2006
2005

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR***

2005-2006 – SO FAR SO GOOD, BUT
WHAT N EXT?
Have you seen the text fromPresident Mote’s State of the Campus
2006 address last September? It has thesame title. No, I’m not going toplagiarize the President’s text, but I am
going to follow a similar theme.

by Luke Chang in the 1980s and Galt
Siegrist in the 1970s (see F ACULTY
HIGHLIGHT on p. 8 of this GeoGram). A
great department is made up of goodpeople who excel—faculty, students andstaff—supported by cutting-edge
facilities and infrastructure.
Taking my lead from the President’s
address, a dispassionate view of what
the Department has achieved is that it’s

We continue to search for geophysics
faculty to complement our strength ingeochemistry (more below), and wehave an exciting field of strong
candidates, many of whom would makewelcome additions to our Department.
Departments either evolve or stagnate– there is no “status quo” in theacademic world, if you’re standing still
everyone else is passing you! So, this isa good point in the Department’s
evolution to review our progress so far
and to see where we are going.
Sash (Saswata Hier-Majumder)has now joined our faculty after his postdoctoral time at Yale University, whichmeans that we are now offering
Geophysics as part of our Undergraduate
Program for the first time in several
years, and Andy Campbell has
established the Laboratory for Mineral
Physics. We welcome Dan Lathrop(Professor of Physics and Director of
the Institute for Research in Electronics
and Applied Physics) as an Affiliate
Professor in our Department andYingwei Fei (Senior staff member,
Geophysical Laboratory) as an Adjunct
Professor (see their profiles on page 6).
My brief when I was hired in 1990
was to build a great department, using
as stepping stones the foundations laid

Our specialty in Geochemistry
was ranked by U.S. News andWorld Report as 10th among all
U.S. universities, and 4th among
public institutions.
at its historical best! However, much
more remains to be done.
We have a great faculty, several ofwhom are among the most prominent
members in their respective fields. The
prominence of our faculty is highlighted
first by the Bowen Award of the
Volcanology, Geochemistry andPetrology Section of the American

Geophysical Union for 2006 to Roberta
2003
Rudnick and second by several attempts
to recruit faculty into leadership positionsof research institutes here and abroad
during the 2006 calendar year.

***“...a dispassionate view ofwhat the Department has
achieved is that it’s at its
historical best!”***
We have wonderful students,
exemplified by Kate Burgy winning theJ. R. Dorfman Prize for Undergraduate
Research in Spring 2006, and Andy
Masterson (see SENIOR THESIS PROGRAM
on p. 10) being chosen as the CMPS
graduation speaker. It is a pleasure toacknowledge that an alum from our
Graduate Program, Gary Solar, received
the 2006 Biggs Award for Excellence inEarth Science Teaching at this year’s
Annual Meeting of the GeologicalSociety of America. And we have a
dedicated professional staff to keep theplace running!
Our facilities are improving despite
the antiquity of the buildings. We areinvesting more than $1M to enhance ourfacilities in Geochemistry, which will
result in improved temperature control
in the Gas Flow Mass Spectrometry
Laboratory, improved rock-cutting andmineral separation facilities, and adoubling in the size of the Clean
Laboratory to 1000 square feet in supportof our work in Isotope Geochemistry.
Oh, and Rich Walker is buying a new
Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer— a ThermoElectron Triton, our tenthmass spectrometer of some kind—using
funds from the National Science
Foundation, NASA and the College. In
the Geology Building, some of theinfrastructure is being replaced
throughout, and we are taking advantageof this opportunity to improve theambiance in our teaching laboratories
with new ceilings and a coat of paint.

An essential step in the developmentof any great department is its ability toform partnerships to enhance its impact.
We are working closely with ourcolleagues in the Department of
Astronomy and others in the region todevelop a Center for Planetary
Origins. This strategic move will
position us at the forefront of researchon solar system materials and the vexing
question of how planets are formed.

