newsletter fall 2014 - Humboldt State...

Greetings from the Chairs – Lori Dengler and Mark Hemphill-‐Haley

Big changes in the Department in the past six months – so we want to bring you up to date. Many of you may have heard of the departure of Brandon Schwab, our chair for the last two years. Brandon has exchanged his field boots for a suit and tie as the Associate Provost of Western Carolina University in North Carolina. Brandon and wife Angie have wanted to return to their roots and families for some time and we wish them and boys Avery and Harper all the best. The good news is that we haven’t lost Brandon forever. He will continue his association with our department as an Adjunct faculty member.

Brandon left a huge hole on both the administrative side and in teaching. We are sharing chair duties this semester and Mark will take over the reins in full this spring. By a fortuitous set of circumstances, we landed ourselves a new Brandon. Brandon Browne is a volcanologist who has been able to slip into the role of our hard rock person and take over the Earth Materials and Earth Resources classes. Brandon B. came to us as a one-‐year sabbatical replacement for Sue Cashman who is working on the mechanics of faulting at the University of Washington this year. He was hired to teach intro and General Education classes, but when Brandon S. departed, Brandon B’s background was the perfect fit to take on the core hard rock courses in the department. Brandon took his fall Earth Materials class to Crater Lake (see photos in the field trip section). It was a great trip, albeit a little smoky, and we are impressed with both his background and ability to communicate. Brandon also gave an excellent colloquium on combining field and laboratory observations to understand how Aniakchak Volcano in Alaska erupts. Brandon’s family includes his wife Carrie, also a geologist, and two boys Levi and Clark. We are fortunate to have them with us.

We are so pleased that Melanie Michalak has returned for a second year as a full time lecturer. It turns out that Mel can teach far more than the intro and GE classes she was officially hired to take on. She taught half of the 2014 Field Camp, and this semester is teaching Geomorphology and Field Methods. This spring, she is taking on Structure. It

seems there is nothing that Mel isn’t capable of teaching – and she still runs ultra marathons in her spare time. Mel comes to us via UC Santa Cruz were she worked on exhumation rates of the Peruvian Andes. She recently gave a great talk at colloquium on the spatial patterns of erosion of the Northwestern Himalaya. She has also been a proponent of developing new pedalogical methods in Geology education and an active participant in HSU’s efforts to engage diverse student populations in the sciences. It has been a pleasure having her in the department.

We are also happy to introduce Dallas Rhodes, a new Research Associate in the Department. Dallas comes to us via Georgia Southern University, where he was the Chair of the Dept. of Geography and Geology for 12 years. Dallas’ tectonic geomorphology expertise is a great fit for our department. Accompanying Dallas to HSU, is our new University President, Lisa Rossbacher. Lisa is also a geologist with expertise in Martian geomorphology. She comes to HSU from Southern Polytechnical State University in Georgia where she was president for 16 years. If you read Earth magazine, check out the Geologic Column in the back, Lisa writes some insightful entries. We’ve included some of her comments on the importance of field experiences later in this newsletter.

Two of our recent MS graduates have taken on part-‐time teaching positions in the department. Amanda Admire is now running the on-‐line Geology 106 Earthquake Country section, and Dylan Caldwell is teaching Field Methods I. Both will return in the spring – Amanda for another go at the online class and Dylan will be teaching the Field Methods II class.

We also welcome two new Adjunct Faculty members. Most of you know Jay Patton who received both BA and MS degrees from HSU. Jay finished his PhD at Oregon State last year and is currently teaching at College of the Redwoods. He continues to be active in regional research through Cascadia Geosciences and is working with the California State Earthquake Clearing House in developing a post-‐event tsunami response capability. He has taken a leadership role in planning the grand 50th anniversary ’64 Flood commemoration at the Arcata Theater Lounge on December 21 and establishing the 1964 Flood Facebook page. Jim Goltz ran the California Office of Emergency Service’s Earthquake and Tsunami Program from 2006 to 2011 and has worked closely with Lori on tsunami and earthquake mitigation projects for many years. Jim is a social scientist who has spent his career studying how people and social systems respond to disasters.

After many years of futile requests for new faculty position, we have not one, but two tenure track faculty searches in progress. This is the first time a tenure track position has been advertised since William Miller was hired (Brandon S. and Mark both came to HSU as full-‐time lecturers). One position is for a petrologist/mineralogist to fill the position left by Brandon Schwab’s departure. The other is for a person specializing in Geomorphology, Surficial Processes, Neotectonics, and/or Quaternary Geoscience. We’ll be interviewing candidates early next term and final selection by March or April.

Please keep in touch with us. Let us know what you are doing and update your address by emailing [email protected]. Follow us on the HSU Geology Alumni Facebook

page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/humboldt.geology/ and the Geology Department page at http://www.humboldt.edu/geology. Nothing makes as happier than visits from alums. If you are in the area, please drop by and say hello. Faculty/staff updates

Amanda Admire I have had the pleasure to continue on as a Research Associate after completing my Master’s Degree in May 2013. I have continued to work with Lori on the tsunami research work we began during my thesis utilizing Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) to measure the velocity of tsunamis in Humboldt Bay and Crescent City Harbor. We have also teamed with the Humboldt Bay Harbor District, Chevron, and NOAA National Observing System (NOS) to install and maintain four additional ADCPs throughout Humboldt Bay as part of the nation-‐wide Physical Oceanographic Real-‐Time System (PORTS) project.

