GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES NEWLSETTER ISSUE JULY 2018

https://www.utep.edu/science/geology/

Department of

Geological Sciences

Fall 2018

STUDENTS AND ANADARKO REPRESENTATIVE AT 32ND ANNUAL COLLOQUIUM IN MARCH. MILESTONES, ACCOLADES, AWARDS, GIVING

The Department of Geological Sciences undergraduate program’s achievements produce accomplished students that combine academics and scientific research.

Undergraduate Guadalupe Rodriguez earned a coveted Outstanding Student Paper Award at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans for her poster “Estimating groundwater discharge into the ocean in the Yucatan Peninsula”. Guadalupe is also taking part in the Academic Year-Pathways Research Experience Program, a National Science Foundation grant.

Research initiatives to support undergraduate experiences have awarded stipends to Anthony Marrufo and Rebecca Platt through UTEP COURI. Rebecca is currently being funded by the

Reese Rowling Scholarship for her academic endeavor. Anthony is currently being funded, along with another undergraduate, Nicholas W. Howell, by the Cearley Undergraduate Scholarship in Geosciences.

Congratulations to BS in Geology graduate Iliana Garcia for receiving the Roy S. and Helen Magruder Endowment

Scholarship. The D.B. Smith Memorial Scholarship Fund recipients this year include the following undergraduates, Guadalupe Rodriguez, Marcela Alvarez, and Antonio Verduzco.

The W.P. Nash Fund is awarding, for their dedication to academics, the following undergraduates: Alexis Castro, David Mendez, Emery Hansen, Frankie Enriquez, Carlos Preciado, Christian Ortiz, Kenneth Singh, Marcos Rayos-Velazquez, Mercedes Navarro-O’Hara, and Paola Soto-Montero. Jessica

Department of Geological

Sciences Milestones

https://www.utep.edu/science/geology/

Undergraduate Research

Anthony Marrufo, undergraduate researcher.

Field work at Mt. Cristo Rey

Dr. Langford and M.S. student, Josh Peterson with undergraduate students out at Mt. Cristo Rey.

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Dozal-Cruz was also supported through UTEP undergraduate research funds working with Drs. Velasco and Karplus.

The department is looking forward to the many great research and internship experiences for the UTEP Geoscience undergraduates in the Summer and Fall.

In fall 2017 we welcomed the faculty addition of Jason Ricketts. Jason adds new dimensions to our research such as the field of thermochronology. This expansion allows for a more diverse research portfolio available to our students.

We also welcome Julien Chaput as new faculty this coming fall. The realm of research Julien brings to the department involves studies of the character of the global scattered wavefield, developing temporal monitoring methods for the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, developing machine learning algorithms for signal separation in radar and seismic cluster scenarios and developing imaging methods through strongly scattering media.

Faculty Achievements

Achievements by faculty include the 2018 AAPG Distinguished Educator Award for Dr. Richard Langford, professor of sedimentology. Professor Thomas Gill was also recognized in science news for a study involving tiny invertebrates in high winds across the desert where “We took the clean desert

soil, in which we mixed microinvertebrates and blew it into the air”, said Dr. Gill.

Dr. Aaron Velasco Serving as the State Seismologist for the Railroad Commission along with being a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences.

Dr. Aaron Velasco was also announced as the Railroad Commission of Texas agency seismologist, or State Seismologist, a position which he will serve in for the state and involves mitigation of issues involved with well fracking and drilling.

The last year has seen numerous success stories within the department. Among these, 2017 UTEP Graduate Mentor of the year award went to Dr. Diane Doser for her dedication and mentorship of many successful

students. In addition, Dr.

Doser received an award recognizing outstanding dedication and leadership of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Annual Meeting held in Denver,

Colorado, April 18-20, 2017. “The SSA was the first professional society I joined as a student. I have always felt a strong affiliation with the society and its focus on understanding earthquakes to benefit humankind.” Doser said.

2017 UTEP GRADUATE MENTOR: DR. DIANE DOSER

RECOGNIZED FOR DEDICATION AS A MENTOR ALONG WITH AN AWARD BY THE SEISMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA FOR LEADERSHIP AND CONTRIBUTIONS

Dr. Julien Chaput, new faculty seismologist researching Antarctica.

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In grants totaling over $927,260 the following faculty research was initiated and ongoing, a sampling of research is below:

Giles, Langford, Brunner, Salt-Sediment Interaction Research Consortium (SSIRC) grant, $315,000 (7th year through April 2022).

Xu, Arnold, Brunner, Langford, "Can Phototrophy-Driven Sulfur Cycling Make Crystallization Water of Gypsum Bioavailable? – Defining a New Habitability Index for Gypsum-Dominated Extreme Environments", Sponsored by NASA, $285,662 (12/01/17- 11/30/19).

