Department News |
Dr. John D. Cooper
A memorial field trip is planned for the Fall, September 13-14, 2008. Download the registration and information now.
John was a legendary figure among geology students at Cal State Fullerton and a giant in the field of Sedimentary Geology. He touched many lives and will be sorely missed.
Follow this link to read more and sign the guestbook.
Aron Taylor (M.S. 2006) is the winner of the 2007 Giles T. Brown Outstanding Thesis Award. This prestigious award is given by the University to the Outstanding Masters Thesis completed in the past year. Congratulations, Aron!
Geological Sciences department newsletter now available!
Luissa Ivanovici received a $500 Faculty-Undergraduate Student Support Initiative: Research/Creative Activity Grant with Dr. Matthew Kirby to examine possible evidence for a pre-historic mega-drought in Southern California. The grant is titled “Using Modern Grain Size Distribution and C:N Ratios to Infer Past Lake Level Change at Lake Elsinore, CA.”
Dr. Jeff Knott was awarded a $48,040 NSF-CCLI Collaborative Research Grant ($447,997 total award) for Evaluating Student Learning in Geoscience Curricula that Employ ConcepTests using Electronic Student Response Systems and a $45,270 sabbatical research grant from the Petroleum Research Fund for Tephrochronology for the 21st Century: Redefining the Bishop Ash Bed.
Dr. David Bowman was awarded a $15,600 grant from the Southern California Earthquake Center for a project titled "Formulation and Evaluation of Fault- and Alarm-Based Earthquake Prediction Algorithms."
Dr. Jeff Knott is a guest editor for the May 2007 issue of Quaternary International (The Journal of the International Union for Quaternary Research) - Dating Quaternary Sediments and Landforms in Drylands. The volume includes a research article by Marsha Fronterhouse Sohn (M.S., 2006) entitled "Luminescence ages for alluvial-fan deposits in Southern Death Valley: Implications for climate-driven sedimentation along a tectonically active mountain front" with co-authors Shannon Mahan (U.S. Geological Survey), Dr. Knott and Dr. David Bowman. Another article in the same volume is "Differentiating the Bishop ash bed and related tephra layers by elemental-based similarity coefficients of volcanic glass shards using solution inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (S-ICP-MS)" by Dr. Knott, Andrei Sarna-Wojcicki (U.S. Geological Survey), Isabel Montanez (UC Davis) and Elmira Wan (U.S. Geological Survey).
Dr. Matthew Kirby and co-authors Steve Lund (USC), Michael Anderson (UCR), and Broxton Bird (MS CSUF 2005) published a paper in the Journal of Paleolimnology titled "Insolation Forcing of Holocene Climate Change in Southern California: A Sediment Study From Lake Elsinore"
Aron Taylor is the winner of the 2007 Giles T. Brown Outstanding Thesis Award. This prestigious award is given by the University to the Outstanding Masters Thesis completed in the past year. Congratulations, Aron!
Geological Sciences department news letter now available!
Dr. David Bowman was recently appointed to the Board of Directors of the Southern California Earthquake Center.
Dr. Galen R. Carlson is leading/coordinating an Earth Science Teacher Workshop (ESWP) for new Earth Science teachers in the Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD). An intensive one-week/full-day workshop will be held August 13-17, 2007 and this will be followed with 4 full-day Saturday workshops during the '07-'08 academic year. Funding for the workshop is coming from the AUHSD.
Dr. Brandon Browne, below, in O.C. Register article, Past Hides in Caves
Volcanic Fingerprinting Finding Fish in the Desert and Other Unlikely Results from Volcano Studies.
Colleagues Colloquium Dean's Breakfast Briefing with Geological Sciences faculty member, Jeffrey Knott, Ph.D.
Volcano Classroom Simulation Shake 'n Bake: Earthquakes and Volcanoes course – team taught by geological faculty David Bowman and Diane Clemens-Knott.
Beverly Berekian has been awarded the Titan Excellence Award. Congratulations Bev!