I am also involved with the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group and Mendocino County Water Safety Coalition outreach and education efforts to inform the public and visitors to our area of the potential hazards associated with earthquakes and tsunamis as well as beach and water safety measures. These efforts include presenting at events including the Humboldt County and Mendocino County fairs, and smaller venues like the Salmon BBQ, the Abalone Festival, and the Fire Prevention & Safety Day held in Fort Bragg.

This fall I am teaching the online version of the GEOL 106-‐Earthquake Country course. This is a GE level course for non-‐Geology majors where they gain an understanding of the mechanics of earthquakes and prediction methods, the hazards associated with earthquakes, and what can be done to prepare for the effects of earthquakes. I am excited to continue teaching this course in the spring of 2015. Brandon Browne Hello friends of HSU geology! I am a new lecturer in the Geology Department with teaching responsibilities that include General Geology, Earth Materials and Natural Resources in the fall as well as Optical Mineralogy and California Geology in the spring.

Servicing ADCP on Buoy 2 in Humboldt Bay

Earth Materials had a great time exploring volcanic rocks and thinking about crystallization, magma mixing, and caldera formation processes on our field trip to Crater Lake National Park. I've also enjoyed being involved in some SEM student projects looking at a variety of interesting igneous textures. I remain impressed by HSU's commitment to engaging students in fieldwork and research as well as the terrific collection of rocks and minerals (and thin sections!) in the HSU Geology Department. I can't wait to utilize more specimens in my classes and get more familiar with the department labs as time goes by.

My background is igneous petrology and volcanology, with research interests that broadly fall into two categories: understanding how -‐ and over what timescales -‐ volcanic

eruptions are triggered through magma mixing, and experimentally constraining how minerals respond to changing pressures and melt compositions during magma ascent and eruption. Before HSU, I was an associate professor in the geology departments of Cal State Fullerton and Occidental College in southern California where I taught courses in mineralogy, igneous petrology, volcanology, and field camp and mentored undergraduate and graduate thesis students. I earned my MS and PhD in geology from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where I worked at volcanoes in Japan, Kamchatka, Alaska, and Mexico. My wife Carrie and I have two little boys (ages 7 and 5) who have enjoyed relocating from southern California to the forests, rivers, and mountains of the north coast. Living here among the trees and breweries has also been fun for me because of how much I enjoyed my time as an undergraduate geology major at Oregon State University. I'm very grateful for how kind, supportive, and patient the faculty, staff, and students have been since my arrival in August. Thank you for welcoming me into your HSU geology family! Bud Burke This first year of retirement from the classroom has been busy, and I haven’t taken up new hobbies to fill the ‘extra time’. I have been fortunate enough to be involved with the research projects of many students, formally and informally. Travel remains an issue for me because of the time and effort it takes to care for me. That said, I greatly enjoyed attending the Bi-‐annual meeting of the American Quaternary Association (AMQUA) held in

Visiting with longtime HSU Geology friend Jim Macey in Keeler, 2014.

Seattle this past August. That meeting was chaired by Professor Alan Gillespie (University of Washington), an HSU adjunct many of you have met. It was a pleasure to visit with Alan and many other friends – including a few HSU alumni. It was especially rewarding to be there as a co-‐author with three HSU graduate student presenters. Heath Sawyer and Jody Mielke, along with their collaborating co-‐authors, presented posters related to the on-‐going research at Cache Creek, near Clear Lake, California. For several years Bob and Susan McPherson have directed and supported students from College of the Redwoods and HSU in an effort to better understand the evolution of the Cache Creek drainage. This year, some of Bob’s (and previous students’) ideas on faulting within the Cache Creek drainage have come into “LiDAR view” by the USGS and we should expect research to continue. Beyond those two graduate student presenters at AMQUA, graduate student Tim Bailey and co-‐authors presented an overview of late Pleistocene/Holocene glacial activity in the Mts. of NW California. That work was, in part, an outgrowth of the senior thesis by Ian Pierce (with Mark Hemphill-‐Haley), who is now a graduate student at the University of Nevada Reno. Tim is the third annual, and present, recipient of the Bud Burke Scholarship in Geology – early results of his graduate thesis research were presented at the national Geological Society of America meeting in Vancouver – please see photo and additional comments on Tim under the Burke Award paragraph.

Because of my insecurity in travel plans, I won’t look too far ahead. Locally I hope to advance some long-‐standing interests in eolian additions to the lower marine terraces, and to possibly work with laboratory techniques to increase our efficiency. As for a single travel plan -‐ I was able to make the Friends of the Pleistocene gathering in Tecopa this November – and it was great to see so many of you there! All my best and thank you for your continued support. Sue Cashman and Harvey Kelsey We are “Visiting Scholars” at the University of Washington for the 2014-‐2015 academic year. Harvey is settled in at the US Geological Survey office on campus, where he has worked intermittently for several years, and Sue is based in the Geophysics Department. It’s exciting to be at a major research institution, and we’re enjoying working with colleagues here and participating in seminars, reading groups, etc. The photo at right shows Harvey and colleagues discussing a fault exposed in a paleoseismology trench on the east side of the Cascades earlier this fall.

