Geo ● Bing 2014 Newsletter Science 1 and Library Tower (Photo: Dave Tuttle) In This Issue Letter from the Chair 2 Obama Visits Campus 3 Jeffrey Pietras: Basins, BP and Binghamton 4 Robert Demicco: Modeling the Green River Formation 6 New Faces 8 Undergraduate Research at Howard Hughes Medical Institute 10 Jason Johnson, Graduate Student Award for Excellence 10 Benjamin Campanaro, Undergraduate Poster Award 10 Graduate Degree Completions 10 Faculty News 11 Donors to Geological Sciences 12 Ways of Giving to the Department 12 Don Kissling: In Memoriam 14 Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies
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Geo●Bing2014 Newsletter
Science 1 and Library Tower (Photo: Dave Tuttle)
In This IssueLetter from the Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies
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we also hired Joyce Kruger-Knuepfer as the instructional support specialist for the Environmental Studies Program to help with student advising and internship coordination.
Faculty and students from the Geological Sciences Department and the Environmental Studies Program have shared a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership in the Science 1 building. So, we are pleased to feature Rob Holahan, a faculty member from Environmental Studies, in this newsletter. His interests in environmental policy and impact assessments benefit many of our students.
Tom Kulp, who started in fall 2011, is progressing well in his geomicrobiology research role, and successfully completed his three-year review process in spring 2014. The department completed a self-study and underwent an external review in spring 2014, as well. One of the major goals from this process was to continue to advocate for new hires for our program. High priorities include a paleoclimatologist to investigate chemical and biological interactions in sedimentary rocks and a climatologist to work on geophysical processes that couple modern atmosphere and ocean interactions on a global scale. These multidisciplinary hires (coupling energy processes — health of the planet — and sustainability) would fill department and University goals, and we are eager to receive feedback from our alumni concerning other hiring areas of interest.
I would like to thank everyone for your continued, generous support for our program, and hope the newsletter brings you up to date on activities on and off campus. ●
Hi, everyone.
Our department has had a busy year. We’ve had several new additions from a personnel
perspective; these will be highlighted elsewhere in the newsletter, so I will just provide a quick overview here.
With the generous financial assistance from alumni supporters (specifically, Matt Telfer), Jeff Pietras was hired to fill our tenure-track energy geology position in fall 2013. Jeff ’s real-world expertise in energy exploration and production will be a vital resource for our undergraduate and graduate geology students. And Jeff ’s connections to his former employer have already paid dividends in the form of an equipment donation to our program. Jeff has developed a senior undergraduate/beginning graduate-level course in basin analysis that is already a student favorite. Jeff graduated from Binghamton’s Geological Sciences program in 1996, so we are very happy he has returned to his alma mater!
Pete Knuepfer has taken a leave of absence from our program to fill an elected position as president of the SUNY-wide University Faculty Senate. We wish him well in that role.
We hired Kuwanna Dyer-Pietras (Jeff ’s wife) as an adjunct faculty member to help fill the void from Pete’s departure. Kuwanna has done a great job in taking over the reins for our Surficial Processes and Environmental Geology courses, and will be a great liaison for introducing students to careers in the energy and environmental fields. I have stepped into Pete’s former role as the director of the Environmental Studies Program. Related to that maneuver,
“ I would like to thank everyone for your continued, generous support for our program…”
Joseph Graney — Chair
Geo●Bing Newsletter
Editor: David M. Jenkins
Geo-Bing is published periodically by the Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies at Binghamton University
Letter from the Chair
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President Barack Obama visited Binghamton’s campus August 23, 2013, as part of an up-state New York tour to hold a town hall-style meeting with students, faculty and staff on the importance of having affordable higher education.
Admission to this meeting, held in the Mandela Room of the University Union, was limited and involved a lottery-style application process overseen by White House staff. Geology graduate student Nick Holsing was fortunate to gain admission to this event and even had a front-row seat. It was, in Nick’s words, the “opportunity of a lifetime.” (Photo: N. Holsing)
Obama Visits Campus
Virginia Bartle Trip, 2011; Photo: J. Lei
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Basins, BP and Binghamton
sedimentologic and tectonic observations suggest that the transition from freshwater lacustrine facies to the overlying saline Wilkins Peak Member was caused by increased basin subsidence and drainage diversion related to a period of renewed uplift of basin-bounding mountains (Pietras et al., 2003; Pietras and Carroll, 2006). This interpretation, based on geologic observations, is in direct opposition to the traditional interpretation that has existed for over a century that related this transition to climate change. No proxy data has documented such a change. In addition to sedimentary analysis of the basin fill, I measured the Sr isotopic ratios across this transition and throughout the Wilkins Peak Member as a tracer for lake water provenance. A dramatic reduction in
the Sr87/Sr86 ratio of lacustrine carbonates occurs at the base of the Wilkins Peak Member, supporting the interpretation of river diversion with relatively radiogenic Sr. Conversely, the transition back to freshwater lacustrine facies at the end of Wilkins Peak time is accompanied by a shift back to radiogenic Sr, possibly suggesting reintegration of drainage networks.
