GSW: 1983
MEETING MINUTES
Geological Society of
minutes of the 1102th
meeting
President Robertson called the meeting to
order at 8:07 pm. The minutes of the 1101 meeting were read and approved.
President Robertson then announced the passing of two members, Harry Ladd and
Max Crittenden, and called for a moment of silence. Four guests were introduced
and six new members were announced. Six upcoming Scientific Society meetings in
the
Dallas Peck gave the first full length talk
of the meeting in the disguise of an informal communication.
The next informal communication was given
by Roy Clark, who told us a tale about Weathersfield
Robert C. Milici
then presented the first scheduled talk.
Dr. Milici reviewed the major structural
provinces of
The next talk was given by Bill Oliver. The
presence of a parasitic animal in several corals was interpreted from the
preservation of straight tubes found in the calyx of mid-Devonian corals. These
tubes are .2 to 1 mm in diameter and appear to be secreted by the coral itself.
Infestation varies but reached 10 out of 15 calyxs in
one example. One poor fellow had no fewer than 16 tubes. The position of the
tubes led Oliver to conclude that these tubes housed a parasitic animal,
probably a polychelate worm, that lived inside the
gastric cavity of the host polyp. Oliver noted that parasitic worms are not
known in recent corals, but parasitic clams do occur in some solitary forms.
Tubes had been found on some recent coral skeletons, however indicating that the
modern parasites exist, but just have not been noted and studied.
Questions by Stifel, Duncan, Repetski and 2
others. The last talk of the evening was delivered by Richard Diechio. He reviewed stratigraphic and structural
relationships between the Martinsburg, and Reedsville, Bald Eagle, Juniata and Tuscarora Formations between
[signed T. O. Wright]
Geological Society of
26 January 1983
The 1103rd meeting of the Society was
called to order by President Robertson at 8:02 p.m. Peter Lyttle read Tom
Wright's minutes of the 1102nd meeting. Bill Oliver commented that he could
make many corrections, but would restrain himself and let it go. The minutes
were then approved. Six guests were introduced: Professor Lamar, Richard Hoxema, Greg Eddy, G.F. Webber, Loring
Rock and Dr. Bear. Dr. Bear is a petrologist who ghost writes for E-an Zen. The
substitute Secretary announced the upcoming meetings of six other scientific
societies in the
Charlie Baskerville gave an informal
communication and described the very successful, just completed, 14th annual
Planetary Geology Principal Investigators meeting held in
The 1st talk of the evening was presented
by Roy Clarke of the Smithsonian who pointed out some interesting features of
iron meteorites found in
In the 2nd talk of the evening John
Repetski of the USGS, Washington, presented a talk co-authored with Anita
Harris on the boundary between the Lower and Middle Ordovician based on their
conodont studies throughout the Appalachians. The audience learned right off
the bat that 1) John preferred that his slides be out of focus, and 2) all
Lower Ordovician conodonts are pink, while Middle Ordovician conodonts are
light blue. If only I had known that paleontology was so easy! Repetski pointed
out that going north from the Mason-Dixon Line the Ordovician carbonate section
decreases in thickness fro m 1.5 km to nothing in the Hudson Valley. Also, the
Lower-Middle Ordovician boundary is marked by an unconformity of increasing
magnitude going northward through
Bruce Hanshaw presented the final talk on work
he has been doing in the
Attendance was a pleasantly large 155. The
meeting adjourned at 10:04 p.m.
Secretary-under-Duress,
Peter Lyttle
Geological Society of
February 9, 1983
President Robertson called the 1104th
meeting of the Society to order at 8:07 p.m. The substitute secretary stand-in
read Peter Lyttle's minutes of the 1103rd meeting;
the minutes were approved as read. Seven guests were introduced: Dr. Ursula
Marvin, of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and her husband Tom; Dr.
Martin Sharpe, of the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and his wife
Blaine Cecil, USGS-Reston, gave a
communication on the origins of cleat calcite in coal. After a slight tussle
with the projectionist, who kept trying to move on to a real slide, Cecil
showed the distribution of cleat calcite in coal to be quite random. Tradition
states that this calcite is epigenetic; however, work by Cecil and Elliott Spiker indicates that tradition is wrong. They believe that
cleat, calcite forms through bacterial sulfate reduction, then fermentation,
which causes the calcite to precipitate.
A second, very informal communication began
as the Gettysburg Address but quickly turned into a sing-along for Peter
Stifel's birthday.
Porter Kier, National Museum of Natural
History, first warned creationists to leave the room, then demonstrated a very
rapid evolution in echinoid form as preserved in the fossil record. The regular
echinoids found in the Early Jurassic were round, with long spines, and had
teeth at one end, and an anus at the other. During the next 10 million years, a
series of beautiful non-missing links show that, in some species, the tests got
flatter, the spines got shorter, the echinoids lost their teeth and grew feet
instead, and the anus moved posteriorly -- resulting
in a burrowing, toothless, lopsided, ass-backwards sea urchin. Questions by
Sato (2), Toulmin (2), Whitaker, Dill, Zen, Silver, French, and Domning.
Gordon Nord, USGS-Reston, managed to stay
within his 20minute time limit as he took us on a whirlwind tour of the
capabilities and uses of the transmission electron microscope, giving the kind
of presentation that has been immortalized by the phrase "If it's Tuesday,
this must be
Paul Lowman, NASA-Goddard, spoke on the
topic of plate tectonics with fixed continents. Using data from many authors,
and briefly invoking several more, Lowman concluded that the continents do not
move. On the other hand, he felt that the evidence for plate-tectonic processes
in the ocean basins is convincing. To reconcile the irresistibly spreading sea
floors and the immovable continents, Lowman suggested that the continental
margins that we call passive are, in fact, actively subducting the ocean floor,
but at such a slow rate that the usual seismic evidence is sparse or absent.