We recently returned to Seattle from the Annual Geological Society of America meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the meeting, HSU Geology MS alumna Melissa Foster, currently a PhD Candidate at

University of Colorado, Boulder, received the Robert K. Fahnestock Award.

The award, presented by the Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division, is for the best research proposal in sediment transport or fluvial geomorphology. Congratulations, Melissa! We enjoyed seeing many HSU geology alumni at the meeting, including Ken Adams, Melissa Foster, Orion George, Rich Koehler, Scott Lundstrom, Otto Paris, Joanna Redwine, Janet Slate, and Ted Turner.

Lori Dengler I hadn’t planned on teaching this semester but plans can go quickly awry when the chair leaves. So instead of focusing primarily on tsunami and earthquake efforts this term, I’m teaching four courses and helping Mark with chair duties. The good news -‐ I’ve got really good classes. I am especially enjoying the Geoscience Capstone group. We completely revamped the Geoscience degree four years ago – from a teaching credential only oriented program to a more general management/planning/policy degree. The capstone class is somewhat like field camp for the geoscience folks, in that the students are expected to use and integrate what they have learned in their core courses and work independently on a real-‐world project. Sue supervised the class the last three years -‐ they did some

wonderful projects working with the Natural History Museum and Redwood National Park. This year the students approached me about focusing on HSU earthquake management and preparedness. They had all taken my Natural Disasters class and had participated in a campus emergency management drill and decided to dig into preparedness in a more comprehensive way. For the first half of the semester, they worked hard to promote participation in the ShakeOut earthquake drill, and now they are busy trying to identify strengths and gaps in

campus earthquake planning. We will forward their report at the end of the term to the campus administration.

Sue measuring deformation bands in Crannell sand, near Korbel. Trevor Mearce is studying the structures here for his senior thesis.

ShakeOut Day with 465 group in front of The Depot.

I’m also teaching the SEM class again. Three years ago, under Brandon Schwab and colleagues in the Biology department, HSU was able to acquire a Quanta 250 Scanning Electron Microscope. Some of you may remember the old SEM we had back in the early 1980s – the smell and noise of the oil diffusion pump and the pain of trying to acquire decent images. The Quanta is a dream – the turbo pump is so quiet you hardly hear it and the Energy Dispersive X-‐ray analysis system makes it possible to do semi-‐quantitative petrologic studies. I’ve also got a fabulous TA, Nate Graham, to help out. This year I’ve got a competent and enthusiastic group of students working on a variety of projects ranging from quartz sand textures to fractures systems and petrologic studies. Their posters will be up in the Founders Hall basement beginning mid-‐December. If you come by campus, take a look. You will be impressed.

I’m continuing to work on tsunami and earthquake issues. Last month, I was appointed the chair of the Advisory Committee for the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN). CISN is the platform that integrates USGS, CGS, Berkeley, and CalTech seismic data into a seamless interface for users and the public. It will also be the organization that will coordinate California’s Earthquake Early Warning efforts. It’s an exciting group to be a part of. On the tsunami front, UNESCO’s new International Tsunami Survey Team (ITST) guide has finally been published. My co-‐editor, Dale Dominey-‐Howes from the University of Sydney, and I (along with a core working group of 11 international tsunami scientists) have been working on this since 2009. We kept being interrupted by significant tsunami events. This new Field Guide addresses developments in the tsunami field since 1998, and the expansion of ITST efforts into new disciplines and technologies. It can be downloaded at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002294/229456E.pdf .

The Japan tsunami continues to make new connections and to take me in directions I never expected to go. Last year I became involved in the effort to reconnect a small boat that landed in Crescent City with the Japanese High School that lost it (see https://www.facebookstories.com/stories/61397/recovering-‐hope ). In February, six Del Norte High School students visited Rikuzentakata and this January, a group of Japanese High School students will visit Crescent City. In June, a second tsunami boat beached near Dry Lagoon. The boat was traced to Miyagi Prefecture and, because there was no interest in it being returned, released to us for outreach efforts. It became the centerpiece of our Humboldt County Fair earthquake-‐tsunami room in August. The attraction of the boat was amazing to watch – we doubled our previous fair attendance record.

Ryota learning to open the SEM chamber under Nate’s watchful eye.

Best of all, I was able to slip away from Humboldt for 18 days this term to float the Grand Canyon in dories from Lees Ferry to Diamond. Glorious geology. Something all of us should do again and again and again. Eileen Hemphill-‐Haley This past year I’ve been working on several interesting projects to evaluate the records of past earthquakes and tsunamis at a number of locations along the California coast, as well from Sedanka Island in the Aleutians. I’ve been using diatoms (microscopic plant fossils) to identify relative-‐sea level changes caused by earthquake deformation, and differentiate tsunami deposits (that transport marine diatoms onshore) from other kinds of similar-‐looking coarse-‐grained deposits in the stratigraphic record. I developed my interests in micropaleontology, and diatoms in particular, as an undergraduate 30 years ago in the HSU Geology Department, and all these years later I am still plugging away, and learning new things all the time. I am so grateful to the Department for the opportunity to pursue this work, and especially to Lori Dengler who secured the funds for a new research microscope that (I love and) makes it possible to document microfossils of such small size, as diatoms average only 30-‐80 microns across. The digital camera on the microscope creates high-‐resolution images of publication quality that are imperative for clearly documenting taxa indicative of different environments.

