a “supergreenhouse” with deepwater temperatures at 15-20 degrees C in areas that are now at 2 degrees C. The fossil record in these locations also suggests several times for ice sheets, including the Aptian and early Maastrichtian, though these findings are not supported by other data. It is clear that most climate models underpredict ocean temperatures during the Cretaceous. There were questions from Brooks Hanson, E-an Zen, Mac Ross, and Jeff Grossman.

President Grossman announced the next meeting of the Society on May 12, whether you get an email or not; this will be the final meeting till fall. The meeting was adjourned at 9:49 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kathleen Krafft Gohn, 1984 Meetings Secretary

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1378th Meeting,

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

The meeting was called to order at precisely 8:02 pm, although the 55 attendees remained somewhat noisy and disorderly through at least the first half hour of the meeting.  The minutes of the 1377th meeting were read and there was one correction. There was one guest, Allison Deines, two attempts to introduce members as guests and two  new members were announced, Jeff Plescia and James L. Coleman.

There was one informal communication by Jeff Plescia from the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University. He told us about the latest finds by the Mars Exploration Rover mission. The Spirit rover has been trolling around in Gusev crater checking out the ejecta  deposits from Bonneville crater,  dunes and wind scours. Now Spirit is heading toward the Columbia Hills. The Opportunity rover landed right in Eagle crater and found some very interesting outcrops and rocks without moving a wheel. In particular Opportunity found hematite spherules called blueberries by the MER team.  Jeff’s computer crashed at this point and some hungry attendees started asking food for thought questions like shouldn’t the blueberries be called cranberries and didn’t some features look like jello. President Grossman quickly moved on to the main program.

The first talk, by Julie Baldwin, University of Maryland, was entitled “U-Pb Systematics of Monazite in High Pressure Granulites”. Julie used the isotopic history of monazite grains in granulites from the Snowbird tectonic zone of the northern Canadian shield to determine the history of metamorphism in the lower crust. She was able to pinpoint a high pressure metamorphic event at about 1.9 billion years ago. There were questions from Dan Milton, E-an Zen and Al Kolter [22 minutes]

The second talk, by Tim Lowenstein from the State University of New York-Binghampton, was entitled “Fluid Inclusions: Paleoseawater, Paleoclimate, Ancient Life”. Tim led us through several examples of great uses for salt; that is what fluid inclusions in halite can tell us about primordial water trapped in meteorites, changes in seawater throughout the Phanerozoic and ancient DNA.  He spent most of his time discussing a 250 million year old inclusion that purportedly contains salt-tolerant ancient bacteria. There were questions from Brooks Hanson, Jeff Grossman, Paul Olsen, Bob Burris, Blair Somebody, 2 questions from Joe Smoot and three questions by Somebody Else.  Oddly enough, there were no questions about blueberries. [21 minutes]

The third talk, by Paul Olsen from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, was entitled “Comparison Between the Stratigraphic Evolution of Early Mesozoic Rift Basins on the Conjugate North American and Morrocan Magmas”  About 240 million years ago Pangea began to break up and several major rift basins formed in the Atlantic Ocean. Paul compared the  stratigraphy of 3 prominent basins that formed as Africa separated from North America, the Newark and Fundy Basins in North America and the Argana Basin in Morocco. Cycles of mudstones to carbonates indicate the rise and fall of lake levels and lake cycles can be correlated across what is now the Atlantic Ocean. There were questions from E-an Zen and Joe Smoot [22 minutes]

The meeting was adjourned at 9:52 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1379th Meeting,