Precise measurements now being made of the distance between Bermuda and the
Attendance was 181. The meeting adjourned
at 10:17 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Krafft,
Substitute secretary stand-in
Geological Society of
February 23, 1983
President Eugene Robertson called the
1105th meeting of the Society to order at 8:05 p.m. Kathleen Krafft, still
stand-in substitute secretary, read the minutes of the 1104th meeting; the
minutes were approved as read. One guest was introduced: Joseph Gross, of the
Colorado School of Mines. Robertson suggested that members wear name tags to
help the secretary when questioners fail to identify themselves; the suggestion
was overwhelmingly rejected. Robertson apologized again to members whose
meeting announcements arrived late; this time, the problem was that the
shipping release card traveled to
Bruce Hanshaw announced that the third
Mendenhall Lecturer, Peter Lipman, will speak on Monday, March 28, at 2 p.m.,
at the USGS National Center; his topic is "Roots of ash-flow calderas;
windows into the top of granitic batholiths."
Eleanora Robbins,
USGS, gave a communication on Pellet microfossils in the Proterozoic. Robbins
and her co-authors
Daniel Stanley, National Museum of Natural
History, rose to dispute the tradition promulgated in Geology I that the muds in flysch deposits settled
gently and continuously over long spans of time--that is, the muds on the plains settle mainly from the rains.
Robert J. Emry,
National Museum of Natural History, substituting for Marilyn Estep, gave the
Reader's-Digest-Condensed-Book-version of the talk on "Oligocene Fossil
Plants and Vertebrates in Clastic Dikes" previously given to his
department. According to Emry, these dikes are both
topless and bottomless, which sounds as if they belong along 14th Street; in
fact, they are found almost exclusively in the. White River Formation, where
they are ubiquitous. Emry, aided by various
colleagues, determined that the fossils in the dikes are contemporaneous with
fossils in the adjacent sediments. In addition, many of the fossil skeletons
are whole and articulated, indicating the animals hadn't fallen a long distance
(i.e., down a deep fissure). He therefore concluded that the dikes are actually
shrinkage cracks. Questions by Sato (2), Hatch (2), Robertson, Zen, and
Creamer.
Although his talk was entitled simply
"Liquid carbon in the lower mantle?", John Dickey,
Attendance was 81, down sharply from the
previous meeting. The meeting adjourned at 10:01 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathleen Krafft, still stand-in substitute
secretary.
Geological Society of
9 March 1983
President Robertson called the 1106th
meeting of the Society to order at 8:07 p.m. Carl Hedge and Roy Jackson of the
U.S. Geological Survey and John Julian of BLM, were introduced as guests. The
Secretary made announcements of other society meetings.
Treasurer Robert Tilling, after consulting
Buddha, made his yearly pitch for donations to the Society and reported that we
are financially sound.
The Secretary introduced 24 newly-elected
members to the Society. Dan Milton called for volunteers to judge science
fairs. E-an Zen announced that the state of
Bruce Doe presented the first
multi-authored talk of the evening on some aspects of isotopic studies of the
northern
Romeo Flores of the U.S. Geological Survey,
The third talk of the evening was presented
by Peter Bell of the Geophysical Lab. He brought us up to date on high
pressure-high temperature techniques that allow his laboratory to reach 2
megabars and 4000 K, that is, simulating conditions at the core-mantle
boundary. Successfully designing his talk so that even paleontologists could
understand it, he demonstrated that under these conditions some diamonds flowed
like butter and solid argon behaved much like a strong jelly bean.
Attendance was 90. The meeting adjourned at
10:15 p.m.
[unsigned.
Probably by Peter Lyttle]
Minutes of the 1107th meeting
of the Geological Society of
President Robertson called the 1107th
meeting of the Society to order at 8:08pm. The minutes of the previous meeting
were read and approved. Dr. Rodney Feldman of
In the first formal talk, Rob Vandervoo described how his group set out to confirm or
deny the operation of the Wilson approach to plate collisions by use of
paleomagnetic methods. By assembly of APW's from
stable cratonic blocks it has been possible to track the movements of different
parts of Gondwana, Europe and North America as they migrated and collided
during the Paleozoic. An area in France, the Amorican
massif, moved with Gondwana but then became detached. It is not clear whether Amorica or Gondwana first collided with North America.
Questions by Robertson, Kranz, Whitticker,
Nielson and Boucot.
Art Boucot then
gave a talk innocently entitled "Rates of evolution of behavior". The
basic premise was that animal behavior patterns are very quickly established
and do not change very much for long time spans. To support this idea Boucot then presented a whole lesson in pathology of
ancient dead fish, clumping brachiopods, sick Cretaceous crabs, gruesome
nematodes and down right disgusting Oligocene squirrels, all of which have
modern equivalents. The projectionist quite rightly tried jamming the projector
but Boucot didn't take the hint. Then things really
degenerated and eventually culminated with the performance of two crabs on a
satin sheet. Questions by Helz, Appleman and Yochelson. During and after Boucot's talk several Sleeping Bear attempts were noted.