***“We are working closelywith our colleagues ... todevelop a Center for
Planetary Origins.”***
OK, that’s all descriptive, but what
do the national and international
communities think about us? Our
department is an international star. It is
one of the top programs in the world anda premier center for fundamental
research in Geochemistry. How can I
assert such a claim?
One of the highlights of the year was
the Annual U.S. News and World Report
Rankings, in which our Geochemistry
Program ranked 10th among all
universities in the Nation and 4th among
public universities. In addition, theGeosciences at UMd is ranked 18th
worldwide based on a citations analysis
by the Institute for Scientific Information
over the last decade using total cites;
based on cites per paper we rank 13th
worldwide, which perhaps is a betterreflection of our quality. In fact, if weremove huge government organizations
such as NASA, NOAA and the Russian
Academy of Sciences from the list, werank 8th among all U.S. universities and11th among all universities worldwide!
This is huge for us. It is what President
Mote has referred to as “value added”— as we get better so your degree from
UMd becomes that much more
respected. This Department really isvery good!

Why is this so significant?
Apart from the enhanced
visibility that our program
inevitably receives by achieving
a high ranking, and as President
Mote has argued for thecampus, it changes the
expectations that everyone has— on Campus and off — about
our department. We expect,
the University expects, andmany of our peers expect us tomaintain and improve our
reputation and our ranking. Thisis the difficult part — getting aranking in the first place is one
thing, keeping it is quite
another! To borrow fromPresident Mote, in his address
he quotes Henry Ford as saying “If you
think you can, or if you think you can’t,
you’re right.” Well, we thought wecould, we were right, and we will
maintain this level of achievement. Morethan that, we will get even better.

***“Our department is aninternational star. It is one of
the top programs in the world
and a premier center for
fundamental research inGeochemistry.”***
As a consequence of our strength ingeochemistry, and now our growth into
geophysics, our Department offers
extraordinary career opportunities foryoung scientists. And as you know, our
graduates are extremely successful —most of our graduates over the past
thirty years remain engaged in full-timecareers in the geosciences.
Our role in the flagship campus of theState university system is to conduct
research at the highest level, one that
leads to international acclaim, to take aleadership role in defining new directions
in geochemistry and geophysics, and toprovide absolutely the best opportunities
in education in the geosciences. Our

Mike Brown looking for answers
while leading an international
field trip after the Granulites &Granulites 2006 conference inBrasilia, Brazil.
faculty and students are working at theedge of discovery in some of the most
exciting research activities in the world,
ranging from investigating the origin ofplanetary systems to the conditions
attending the emergence of life on Earth.
We take our role as an international
leader seriously and want ourprospective students to join with us inpioneering research that generates new
knowledge about how the Earth andplanets work while addressing theserious challenges that confront society.
This is the benefit of a high quality
faculty as it translates into high quality
education.
In addition to our contributions toscience education across the Campus,
we maintain our presence in the Honors
Program and are committed fully tosupporting the Earth, Life and Time
Program within College Park Scholars.
I would be remiss not to mention that
the Earth, Life and Time Program is
widely regarded as the best among thedozen or so programs in College Park
Scholars. Additionally, we have a groupof faculty developing a new “marqueecourse” designed to convey the
excitement of science to Liberal Arts
students.
Life is cyclic in a State university and,once again, we are in the election season
and we now have a change of Governor
in the State of Maryland. As a Campus,
our budget has recovered to the samelevel in dollars that we received four
years ago. It is difficult to maintainupward motion as we strive forexcellence as the level of State support
declines in real dollars. This is where
your contributions in support of ourprograms can make the difference. We
can only achieve greatness together!
Our mission is to transform lives
through exceptional educational
opportunities and to change the world
through knowledge of the highest order.
As a fast rising department, we havedemonstrated the will and ability tosucceed. Every year alumni, faculty,
friends and corporations create
opportunities for students and further
research activities by providing
donations, matching gifts, planned gifts,
memorial gifts, gifts-in-kind anddonations of stock. Your philanthropic
investments will provide support to fundstudent scholarships, recruit and retain
top faculty, enhance laboratory facilities
and reinforce excellence and innovationin our academic programs. Your support
will help make our department truly greatwith global reach and impact. The
department will help you design a gift orgiving program that fits with yourinterests. For more information, e-mail(rosalind@geol.umd.edu) or call
Rosalind Pinkard at 301-405-4065.

Michael Brown
October 2006

GEOGRAM 2004-2006
editor, designer, feature writer,and photographer
Assoc. Prof. A. Jay Kaufman

METHODOLOGY
Rankings of doctoral programsin the sciences are based on the
results of surveys sent to academics in each discipline during the fallof 2005. The questionnaires asked
individuals to rate the quality of the
program at each institution on a 5point scale. The universe ofschools surveyed consisted ofthose that awarded at least fivedoctoral degrees. Questionnaires were sent to the department heads and directors ofgraduate studies. The response
rate for the earth sciences was
52%. Specialty rankings are
based on nominations by department heads and directors ofgraduate studies at peer schools
from the list of schools surveyed.
These respondents ranked up to
10 programs in each area.