Sobin, Hargrove, Campbell, Ma, “Community based lead source mitigation for reducing child lead exposure”, $23, 442(01/01/17-12/31/18).

Velasco, Karplus, Gonzalez-Huizar, "RAPID: Seismic Deployment for Capturing Aftershocks of the September 2017 Chiapas and Puebla Mexico Earthquakes", Sponsored by NSF, $34,713.00 (09/30/17 – 09/30/18).

Karplus, Harder, Kaip, “NSF-NERC: Thwaites Interdisciplinary Margin Evolution (TIME): The Role of Shear Margin Dynamics in the Future Evolution of the Thwaites Drainage Basin”, $79,333 (2017-18).

Also, over 47 publications were generated by faculty from 4/17 to 4/18, a sampling of which are:

Villanueva-Rosales, Chavira, Tamrakar, Pennington, Vargas-Acosta, Ward, and Mayer, (2017). Capturing scientific knowledge for water resources sustainability in the Rio Grande area. Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Capturing Scientific Knowledge.

Li, Maher, Navarre-Sitchler, Druhan, Jin, (2017). Expanding the Role of Reactive Transport Models in Earth Surface Process. Earth-Science Reviews. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2016.09.001

Goodell, Mahar, Mickus, Sandoval, (2017). The presence of a stable “Megablock” bounded by Active Zones (Mobile Belts) in the southwestern North American Proterozoic craton. Precambrian Res. 300, 273-288.

Tong, Wang, Gill, Lei, Wang, (2017). Intensified dust storms and valley fever infection in the southwestern United States. Geophysical Res. Letters, 44, 4304-4312. doi/10.1002/2017GL073524

Thompson, Velasco, Zamora, Hussein, (2017). Geophysical constraints on the crustal structure of the Southern Rio Grande Rift. To appear in Bull. Seis. Soc. Am, 107(3), 1118-1128.

Additional faculty achievements include field work for a NASA-funded project called RIS4E, https://ris4e.labs.stonybrook.edu.

in the Portillo Volcanic Field during June 2017 and May 2018. Dr. Jose Hurtado helped lead this work which focused on the physical volcanology of basalt lava flows and the use of field portable instruments for planetary exploration. The team included more than 30 individuals, including scientists from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and NASA Johnson Space Center (including an astronaut), and faculty and students from the University of Hawaii, University of Arizona, Stonybrook University (including a cadre of science journalism students), and UTEP.

Dr. Jose Hurtado (faculty) using UAV during RIS4E project field work to collect aerial images for 3D modelling and for filming simulated astronaut activities.

Group shot of the instructors/staff and students (14 NASA and Canadians Space Agency astronauts) at Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, the field site for the field training in June 2018.

Dr. Jose Hurtado has also been involved in the earth and space science training for NASA astronauts for the past 10 years. During June 2018, he was one of the lead instructors for

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training of the 2017 class of new NASA and Canadian Space Agency astronauts. This included a week of classroom training at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston and a week of field training north of Taos, NM. He will also be an instructor for additional field training in northern Arizona in June 2019.

In related news faculty members Drs. Marianne Karplus and Steven Harder along with Galen Kaip, Research Associate will embark on a multimillion dollar, joint research program between the U.S. and the United Kingdom. In this study of the Thwaites Interdisciplinary Margin Evolution (TIME) project they will use precision seismic, GPS and radar instrumentation to collect new data on the current behavior and future evolution of the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica and will begin in October 2018.

(https://www.utep.edu/newsfeed/utep-geological-sciences-team-joins-multimillion-dollar-joint-us-uk-effort-to-study-receding-antarctic-glacier.html)

Field experiences in Alaska doing active-source seismic imaging with Dr. Marianne Karplus (faculty) and Galen Kaip (Research Associate) on Lemon Creek Glacier.

The 2017-18 academic year began with the welcoming of fourteen

new graduate students with 7 MS Geology students, 5 PhD Geology students and 2 ESCI students. In addition to welcoming new faculty we kicked off the year’s 32nd Annual Department of Geological Sciences Colloquium – Innovative Research for a Dynamic World. We were particularly pleased to enjoy the participation of alumni who take time to judge talks & posters as well as interacting with students. The student organizers that deserve our thanks and praise for putting in time and effort were Alan Vennemann, Georgina Rodriguez Gonzalez, Nathan Reade and Garrett Goff all of who deserve special accolades for leading the effort. I also want to thank the donors who have contributed, so that we could furnish refreshments and prize money in this event. Special thanks to the judges this year: Jeff Baker, Eric Stautberg, Julian Biddle, Eric Kappus, Yvette Perrera, Marisela Montelongo, Ahinoam Rodriguez, and Christine Sanchez. We had over

50 abstracts submitted this year. The Colloquium kicked off with the keynote presentation of alumnus James Cearley, “Lessons Learned from 34 years in the Petroleum Industry” and as we

hoped this would set the tone for the rest of the year at UTEP’s Department of Geological Sciences.