In the last talk, Bob Liebermann discussed
problems in attempting to related seismic evidence for abrupt shifts in
velocity, density at 400 km and 650-700 km to physical changes in the mantle
materials in questions. Eliminating changes in T and P as causes, his talk
focused on the difficulties involved in accounting for the seismic breaks by
possible mantle phase changes. Some of these are the actual P-T profile of the
mantle, the relationship between rock density and seismic velocity and what
effect a shearing layer may have. Unlike Peter Bell, who gave a related talk at
the 1106th meeting, Liebermann had no problems in saying that he does disagree
with Greenwood. Questions by Hower, Robertson,
Appleman, Drake and Whittiker. Attendance was 107.
The meeting adjourned at 10:08 pm.
[unsigned, presumably by T. O. Wright]
Minutes of the 1108th meeting
of the Geological Society of Washington
President Robertson called the meeting to
order at 8:02 pm. The minutes of the 1107th meeting were read, corrected and
approved. Two guests, Michael Duke and Richard Williams were introduced.
An abbreviated list of other Washington
area geology talks were read. Dan Milton again announced that May 14th is the
date of the field trip to the coal fields of Western Maryland, to be lead by
Paul Lyons.
In the first of two informal communications
Ed Spiker of the USGS presented some very interesting
preliminary results about the early diagenesis of organic matter in a mangroved lake on Bermuda. It seems that in the 14 meters
of smelly muck cored from this otherwise paradise-surrounded lake, a rapid
downward decrease in carbohydrates and lipids to protokerogen
is caused by actual loss of carbohydrates and lipids leaving the more refractory
protokerogen or humin
(spelled HUMIN) as a residual concentrate or lag deposit, rather than the
previous idea that these carbohydrates and lipids somehow were chemically
changed into protokerogen. Questions by Roeder, Zen, Hewett and Hays.
The second informal communication was by
Bevin French who announced that the NASA Planetary Exploration to year 2000 has
a report out on what the agency is up to in the next few years from NASA.
In the first formal talk, Bevin French gave
a refreshingly clear discourse showing that the Bushveld complex is not an
impact structure. Some previous models had postulated that the outcrop patterns
of a felsite and the basement area to the south, were
caused by a natural equivalent of a four pronged MIRV attack. By looking at
textures in the huge Rooiberg felsite
French found evidence of rapid quenching and tridymite, but noted that these
were mostly volcanic lavas-not fallback breccias or shock-induced melts. The
clincher, however, was the absence of any shock-related strain lamellae in
quartzite xenoliths in the felsite that must have
been subjected to any impact and the lack of any such shock features in the
adjacent basement exposures. This talk was particularly heartening to this
secretary, because it proves that being a Washington bureaucrat does not
automatically atrophy the mind nor prevent one from doing anything without
first forming a committee to study it and make recommendations, as in commonly
believed. Questions by Lohman, Roedder and somebody I forgot.
Ah, yes, then comes the conodont thing.
Emerging like ET, a weird creature appeared when Bruce Wardlaw's
talk was announced. This thing presented a remarkably lucid talk, for a
mega-conodont, on the thermal assessment of oil and gas potential in Arizona.
It seems his ancestors were cooked too much in the southwest and south for
there to be much oil or gas left, but not on the Colorado Plateau and a small
are in the extreme southeast of the state. Oil patch people, believing the
great conodont in the sky, are spending their money on some holes down there.
Then interspersed with pictures of a bunch of over-the-hill cowboys cavorting
with mega-conodont parts, we were shown just how neat conodonts are. Not only
do they tell us that in thrusting, upper plates, come from deeper zones than
adjacent lower plates, they prove that stratigraphers have a thing or two to
learn about who did what to whom during the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian of
the old west. Questions to the Thing were by Duke and Zen.
The third and final talk was by Bill Melson
who started by describing how the Smithsonian goes about getting its research
material. You would think he could just fill out a GTR and go to Mt. St. Helens
and pick us some chunks himself and avoid all the back-room, wheeling-dealing,
tax scams that seems to be the requisition procedure currently in vogue. Anyway
Bill brought us up to date on the eruption history of Mount Saint Helens (now
up to 15 eruption events). The eruption cycle has passed from the phreatic to the pyroclastic, transient dome and is now in
the permanent dome stage. These were illustrated with spectacular photographs.
Silica content has dropped with time and if a full cycle is achieved, Melson
would not be surprised to see some lava flows before it quits. Photomicrographs
show that 40% of the magma had crystallized before the May 18th eruption and
that there were glass inclusions trapped in the phenocrysts. This is exciting
because these glass inclusions are presumably samples of the melt that also
trap volatiles. Sure enough, analysis of the glass inclusions show that
chemical analysis come up short, indicating the presence of water in all
likelihood, off up to 10% in early eruptions, dropping off with time. Questions
by Robertson, Roedder and one other. The next meeting was announced and
Robertson adjourned the meeting at 9:42 pm. Attendance was 110.
[unsigned, presumably by T. O. Wright]
Minutes of the 1109th meeting
of the Geological Society of Washington
The 1109th meeting of the society was
called to order by president Robertson at 8:10 pm. Four guests were introduced
and the minutes of the 1108th meeting read and approved.
Don Milton again announced the May 14th
field trip and asked attendees to sign-up. The trip will visit Pennsylvanian
rocks in western Maryland.
Treasurer Tilling gave a superbly
illustrated informal communication about his recent junket to Indonesia where
he helped set up monitoring programs for the severe volcanic hazards in that
region. There is so much activity in Indonesia that the local officials don't
bother to do anything unless they hear thunder that commonly accompanies the
really large eruptions. Tilling noted that one about the size of St. Helens
went off last August, and that it was only one out of at least 135 other potentially
violent volcanoes. Questions by French, Zen and Toulmin.