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS
The 2006 Geology Distinguished
Alumnus was Professor Mark D.
Feigenson of Rutgers, The
State University of New
Jersey. Mark received a BSwith honors from the
University of Maryland in
1974. Originally a physics
major, he switched togeology after taking an
introductory course from
Professor Galt Siegrist. He
wrote his senior thesis on the
Woodstockquartzmonzonite, with Jerry
Weidner as advisor. Markthen went on for a Master’s
degreeat
GeorgeWashington, working in the
Dominican Republic withJohn Lewis. While at
GWU, he began acollaboration with scientists from theCarnegie Institution’s Department of
Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) where he
was introduced to isotope geochemistry.
Mark then received a Phelps-Dodge
award to study at Princeton for his
Ph.D., where he split his time working
on magma physics with Frank Speraand mantle geochemistry with Al
Hofmann, back at DTM.

DISTINGUISHED LECTURER
On February 3rd the College ofComputer, Math & Physical Sciences
along with the Department of Geology
presented a special workshop by Dr.
Barbara Ransom (Marine Geology andGeochemistry program director at the
National Science Foundation) addressing
the successful preparation of grant
proposals. The workshop was initiatedby Assoc. Professor Jay Kaufman insupport of our junior faculty, but was
tailored to a more diverse audience andattended by over 50 scientists andadministrators across the college.
Dr. Ransom’s entertaining presentation
titled “Fund Your Science!!!” included

His dissertation research involved thegeochemistry of Hawaiian volcanic
rocks, and he demonstrated that thedegree of mantle melting decreases

Prof. Mark D. Feigenson (center)receiving the 2006 Distinguished
Alumnus Award at the CMPS
Academic Festival with Dean
Steve Halperin (left) and Chair
Michael Brown (right)
sharply as a given volcano moves off
the hot spot. This work was one of thestimuli that resulted in the Hawaii
Scientific Drilling Project.
insights on the expectations of writers,
the distribution of ranked proposals, andwho gets funded. She provided common
reasons for both high and low ratings,
and laid out a strategic program forsuccess.

With Hofmann, he extended theprocedure known as geochemical
inverse modeling, and used thetechnique to constrain geophysicalmodels of melt production.
In 1982, Mark started
teaching at Rutgers
University, and began a longcollaboration with Mike
Carr, working on Central
American volcanology. Overthe years, they have studied
the geochemistry of
volcanoes from Guatemala
to Panama, and showed
how the changing dip of the
subducted plate controls thechemical variations in thelavas along the arc. Most
recently, Mark used Pb
isotopes of the lavas todemonstrate that the
volcanoes of central Costa
Rica are distinct from the rest of the arc,
and are tapping remnants of theGalapagos hot spot. This result implies
that the Caribbean Plate originallyformed in the Pacific Ocean basin wastransported to its current location overthe past 100 million years.
For more information about Mark, checkout his website at http://geology.rutgers.edu/feigenson.shtml
with our junior faculty for a more
informal discussion of funding strategies
and resources. We greatly appreciatedDr. Ransom’s outreach efforts to thedepartment and college.

In her talk, considerable time wasdevoted to the creation of testable
hypotheses, and tips on writing.
According to Dr. Ransom, turgid prose
is an enemy of clarity (and funding).
After the two hour presentation andlunch with Assoc. Dean Ron Lipsman,
Chair Mike Brown, and others, Barbara
was given a short tour of the
Geochemical Laboratories, and then met

Dr. Barbara Ransom, NSF

This picture was taken
by Galt Siegrist on a1976 field trip to the Silurian-Devonian Keyser
Quarry in West Virginia.
We have only been able
to identify some of thepeople, so let us know
who else is here.