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

The meeting was called to order at 8:05 pm, after some technical traumas with the projection system were resolved by jumping up and down on the remote control. The 53 attendees were relieved that there would be powerpoint presentations to accompany our fine speakers.  The minutes of the 1378th meeting were read and there were no corrections. There were four guests, Katie Matthews, Janice Flimesco, Lillie Greenwald and David Oldroyd, a distinguished science historian from Australia and the author of several books, including Thinking About the Earth: A History of Ideas in Geology.  Two new members were announced, Randy Ordorf and Karen Hagin. There were 4 announcements: First, GSW needs new members because we need money, so please encourage your geocolleagues to join GSW. Second, the November 10 meeting has been moved to November 3. On November 3, GSW will have a special joint meeting with the Paleontologic Society of Washington, so that Richard Fortey, a distinguished paleontologist from the Natural History Museum, London, can present a one hour lecture about dead critters and his new book, Earth An Intimate History. Third, Randy McBride from George Mason University announced a faculty position at George Mason in the spring of 2005 to teach structural geology and related courses. Fourth, President Grossman announced the passing of Dr. Phil Abelson, a GSW member for 51 years and we observed a moment of silence. There will be a special memorial program of GSW on January 26 in memory of Phil Abelson, Hap Yoder and Joe Boyd.

There was one informal communication by Jane Hammarstrom from the USGS. She described acid road drainage near Sky Top, Pennsylvania. Eleven roadcut piles enriched with pyritic rock that contains highly soluble sulfate salts with traces of Zn, Ni, Co, As, Cd and other toxic metals, have been leaching a highly acidic (pH < 2) concoction into the Buffalo Run river, killing trout and reeking more hazards on the ecological community than acid mine drainage. Local agencies are now arguing about the best method to clean-up the unintended consequences of what was considered to be typical cut and fill road development.

The first talk, by Andrea Grottoli, University of Pennsylvania was entitled “Paleoceanography using carbon isotopes in corals and sclerosponges”. Andrea explained that corals and sclerosponges  record changes in the carbon isotopic composition of seawater by incorporating these changes in their skeletal structure. Once you understand the metabolic function of the corals and the sponges and how they incorporate, fractionate and use carbon isotopes, you can extract the carbon isotopic record of the oceans, which correlates with climate. The sponges have the potential to map seawater changes and thus climate changes since 1850. There were questions from Hal Glaskolter, E-an Zen, Brooks Hanson, George Helz, Jay Kaufmann and Jeff Grossman [20 minutes]

The second talk, by Randy McBride, George Mason University, was entitled: Geologic signature and dynamics of a former tidal inlet system along the Outer Banks of Virginia and North Carolina: the Old Currituck Inlet from pre-1585 to 1731. This talk reminded me of the puzzle: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? In Randy’s case, the Old Currituck could chuck water through an inlet in the Outer Banks forming a well-preserved tidal delta from 1585 to 1731. Around about 1713, however, the New Currituck inlet opened south of the Old Currituck and eventually caused the Old Currituck to close up. How much water the Old Currituck would have chucked if the New Currituck could not chuck remains unknown. There were questions from Jane Hammarstrom, Bill McDonough, Daniel Milton and Brooks Hanson. [22 minutes]

The third talk, by Todd Hinkley, National Ice Core Laboratory, U.S. Geological Survey, was entitled  “Ice cores: A detailed million-year record of Earth's climate and atmosphere.”  Todd took us on a tour of the lab where 15,000 meters of ice representing 1.25 million years of history in Greenland and 1 million years of history in Antarctica are stored. The cores are primarily used to decipher climate change and a plot of ice core records shows a stable climate for the past 10,000 years with a much more variable climate over the next 100,000 years. The ice cores also preserve a record of trace elements deposited from the atmosphere due to volcanism and industrial activity. At the end of Todd’s talk, President Grossman commented that the talk was very cool, which drove several attendees to drink more beer in the back. There were questions from Bill McDonough, Jay Kaufmann, George Dumati, Daniel Milton, Katie Matthews and Jeff Grossman. [22 minutes]

The meeting was adjourned at 9:56 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1380th Meeting,

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

The meeting was called to order at 8:01 pm. The minutes of the 1379th meeting were read and there were no corrections, but there were some objections to accepting the minutes with the wood chuck analogy. There was one guest, Ann Blattan and one new member was announced, Thomas Ireland. There were 2 announcements: The November 17 meeting has been moved to November 3. On November 3, Richard Fortey, will present a one hour lecture about dead critters and his new book, Earth An Intimate History. The second announcement was about council actions. Dues will remain the same and there is a new charge of $5 for program cards that are mailed to members. An amendment to the by laws has been proposed by the council and is posted on the website. The proposed amendment would retain the past president as an officer.