The first formal talk, given by Nancy
Milton, discussed the relationship between geology and plant physiology,
especially how it relates to metal concentrations and remote sensing of ore deposits.
While shifts in absorption in the spectral characteristics has been observed,
there are a variety of problems in applying the method. Milton noted that the
most serious ones involved understanding of biologic processes going on in the
leaves themselves. She has built a greenhouse at Reston to perform a set of
experiments to test metal tolerance and any associated spectral response.
In the second talk, Thomas Van Flandern addressed the question, "Is the gravitational
constant a constant, or has it changed with time?" Several historical and
philosophical approaches to this question were discussed, several modern
approaches were described including careful measurement of the Moon's orbital
motion. Stars blink out abruptly as the Moon progresses through the sky and
this can provide a sufficiently accurate way to measure any acceleration in the
moon. However, surface roughness of the Moon and tidal friction introduce
troublesome errors. If big G is found to vary, the expanding earth theory may
make a comeback and several discrepancies in cosmology would go away. However
at present results are suggestive but not yet definitive. Questions by French,
Helz, Sato, Roers and Zen.
In the last talk, Jay Stormer
explored the relationship between the size of volcanic eruptions and the depth
to magma chambers. Noting that Mount Saint Helens produced only 2 km3
of material, which is quite small compared to many geologic examples, he
pointed out that the Bishop tuff was about 100 times larger, while the Fish
Canyon tuff is on the order of 3000 km3. Stormer presented
data on the mineral chemistry of the Fish Canyon and Bishop tuffs that were
used to constrain magma conditions. From the composition of magnetite-ilmenite
solid solutions and tow feldspar chemistry, an estimate of temperature and
pressure can be made. For the Fish Canyon tuff this turned out to be 8-9 km or
27 km and 800°C, while the smaller Bishop tuff originated at only 5 kb or 18 km
depth. Using this method, the sources of the very large ash flow tuffs seem to
come from very deep sources. Questions by Wright, Toulmin, Tilling, Zen,
Robertson, Helz, Boyd, Toulmin, Zen and Dunn.
The meeting adjourned at 10:11 pm.
Attendance was 120.
[unsigned, presumable T. O. Wright]
Geological Society of Washington minutes for the
1110th meeting
The 1110th meeting was called to order by
President Robertson at 8:05 pm. The minutes of the 1109th were read and
approved, seventeen new members were announced and other area geological
meeting announcements were read.
There being no informal communication,
Martin Buzas led off with a talk about using all the
data to work out faunal provinces of modern foraminifera. What he really did
was use Stephen Colver, a computer illiterate, but
bright foraminiferal expert, who needed a job and
didn't have a green card. With this slave labor in hand, every living foram
from 542 localities on the east coast alone were synomimized
and computerized from deep to shallow. Log normal distributions, which are
just short of geochemical triangular diagrams in scientific clout, were used to
find out that a few species dominate and some 83% occur less than 4% of the
time. In the Caribbean, rare species are more common, but the distribution is
still log normal. The conclusion was that there was a poor chance of finding
rare species at any one locality and that there is a great preponderance of
rarity, and biostratigraphy should take note and act accordingly. Questions by
Appleman, Stifel, Colver.
The next talk, by Newell Trask, explored ways to measure seismic risk as it relates
to performance assessments for things like nuclear waste disposal sites. First
there is the engineering approach or the "clean slate" idea that
figures the probability of a fault assuming a flat, homogeneous body. Trask pointed out that while it might be a new revelation
to engineers, most faults are activating old faults, and this approach is too
simple minded. Then there is the 1980 EPA way: take a look at the youngest
layer disturbed by faulting. The inverse of this age is the probability of
faulting. This isn't so great either because a few undisturbed feet of
Quaternary alluvium over a fault in Paleozoic rocks has an automatic
probability of only 10-8. Trask proposed
that a better number might be had by looking at regional rates of motion. He
concluded by saying that the only good fault is a dead fault, but that it's
really hard to tell if one is dead or not. Questions by Helz, McKelvey, Dunn,
Robertson, Dunn, Robertson, McKelvey.
The final talk, by Marilyn Estep, presented
stable isotopic information about algal growths in hot springs in Yellowstone
Park. Hot springs it seems are quite good analogs of Precambrian conditions
because of the low oxygen and high carbon dioxide content. There are three
types of hot springs present at Yellowstone - silica depositing neutral pH
ones, carbonate depositing ones and acid hot springs. Variations in δ13C
between the several species of Alga present and the different hot springs
allowed Estep to discover how the stable isotopes vary as a function of
environmental conditions. The results show that the most negative δ13C
values were reached by Blue-green algae in high CO2, high T and pH
between 6-8. Questions by Cronan, Robertson, Helz,
Towe, Yokelson, Dunn, Hewett
and Pribble. Attendance was 73. The meeting adjourned
at 10 pm sharp.
[unsigned, presumably T. O. Wright]
Minutes of the 1111 meeting
of the Geological Society of Washington
The 1111th meeting was called to order at 8
pm by president Robertson. The minutes of the 1110 meeting were read and
approved. Three guests and four new members were introduced. Robertson reported
on the successful field trip led by Paul Lyons to the coal field of western
Maryland. He held up his bag of fossils to prove it. Robertson then awarded the
grand prize for the best Earth Science High School Science Fair project to Miss
Jean Carney.