Having spent a lifetime in academia, I felt the need to apply my knowledge to the “real-world.” I accepted a position with BP and headed north to Alaska to drill for oil in the Prudhoe Bay field. Over the next two years I would plan and drill several wells in the largest conventional oil field in North America, and appraise a bypassed pay zone above the main reservoir.
At that point it was time to head to Houston for more opportunity and to join an exploration team looking for oil offshore Sakhalin Island in Russia. I was joined in Houston by my future wife, Kuwanna, whom I met in graduate school. Soon I became a world traveler attending field trips in South Africa and Spain; meetings in London, Norway and Russia; and conducting two weeks of fieldwork in an extremely remote part of Sakhalin. Our transportation during this camping expedition included a tank, Zodiac boats and a helicopter.
After having found no oil in two wells off the north shore of Sakhalin (we did find about 6 km of diatomite!) it was time to move on to the Arctic. I worked several Arctic basins in Russia and North America over the next three and a half years. Along the way, Kuwanna and I were married, bought and sold a house, moved to Calgary and had two daughters. Near the end of our stay in Calgary, Kuwanna, who was also a geologist at BP, and I found ourselves
I am happy to introduce myself as the Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies’ newest faculty member. I joined the department in
fall 2013 to build a program in basin analysis and energy geology. While I am new to the faculty, I am not new to the department, having received my BS in geology from Binghamton in 1996. It is a bit strange to be back on campus, especially when sitting in faculty meetings and working with my “old” professors as colleagues.
After leaving Binghamton, I headed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I earned my MS and PhD degrees. My MS research focused on the marine-to-non-marine transition at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary in the Santa Ynez Basin near Santa Barbara, Calif. This stratigraphy is very interesting as it was deposited during subduction of an oceanic spreading center where the increase in buoyancy of younger oceanic crust likely had a primary control on basin subsidence.
Staying in the Tertiary, I studied the Eocene lacustrine Green River Formation of Wyoming during my PhD research. My work focused on the closed-basin facies of the Wilkins Peak Member. Stratigraphic,
By Jeff Pietras
Working with students in the newly renovated lab in G56.Standing in Walcott’s Quarry looking at the Burgess Shale, Canadian Rockies, British Columbia.
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R E S E A R C H H I G H L I G H T S
Investigating turbidites in the Karoo Basin of South Africa.
working on the same team investigating the Athabasca oil sands, the largest unconventional oil field in North America.
After finishing our time “overseas,” we were repatriated to Houston, where I joined BP’s Brazil exploration team. I was finally able to use my PhD research as I built a depositional environment map for the Early Cretaceous lacustrine deposits of the Campos Basin, helping BP focus on likely targets of the prolific subsalt microbialite play.
All along, Kuwanna and I knew Houston wasn’t the place we wanted to raise a family. When Binghamton posted an advertisement for an energy geologist, we decided to take a chance. So far, it has been a great change being back in New York and back in academia. My research program is building up. I took on Ryan Kenyon (BS ’13) as a MS student who will be working on a lacustrine delta in the Green River Formation. I am
currently building other research avenues including the use of Re and Os isotopes as chemostratigraphic indicators in lacustrine deposits, lacustrine reservoirs and characterization of Paleozoic shales in New York. I hope to add one or two more graduate students to my research group next fall.
In addition to teaching my newly developed Basin Analysis class and our undergraduate Structural Geology courses, I have been building a state-of-the-art computer lab. This new lab will allow students to work with
REFERENCESPietras, J.T., and Carroll, A.R. (2006) High-resolution stratigraphy of an underfilled lake basin: Wilkins Peak Member, Eocene Green River Formation, Wyoming, USA. Journal of Sedimentary Research, v. 76, p. 1197-1214.
Pietras, J.T., Carroll, A.R., and Rhodes, M.K. (2003) Tectonic control on lacustrine evaporite deposition in the Eocene Green River Formation, Wyoming. Journal of Paleolimnology, v. 30, p. 115-125.
seismic, well and outcrop datasets spatially in three dimensions. Our core software packages include Petrel, ArcGIS and MOVE. This lab would not be possible without generous donations from alumnus Matt Telfer, BP, Schlumberger and Midland Valley.
I look forward to meeting more of our alumni over the coming years at meetings, or if you are in town, please stop by to see the changes to G56. I would also enjoy hearing from my classmates from the ’90s, so drop me an e-mail at [email protected]. ●
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I had not thought much about the Green River in the intervening years but, as Lawrie Hardie used to say: “It’s a funny thing, old life.” About 10 years ago, Tim Lowenstein got involved with a group working out of the Colorado School of Mines intent on revisiting, redescribing and reinterpreting the various portions of the Green River Formation. In 2006, Tim had a really startling idea that the sodium carbonate minerals of Green River Formation offered a direct way to estimate the carbon dioxide content of the Eocene atmosphere, a time when palm trees and crocodiles flourished in Wyoming, yet Wyoming was not at a significantly different paleolatitude. This idea was based directly on experiments that Hans Eugster had worked on when Tim and I were there. We published a paper on this in Science in 2006, and soon I found myself down in sodium carbonate mines in Wyoming looking at the Green River Formation.