As an HSU researcher, I have the pleasure of working with some outstanding graduate and undergraduate students. HSU Geology students are the best! In addition to contributing both in the field and lab for my on-‐going projects, Casey Loofbourrow is working on his master’s degree using diatom paleoecology to reconstruct paleoclimatic changes over the past 10,000 years in a fjord off southeastern Alaska. Casey is an Alaska native, and wanted to pursue research that focused on climate change in his home state. His work is being supported in part by the Climate Change group at the USGS, and will be included in a large multiproxy analysis of climate change since the Pleistocene in the North Pacific. For my work, HSU students have been instrumental in helping me get great samples to study tsunami deposits from beneath marshes in the area. Just recently, on October 16 – California ShakeOut Day – I worked with Casey as well as HSU students Jessie Vermeer and Brandon Crawford to document new evidence for the AD 1700 tsunami, plus possibly two older events, in a marsh north of Crescent City. At 10:16 a.m., the designated time for the earthquake drill, we made sure we were on the terrace high above the marsh, out of a potential tsunami inundation zone. We then hiked down to the marsh and found the

Eileen’s microscope was made possible through a donation from a community member to the Earthquake Center Trust.

tsunami deposit about a meter below the modern surface, and about 700 m inland from the ocean. We had previously documented the deposit closer to the coast at this marsh, but this was the first observation of its presence so far inland. Another thing that I’ve enjoyed about my work has been the opportunity to collaborate with Harvey Kelsey. Harvey and I are currently working on two projects focusing on paleoseismology or tsunami inundation, the first a collaboration with the USGS and California Geological Survey, and the other a collaboration with colleagues from the USGS and University of Rhode Island. Recently it occurred to me that Harvey and I actually go back quite a ways, with our first

collaboration on a project way the heck back in 1995.

On a final note, I attended the Seismological Society of America meeting in Anchorage this past spring. The meeting commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and included a personal pilgrimage for me, as I was able to visit the street at the Air Force base in Anchorage where I was living in 1964 when the earthquake hit. I was a little kid at the time, but have a pretty good memory of the event, and remembered how our house rocked hard for minutes, and how dishes jumped off the kitchen shelves and furniture danced around the rooms. Our house remained intact, though, and after viewing the site all these years later, I understand why. We couldn’t have lived in a better place to survive a quake like that: a broad, flat plain, perfect for air force air fields, and perfect for little wooden houses to shake and shake and shake, and not fall down. Mark Hemphill-‐Haley I am proud that one of my graduate students, Jessica Vermeer, was awarded the 2014 Alistair and Judith McCrone Graduate Student Fellowship for her ongoing studies to investigate the post-‐1994 Cape Mendocino relative sea level response along Singley Flat. Sylvia Nicovich has been conducting work along the southern extent of the Little Salmon fault along the Van Duzen River. She has been working with Humboldt Redwood Company LiDAR to map terraces along the river. She trenched a scarp that displaces young terraces this summer with some surprising results. Michelle Robinson has been working with the BLM along the upper Mattole River mapping terraces to understand the geomorphic

Jesse Vermeer, Casey Loofbourrow and Brandon Crawford in a marsh north of Crescent City on October 16, 2014 – California Shakeout Day. The field team commemorated the California ShakeOut by first making sure they were high on a terrace and out of the tsunami inundation zone at the designated time of the earthquake drill (10:16 a.m.), and then hiking down to a marsh to collect new evidence of the AD 1700 tsunami. The tsunami deposit is visible in the core as a gray, quartz-‐rich sand layer intercalated in brown to black freshwater peat (Casey is pointing to the tsunami deposit with his knife).

response of those features to rapid uplift. Michelle, Sylvia and Jesse will all be presenting posters at the AGU meeting in San Francisco this December.

I’ve been working with Bob McPherson, Bud Burke, grad student Jodie Mielke and scientists from the BLM, US Forest Service, US Geological Survey and Cal State East Bay (led by HSU Alum Professor Mitch Craig) in Cache Creek east of Clear Lake. They are delineating faults, terraces and stratigraphy in an apparent step-‐over

of the Bartlett Springs fault. This summer we hand dug a small trench across one of the fault scarps for evidence of recent activity.