Darrel Herd thought he had the record for
the shortest informal communication when the lights dimmed then immediately
came on and the audience applauded. He blew his record however when he
continued and gave a very spectacularly illustrated talk about the recent
Richter 6.5 earthquake in Coalinga, California. Unlike most Californian faults,
this one was a thrust fault, and oil well operations just might have played a part
in precipitating faulting. Questions by Wood, Milton, Sato and Appleman.
The next informal communication, by this
secretary, reported the first Ordovician body fossils and the first conodonts
from the continent of Antarctica.
The third informal communication was by
High School teacher Lee Ann Milton and Russell Robinson of the USGS. They
shared with us a series of comments their students made about a recent visit to
USGS-Reston.
The fourth and gratefully last informal
communication of the evening was by Moto Sato who showed a whole series of
rather dreadful slides about the March 28 Mt. Etna eruption. He did have some
good pictures he took himself of some of the activity while on his recent trip.
The first formal talk was given by Sadao Matsuo whose theme was "boulder on the ground,
tell us something profound". He started his talk on the development of the
Precambrian atmospheric gasses during the early stages of our planets history.
He has analyzed 40Ar/39Ar in cherts
of 1.9 billion year old ages with miserable results. The modern ratio is 296
which was nicely bracketed by the ancient rocks - 280-300. He concluded from
this that the Ar system had been open at several times in the rocks history.
Not deterred by this, he gave a speculative talk on how the atmosphere might
have formed. This included some rather unlikely processes such as organic
evolution under essentially greenschist conditions of
T and P and photosynthesis to make O2 so the CO can be oxidized to
make CO2 , which of course is a needed ingredient for photosynthesis
in the first place. Questions by lots of people, but asked out loud by Towe,
Sato and Hatcher.
The second talk, by Alan Strong, with
President Robertson manning the overhead projector in a most competent manner,
was about sea surface temperatures and aerosols from the El Chichon volcanic
eruption. It seems that sea surface temperatures can be measured by satellite
to a 0.5°C accuracy if a correction factor for atmospheric moisture can be
made. The algorithms for this correction had just been completed when the El
Chichon volcano put lots of ash into the stratosphere. The ash caused an
apparent 1-3°C lowering of sea surface temperature of the satellite data
relative to temperatures recorded by buoys. They recognized that they had a
potential measurement tool for tracking volcanic plumes. He showed some elegant
time-lapse plots of the plume as it circled the globe in three weeks, and moved
away from the equator since then. This, the El Nino condition, and other sea
surface data has caused Strong to predict that the next few winters are going
to be cold ones. Questions by Wright, Sato and Bruce.
The dynamic duo Tom Simkin and Dick Fiske
of the Smithsonian presented the last talk of the long evening. This turned out
to be a multi-media marathon extravaganza which started when Dick Fisk
disappeared behind a black sheet in front of which was a ghetto blaster at the
ready. Simkin made a long-winded pitch for their recently completed book on the
history of Krakatoa. Then these two gave a play by
play of eyewitness accounts of the catastrophic explosion of 1883 with Fiske
playing the part of various people who's accounts have survived and Simkin
providing the color and running commentary. This had all the hallmarks of a
Hollywood epic including high drama, lots of death and destruction, but also
resembled the length of one. On and on it went with 200 foot Tsunamis coming in
at the half hour mark, 8000 souls burned up by falling hot ash at about 45
minutes and cleaned corpses floating to Africa on rafts of pumice at nigh on to
the hour mark. The talk did eventually end, and a bewildered President
immediately adjourned the meeting at 10:35 pm. The box office registered a
successful 109 attendance.
[signed T. O. Wright]
Geological Society of Washington
minutes for the 1112th meeting
President Robertson called the 1112th
meeting of the society to order at 8:03 pm September 28, 1983.
The minutes of the 1111 meeting were read
and miraculously approved.
Five guests were introduced.
Some 27 new members were welcomed to the
Society, and four deaths were acknowledged. A list of other meetings was read,
and Pete Toulmin made an announcement informing the membership about the
Committee on Earth Science teaching.
Bruce Hanshaw then told us about the USGS
Symposium on North and South polar regions.
Tom Dutro then gave an informal
communication about his recent junket to Spain. It seems that every four years
there is a gathering of the Carboniferous clan to discuss such things as the
definition of period boundaries and type sections. Tom said it was a great
trip, and a successful conference, but he had discovered a few problems with
the new USGS creative financing scheme for foreign trips. A firm handshake and
moral support leaves the financial portion of ones backside a bit vulnerable.
Paul Hearn started the formal fall series
with a talk about authigenic feldspars in platform limestones from Tennessee to
Virginia. Normally thought to be a rare and inconsequential phenomena, Hearn
has found large amounts of potassium feldspar in these tidal complex
carbonates. The feldspar occurs in two types as overgrowths on detrital grains
and as finely disseminated in the fine-grained dolomites. Several possible
origins were discussed, but it appeared that under geological conditions
expected soon after deposition, it would be no problem to precipitate the
observed material. Paul concluded with the observation that A1/S: ordering in
the feldspars was related to temperature, and that the authigenic feldspars might
be used as a low-temperature paleothermometer.
Questions by Dow, Robertson and Hewett.
The second talk, by Pat Shanks, was about metalliferous sediments in the Red Sea. In this active rift
several hot and salty brine pools are known, but the Sediments under Atlantis
II brine pool has the highest economic potential. The brine is in two layers:
the upper one is 50°C and 90 ppt C1 and the lower one
61°C and 160 ppt C1. These brines originate by
downward passage through evaporates until they are heated by the young basaltic
rift racks. The hot salty brine then reacts with the wall rocks and acquires
its metal content. After the brines rise to the surface they collect in the
deeps and deposit metal-rich muds. Shanks reported
the results of detailed work on the distribution and internal zonation of these
muds that cover a 5 x 14 km area with as much as 20 m
thickness, and contain 3.5% zinc and .9% copper. Chemical models of the
incoming fluids and minerals found in the sediments were constructed to explain
this interesting deposit. Questions by Towe, Zen, Pelps,
Robins and Brett (twice).