ALUMNI NEWS & VIEWS
Please submit your Geology Department alumni news on-line at http://
www.geol.umd.edu/pages/Department/
alum.htm

Josh Long ‘04 and Ashley McCleaf‘06 married June 10, 2006 in
Frostburg, Maryland. They are now
both in graduate school at Northern
Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Department of Geology alumnus
Russell Meyer '99 entered the Fear
the Turtle Sculpture Scavenger Huntfor one simple reason - he wanted towin one of the turtle sculptures. Of
course so did his wife, Stephanie. So
they spent three full weekends this past
September running around the region
getting their pictures taken with all 50of the nifty turtles. A little friendly competition never hurts anything! In fact,
Terp fans turned out in droves (106people in all were eligible for the grandprize based on getting their picture withall 50 turtles) to enter the scavenger
hunt contest.
A drawing was held the week ofOctober 2 to determine which of the
106 entries would win the grand prize.
The first name out was Russell Meyer- who will get to take home "Maryland My Maryland" - a sculpture by1976 Field Trip to Keyser Quarry,
West Virginia
artists Barbara and William Gordon. It
was sponsored by the University of
Maryland's Student Government Association, and was displayed in front of theStamp Student Union on campus. The
turtle now sits proudly on his back deck,
but he is planning on landscaping his backyard around the sculpture.

Front row (l to r): Tom
Gore (blue sweater),
Pam Wheeless (denim
pigtails), Kim Walbe(holding pylon), Dr. Peter Stifel (hubcaps); second row: Bob Verta (fatigue jacket), Adrian
Burke (grey pigtails),
John Ossi (plaid shirt);
third row: Fritz Meyer(blond hair); on cab: Ken
Kaman (plaid shirt),
Patty Brack, (maroon
sweater),
MichaelEisner (dark frizzy hair);on winch: Frank
Chapelle (dark glasses)
and Bruce Muirhead.

university's annual open house. He
read about the contest in the alumni
newsletter and saw a story about it
on WUSA TV (Channel 9) in Washington, D.C.

A geologist by training, Russell Meyer
graduated from Maryland in 1999; he did
his senior thesis, titled “The Effects ofChemical Composition on the Optical
Properties and Cell Parameters in the
Riebeckite-Magnesioriebeckite Series”
with Prof. Ann Wylie. Following graduation Russell worked in an environmental lab for four years, but he is now employed as a geologist for a Gaithersburg,
Maryland engineering firm.
Russell first saw the turtle sculptures
last April during Maryland Day, theGeology Department alumnus
Russell Meyer ‘99 with his
prize turtle

MEET OUR AJUNCT FACULTY
Daniel Lathrop is a Professor in the
Department of Physics and Director of
the Institute for Research in Electronics
and Applied Physics (IREAP) at the
University of Maryland. Dr. Lathrop
received his Ph.D. in Physics from the
University of Texas at Austin in 1991,

Daniel Lathrop, Department of
Physics and Director of IREAPDr. Sorena Svea Sorensen received
her PhD from UCLA in 1984 and thenjoined the staff of the National Museumof Natural History, Smithsonian
Institution. Her research concerns fluidrock interactions in convergent margins,which she addresses by means of fieldwork and a variety of methods, especiallycathodoluminesence imaging and traceelement and isotope geochemistry.

and then began a post-doctoral
fellowship at Yale University. From 1994
to 1997 he was an Asst. Prof. at Emory
University and then joined the Universityof Maryland in 1997.
His current research interests include
magneto-rotational instability, magnetoturbulence and dynamos, and strongly
non-linear surface waves.
His recent work with liquidsodium models promises tohave groundbreaking results
which could change ourview of the Earth’s outer
core.
Dr. Lathrop’s laboratory
experiments are designed tosimulate the dynamos
operating in the interiors ofplanetary bodies, which are
the source of their magnetic
fields. By building a scalemodel of the Earth’s core, filling it withtons of reactive liquid sodium, andspinning the orb, he ultimately aims toSprague and Becker Funds of theSmithsonian Institution, the Departmentof Energy, and the National Science
Foundation. During her career, Sorena
has conducted field programs in