We had a great Geol 554 trip (see photos in field trip section) to the Steens this August where we mapped glacial deposits on the west side of the mountain, measured the curvature of the earth on the Alvord Valley playa and surveyed the Holocene scarp for degradation estimates of the age of the most recent event of the Alvord fault. Bob McPherson After teaching classes at both at College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State since 1992, I retired from the classroom. I turned my classes at College of Redwoods over to a knowledgeable and exciting teacher, Dr. Jay (Bay) Patton, an HSU alum himself. I continue to pursue research in both the Mendocino Triple Junction area as well as Cache Creek Natural Area east of Clear Lake, Lake County, California. At Cache Creek I work with Bud Burke, and we are proud to have mentored senior theses students Anson Call and Heath Sawyer, as well as masters’ students Jeff Gaines and presently Jody Mielke. Recently at Cache Creek, we teamed up with Jim Lienkemper and Steve DeLong of the USGS, as well as our own Mark Hemphill-‐Haley who came with a “pod” of students, and hand-‐trenched the newly identified KuiKui Fault. The preliminary results are being presented at the AGU this fall in the Bay Area, so come by our poster. Professor Mitch Craig, Cal State East Bay, an HSU alum also, brought his Ground Penetrating Radar system to image this newly discovered fault. It was great fun to work with all these talented

Revisiting the Steens, site of my Masters research with the 554 class in August.

people and give students the hands-‐on experience of fieldwork, a tradition at HSU. We will continue doing research in this area and bringing students to the field.

Eight years ago I was selected as alternate public member of Humboldt County’s Local Area Formation Commission, also known as LAFCO. Presently, I am the Vice Chair and was privileged to represent Humboldt County at the State’s annual meeting of CALAFCO. LAFCO commissioners from most of the counties throughout the state met in Ontario, California to discuss new legislation concerning groundwater management. This new legislation will affect all of us and change the way we approach groundwater removal and storage, and it is exciting to be a part of implementing the law at our county level for which LAFCO is tasked to do.

Lastly, I spend my time as a “consulting oil petroleum geologist” for my wife’s family farm in Ventura County, California. The Maulhardt Farm is the longest surviving, family-‐run farm in Ventura County, continuously farmed for 127 years, longer than General Motors has been around! We are drilling our tenth oil well as I write this part of the newsletter, so retirement is going “well”. Go Lumberjacks!! Melanie Michalak Hello friends of HSU geology! I am happy to begin my second year at HSU. Over the summer I co-‐instructed Field Camp with Brandon Schwab and a fantastic staff (read my report on Field Camp in this newsletter). I continue to be impressed by the field-‐intensive courses we offer in our department, and the aptitude and attitude of our geoscience and geology majors. This semester I am again teaching Earthquake Country, which is an exciting challenge due to a large class size. With the help of instructional computer animations, sound bytes and videos, many passed down from Mark and Lori, I have a lot of fun teaching this course to 100+ students.

Field Methods II at Trinidad Beach.

On the other end of the spectrum, I am teaching a small class of 16 students for Field Methods II. They did their final mapping project in the Lassics mountains, which was inspired by Danny Hagan’s 1978 senior thesis from our theses archives. Thanks to my incredible teaching assistants Nate Graham, Ian Pierce, and Brandon Crawford for developing this project with me over the last two semesters. I’m also teaching General Geomorphology this Fall, to a broad group of natural sciences and non-‐science majors. We’ve spent most of our three hour field laboratory sections in local field sites, collecting data the “old school” way using basic surveying equipment to determine channel morphology, discharge, relative heights of landscape features, erosion rates, etc.

Currently, I co-‐advise a few students on their senior thesis work, some of whom are attending AGU. Nate Graham and Brandon Crawford will be presenting their work on olivine crystal reaction rims from the Lassen black dacite and seismically deformed marine terraces at Cape Mendocino, respectively. I will also be presenting some of my dissertation work in the Coastal Batholith of Peru. If you will be attending AGU, don’t miss our student presentations! William Miller I continue to teach the paleontology courses in the department, and have been teaching Sedimentary Geology for a few years since Dr. Ken Aalto retired. I’ve just been granted a sabbatical leave in Fall 2015, which will allow me to speed up some research projects, accept an appointment as Visiting Researcher at the University of Padua, and spend some time with colleagues at Appalachian State University where I am an Adjunct Research Professor—closing the cosmic circle at my undergraduate school.

My research oscillates from empirical work mainly on trace fossils to theoretical work in evolutionary paleoecology. I’m currently working with Dr. Steve Hageman at Appalachian State on latest Ediacaran-‐earliest Cambrian fossils in the Chilhowee Group in northeastern Tennessee-‐southwestern Virginia. Steve has been collecting weird fossils from these rocks for nearly a decade and brought me in to try to make sense out of them (see photo). What we are seeing is the “fuse” that led to the Cambrian

Planolites isp

Explosion of skeleton-‐bearing animal clades. I’ll get to do more collecting in spring and fall of next year. My book Trace Fossils: Concepts, Problems, Prospects (Elsevier; 2007) has become a landmark volume in ichnology.

I’m also involved in a theoretical quest to find causal linkages between development of large-‐scale ecologic systems and macroevolution. If anyone can explain the connections between the concepts/patterns in the diagram (previous page), let me know—we’ll be famous. It would amount to the macroevolutionary theory of everything! Dallas Rhodes I was pleased to join the HSU Geology Department in June as a Research Associate. It’s great to be back in California after many years in Georgia, being able to accompany my wife, Lisa Rossbacher, who is the new president of Humboldt State and also a geologist.