My interest at this point is to help my current PhD student, Joe Janick, develop a computer model to simulate deposition in the Piceance Creek Basin of Colorado. Joe cut his teeth on a model of black shale deposition in a Devonian marginal marine basin for his master’s thesis. We will be submitting that work for publication in the near future. Our task modeling the Green River Formation is complicated because it appears there were once evaporites
Modeling the Green River Formation
By Bob Demicco Well, I suppose that it was inevitable. When I first started in the PhD program at Johns
Hopkins, my advisor, Lawrie Hardie, and his advisor, Hans Eugster, were just finishing up working on the Eocene Green River Formation found in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. This formation is most famous for three things: its fossil fishes; its huge reserves of kerogen (immature hydrocarbons) found in easily parted, carbonate mudstones known as oil shales; and the world’s most important reserves of sodium carbonate minerals (most familiar as the cleaner Spic and Span). The Green River Formation was found spread over a number of different basins in the different states, and the details of the deposits were different in each basin. Geologists had been working on these rocks for 100+ years and about the only thing they all agreed on was that these were some kind of lake deposits. There were deep lake deposits and playa lake deposits, evaporites that accumulated in deep lakes and evaporites that accumulated in salt pans. Some of the deposits were thousands of meters of what appeared to be monotonous oil shales, whereas others were notable in that the rocks were organized into repetitive cycles, composed of three or four rock types. Each multicomponent cycle was a few meters thick, and there were lots of them. I, quite frankly, didn’t want anything to do with the Green River Formation. “Too many cooks and all that,” I thought.
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throughout the basin that accumulated at the bottom of a deep lake, but they have been dissolved by modern, fresh groundwater flow in all but one small area. Further complicating the modeling is the fact that up to half of the deposits in the basin center may be debris flow deposits shed into the center of the basin from the sides. Some of these complications are making me think that I may have to be dusting off some old fuzzy logic routines to put into the code. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that Jeff Pietras, our new petroleum/basin geologist, got his undergraduate degree here at Binghamton and did his PhD at the University of Wisconsin, where he worked on the Wyoming portions of the Green River Formation. (See page 4 for further details!)
As many of you know, John Bridge and I wrote a rather lengthy tome that was
Down in the Solvay Mine in Wyoming, summer 2012. Standing from left to right are Tim Lowenstein; Bob Demicco; and graduate students John Murphy, Elliot Jagniecki and Lauren Ricketts. Mine company geologist Mateo Papparini kneels in front. This mine produces the sodium carbonate mineral trona.
published in 2008. John and I continue to co-author and submit papers to journals on little, unresolved problems that have annoyed one or both of us for a long time. As you might imagine, editors and reviewers are fed up with some sniping about sedimentary structures, but we persevere. We recently did have some luck in that we had a paper accepted in the Journal of Sedimentary Research in which we had a few things to say about how tidal bundles were deposited. For those of you unfamiliar with this sedimentary structure, I recommend you rush out and buy Earth Surface Processes, Landforms and Sediment Deposits and look on page 248 and pages 518-519. On second thought, save your money so you can buy the upcoming title, Chemical Sediments and Sedimentary Rocks, by yours truly and Tim Lowenstein. We hope to wrap that up this year, so look for it on the best sellers list next year. ●
R E S E A R C H H I G H L I G H T S
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Kuwanna Dyer-Pietras This is my first year as an adjunct faculty member in Geological Sciences at Binghamton University. I have taught undergraduates during both semesters and I really enjoy the work. Last fall I taught Surface Processes, rebuilding lectures and redesigning labs throughout the semester. My goal was to get my students in the field and collecting their own data as much as possible. I feel strongly that having students collect their own data and number-crunching their own numbers will help them feel a greater sense of ownership of the work they complete and hand in to me. I also feel as though the students learned more in the process. And besides, who doesn’t like to get outside once in awhile?
In the spring I taught Environmental Geology and it was a great experience. As with last semester, I once again found myself teaching a great group of students who were
actively engaged in their own learning and often asked questions in class. I also learn a lot by teaching, and feel the work I do now is very meaningful. I will teach the same two classes during the 2014-15 academic year.
In addition to my teaching role, I plan to formally pursue my PhD studies in sedimentology and stratigraphy starting in fall 2015 working under the guidance of Dr. Robert Demicco (or “Uncle Bob” as my girls call him). I’ll spend the next year reading papers, and perhaps even head out to the field to start some fieldwork if we decide it makes sense to do so. I’m also involved with the Friends of the Nature Preserve and volunteer as a cook at my favorite place to eat on campus, the Binghamton University Co-Op.
In my personal life, I enjoy getting outside, cooking, baking, knitting, reading and playing with my kids. My youngest is 2
“ I once again found myself teaching a great group of students who were actively engaged in their own learning and often asked questions in class.”