A1 Fisher then cycled up to the podium to
tell us about how rhythmic stratification might have come about. Gilbert's
ghost, standing in the corner looked hopeful that finally the mystery of the
incredibly regular alternations of limestone and marble he saw in the Greenhorn
of the Western interior would be forthcoming. Fisher showed several spectacular
examples of rhythmic sedimentation and explained why annual cycles would not do.
Gilbert nodded. Fisher then went through the various astronomic wiggles,
wobbles and precessions our part of the solar system is afflicted with. Gilbert
grinned. Then Fisher talked of bundles of rhythmic beds, and several
assumptions later showed that the bundles are 100K years each, which is one of
the magic numbers. Gilbert put his head back and started slowly gyrating. Then
Fisher took the data gathered at 10 cm intervals through a long section and
produced, a probability-probability plot of theoretical packet-chance vs.
actual packet-chance that peaked at 21K years, at 41K years, at 100K years and
perhaps at 400K years. That did it, everybody got into the act, the slide
projector started cycling with a period of about 5 seconds, both forward and
reverse, and Gilbert boogied right out of the hall.
After everything quit reverberating,
Cronin, Rankin and Brett asked questions.
President Robertson adjourned the meeting
at 10:15 pm.
[signed T. O. Wright]
1113th Meeting of the Geological Society
President Robertson called the 1113 meeting
of the Society to order at 8:10 pm.
The minutes of the previous meeting were
read, and approved after minor skirmishes with Rankin.
Two guests were introduced.
Other meetings of interest to GSW members
were read.
There being no other announcements nor any
informal communications, President Robertson introduced the first speaker,
David Gee, who told us about the enormous thrusts in the Scandinavian Caledonides. Large thrusts have been known for a long time
in Sweden - Tonnenbaum observed high-grade gneiss on
top of a mountain which was overlying fossiliferous shale. He saw this in 1872
but it took him six years to get up the courage to postulate a thrust that must
have come from Norway. Subsequent work in Norway and Sweden has shown a
remarkable set of circumstances that strongly imply movement on several nested
thrusts in excess of 500 km. First, the Baltic basement is overlain by a thin,
but continuous cover that includes a distinctive radioactive "alien shale"
of mid-Cambrian age. This cover, even near the Norwegian coast always is
present between the basement and thrusts when culminations bring the basement
to the surface. This forces the lowest thrust sheet or allochthon to originate
west of the present coast. Similarly, as one goes structurally upward in the
thrust stack, the lithology and interpreted origins of each thrust sheet imply
transport successively to the west of the thrust sheet below. The uppermost
sheet even contains fossils of North American aspect, which implies transport
from across the paleo-Atlantic. Questions by
Whittaker, Rankin, Wright, Robertson and Bayer.
William Stein then instructed the audience
in how paleontologists go about reconstructing past life forms. He used
dinosaurs to illustrate several levels of comparative models that could be
used. First, one needs to define the level of equivalence between past and
present that would be acceptable. Possibly you could determine equivalence form
an analysis of function. Another level would be to compare specific homologies
such as specific bones in different animals. With these thoughts in mind, Stein
then tackled his real subject of the evening - what to make of Devonian plants?
He went through the physical evidence, showing spectacularly preserved primary
xylem, secondary xylem and phloem and the degree of organization these early
forms show. When it comes to making reconstructions, however, the forms are
making reconstructions, however, the forms are so different from modern
examples that it is a very difficult thing to do. Stein concluded that while
very intriguing, he has reason to believe that by mid-Devonian time, we may not
know what we are talking about. Questions by Whittier, Hewett,
Towe (twice) and Robertson.
Peter Michael then explored the question of
how high silica magmas might differentiate, using evidence from the Bishop Tuff
and a shallow high-silica Pluton form southern Chile.
There are several ways a magma can undergo differentiation. It could become
compositionally zoned by efficient removed of crystals a they form, or
fractionation which would involve highly zoned crystals or there could be
continual equilibrium between melt and crystals. The Bishop Tuff is 75-77%
silica and appears in an inverted sequence relative to the assumed order in
magma chamber. [end… presumably by T. O. Wright]
1114th Meeting of the Geological Society
President Robertson called the 1114th
meeting of the society to order at 8:08 pm using his old army buddy's gravel.
The minutes of the 1113th meeting were read
and approved. Three guest were introduced. Thirteen new members were
acknowledged and other meetings were announced.
Penny Hanshaw then announced that a local
chapter of women in Geoscience was forming, and gave out her phone number.
Pete Toulmin got up to say that the
Principal of Waterford, Virginia High School was recruiting a "Scientist
in Residence". Pete then gave his phone number complete with area code.
President Robertson dusted off the
Society's bylaws and found that for 20 years there has been no specific
authority for awards. He read a proposed amendment, drafted by the bylaws ad
hoc committee to correct this. He forgot to give his phone number.
E-an Zen gave the only informal
communication of the evening. He pointed out that the new Map of Massachusetts,
all three sheets, was now available, in livid color. As Zen left the stage,
Robertson muttered something about its suitability in papering bathrooms.