I began my career as a fluvial geomorphologist working in landscapes conditioned by glaciation. Upon receiving a PhD from Syracuse University in 1973, I joined the faculty at the University of Vermont and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental geology, hydrogeology, and geomorphology.

I moved to Whittier College in 1977. During my 21 years there, I was twice a NASA Summer Faculty Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and spent one summer at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies of the Smithsonian Institution conducting investigations into Martian geology. I conducted field investigations in Sweden, where I spent a year as a Visiting Scientist at the University of Uppsala. My students and I began studying landforms produced by active faulting in 1988. My work has focused on the San Andreas Fault and associated landforms. In 1993-‐94, I was Visiting Professor of Geology at Stanford University. Together with colleagues from Cal State Bakersfield, Indiana University, and Arizona State, my work has expanded to include the climatic history of central California.

In 1998, I became the Chair of the Department of Geology and Geography at Georgia Southern. While there I helped to build a geographic information systems (GIS) program, oversaw the renovation of facilities, and dramatically increased the department’s enrollments. I retired from Georgia Southern University with the title of Professor Emeritus of Geology in 2010.

Dallas and Tango

Now that I am settled in Humboldt County, I hope to continue research on the Pleistocene history of the Carrizo Plain and the geomorphic evidence for a pluvial Lake Carrizo. I hope to be able to interest Humboldt undergrads and graduate students in becoming involved with these issues. I will also continue to be active in the Building Strong Geoscience Departments program. Steve Tillinghast It's been a busy year for me. I was a TA at field camp last summer in the White Pine Range and have helped plan, and assisted leading, the week long spring semester Geol 110 trip to Death Valley. It was a pleasure being at field camp as this year's group was outstanding.

I've also managed to get the Rix 3000 XRF running again for student research after a long down period due to a failed heat exchanger in the cooling system. The manufacturer of the XRF, Rigaku, was unable to provide a replacement unit due to the age of the XRF. With the help of Colin Wingfield, I was able to use a surplus heat exchanger and bypass the defective unit. I like to call it FrankenRix. I also went with 10 of our students on the 2014 FOP trip to Tecopa Basin earlier this November. I foolishly volunteered to be the staff representative on the search committee (lots of work!) for a new Provost for Humboldt State University and am also on the search committee for a new petrologist to replace our beloved Brandon Schwab. Looking forward, I will be going to AGU in December and plan on assisting again with the next Geol 110 trip in addition to being a TA again at field camp this summer at the Roberts Mountains. Colin Wingfield

I thought camping season was over for the year after I had spent 7+ weeks in my tent, on the ground, under the stars, etc. As soon as I put my outdoor gear away for the looming dark times, I was informed of the Friends of the Pleistocene trip to Tecopa Basin. The Geology Club has now talked me into supporting this whirlwind tour south and back. I am looking forward to my second FOP in more than ten years. By the time you read this, I will have driven nearly 8000

Steve and the clones – our new truck Dolly joins Alice. Can you tell them apart? We still have Vanna and our aging dowager duchess Lilly. Our vehicle fleet has only been possible through the continued support of alums to the Geology Trust.

miles in HSU Geology rigs, this year alone! This reminds me of why I joined the HSU Geology Department in the first place. The excellent field experiences. I am lucky to be able to continue this experience as HSU Geology Staff supporting the learning of budding geologists.

In other news, I am helping my mother start up a 3+ acre hobby farm on a property bordering Soquel Creek, Santa Cruz County. We have always dreamed of farming a small parcel. Now we have just begun to reap the benefits of harvest. I have brought winter squash, and canned goods from the farm to Humboldt County. Can’t wait to try the jalapeno relish. Perhaps next year’s field camp cook could use the surplus garlic harvest. Cheers! Other staff news • Laurie Marx continues to be the anchor of our program in the office. We have been gifted with an outstanding line of Department Coordinators and Laurie can vie with the best of them. • Dylan Caldwell will take on the second in our Field Methods trilogy (Fields II) next semester. He continues his “day job” with Busch Geotechnical Consultants • Andre Lehre is in his fourth year of the Faculty Early Retirement Program (FERP) and will be teaching geomorph and fluvial this spring semester. • Kerry Sherrin (formerly Pinto), our Department Coordinator in 2011-‐12, has found her true calling working with Lori on earthquake and tsunami outreach activities. • Ken Aalto continues to be an active participant in our Geology Colloquium speakers program. This fall he revisited his work on super-‐critical flow and bedrock sculpting at Pebble Beach in Crescent City. • Don Garlick regularly attends colloquium presentations and student thesis presentations. News from the Geoclub Watch out, the 2014/2015 Humboldt State Geology Club is together again for another Rockin' year! The Rock Auction returns for the 40th consecutive year on Friday December 5, at 6:30 PM in Founders 118. We welcome all of you to relive the glory! Over the past semester our club has traveled long distances to attend this year's Friends of the Pleistocene, rockhounded with the local Gem and Mineral Society at their Annual Rock Show, and promoted the Worldwide ShakeOut event at HSU.