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Robert HolahanRobert Holahan is an assistant professor of environmental studies and political science at Binghamton and an affiliated faculty member of the Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University Bloomington. His primary area of research investigates environmental policy from a social-ecological perspective that incorporates the biological, ecological and geological characteristics of resource systems with the economics of human decision-making.
After receiving a BA in economics from Washington University in St. Louis, he earned his PhD from Indiana University under the direction of Elinor Ostrom. Current research projects include a property rights examination of unconventional oil and gas production and a cross-national study on the vote choices of parliamentarians over environmental policies. His work has appeared in the journals Science, Ecological Economics and Marine Policy, among others.
Joyce Kruger-KnuepferJoyce joined the department to help advise the many Environmental Studies majors while her husband, Pete Knuepfer, is on administrative leave as president of the University Faculty Senate. (See Faculty News, page 13.) She has a background in Earth sciences, having worked as a naturalist and an astronomer, run a planetarium and taught Regents Earth science and a variety of other hands-on science classes for all ages over the past 25 years.
years old and is learning to talk more every day. I’m always amazed at the new sentences she strings together. Our oldest turned 5 years old in June and will start kindergarten in the fall. I love the conversations we have and I’m stunned to think that, after several years of babies, I suddenly have a school-aged child. New adventures await!
N E W F A C E S
Dyer-Pietras Holahan Kruger-Knuepfer
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Graduate Degree Completions We congratulate the following graduate students who completed their degrees in 2013:
MEGAN L. FRONCKOWIAK (MS)Variations in Downstream Hydraulic Geometry of the West Kill in the Catskill Mountains, New York, and Comparison with Stony Clove and other Catskill Streams
JIE LEI (MS)Experimental Study of the Join Magnesiohornblende-Glaucophane
KATHRYN STEIGERWALDT (MS)Crystal Settling and In-situ Magma Differentiation in Neoproterozoic Sills of the Franklin Igneous Event, Victoria Island NWT, Canada
YAICHA WINTERS (PhD)Haloarchaeal Survival and Preservation of Biomaterials (Carotenoids) in Ancient Halite
JOHN W. McCANN (MS)Cumulative Impact of Highly Variable Land Use within a New York Watershed
JOHN T. MURPHY (MS)Preservation of the Primary Lake Signatures in Alkaline Earth Carbonates of the Eocene Green River Wilkins Peak-Laney Member Transition Zone
Binghamton was one of 50 universities nationwide to receive a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for the purpose of promoting interdisciplinary undergraduate research in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. This program, which has been in effect for the past several years, has involved
several undergraduates in Geological Sciences, including Nora Holt and Sofia Andeskie. Nora’s research involved the study of ancient seawater and microbes in halite, while Sofia’s research involved the study of microbes trapped in modern gypsum from Sicily, Italy. Sofia presented her results in a poster presentation at the annual meeting
Undergraduate Research at Howard Hughes Medical Instituteof the Geological Society of America in Denver, Colo., in fall 2013. Nora’s work on seawater chemistry, which was continued in the subsequent year and supported in part by a Summer Scholars and Artists fellowship from Binghamton University, will soon appear in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.
Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Service/OutreachCongratulations to Jason Johnson for being one of five graduate students campus wide to receive a Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Service/Outreach. Jason’s PhD dissertation deals with collecting background or baseline information on the quality of the surface waters in the Southern Tier of New York in advance of any natural-gas development activities. Jason collected
over 500 groundwater samples from four local rural school districts, local watersheds and municipal sources to characterize the extent of pre-existing pollutant sources and levels. He has shared this information with such entities as the Department of Environmental Conservation, Susquehanna River Basin Commission, Chemung County Energy Commission, Sierra Club, NY
Water Sentinels and the U.S. Geological Survey. Jason is the first recipient of this award from Geological Sciences; his advisor is Joe Graney.
Geological Society of America Undergraduate Poster AwardCongratulations go to Ben Campanaro on receiving the top award at the Geological Society of America’s 2014 Northeastern Sectional Annual Meeting held in March in Lancaster, Pa. Ben’s research is an experimental investigation of how chlorine (Cl) content increases in the calcium-amphibole pargasite with increasing iron content. Although the
observed increase was expected, what was surprising is the very limited amount of Cl that enters amphiboles, even in the presence of highly concentrated NaCl brines. These results indicate that the high-Cl amphiboles reported in various places in the Adirondack Mountains are not directly related to hydrothermal brines, but must occur by some other geological
process, for example, by solid-state reaction with pre-existing minerals or perhaps even by a Cl-rich melt. His advisor is Dave Jenkins. (Photo: K. Dyer-Pietras)
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Jeff BarkerI continue to enjoy teaching our bright undergrads. Last fall I taught a first-year experience course whose academic topic was the science behind Marcellus shale gas. I continue to serve as faculty master of Dickinson Community and continue to work on innovations to bring classroom learning into the residential community. And finally, Carol and I continue with our musical endeavors, playing in orchestras, bands and pit orchestras for school musicals.