Candice Jones has been awarded the 2006 CNSM Staff Excellence Award. Congratulations Candice!
Drs. Diane Clemens-Knott, Matthew Kirby, David Bowman, Jeff Knott, and Adam Woods were co-authors on a paper presented at conference titled: “On-campus recruitment of geology majors: Developing alternatives to physical geology at a large state university.”
Dr. Jeff Knott presented the results of a collaborative research project entitled “Paleomagnetics and tephrochronology of the Pleistocene and Pliocene lakes, Death Valley, CA.
Dr. Adam Woods presented a talk entitled “Unusual lower Triassic seafloor precipitates, microbialites and carbonate cements from…Oman: Implications for the biotic recovery from the Permian-Triassic mass extinction” while his graduate student, Bob Kervin talked on “Sequence stratigraphy and paleokarst evolution of the Ordovician Antelope Valley Limestone, near Beatty, NV.”
Undergraduate student Scott Mata and his supervisor, Dr. Woods, presented a poster titled “Sedimentologic and paleontologic analysis of the lower member of the Early Triassic Union Wash formation: Paleoceanographic conditions along the western coast of North America following the Permian Triassic mass extinction.”
Alumna Michelle Mary (now at U. of Utah) also presented the results of her undergraduate research with Dr. Woods in a talk entitled “Stromatolites of the Lower Triassic Union Wash Formation and their significance for the biotic recovery following the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.”
Graduate student, Bev Berekian, presented a poster on “A mineralogic study of the Consolidated Tungsten Mine skarn, Tulare Co., CA.” with her supervisor Diane Clemens-Knott.
Lecturer Wayne Henderson and undergraduate Chris Terpolilli each presented talks (co-authored by undergraduate students Scott Mata and Joe Carrasco) on “Undergraduate student perceptions of environmental issues, a quantitative study to foster student understanding and action dealing with environmental issues” and “What factors influence students’ knowledge and concern for environmental issues?”
Recent alumni Broxton Bird (now at University of Pittsburgh), Marsh Sohn (now at Mactech) and Dolores van der Kolk (now at University of Alaska, Fairbanks) were also in attendance, as were current students Mike Blazevic, Winnie Yeh and Joe Carrasco.
Dr. Matthew Kirby and co-authors, Steve Lund (USC) and Broxton Bird (CSUF Geology MSc Geology ‘05), recently published their
results on Baldwin Lake and its relationship to hemispheric climate dynamics over the last 65,000 years in the journal
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. The citation is as follows:
Kirby, M. E., Lund, S. L., and Bird, B. W., 2006, Mid-Wisconsin Sediment Record From Baldwin Lake Reveals Hemispheric
Climate Dynamics (Southern CA, USA), Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 241, pp. 267-283.
Aron Taylor (B.S. and M.S.) provided a paper and led a stop for the South Coast Geological Society annual field trip on October 14, 2006. Dr. John Foster and Dr. John Cooper provided stops and geological overviews for the field trip as well. Aron became a father for the first time on Monday.
Dr. Jeff Knott and co-author Don Eley had a paper published in Physical Geography titled “Early to middle Holocene coastal dune and estuarine deposition, Santa Maria Valley, California.” Dr. Knott also presented a paper at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Philadelphia titled “Paleomagnetics and tephrochronology of Pleistocene and Pliocene lakes, Death Valley, California.”
The Department of Geological Sciences at CSUF was fortunate to receive a donation of a life-long mineral collection, known to us now as the Mack McGraw Collection. It is a collection of hundreds of fine pieces that range from large rock specimens, polished slabs, and mineral specimens collected from around the world along with some very special fossil pieces including a dinosaur gastrolith!. We are proud to announce the opening of the exhibit “Geo-Garden: an Exhibition of Minerals and Fossils” in the Atrium Gallery of Pollak Library. The Exhibit is going to run from October 8th 2006 – Summer 2007. In addition to showcasing the Mack McGraw Collection, Dr. John Cooper Professor Emeritus at CSUF has gathered together many Miocene fossil pieces from the Orange County Repository. These will also be on display outside the main gallery. All of these fossils have been recovered on Orange County construction sites and will show the visitor first hand what creatures were roaming Orange County 23.8 – 5.3 million years ago. The exhibit is open during all regular library hours.