Rob Wesson, who gave the first formal talk,
discussed what is now known about how faults occur, and how such things as
long-term rate and recurrence intervals are estimated. Records of earthquakes
along the San Andreas show several things. First quakes are limited to
approximately the upper ten kilometers, they generally occur in the same
places, and after-shock zones expand through time and grow upwards and perhaps
downwards. In several places along the surface no faults occur, the stress is
relieved by continual creep. These observations were included in a model for
the San Andreas in which plastic creep occurs below ten kilometers where
temperatures are high enough for crystal flow, and where a quasi plastic flow
occurs above ten kilometers except for patches of difficult slip. In these
patches, the rocks are apparently strong enough so that stress builds until
brittle failure occurs. Various clays turn out to have the right equivalent
viscosity for this shallow quasi plastic flow. Questions by Sato, Sato, Sato,
Sato, Robertson, Zen and Sato.
Bruce Runnegar of
the University of New England, Armidale, Australia
gave us a fascinating talk about the ediacara fauna
found in the late Precambrian Pound Quartzite of the Flinders Range. This
sequence, above glacial tills and below the base of the Cambrian has a number
of rather large and flat life forms, some of which have now been found in many
places around the world. Runnegar then used several
arguments including functional morphology and respiration/biomass relationships
to argue that these animals were adapted to very low oxygen levels, and that as
oxygen levels increased, the Cambrian and Ordovician life forms changed in
response. Size, shape and presence of shells were all related logically to this
scenario. Questions by Sato, Sato, Sato, Hewett and
Robertson.
Louis Brown of Department of Terrestrial
Magnetism then explained in a very lucid talk how 10Be can be a
useful tracer in subduction zones. 10Be is made by neutron-oxygen
collisions in the atmosphere, and is brought to the surface by rain. Ocean ooze
is loaded with the stuff, and if it goes down a subduction zone, melts and
comes up in volcanoes, Brown thinks he will be able to see it. Backed up by
several rooms of heavy duty equipment including a widow-maker driven
accelerator mass spectrometer, Brown has analyzed a suite of non-subduction
related volcanics and two suites of subduction related volcanics. All the
non-subduction ones have less than one million atoms of 10Be per
gram. The Aleutian and Central American arc volcanoes have much more 10Be
implying that ocean sediments are indeed part of the volcanic source material.
However, the Andes, Japan and Java rocks have generally less than one million
atoms per gram, which must mean that sediments are somehow scraped off the down
going slab before melts are made. Brown concluded by saying that 10Be
may turn out to be a better plate tectonic tracer than an age-dating technique.
Questions by Milton, Robertson, Michaels, Toulmin, Zen and Boyd.
President Robertson banged the gavel
adjourning the meeting at 10:06 pm. Attendance was 68.
[signed T. O. Wright]
Geological Society of Washington
9 November 1983
The 1115th meeting of the Society
was called to order by President Robertson at 8:05 p.m. The minutes of the 1114th
meeting were read and approved. Lawrence Wald of
Belgium and Robert White of Albuquerque were introduced as guests. George
Stephens announced upcoming talks by David Gee and G.W. University. The slate
of officer nominations for 1984 was announced.
President Robertson read a new bylaw
approved by Council dealing with awards and asked for discussion before having
the membership vote on it. Zen felt it was totally unnecessary since things had
been working well without for 20 years. Since he was part of a committee that
recommended to Council that such a bylaw be avoided, and then the Council voted
to go ahead with it anyway, he decided to make his last stand against it
publicly. Other discussants were Mary Hill French, Rankin, Dutro, Sohn, and Zen
again. The President called for a vote and announced that all but one and one-half
people voted for it. Judy Ehlen was heard objecting to being referred to as a
half a person.
Charles Milton presented the first paper of
the evening entitled "Moissanite (silicon
carbide-carborundum)--a mass delusion in geology. Moissan first made this mineral while he was trying to
produce diamonds. Since then numerous people have claimed that this mineral
occurs naturally. Then Brian Mason discredited moissanite
as a naturally occurring mineral and stated it was a contamination product made
during grinding. At this point things might have been all right if Russian
geologists sponsored by academicians had not tried to foist numerous ridiculous
examples on the world. Milton suggested that not a single natural example of moissanite has ever been found. Question by Bevan French.
Yehoshua Kolodny of Hebrew University gave the second talk of the
evening on combustion metamorphism and the mottled zone in Israel. His talk
dealt with the paradox of how a sequence of high temperature--low pressure
minerals could have formed in a strange mottled zone in a series of Cretaceous
sediments that overall have never reached high temperatures. The explanation
appears to be that oil shales in these sediments combusted. Much of the talk
dealt with how one could get enough oxygen into the rocks to accomplish this.
Warren Wood of the U.S.G.S. presented the
3rd1talk on the origin of playa lake basins on the Southern High Plains.
Instead of the eolian origin first suggested by
Gilbert in 1895, Wood and his coauthor Osterkamp,
believe that these 30,000 small basins formed by some sort of piping and
solution process and are actually a karst feature
modified by eolian action. Evidence that. supports
this is the fact the concentration of CO2 in gases increases with
depth which would allow dissolution at depth. Questions by Robertson, Zen,
Olive, Towe, French (twice).