Bob DemiccoThings in my personal life are not changing much. My sons and Karen are doing well. Karen gets better and better with her figurative and portrait clay sculptures. She goes to workshops all over the country and wows them wherever she is. Ed is taking classes here at Binghamton. He thought about taking Oceanography, which I am teaching again after many years away, but then came to his senses. David stays the course as a landlord in Johnson City. He and I get together for sushi and saké every few weeks.
Steve DickmanStill here.
Joseph GraneyAs noted elsewhere in the newsletter, I now have two administrative roles. I am chair of the Department of Geological Sciences and director of the Environmental Studies Program. So time spent in meetings consumes quite a bit of my life. Fortunately, I have great graduate students to keep my research program active. Jason Johnson defended his dissertation this
spring. His work on coupling surface and groundwater interactions using real-time sensing equipment and geochemical analysis in watersheds along the New York-Pennsylvania border has generated lots of interest from natural gas extraction perspectives. As noted elsewhere in the newsletter, he received a Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Service/Outreach for these efforts. Jon Schmitkons is presently off campus on a one-year appointment to offer courses in geochemistry and hydrology topics at SUNY-Oneonta. He plans to complete and defend his dissertation concerning the geochemical impacts of near roadway sources on adjacent ecosystems in August. Master’s student Mikki Smith took over the reins on the near roadway projects from Jon, and is working with undergraduate researchers from the Environmental Studies Program (James Acenowr) and the Biological Sciences Department (Yong-Ju Reichenbacker) on several biogeochemistry projects funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Program. Steve Gridley plans to complete his master’s project on constructed wetlands in the fall. Steve runs an environmental consulting business and has generously allowed many of our students to use some of his field gear, including a portable XRF unit for research projects.
My wife, Dawn, continues to provide a valuable sounding board for keeping my administrative duties manageable. She stays active developing several hybrid courses combining online and in-class activities for students in the Health Information Technology Program at SUNY Broome Community College. She is also a yoga aficionado! My hobbies are more boring. I’m a board member for several environmental and land-conservation organizations. We went to Ireland to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary in summer 2013; the 15 years also corresponds to the amount of time I have been at Binghamton.
F A C U L T Y N E W S
Four of my nephews were in engineering programs at my alma mater (University of Wisconsin-Platteville) in the past year. There may still be a chance to turn them into geoscientists, but one of my college roommates is the chair of civil and environmental engineering and is steering them in other directions!
Dave JenkinsResearch continues in different areas in the Hydrothermal Lab. Nick Holsing is finishing up a study of the incorporation of the element silicon (Si) into diamond to calibrate the dependence of the Si content with temperature or pressure. This research has been extremely challenging both technically and scientifically, but Nick has been doggedly persistent and will have laid some very important groundwork in this novel line of research (trace elements in diamonds). Jie Lei finished his MS thesis last spring on amphibole solid solutions along the join magnesio-hornblende—glaucophane and returned to China to be with family and to begin a job with China Shenhua Overseas Development & Investment Company. Ben Campanaro is finishing up an undergraduate thesis on the dependence of chlorine (Cl) incorporation on the iron content of pargasitic amphiboles. This work, along with the work of undergraduate Al Chan and work done by myself, helped establish the feasibility of a much larger study on the incorporation of Cl into calcium-amphiboles, a project that will be funded in the near future by the NSF. Bailey Mueller is a recent graduate student who is investigating various chemical controls on Cl incorporation into amphibole. Finally, Mackenzie Adamson has been doing undergraduate research on a reaction that models the transition from blueschist- to eclogite-facies and how this reaction is influenced by the presence of various brines.
Jean continues to work as the librarian for Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton. She took an online course from the University of Pittsburgh last fall designed for medical librarians to help bolster her background in this area. Andrew is now a freshman at Rochester Institute of Technology and seems to be fitting in well there. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or stop in if you ever come through Binghamton.