Currently Sorena is collaborating with
Geology Department Profs. Sarah
Penniston-Dorland
andBill
McDonough on lithium isotope andtrace element compositions of jadeite
and eclogite from subduction zones inCentral America and the western USA.
Dr. Sorensen has a secondary interestin mineral chemistry, and is an authority
on rare-earth-element-rich epidote
minerals and jadeitite, the gem varietyof jade. During the past 10 years, she
has received research support from theSorena Sorensen, Smithsonian
Institution, at the Shwedagon
Pagoda, Burma praying for goodluck in the jade mines

create a homogeneous dynamo in the lab
and demonstrate a self-generating
magnetic field.
Dan’s research has excited hiscolleagues as well as the public press.
It has recently been featured in
Discovery and Geotimes magazines, andalso on NOVA. He has received many
fellowships and awards, including a
Presidential Early Career Award in 1997,
and just last year he was elected a Fellowof the American Physical Society.
Daniel Lathrop is on the cutting edgeof his field. As an Adjunct faculty
member in the Geology Department,
Lathrop supports our new growth inGeophysics. This year he is giving thehonorary Bullard Lecture at the fallmeeting of the American GeophysicalUnion in San Francisco titled “Building
Laboratory Models of Planetary Cores.”
You can find more about Dan Lathropand his experiments at http://
www.physics.umd.edu/people/faculty/
lathrop.html
California, Nevada, Washington State,
the Dominican Republic, Venezuela,
Burma, and Guatemala.
Dr. Sorensen has been an editor for
Journal of Petrology and Journal of
Metamorphic Geology. She likewise
served as a Distinguished Lecturer andCouncilor of the Mineralogical Societyof America, and is a fellow of both MSA
and the Geological Society of America.
She has served as President of theGeological Society of Washington, andChair of the National Museum of Natural
History’s Senate of Scientists. Since
1988, Dr. Sorensen has served as theCurator-In-Charge of the Smithsonian’sRock and Ore Collections, and has beena past curator of the Janet Annenberg
Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems andMinerals.
More information on Dr. Sorensen’s
research can be found at http://w w w. m i n e r a l s . s i . e d u / r e s e a r c h /summary/sorensen.htm

Antonio (Tony) J. Busalacchi is Director of the University of Maryland
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary
Center (ESSIC) and a Professor in the
Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic
Science. Tony came to ESSIC in 2000,
after serving as Chief of the NASA
Goddard Laboratory for Hydrospheric
Processes.
In 1999, he was appointed Co-Chairman of the Scientific Steering Group for
the World Climate Research Programme
on Climate Variability and Predictability(CLIVAR). Tony's ongoing area of research is the role of tropical ocean circulation in the coupled climate system.
He has a 1982 doctorate in oceanography from Florida State University.
The goal of ESSIC is to enhance
understanding of how the atmosphereocean-land-biosphere components of the
Earth interact as a coupled system. Thisis accomplished via studies of theinteraction between the physical climate

Yinwei Fei, Carnegie Institutionof Washington
Dr. Yingwei Fei received his B. S.
from Zhejiang University, China (1982),
and Ph.D. from City University of New
York (1989). Fei, as he is commonly
known, was awarded a Distinguished
Scholar Dissertation Award from thesystem (El Nino) and biogeochemical
cycles (greenhouse gases, changes inland use and cover). Busalacchi also
serves as Director of NOAA’s
Cooperative Institute for Climate Studies(CICS) that ESSIC administers as partof a joint NOAA-University of
Maryland cooperative agreement.
Dr. Busalacchi has received
numerous awards and honors. Amongthese, he is a Fellow of the American
Meteorological Society. In 1991, he was
the recipient of the prestigious Arthur
S. Flemming Award, as one of five
outstanding young scientists in the entire
Federal Government. In 1995 he wasselected as Alumnus of the Year at
Florida State University, in 1997 he wasthe H. Burr Steinbach Visiting Scholar
at Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, in 1999 he was awarded theNASA/Goddard Excellence in OutreachAward and chosen by President Clinton
to receive the Presidential Rank
Meritorious Executive Award.

More information about Antonio
Busalacchi and ESSIC can be found at
http://essic.umd.edu/~tonyb/tonyb.html

University for his thesis work on
thermodynamics of reactions at highpressure and high temperature. He
joined the Carnegie Institution of
Washington Geophysical Laboratory in
1988.

1990, the Norton Senior Fellowship(1992-1996) from Norton Company, theMineralogical Society of America Award(1999), and the Crosby Visiting
Lectureship from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (2000).

Dr. Fei’s research interests include
composition and structure of the interiorsof the Earth and Mars, mantle evolution,
core and mantle differentiation, role ofwater and hydrous phases in a
subducted slab and deep mantle, physicalproperties of materials at high pressure
and temperature, phase transformations
and thermodynamic calculations, andmaterial synthesis at high pressure. He
has published more than 100 papers inscientific journals, and has served as an
associate editor for American
Mineralogist, Chinese Science
Bulletin, and Journal of GeophysicalResearch.