Kerry having fun with Bigfoot at the Earthquake Tsunami Room, Humboldt Co. Fair

With the help from the HSU Club's and Activities Office, 12 club members were able to drive 800 miles to Tecopa, CA this fall for the Friends of the Pleistocene Conference. A big thanks goes out to John Caskey and others for leading amazing trip. The Gem and Mineral Show had large helping of student members to help with set-‐up and take-‐down of their show; we thank them for bringing worldwide geology to Eureka this November. Last but not least, the Geoscience majors of our club actively brought the Worldwide ShakeOut Earthquake drill to HSU to spread earthquake preparedness with outstanding participation throughout the campus community. Upcoming events brought to you by the HSU Geology Club include our Annual Rock Auction on December 5th and another caving trip in Shasta County led by Jamie Schutmaat. The HSU Geology Club gives thanks to all of its support from Friends, Alumni and the Community for these activities would not be possible with out them. Graduation 2014 Congratulations to everyone who graduated in the 2013 – 2014 academic year. Twenty-‐three undergrads completed their degrees and three Masters degrees were awarded. It was a terrific class. Special kudos to our outstanding undergrad award winners: Mindi Curran -‐ John Longshore Outstanding Academic Achievement; Dolan Paris – Scott North Service to the Department; Tyler Wickland John Young Outstanding Senior Thesis.

More photos of the class of 2014 on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/humboldtgeology Field Trips and Classes – YES we still spend a LOT of our time in the field Our new HSU President Lisa Rossbacher is a geologist who frequently writes a column for Earth Science Magazine. In August of this year, she wrote about the importance of Field Camp and why it is such a pivotal piece of the undergraduate geology program. Here is a short excerpt: ““What students learn beyond physical geology in field camp is also priceless. Being part of a field team offers an object lesson in group dynamics and the importance of teamwork and leadership. The experience involves constant adjustment of leadership styles and roles, as well as sharing of ideas, perspectives, theories and data. At its most effective, fieldwork teaches the value of inclusion, diversity and respect. And it carries the lesson that the group is more important than the preference of any individual, particularly when it comes to safety.” 554 Advanced Field Geology – from Mark We had a great Geol 554 trip to the Steens this August where we mapped glacial deposits on the west side of the mountain, measured the curvature of the earth on the Alvord Valley playa and surveyed the Holocene scarp for degradation estimates of the age of the most recent event of the Alvord fault.

Field Camp 2014 – from Melanie Field Camp is the senior capstone for all Geology majors at HSU. Those of us who have done it ourselves might call it a “rite of passage” for all geology undergraduate students. Challenging and rewarding moments are endured by every field camper, as we live, eat, map, study and socialize together for five weeks. I was lucky to co-‐instruct with Brandon Schwab, who was there for the first project and I took over for the second project. Our staff consisted of our camp manager, Colin Wingfield, our cook Mallory Garcia, and four teaching associates, Sylvia Nicovich, Michelle Robinson, Steve Tillinghast, and Jessica Vermeer. When I arrived, camp had already been set up, a routine established, and everyone had had time to adjust to their new, but brief living situation. It was like landing aboard from a long journey and immediately being taken in by my new village. This was my first HSU field camp, and while it ignited nostalgia for me from my memories of field camp at UCSC and MIT, I immediately noticed differences in the way we run field camp at HSU: students strip-‐map, by each group of 3-‐4 students taking a 1x8mi rectangle. Of seven groups, this meant a total mapping effort of roughly 70 square miles! This is a huge accomplishment that everyone should be proud of. However, to map such a large area required complicated driving logistics, emergency planning and autonomy by student groups. I was impressed by how smoothly the staff ran camp, and how every student handled the arduous mapping days. I’m also amazed at how creative an isolated community is after weeks together. Students designed and engineered a tetherball court, a canvas Twister game replica, a frisbee golf cage, and ladder golf. As time went on, our cook Mallory invented some fun new dishes,

but a crowd favorite was the pit roast. She also bought otter pops, which were a special treat on hot days.

Field Methods II – Geology & Geoscience students mapping the Black Lassics with Melanie

Earth Materials-‐ Geology and Geoscience students at Crater Lake with Brandon In his first term at HSU, Brandon introduced a new venue for the Geology 312 Field weekend. Lassen has been the spot the group has visited the last several years, but Brandon thought Crater Lake would make a nice change of pace. The students agreed.

Earth Materials Field Trip September 2014.

Geoscience capstone class with Lori Field experiences are important for Geoscience students too. The Capstone Geoscience class requires our students to work with a client in developing solutions to a problem or set of problems. In 2011, they hosted an Earth Science Day with the Natural History Museum. In 2013 they worked with Redwood National and State Parks on a number of projects including interpretive trails and GIS mapping, and last year, they worked with Redwood Capitol Bank to develop a series of displays for their branch offices in coordination with the down-‐sizing and move of the Natural History Museum (now across the street in the old Figuerido’s video building). This year our client is HSU and the problem is earthquake preparedness. The class worked hard to promote ShakeOut participation on campus and is now examining the strengths and weaknesses of campus preparedness.