Florida Keys Bartle Trip, 2012; Photo: J. Lei
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Anonymous (3)Mrs. Christine Iannello Bachtel ’98BAE SystemsMs. Laura Merrill Bazeley ’75Dr. Sean Joseph Bennett, MA ’87, PhD ’92Dr. Donald D. Blake, PhD ’74 +Dr. Wallace A. Bothner ’63Mr. Richard J. Bottjer ’81BPMrs. Janet E. Brown + *Mrs. Patricia Morris Bryan ’80Mr. Richard C. Campbell, MA ’78Ms. Jennifer L. Candela ’93Ms. Mary Rose Cassa, MA ’80Ms. Andrea D. Cicero ’97Mr. David R. Conorozzo ’98Mrs. Maureen E. Conorozzo ’98Chevron CorporationMs. Jean L. CoppMs. Amy M. Curran ’79Mr. Donald W. Curran, MA ’80Ms. Martha J. Dunn, MA ’80Mrs. Carol C. Enos
Dr. Jianren Li, PhD ’96, MS ’97Mrs. Linda Lisman +Dr. Stephen Lisman +Ms. Adrienne V. Little, MS ’86Dr. Michael A. Little +Ms. Cindy Magruder, MA ’03Dr. David M. Miller ’73Dr. Dewey MooreMs. Kim Kucharski Muller ’79Newfield Exploration CompanyDr. Douglas G. Patchen ’64, MA ’67Mr. Jeffrey T. Pietras ’96 +Ms. Denise M. Radtke ’82Dr. Christopher J. RobersonMs. Jeannette Mansour Roberson ’57Dr. Matthew M. Roberson ’89Mrs. Susan V. Ryan ’90 +Mr. Thomas J. Ryan ’81, MBA ’91Dr. Samuel M. SavinMs. Karen A. Seitz ’83Dr. James E. Sorauf +Mrs. Simone R. SoraufMs. Rosalie G. Spencer
Donors to Geological Sciences
Mr. Paul EnosMr. Eugene D. Flood ’57 +Dr. Bruce Alan Geller, MA ’81Ms. Joan C. Giebink ’76Mr. Timothy D. Glazar ’85Mr. Matthew Gubitosa, MA ’84Mrs. Barbara Moran Heiles ’80Mr. Jonathan L. Heiles ’82Mr. Kenneth R. Helm, MA ’82Mr. Eric A. Hetland, MA ’99Mr. Kurt C. Hinaman ’75Ms. Laura K. Howe, MA ’97Dr. Warren D. HuffDr. Carl E. Jacobson ’75Dr. Carol D. Jacobson ’75Dr. David M. Jenkins +Dr. Ying Jiang, PhD ’98Dr. Eric Lee Johnson, MA ’85, PhD ’90Mrs. Maria A. Johnson, MA ’85Mr. Peter L. Kasbohm ’78Dr. Peter L. Knuepfer +Mr. Richard W. LahannMs. Maureen Leshendok ’70
We gratefully acknowledge the following individuals and corporations that have contributed to departmental accounts over the past year.
Anthony J. Tabone, DDSDr. Anthony J. Tabone ’92Dr. John C. Tacinelli Jr., MA ’91Mrs. Becky S. TelferMr. Matthew J. Telfer ’78Mr. Charles L. E. WageMrs. Joann WageMs. Margaret Mary Walker, MA ’91Dr. C. Joseph Waring ’59Ms. Donna E. Weidemann ’81Ms. Ann S. Wilke, MA ’84Mr. R. Timothy Wolcott ’74, MAT ’90
+ Faculty/Staff/Retiree, * Deceased
Note: This list was compiled from information provided by the Binghamton Foundation based on their records of January 2013 through December 2013. We sincerely apologize for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies.
Ways of Giving to the Department
*Restricted accounts are considered “current use” accounts established to receive charitable contributions and which are fully expendable, whereas endowed accounts are established to receive charitable donations to the principal to earn income for the expendable portion.
Account # Type* Name Brief Description
10391 Restricted John S. Bridge Energy Resources Chair, Geology
Support hiring of the John Bridge Chair, basin sedimentologist for an assistant or associate level professor
10796 Restricted Geology Fund Further the common goals of the Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies
11034 Restricted Herman Roberson Memorial Award
Student award, given to a graduating outstanding environmental studies senior who has completed the Environmental Law class
20638 Endowed Geology Endowment Enhance facilities, recruitment, etc.
20639 Endowed Genevieve Bemis Loan Fund
Provide students with interest-free monies, needed toward completion of their education, on an emergency basis
20640 Endowed Helen and Wendelin Bernhard Memorial Fund
Undergraduate scholarship
20898 Endowed Bartle Professorship Funds to be used for visiting distinguished geology professors for several lectures
Some of you may be interested in learning about the special accounts and memorials that have been established by alumni, faculty and friends throughout
the history of the department. Listed here are all of the accounts along with the programs or recipients they are intended to support. Donations can be made to any of these accounts.
The account that provides the most support for departmental operations is the Geology Fund (account 10796), which helps with such activities as funding the welcoming luncheon for incoming graduate students, supporting our visiting seminar speakers, helping us host alumni reunions on campus and at national meetings, etc.
We are extremely grateful for your generous support throughout the years. Contributions can be made online at https://www.giving.binghamton.edu/giving/ (please select “Other” for the account, and specify the account number or account name) or can be sent to the Binghamton University Foundation, PO Box 6005, Binghamton,
NY, 13902-6005.
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Peter KnuepferI have switched hats this year. As those of you who follow these newletters over the last years are aware, I’ve been increasingly involved in faculty governance for a while now. Last April I was elected president of the SUNY-wide University Faculty Senate, a position that also places me as a (non-voting) member of the SUNY Board of Trustees. As a result, I’ve taken a leave of absence from the department, as this new position is full time for the next 2–4 years. It’s meant stepping away from teaching and as director of the Environmental Studies Program. At this point, it’s also been a challenge to keep up with research I’ve been doing on flood frequency and paleoflood analysis. I still maintain ties to the department, of course, but I’m in Albany or on other SUNY campuses more than here at Binghamton. So, a change of pace to be sure, but also an opportunity to influence the direction of SUNY policy, which ultimately impacts all of us — faculty, staff, students and even alumni.