There was one informal communication by Jim Quick from the USGS. He described some of the latest volcanic rumblings at Mt. St. Helens. Increased seismic activity starting on September 23 and was followed by bulging, cracking and a small eruption on October 1. A new dome started to grow within the caldera and a more vigorous eruption occurred on October 5. Compared to the dome growth that occurred from 1980 to 1986 after the catastrophic eruption, the dome growth in 2004, so far, is characterized by higher seismicity, higher magma flux and lower rates of degassing. There were questions from Pete Toolman and Bill McDonough.

The first talk, by Rufus Chaney, U. S. Department of Agriculture was entitled  “Phytomining of soil nickel: A new opportunity for lower-cost metal”. Rufus works in the Animal Manure and By-Products division of the Agricultural Research Service and he described an agricultural method for producing high yields of extremely pure nickel metal. The Alyssum plant species is a nickel hyper accumulator and was grown in several experimental plots with standard farming equipment. The experimental plots showed a profitable yield of 400 kilograms of pure nickel per hectare, which is worth about $908 per hectare. The Alyssum plants require serpentine-rich soils and semi-arid conditions. There were questions from Moto Sato, Hugh Wilson, Jane Hammarstrom, Bill McDonough and Hal Rosmotel [19 minutes]

The second talk, by Patrick Wyse Jackson, Dickinson College and Trinity College was entitled: “Some Irish contributions to the age of the Earth debate”. He described how some Irish scientists tried to estimate the age of the Earth. Archbishop James Ussher, a 17th century scientist dated creation at 4004 BC, which became famous because it was a footnote in the King James Bible. William Thomson (aka Lord Kelvin) dated the Earth at about 20 to 40 million years old based on his infamous cooling rate calculation, while Reverend Samuel Haughton, a contemporary of Kelvin, provided the oldest Irish estimate by dating the Earth at 2298 million years old based on good, old geologic data. There were questions from George Helz, Rich Walker, Sandra Herbert, Cy Galvin and Hugh Wilson. [21 minutes]

The third talk, by Bob Finkelman, U.S. Geological Survey  was entitled “My life as an Embassy Science Fellow”.  The Embassy Science Fellows program was established by Madeline Albright and allows federal scientists to provide scientific expertise to US embassies for 1 to 3 month periods. Bob went to South Africa where he taught coal science and medical geology classes and developed a coal quality database. He said that he worked harder as an Embassy Fellow than he had at any other time during his career: a comment that elicited a few chuckles from his colleagues. There was a question from Pete Toolman. [23 minutes]

The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1381st Meeting,

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

On a miraculous evening with a lunar eclipse and a Red Sox World Series victory in the offing, 74 attendees turned their undivided attention to President Grossman as he called the meeting to order at precisely 8:01 pm.  The minutes of the 1380th meeting were read and there were no corrections. There were six guests, Kevin Pope, Roy Price, Dr. Ivan Savoff, Anna Schuloff, Jeff First and Aaron Leans. There were no new members, but plenty of announcements.  The new program chair is Pete Folger, there is a meeting on November 3,  and the council has proposed a change to the by-laws. E-an Zen announced that GSA is looking for a local member to be on a steering committee for Science Day 2005. E-an also mentioned a website called Books for Soldiers, where books can be donated for soldiers overseas.  President Grossman announced the passing of Josh Tracey, former president of GSW and a member for 68 years, the longest of any member. We observed a moment of silence in his honor.