Current Fei is working with Universityof Maryland Profs. Bill McDonoughand Andy Campbell as well as UMd
undergraduate student Robert Thomason his senior thesis project titled “Effectof the FCC to HCP Phase Transition [iniron crystals] on Trace Element
Partitioning Between Metal and Sulfide
Melt.” The results of this high pressure
study will be used to test assumptions
about the partitioning behavior of
rhenium, osmium, and platinum in the
Earth’s inner and outer core.

Fei received the Hou Defeng Medalfrom Chinese Academy of Sciences in

Antonio Busalacchi, Director of
ESSIC and Professor in the
Department of Oceanic andAtmospheric Sciences

More information about Yinwei Fei
and the Multi-Anvil Group at theCarnegie Insitution of Washington canbe found at http://www.gl.ciw.edu/multianvil/

DEPARTMENT HIGHLIGHTSFACULTY HIGHLIGHT
Galt Siegrist
It is safe to say that without thesustained and heroic efforts of Galt
Siegrist, our 2006 FACULTY HIGHLIGHT,
it is unlikely that we would be
department we are today. Galt was
instrumental in the creation of the boththe Geology Department and thegraduate program. The history of thedepartment, as told by Galt, is an
intriguing tale of fits and starts.
Geology started at Maryland with
Leonard Furo who came from Texaco
in 1964. At that time, Siegrist was
searching for rutile deposits for the
Glidden Paint Co. in Baltimore after
completing his Masters and Ph.D. at
the Pennsylvania State University. Furo
knew Siegrist and suggested that heapply in 1965 for a position in theAgronomy Department to help out withthe huge geology classes he was facing.
With offices in the basement of H.J.
Patterson Hall, they taught 1000s of
undergraduate students in those earlyyears, with up to four sections of 300+
each semester. To support theseburgeoning numbers, Peter Stifel was
hired in 1966 and then both Tony
Segovia and Jerry Widener in 1968.
As coordinator of this growing blockin Agronomy, Siegrist first lobbied for aseparate program within thedepartment, and then to sever theumbilical cord altogether. “While we
made a lot of money for Agronomy, wewere a burr in their saddle,” said
Siegrist. The program was establishedwith concentrations in mineralogy,
historical geology, structural geology,
and petrology. By that time, Furo wassick with cancer and could not teach,although he was generously supported
by Agronomy until his death in 1971.
Ann Wylie was hired in 1972 to teach
optical mineralogy and economic
geology, and that same year the
Geology Department was born.

Galt was appointed as acting chair ofthe department, which grew to 200 majors
by 1975. The senior thesis program
became a requirement once thedepartment was formalized, but it was only
one semester and “very Mickey Mousein the beginning,” said Siegrist. There were
40 to 50 theses running at the same time,
so “we siphoned off a lot of them to theChemistry Department,” where geochemistry had started in earnest with thehires of George Helz, Shelly Sommer,
Ervin Gregor, Harry Rose, and Izzy
Addler.
By the mid 1970s Galt and Ann decided
it was time for a graduate program andbegan writing a proposal to the faculty
senate. “I put in the nouns and Ann put inthe verbs,” said Galt. The initiative,
however, was vehemently opposed by the
Chair of the Chemistry Department, so
Galt had to push for the program at up to
15 senate meetings, and was continuallydriving back and forth from Annapolis.
“My finest moment was when we got
the program started in 1977,” said Galt,
and we were able to bring in Luke Changas Chair. In 1981 the department moved
into the abandoned Fisheries Building.
“There were fish scales everywhere!”
said Siegrist, which may be why he took asabbatical the following year to study
carbonates in Guam.
For the next eight years Siegrist
continued his work in Guam and took ahandful of graduate students there to
study carbonate growth and diagenesis.
He also began to update the 1940s
vintage USGS geological map of theisland, which had a lot of mistakes. He
said that this was probably because they
were always on the lookout forJapanese military squads still present
on the island. Siegrist’s topographic andquadrangle based geological map
compiled over two decades is now at
the USGS and should be available
within the year.
Siegrist was offered a job at the
University of Guam in 1990 and left
Maryland. After 25 years of service
to the department “it was time to do
my own thing,” he said. Galt was
director of a USGS funded water
institution in Guam for five years andretired from that university in 2003. Hecurrently lives in Queenstown, MD withhis wife Alicia Watson (’75) who
teaches oceanography at Anne Arundel
Community College. Galt currently
coaches soccer at St. Peter and PaulHigh School in Easton when he isn’t
working on his new garage.