The Department of Geological Sciences 2018 UTEP Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) team competed in the Southwest Section IBA 2018 Semifinal competition in Farmers Branch (Dallas), TX in March. The team was made up of M.S. students, Brandon LaJoie, David Lankford-Bravo, Kate Grisi, and Tarik Iraz, all mentored by Dr. Rip Langford.

In other graduate student news, doctoral student, Amanda Labrado (SIPES Texas scholarship recipient), Claire Bailey and Rachelle Kernen have been selected as an interns with Chevron, Exxon and BP America this summer (three of the largest major oil and gas exploration and production companies in the US)! For spring 2018, master’s student Emily Graves has been working with Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Geophysics group and Alex D. Garcia has been working at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Alex has been recently selected to participate in the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) Student Leadership Symposium at the annual meeting. Only 50 students were selected worldwide. He also has received three scholarships from SEG.

In addition, Master’s students, Alex Eddy, Kate Grisi, Piper Poe, Rafael Delfin, Joel Castro and Alan Vennemann have lucrative summer internship offers with the

Alex Eddy, M.S. Student and Dr. Steven

Harder (faculty).

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Department of Defense, Chesapeake Energy, Exxon Exploration and Production Company, Hess Corporation and the Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship Program at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

One of the spotlight graduate students featured on the website for fall 2017 highlighted the work of Esenam Fumador and her journey to UTEP from Ghana and the project she is undertaking as a Master’s student. (www.utep.edu/graduate/spotlights/

esenam-adzo-fumador.html)

Esenam Fumador was spotlighted by the graduate school this year for her Master’s project.

At the 2017-18 UTEP Graduate student research EXPO,

two of our students won top honors, Master’s student in Environmental Science, Julio Ceniceros received the first place poster award for his poster “Identifying the Abundance of Soil, Vegetation, and Rock Using Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma”. Julio is also planning to participate in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Atmospheric Sciences summer long program in Colorado to learn and perform important atmospheric research. The third place poster award at the UTEP EXPO was awarded to Victor H. Garcia, doctoral student, for his

poster “Uranium-Series Dating of the East Franklin Mountains Fault Carbonates in El Paso, Texas”.

Graduate doctoral student David Guenaga received two Society of Exploration Geophysicist scholarships: the DGS/Karen Kellogg Shaw Memorial Scholarship and the Earl D. and Reba C. Griffin Memorial Scholarship for 2017-18. Evey Gannaway and Anna Mwangi, both doctoral students received the Hunt and Rowling Scholarship for 2017-18 at UTEP. Anna Mwangi also placed in the UTEP graduate school’s 3MT (3 minute thesis talk) competition for March 2018. This year featured the West Texas Geological Foundation Scholarship and Roswell Geological Society Scholarship awards which were received by PhD student, Rachelle Kernen. PhD student, Juan Ochoa Chavez also won the Alaska Geological Society scholarship. Affiliated through their faculty mentors, ESE PhD students

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Katalina Salas and Iyasu Eibedingil won Natalicio Environmental Internships.

The AIPG Shoemaker Scholarship recipient for 2018 was Amanda Labrado. Previous recipients were Anna Mwangi (2016) and Victor H. Garcia (2017). The award was presented by Mike Jacobs of Pioneer Natural Resources and AIPG representative. Thank you AIPG!

Ezequiel Moreno Flores, graduate student recipient of the GSA Graduate Student Research Grant.

Graduate student, Ezequiel Moreno Flores was awarded the Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant for his work: “Crystal Structural Variations of Abiotic and Biogenic Iron Sulfide Nanoparticles: Effect of Formation Environments’ Redox Conditions”.

Left to right: Dr. James Kubicki, Victor H. Garcia, Amanda Labrado, Anna Mwangi and Mike Jacobs (Pioneer Natural Resources).

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PhD student, Perry Houser is working a summer internship with the USCI- ISI (Information Sciences Institute) working on the MINT (Model Integration) Project focused on ontology based modelling of south Sudan environmental sustainability.

GIVING

SPECIAL AWARDS

Diana Natalicio Fellowship Recipient

Evey Gannaway received the prestigious award for 2018.

NASA NESSF Awardee Amanda Labrado received the NASA NESSF award for her PhD research in sulfur cycling.

The 2017-18 academic year

also featured several prestigious awards one of which went to Evey Gannaway for the Diana Natalicio Dissertation Fellowship.

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NSF Graduate Student Fellowship Marisol Dominguez received the NSF Graduate Student Fellowship award for her hydrology project.

AWARDED DEGREES

29 out of 180 Undergraduate degrees awarded, 29 of 180 total students in 2017-18.