Friends of the Pleistocene Pacific Cell Field Trip The 2014 annual Pacific Cell Friends of the Pleistocene (FOP) field trip took place over the weekend of November 7-‐9 in the Tecopa Basin, southeastern California. This three day geologic odyssey took all those who attended through geologic interpretation of lacustrine deposits, tephra beds, fossil identification, basin tectonics and much more in the development of a comprehensive pluvial lake level history. The primary trip leaders were Humboldt State University Geology alum Professor John Caskey (CSUSF) and former HSU adjunct professor Dr. Marith Rehies (emeritus, USGS). A dozen current HSU students and numerous staff, retired faculty and HSU alumni attended the FOP (see the photo on the masthead of this newsletter). Once again, the HSU contingent was one of the largest groups represented. HSU alumni, Dr. Joanna Redwine (USBR) and colleagues, will be leading the 2015 Pacific Cell field trip in the Mohawk Basin, eastern Sierra Nevada.

Scholarships

Burke Award! The third recipient of the Bud Burke Geology Scholarship is Tim Bailey! The Burke scholarship supports one student a year who is working on a geomorphology-‐ or Quaternary geology-‐related project. The generous donors have committed to funding the scholarship for five years at $5,000 per year! This is currently the largest scholarship on campus. We are looking to build this fund so that we can continue to offer the scholarship long into the future. Tim is a MS student working with Bud on a thesis entitled: “Multi-‐temporal surface characterization of active channel roughness, grain size distribution, and morphology using sub-‐millimeter digital surface models generated using structure from motion

2014-‐15 Burke Scholarship recipient Tim Bailey presenting at GSA Annual Meeting 2014.

photogrammetry.” Tim presented some of the results of his thesis work at the GSA Annual Meeting this fall in Vancouver, BC. Longshore endowment! We are very pleased to report that donations to the Longshore endowment have reached over $35,000. That means we will be able to begin distributions to students next academic year. We are forming a committee that will develop criteria and oversee the awarding of grants. You can be sure that it will involve undergraduate field-‐based education. The health of the Longshore fund depends on continued support.

Student Achievements • Undergrad Hector Flores was chosen for the prestigious 2015 Baja Basins Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). Hector will participate in the 2015 REU: Field-‐based research on the Gulf of California Rift Margin Basin in Baja California Sur, México. He will attend a three week field trip in January, joined by students and mentors from the around the US and México to investigate the tectonic evolution of the Santa Rosalía basin. Then, in July, students will reconvene at the University of Missouri-‐Kansas City for four weeks of data compilation and laboratory work. Congratulations Hector!

• Hector also joins undergrad Tashina Taylor as a Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group intern for the 2014 – 2015 academic year. Each intern carries a stipend of $6,000. Tashina is revamping the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group web site www.humboldt.edu/rctwg and Hector will be developing Spanish versions of the RCTWG outreach material.

• Undergrads Tashina Taylor and Nate Graham and grad student Michelle Robinson represented our Department at the first College of Natural Resources and Sciences STEM Fair this fall semester.

• Jesse Vermeer was awarded the prestigious McCrone Graduate Fellowship. Humboldt State University established the Alistair and Judith McCrone Graduate Fellowship Fund in October 2001. The fund was created to honor former president and Mrs. McCrone, both geologists, who together shepherded Humboldt State University and its students for over a quarter of a century. Jesse is working on post 1992 Cape Mendocino earthquake land level changes. The 1992 quake caused uplift along a 15-‐km coastal zone and Jesse is revisiting 1992 benchmarks and examining post event deformation. • We will have a large presence at this December’s Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. Undergrads Nate Graham and Brandon Crawford, and grad students Jodie Milke, Michelle Robinson, Casey Loofburrow, Jesse Vermeer, and Sylvia Nikovich are all presenting posters. Amanda, Lori, Sue, Dallas, Mark, Mel, Bomac and Harvey are also presenting papers/posters. If you are at the meeting, please look us up.

A big thank you to AMEC Foster Wheeler in Oakland for AGU student housing support. Please continue your support Humboldt Geology is all about providing the best possible earth science education. How well we have succeeded, is all of you – incredible alumni that have contributed in almost all areas of our discipline. You all support us by your careers and achievements and by spreading the good word about Geology at Humboldt. We really appreciate the additional support many of you have provided through donations to our department trusts, endowments, and fellowships. There are a number of ways your contributions can help us: Longshore Field Geology Endowment: Supports undergraduate field-‐based research

Burke Geology Scholarship: Supports graduate student research in Quaternary and Process Geomorphology

Geology Trust: Supports undergraduate/graduate thesis research, field vehicles, equipment, speakers programs

Earthquake Education Center Trust: Supports earthquake and tsunami outreach and education

To make a donation online visit: http://www2.humboldt.edu/geology/alumni/giving/ Please select "Other" in the "Designation" drop-‐down box and then please enter either Longshore Field Geology Endowment, Bud Burke Geology Scholarship, Geology Trust, or Earthquake Center Trust in the comments box. This will ensure that we receive your gift and it will reach the fund that you desire. Please give us a call (707-‐826-‐3931) and we can answer your questions and make sure we address any special concerns you may have.

newsletter fall 2014 - Humboldt State...

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