The first talk, by Alison Shaw from the Carnegie Institution of Washington was entitled  “Volatile mass balance at subduction zones: Insights from Central America and the Marianas Arc”.  Alison measured the H, C, S, Fl and Cl concentrations in melt inclusions trapped within olivine crystals of fresh volcanic tephra from 3 volcanoes along the Marianas Arc to determine the source and flux of water through this subduction zone. She found that 4 to 15% of the CO2 is recycled along the arc and this requires a large flux of water. There was a question from Jeff Ryan [25 minutes]

The second talk, by Stephanie Prejean from the USGS-Alaska Volcano Observatory was entitled  “New techniques yield insight into the processes driving volcanic unrest in the Long Valley Caldera”. Stephanie described the substructure of Mammoth Mountain, a prime ski area for Californians, based on a seismic swarm and related eruptions in 1989.  A line of deep events mark a rapidly intruding dike that flows into a shallower cone-like fracture and the events propagate around the cone.  Above the cone, the events are randomly distributed and suggest an open system of fractures. More recent eruptions and improved seismic data have confirmed this basic structure. Mammoth Mountain remains a hazard today with significant CO2 degassing that has led to tree kills, animal deaths and possibly the demise of one snowboarder who did a face plant in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were questions from Alan Tanner, Ken Rubenstone,  Moto Sato, Dallas Peck and Jeff Grossman. [18 minutes]

The third talk, by James Quick from the USGS was entitled  “Real time science, monitoring, and hazard warning: Mount St. Helens 2004”. Jim described the growth of a new lava dome at Mt. St. Helens during September and October. Early activity was characterized by shallow high frequency earthquakes related to rock fracture followed by longer period events related to fluid flow. The dome grew very rapidly in October and is almost as big as the old dome. The lava consists of a 2 pyroxene and hornblende dacite that suggests the magma is fresh and came up from a relatively deep reservoir. All indications are that this is an open system with a deep source that has reached a steady state flux and could be a prolonged eruption. It will probably outlast the presidential election vote counting. There were questions from E-an Zen, Rick Wunderman and Jeff Grossman. [18 minutes]

The meeting was adjourned at 9:35 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1382nd Meeting,

Wednesday, November 3, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

On a fine evening, President Grossman called the 72 attendees to order at precisely 8:00 pm. This GSW meeting was held jointly with the Paleontological Society of Washington and the scheduled program was a one hour lecture by Richard Fortey. The minutes of the 1381st meeting were read and there was one correction. There were many guests including Forest Gone and his father-in-law, Roger Thomas, Jack Hess, Bob Gannis, Jim Davis and Karen Mesly. Two new members were announced and three announcements were made. First, the officer slate for next year was unveiled, second, an amendment to the by-laws was announced again and third, President Grossman said that there were no informal communications. President Grossman then preceded to give an informal communication about how GSW had hosted one hour lectures by many distinguished geologists in the past and Fortey's lecture should not be considered an anomaly, but rather a rich tradition of the society. He presented a slide of some of the previous speakers including John Wesley Powell, G. K. Gilbert, Harold Jeffries and Harrison Schmitt and he fielded several questions. A GSW member, who shall remain nameless, told me later that GSW rules do not allow for questions after informal communications and we have been breaking the rules all year long. But nothing bad has happened so far.

A one-hour lecture was presented by Richard Fortey, a distinguished paleontologist from the Natural History Museum, London. His talk was entitled "Earth: An Intimate History." Richard focused on explaining how geologists could use a humanistic approach of telling a story to explain geology to a general audience. He presented several examples from his new book, entitled "Earth: An Intimate History" to show how he had try to explain principles such as plate tectonics and structural geology. He encouraged the attendees to send him any comments they might have about the book and to get involved with explaining geology to the public. There were questions from Ellis Yokelson, Pete Toulmin, Tom Dutro and some others.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:33 pm

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 1383rd Meeting,

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

On a calm and crisp evening, President Grossman called the 70 attendees to order at 8:02 pm. The minutes of the 1382nd meeting were read and there were 2 corrections. Five new members were announced, suspiciously all associated with the happy-go-lucky Smithsonian Institution. Two guests were introduced, Carl-Henry Geschwind and Dr. Kun Lee Lau and there was one attempt to introduce a new member, one of those smiling Smithsonians as a guest. Tom Dutro made one announcement about the Paleontological Society of Washington's upcoming meeting on December 12.