Thomas KulpI continue to study microbiological cycling of toxic metalloids like arsenic and antimony in the environment. This year I published a paper in Environmental Science and Technology that represents the first report that natural microbial communities can respire oxyanions of antimony (Sb) in anoxic settings. This novel respiratory pathway for anaerobic bacteria serves to alter the toxicity and solubility of the element in contaminated environments. My graduate students Meghan Dovick (PhD candidate) and Lee Terry (MS candidate) have successfully isolated bacteria from Sb-contaminated mine sediments that grow by oxidizing or reducing Sb compounds, and they are in the process of writing these results. Meghan and I presented much of this recent work at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Survey in San Francisco this year and were well received.
This summer I will be traveling to Taiwan to present a talk at the annual conference of International Medical Geology Association, and also to conduct fieldwork for an ongoing collaborative study with colleagues at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City. We are investigating microbial arsenic cycling in geogenically contaminated aquifers of southern Taiwan that caused widespread As intoxication to the local residents in the mid-1900s. It will be my fourth visit to that country and I always look forward to going there.
F A C U L T Y N E W S
In our third year since I joined the faculty, my family and I are settling in to the Binghamton community. My wife, Leigh, works as a city planner in Binghamton; our five-year-old, Paige, started kindergarten; and our two-year-old, Gabe, enrolled in Campus Pre-School.
Tim LowensteinThe highlight this year was the graduation of three PhD students and three MS students. Elliot Jagniecki (PhD ’14, temperatures and pCO2 of sodium carbonate mineral stability and Green River paleospring deposits) is now working for ConocoPhillips in Houston. Elliot received the Binghamton University Excellence in Research Award. He published a paper in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta about the mineral shortite, and he has two others in the works about Green River evaporites and Eocene atmospheric carbon dioxide. Yaicha Winters (PhD ’13, starvation survival of archaea, preservation of carotenoids in fluid inclusions) is job hunting. She published one paper in Astrobiology about ancient carotenoids in fluid inclusions in halite and is working on two more, reporting her starvation survival experiments involving Archaea. John Murphy (MS ’13, origin of lacustrine carbonates in the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming) is off to Bakersfield, Calif., where he is starting work for Schlumberger. He is submitting a manuscript on his thesis work to Sedimentary
Geology. Sarah Feiner (MS ’14) studied microbes in modern salinas and gypsum in Sardinia, and is working on a publication from that work. Lauren Dolginko (MS ’14) is studying the chemistry of fluid inclusions in halite from Searles Lake and Bristol Dry Lake, Calif. She is finding that the chemistry of the fluid inclusions (and lake brines) has been controlled by hydrothermal and volcanic activity, and is writing that for publication. Finally, Krithi Sankaranarayanan (PhD ’13 biology) worked on ancient DNA from our halite samples; he is now a post doc at the University of Oklahoma. The only graduate student left after the spring semester was PhD student Emma McNulty, who is working on the modern evaporites from the Magadi Basin, Kenya. She and I will spend June-July drilling sediment cores at Lake Magadi to test the hypothesis that climate change influenced hominin evolution. This is part of a large team effort to drill lake cores at five important sites of human evolution. The project is called HSPDP (Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling) and we got grants from the NSF and International Continental Scientific Drilling Program. We are also adding post doc Jiuyi Wang, who is coming to Binghamton from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research. A big highlight is that Nora Holt (BS ’13) had her research on the chemical composition of carboniferous seawater published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. That is quite an accomplishment to be an undergraduate first author of publication.
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Born January 29, 1934,
husband, father, professor,
mentor and faithful friend,
Don Kissling died April
10, 2013. His career as a carbonate
geologist spanned over 50 years,
working in academia at Binghamton
University, as a professional
consulting geologist, and eventually
forming his own successful company,
Jackalope Geological.
In 1965, he was hired by Harpur College as a lecturer
in geology, teaching four unique courses during his
first year. Upon completing work on his dissertation
(Indiana University) he was hired as an assistant
professor, ultimately rising to the rank of associate
professor. Courses that he taught included Stratigraphy
and Sedimentation, Paleontology and Oceanography. He
found great friendship with members of the department,
particularly the late Herman Roberson and Jim Sorauf,
and led his undergraduate and graduate students in
field trips for research and courses throughout New
York, Florida, the Bahamas and the eastern cordillera.
He spent each summer documenting the ecology of a
few shallow reefs off the Florida Keys, data that now
is baseline for documentation of the dramatic shifts in
fauna populations in the reefs of the keys over the past
I N M E M O R I A M
50 years. During the fall and spring
he did fieldwork on Devonian reefs
stretching from west Texas to the
Northeast.
In 1980 he left Binghamton to join
Robertson Research in Houston,
Tex. There he married Kinga Armer,
began work with ERCO Petroleum
Resources Company in 1982, and in
1984 formed Jackalope Geological
with Jim Erhets. He soon moved
to Colorado’s Front Range and eventually settled in
Berthoud, Colo.
He was a great lover of history, the American West,
fly-fishing and his family. A deeply ethical man, he
advocated for the fair treatment of all peoples and
had an abiding love of nature with all its strange and
wonderful creatures. A marine ecologist with interests
in modern and ancient reefs, even at the end of his life
he was continuing his work to document the condition
of vital coral reefs. There was almost nothing he could
not do and he never wasted a moment in his life.