Dr. David Bowman presented a poster at the 2006 Southern California Earthquake Center Annual Meeting in Palm Springs on September 9-14, 2006. The poster was titled “Predicting NO Earthquake: Regional seismicity along the Wasatch fault, Utah.”
Dr. Nicole Bonuso has published a paper on a research examining Late Paleozoic faunal distributions on a global scale. The following is the citation: Bonuso, N., & Bottjer, D. J. (2006). A quantitative study of benthic faunal patterns within the Pennsylvanian and Early Permian. Palaios, 21, 316-324. This research examines Late Paleozoic faunal distributions on a global scale. The study concludes that taxonomic differences between brachiopod and bivalve segregate faunal distributions but, more importantly, the cause of this separation is due to ecological difference in the modes of life exhibited by the two groups.
On-going research by Dr. David Bowman was presented at the “international workshop on comparative studies of the North Anatolian Fault and the San Andreas Fault” from August 13-18 at Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. Dr. Bowman’s research was part of the keynote lecture titled “Tectonics of evolving fault systems: Lessons from Anatolia, the Aegean, and the western USA.”
Dr. David Bowman appeared on the Cox Cable’s “Community Forum” show at 7 pm on August 31st to discuss the San Andreas Fault and earthquake hazards for Orange County.
Drs. Galen Carlson, Brandon Browne, and Prem Saint led an 8-day FISTS (Field Investigations for Science Teachers and Students) field trip through Owens Valley, Mammoth Lakes, and Yosemite National Park with 10 outstanding high school students from Sonora High School in La Habra as well as 10 junior high and high school science teachers from Fullerton, Anaheim, La Habra, Riverside, and Brea in August, 2006 (see pictures on page 4). In previous years, FIST served as an outstanding opportunity for K-12 grade teachers to accompany CSUF Geology professors in the field to learn how to make observations and perform scientific investigations in order to enhance their ability to understand and teach Earth/space science. This trip was the first time that high school students participated in the FIST program, where they engaged in a variety of hands-on field activities related to sedimentology, volcanology, geologic mapping and sampling, glaciology, and hydrogeology. All 10 student participants will continue their investigations throughout the fall 2006 semester in Dr. Browne’s volcanology laboratory in MH-557.
Dr. Matthew Kirby (PI) and co-PI Steve Lund (USC) received a two-year NSF grant for $152,000 through the Division of Earth Sciences Global Change Program. The grant is titled “Collaborative Research/RUI: Assessing Multi-scale Holocene Climate Variability in Western North America Using Sediments from Lake Elsinore (Southern CA).” This grant will provide funds for a geochemical analysis of sediments from Lake Elsinore as well as extensive grain size determination. Most importantly, this grant provides funds for undergraduate and graduate research opportunities, specifically focusing on recruitment of underrepresented students in the sciences.
Candice Jone has been awarded the 2006 CNSM Staff Excellence Award. Congratulations, Candice!
Emeritus Professor of Geological Sciences, Dr. John Cooper, has been recognized as a Volunteer of the Year by the Orange County Division of Harbors, Beaches and Parks. This award acknowledges his continued work managing the Orange County fossil collection, a project begun prior to his retirement from CSUF and initially funded by a 3-year grant from the County. As a parks volunteer, Dr. Cooper has implemented the curation plan developed under the grant and has supervised the volunteer curatorial staff. Dr. Cooper has also been nominated to receive the California Park and Recreation Society Division X Volunteer merit award for his “invaluable service...with the Adopt-A-Park Archaeological and Paleontological Program.”