Attendance was 87. The meeting adjourned at
10:06 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter T. Lyttle,
Stand-in Secretary
Geological Society of Washington -- 1116th meeting
December 14, 1983
Christmas carols played by our multifaceted
new Program Chair [Penny Hanshaw] signaled
the 5-minute warning to beer-drinkers; President Robertson called the 1116th
meeting to order at 8:05 p.m. to the strains of "When the Saints Go Marching
In." Considering the large number of people who ignored this call, maybe
we need a different theme song -something more like the Beer Barrel Polka. The
minutes of the 1115th meeting were read and approved after a minor coughing fit
from President Whatsisname. Don't be upset, Gene --
"a Robertson by any other name would smell as sweet." Next, Tom Dutro
objected to the "woefully inadequate" summaries in the minutes. Tom's
a hard man to please; less than 4 years ago he was objecting to Secretary Tina Silber's minutes because they were too long.
After all this frivolity (perhaps warming
up for the Annual Meeting?), the names of 10 newly elected members were read;
none of them was present. President Robertson announced the deaths of two
members of the Society, Ogden Tweto and Robert George
Schmidt, and read a brief memorial to each of them.
The preliminaries of the meeting were
finished with stunning celerity; at 8:15, 1st Vice President Towe introduced
the evening's speaker, President Robertson. Robertson warned his audience that
he was exercising his prerogative to permit no questions that night but that
the talk, "Overthrust faulting: a gouge in the eye of tradition"
would be given again on Jan. 19 (that's a week from tomorrow) at the Survey in
Reston when Gene will answer questions. It takes a brave man to give his
audience 5 weeks to think up questions when he'll only have 5 seconds to think
up the answers. Robertson was thoughtful enough to start off with his
conclusion (a model I hope all this year's speakers will follow) that
most of what have been called overthrust faults are not, in fact, faults,
because they don't show the disturbed bedding or the gouge and breccia that are
characteristic of faults.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 p.m. so
the 132 present could adequately fortify themselves for the coming Annual
Meeting.
[signed Kathleen Krafft]
GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
91st ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING - 14 DECEMBER 1983
President Robertson called the meeting to
order at 9:32 after a short beer break following his address during the last
formal meeting. Minutes of the 90th annual meeting were read and approved.
Peter Lyttle reported on the activities of the Council. He noted that little,
if anything, happens in council meetings that hasn't gone on for years. He
researched past council annual reports and found that meeting notices haven't
been delivered properly since 1940 while the quality, quantity, and condition
of the beer has been of primary concern to Council since the turn of the century.
Lyttle did report that this Council had approved firing the old printer and
hiring a new, hopefully- better contractor to mailer meetings notices, had
upgraded the beer to a better brand, and had initiated a number of educational
programs. T.O. Wright then-reported gave the meeting secretary's report. After mentioning several memorable meeting
highlights, he concluded by saying that attendance averaged 100 per meeting,
and that Robertson attended all of them, unlike the meeting secretary.
These-minutes were approved without a squawk from Dutro.
Treasurer Tilling then gave the bottom
line. The society lost $64.20 during the year, with $10101.20 in income vs.
$10165.40 in expenditures.. Cosmos club expenses were up, interest was down and
contributions were up. Tilling saw no need to raise dues. The auditing
committee, after finding and correcting a $.06 error in Tilling's
books, certified that the books were in order.
Fred Simon then reported on the membership
committee. Fred reported 141 new members were added during the year, and after
accounting for deaths and resignations, this left the total membership at 1091,
with 716 active, 230 corresponding and 145 retired.
Tom Dutro then rose to ask that President
Robertson call for an approval vote of the last three reports, which was
dutifully done.
Dan Milton then reported on the Public
Service Committee which includes judging High School Science Fairs, running
field trips and the like. Dan said it was lots of fun, but you have to watch
the Science Fairs - sometimes you get the feeling kids know more than you do.
Robertson called for and received approval from the membership.
Harvey Belkin
next reported on the new College Student Awards Committee. Next April 10th, the
committee will select the most outstanding research paper submitted to the
society from an undergraduate from the area's academic institutions. A $200
prize will be awarded. This report was also approved by the membership.
Pete Toulmin reported on attempts by the
Earth Sciences Education Committee to foster the teaching of our discipline.
While picnics don't seem to be effective, the committee is hard at work trying
to help local earth science teachers and act as brokers in getting
professionals in touch with school programs. The membership gave a round of
applause for the efforts expended by these committees.
A thirsty Penny Hanshaw arrived at the
podium to report on the outcome of the best paper committee and after
exercising female clout was provided with a fresh beer by Tilling. With that
sorted out, Penny awarded the Bradley prize of 1983 to Marilyn Estep. Bruce Runnegar was runner-up;
his award was accepted by John Pojeta. Honorable mention went to Porter
Kier, Dick Fiske and Tom Simkin, Charles Milton, David Gee, and Pat Shanks. The
Great Dane award was made to Blaine Cecil, who nearly wiped out the deficit by
donating his award to the society.
Then Bruce Lipin, reporting for the secret
Sleeping Bear committee, awarded the prize for the most humorous episode during
the year to the audience who participated in a rapid-fire quick-witted exchange
that Robin Brett started and sustained. For being the catalyst, Robin was
appointed custodian of the prize for the year, which was wrapped in a small
box. An unseemly aclaration then followed when
Yochelson, by parliamentary maneuvers, tried to force Brett to open the box to
see if anything was actually inside.
Then President Robertson presided over the
election of new officers. As no nominations, other than those proposed by the
nominating committee, were offered, the membership voted into office Normal L.
Hatch as First Vice-President and President-Elect, George Helz as Second
Vice-President, Kathleen Kraft as Meeting Secretary, Nick Van Driel as Treasurer and Fred Simon, John Repetski
and Robert Ayuso as New Councilors. Robertson then
transferred command to Ken Towe, who as his first act as new President,
adjourned the meeting at 10:32.