15 out of 75 Graduate degrees awarded, 15 out of 75 total students in 2017-18.

DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES

500 W. University Ave. El Paso, TX 79968-0555 (915) 747-5501, geology@utep.edu

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Another important award went to Amanda Labrado for NASA’s Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) for her research on “A novel microbial native sulfur formation pathway”, in which there was 24 awarded out of 223 applicants.

In addition, another PhD student, Marisol Dominguez received the coveted NSF Graduate Student Fellowship for her work on hydrologic sensitivity of headwater catchments globally.

Field area to be used as potential UNESCO World Heritage site Rachelle Kernen’s manuscript field site is being considered for a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Rachelle Kernen, PhD student also has had a manuscript accepted by the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences which will be used to make the field area a potential location for a UNESCO World Heritage site. Rachelle has also been serving as a board member for the Association of Women in Geoscience and Geological Society of America Sedimentary Division student representative.

Valeria Martinez, a doctoral student also was recognized by an international award for her contributions to a unique mosquito habitat and discovery research project involving drone technology for the 2017-18 academic year.

In an effort to expand collaboration with geosciences in Mexico, Dr. Aaron Velasco, Dr. Marianne Karplus, Dr. Gonzalez-Huizar, and Dr. Oscar Dena (Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez - UACJ) and doctoral student Solymar Ayala-Cortez teamed up with the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) and the Mexican disaster response agency CENAPRED to study recent earthquake activity in southern Mexico. In another effort to expand collaboration with geosciences in Mexico, Dr. Aaron

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Velasco, Dr. Marianne Karplus, Dr. Stephen Harder, Galen Kaip, and doctoral student Solymar Ayala-Cortez traveled to Mexico City and have been in discussions with the Instituto Mexicano del Petroleo regarding performing seismic experiments to better image petroleum systems in Mexico. (http://www.kvia.com/news/el-

paso/utep-geologists-head-to-mexico-city-to-study-earthquakes/626611124; https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/utep/2017/09/25/utep-uacj-geologists-headed-mexico-earthquake-zone/702306001/)

SWS-AAPG Convention

Members of our Department were instrumental in planning and

organizing the 2018 Southwest Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Convention which was held in El Paso, TX in April, hosted by the El Paso Geological Society. Ph.D. students James Rutkofske (Chairman of the Convention), Claire Bailey (President of the El Paso Geological Society), Evey Gannaway (Abstracts Editor of the Convention) worked together with faculty and staff (Drs. Gail Arnold, Ben Brunner, Kate Giles, Rip Langford, Annette Veilleux) to make this important event a great success.

Giving

This year was marked by the significant million dollar donation to fund the Kenneth F. and Patricia Clark Distinguished Chair in the Department of Geological Sciences. This endowment will be used by the Distinguished Chair

(to be named) to enhance research activities that advance the field of Economic Geology and Resource Extraction. It was provided on behalf of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association and UTEP 2017 Distinguished Alumni Allen Gilmer (M.S. Geology, 1987).

We are exceptionally grateful for the continued support of generous donors from funds encompassing the following:

The Bruce Davidson Memorial Graduate Student Award Fund

The Haigh-Sauer Endowment Fund

The Dr. Earl Lovejoy Excellence Endowment in Geological Sciences

J. W. Miller Memorial Geophysics Endowment Fund

Over the course of the academic year and to round out the end of the spring semester, we had a total of 15 graduate students who were awarded their degrees in Geology, Geophysics or Environmental Science. There were 29 bachelor’s degrees awarded to students in Geology

and Environmental Science from the undergraduate program.

Looking forward to another outstanding year as more students start to learn about their summer opportunities and make future plans after graduation!

Department of Geological Sciences members prepare to welcome the meeting attendants at the El Paso Convention Center: from left to right Claire Bailey (Ph.D. student), Lory Alaniz (undergraduate student), Jim Rutkofske (Ph.D. student), Gail L. Arnold (faculty).

Residents in Mexico at site of seismic instrument deployment.

UTEP 2017 Distinguished Alumni Allen Gilmer (MS Geology, 1987) rang the bell at the Nasdaq closing bell

ceremony.

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James Kubicki, PhD, Chair, Department of Geological Sciences

The University of Texas at El Paso 500 W. University Ave. El Paso, TX 79968-0555 jdkubicki@utep.edu

Amber Bruner, Administrative Assistant

The University of Texas at El Paso 500 W. University Ave. El Paso, TX 79968-0555 abruner@utep.edu

Christine Sanchez, Program Coordinator

The University of Texas at El Paso 500 W. University Ave. El Paso, TX 79968-0555 csanchez2@utep.edu

Annette Veilleux, PhD, Graduate Coordinator

The University of Texas at El Paso 500 W. University Ave. El Paso, TX 79968-0555 amveilleux@utep.edu

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