He leaves behind his beloved wife, Kinga; daughters,
Katharine Thorpe, Rebecca Kissling and Hana O’Brien;
son, Thomas Kissling; and granddaughter, Keturah Thorpe.
Donald L. Kissling
Last year’s Geobing newsletter had gone to press before the passing of Don Kissling. The following biography was
kindly provided by his daughter, Rebecca Kissling ’84, who is working at Binghamton University as a lecturer in
chemistry. We all share in her sadness at the passing of her father.
Photo (ca. 1975): David Tuttle
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Department Bartle field trip update: 2013: desert closed basins of California and Nevada — Death Valley, Mono Lake and Pyramid Lake, joined by Bob Demicco and Tom Kulp. 2014: beach-barrier island complex of the mid-Atlantic, Wachapreague, Va.
Family news: Sally and I will be spending quality time at our lake house on Skaneateles Lake this summer. Maggie is an MD finishing year one of a three-year residency at the University of California, San Francisco. Scott is in his fourth year at the Global Strategy Group in New York City, slowly working his way up the ladder there. Visiting them in San Francisco and New York City is a great joy. Kirby graduated from Brown in May 2013 and is now applying to graduate schools in architecture.
Bill MacDonaldI am still engaged in my AMS studies and finishing up several studies. Some interesting results have emerged in the AMS results from the Vargeao and Vista Alegre impact structures of Brazil that I hope to submit for publication soon. Meanwhile, Nuna and I managed to return for a week snorkeling in Bonaire in February, which may become an annual ritual like the Celtic Colours International Festival during October in Cape Breton Island. Also, I joined the board of review editors for a new online journal called Frontiers in Paleontology.
Dick NaslundIn the spring I taught Introductory Geology (Planet Earth) again, which I always enjoy. Even after teaching this course for many years, I always find ways to do it better (I hope) and I always learn something every time I teach it. This year I am writing an online textbook for Introductory Geology. It is part of a SUNY-wide program to provide free e-textbooks for students. About halfway through the semester I was about halfway through the book. I also taught Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, which is of course, my first love.
My current research is focused on differentiated igneous sills. I am working with colleagues at the Canadian Geological Survey on a series of extensively differentiated late Proterozoic sills on Victoria Island in Arctic Canada. We have completed most of the fieldwork and I now have an NSF grant to do the laboratory and computer-modeling work. Our group is also doing some new analyses and new modeling of the Palisade sill in New Jersey and the Basistoppen sill in East Greenland.
The kids are all doing well. Melanie is in Boston with her husband and their three kids, Sterling likes his job at a workshop downtown, Skye is working on her PhD at the University of Washington, Neelam is working with autistic children as a teacher’s aide at the local high school, Kalindi is a junior Spanish major at Hartwick College in Oneonta, and Cambria is a junior at NYU’s new international college in Abu Dhabi (but is spending the semester in Shanghi, China). Last spring we visited Belize to do some more scuba diving and cave exploring. It was a fantastic experience. You have to put the ATM cave (Actun Tunichil Muknal) in the Belize highlands on your bucket list. You swim in across a 50-foot stretch of water at the entrance, and then hike through waist-deep water to reach the upper levels where there are Mayan pottery offerings and human skeletons encased in cave formations. We also got a chance to dive among massive stalactites 130 feet below sea level in the Belize barrier reef. These stalactites, 3 to 5 feet in diameter and 20 feet long, were formed 12,000 years ago when this cave was above water. The cave didn’t move, sea level rose with the melting glaciers.
I hope we will get a chance to see all of you in the near future at reunions or scientific meetings. If you have any igneous problems, questions, comments or new ideas, or if you just want to say hello, call or drop me a line ([email protected]). Check out my introductory textbook, which will be online sometime this summer, and let me know what I did wrong. I am sure I won’t get it all right.
F A C U L T Y N E W S
Karen SalvageAnother year! I just received a letter from the provost congratulating me on my 15 years of service to Binghamton University. 15 years! It is difficult for me to believe.
This spring, I taught ENVI 201 (Environment and Man/Woman: Physical Aspects, in case you have forgotten) for the first time. It was a great deal of both fun and work. 135 students were enrolled, which is the largest class I have taught thus far. It was also the first course having weekly discussion sections; four undergraduate TAs and one graduate TA ran the discussion sections for me. The students in the class seemed to enjoy participating in the discussion sections more than sitting through my lectures (hmmm, no surprise there!), and the TAs really enjoyed the course from this different perspective. I do have to say that the subject matter and readings for this course were great—very thought provoking!
Ebony (my black poodle-golden retriever mix) comes to work every day and knows who keeps a stash of biscuits in the office. Happily, though she chases bunnies on campus, she never catches any!
My best wishes to all of you. Keep in touch.
Renovated Quad in front of Science I (Photo: David Tuttle)
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Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental StudiesBinghamton UniversityState University of New YorkPO Box 6000Binghamton, New York 13902-6000