Regrettably the passings of 2 more GSW members was announced. Tom Dutro paid tribute to Jean Berdan, a stratigrapher and paleontologist who did not want to be cremated because paleontologists like to leave bones. President Grossman paid tribute to Tom Thayer an expert on ophiolites, who was described by a colleague as a "giant and true gentleman".

There was one additional order of business. President Grossman explained the changes to the constitution and by-laws required to make the past president the ex-officio chair of the financial committee and thus an officer of GSW. Because of the perverse rules of GSW, the attendees needed to vote on accepting the changes to the by-laws before the annual meeting where the changes to the constitution could be considered. Sorena Sorenson, another smiling Smithsonian, gleefully objected to President Grossman's request to vote on the by-laws, until he clarified that these changes were contingent on later approval of the constitutional amendment. Another provocateur then quipped that the past president should be required to have some financial expertise. President Grossman, already well versed in dealing with witty GSW members, deftly handled both issues and nimbly gained swift approval of the by-laws contingent on future constitutional amendment approval.

President Jeffrey N. Grossman presented a one-hour presidential lecture, entitled "Primordial Metamorphism". Chondritic meteorites are composed of extraterrestrial debris that predates the formation of the planets and thus could provide pristine primordial tracers of early solar system processes. Unfortunately high pressure and temperature processes as well as water-rock interactions altered most of these chondrites. Only a handful of the thousands of chondrites are close to pristine with a limited amount of metamorphism. Using thermal luminescence, Jeff determined the most primitive meteorites and limited their metamorphism to heating by radiogenic isotopes, Al-26 and Fe-60 and impact heating about 4563 to 4561 million years ago. These most primitive meteorites can be used to trace primordial processes with minor to negligible corrections for the limited heating events.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Linda Rowan

 

Geological Society of Washington

Minutes of the 112th Annual Meeting,

Wednesday, December 8, 2004

John Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cosmos Club, Washington DC

The annual meeting was called to order at 9:30 pm with about 50 members in attendance.  Bill McDonough announced the winners of the best talk, Andrea Grottoli and the best informal communication, Jane Hammarstrom. Joe Smoot read the minutes of the 111th meeting and they were approved. Henry Belkin presented the treasurer’s report and noted the serious decline in membership from about 1000 members in 1985 to less than 400 members in 2004. Because of declining membership, expenses exceed income by about $2600.  To reduce expenses, the Finance Committee has suggested and gained approval for the following changes: charging $5 for mailed meeting notices, reducing the number of meetings, and eliminating salty snacks at the Cosmos club. The committee also suggested tying the GSW portfolio to the MSA portfolio to get better rates. Several members made suggestions for increasing membership, such as getting faculty to sponsor student members or combining GSW meetings with other groups, like the Paleontologic Society of Washington. Bill McDonough won the Sleeping Bear award for his comments about sending an error report to Microsoft during one of the many computer catastrophes during the year. President Grossman then attempted to forget Jingle Ruppert’s Membership report, but she reminded him and she offered an innovative approach to gaining more members. She suggested that GSW produce an ex-presidents calendar that was tasteful and colorful. She envisioned President Grossman on the cover with only a chondrite and said it would give a “new definition of Grossman”. Somehow President Grossman allowed this report to be approved. A constitutional amendment to make the Past President the ex-officio chair of the financial committee was approved. The slate of new officers for 2005 was approved and the meeting was adjourned at 10:35 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Council Secretary

Linda Rowan