GRADUATE STUDENT HIGHLIGHT
David T. Johnston

For 2006, our graduate student
highlight is David T. Johnston, who will
graduate next January with a bedrockthesis on the geomicrobiology of sulfur
isotopes, supporting what one may only
predict as a stellar academic future.
David grew up in upstate New York,and as an avid skier and rock climber,he became curious about the rocks he
was continually scrambling over. His
fascinations with the natural world
eventually lead him to environmental
studies at Bates College where hestudied with Dr. Beverly Johnson, an
organic and isotope geochemist.
Working on related projects in thelaboratory, Dave became interested in
how biology and environments interact,and “in the storytelling geochemists cando with an isotope record.”
Fortunate for us, Dr. Johnson was a
post-doctoral fellow at the Carnegie
Institution at the same time as Assoc.
Prof. James Farquhar, who arrived
at Maryland in 2001 and was looking
for a bright student to help build hislaboratory. Beverly introduced Daveto James at the 2001 Geological Societyof America meeting in Boston, and therest is history.
At Maryland, Dave learned the Zenof mass spectrometry from James andBoswell Wing and applied novel sulfur
isotope techniques to his interests inbiological systems. Dave traveled threetimes to Denmark to work at Southern
Denmark University with Dr. Don
Canfield, a famed geomicrobiologist.

There they cultured specific sulfurloving bacteria and isolated the
products of their metabolism – in order
to use mass spectrometric techniqueslearned back at Maryland to better
understand the cycling of sulfur in bothmodern and ancient environments.

congratulate Dave, who has pushed thebar of graduate excellence at Marylandeven higher, and wish him the very best in
his future academic pursuits.

James said, “Dave was part of myfirst group of students and post docs,
and he had a big part in making it apositive, productive, and fun lab
environment. His work has been
exciting, but it hasn’t been easy.” Hespent many marathon sessions in thelab, and a lot of time afterwards
working to understand his data.

Kate Burgy

To date, this research has resulted
in three first-authored published articles
by Dave, including a landmark article
in Science, as well as two other coauthored publications, and many othermanuscripts in review or in
preparation. “A lot of this reflects the
freedom that I was given here at
Maryland,” said Dave. “The faculty
here is just fantastic, and they havealways treated me like a colleague.”
Dave’s hard work has already won
him much recognition across campus,
and the world. He was awarded by
the department for giving the best
Ph.D. presentation in 2005.
Furthermore, his research has been
partially funded by NASA
Astrobiological Institutes and theInternational School of Aquatic
Sciences (SOAS) scholarships as well
as a prestigious Dean’s dissertation
fellowship. Dave has also received
travel grants from SOAS and the
Geochemical Society to attend various
meetings, including the 16th annual
V.M. Goldschmidt Conference in
Melbourne, Australia last summer.
The future looks bright for Dave.
He has already been offered postdoctoral research positions at two
prestigious institutions, and with his
momentum, other offers will certainly
come to this exceptional scientist. We***
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTHIGHLIGHT

Our undergraduate student highlight for
2006, Kate Burgy, figuratively galloped
through her senior year – at home in
Clarksville, Maryland with her stable ofhorses, and at work, winning the J.R.
Dorfman Prize for Undergraduate
Research. Her senior thesis project on
the complicated structure of Mather Gorge
at Great Falls of the Potomac with Asst.
Prof. Aaron Martin had to be completed
quickly as Dr. Martin left for Nepal in the
middle of the spring semester. Although
this reigned in her thesis time, it allowed
her to finish quickly enough to meet theearly Dorfman deadline.
This ultimate success blankets Kate’sinteresting academic history. While she
was always fascinated with rocks andearthquakes – and was destined to get a“hard science degree,” she transferred outof Geology midway through to major in
Biology. However, after a year she clearlysmelled the good hay and came back to
the Geology stables, excelling in her senioryear.
We are pleased that Kate has decided
to saddle up for graduate school here at
Maryland, and will start this spring working
in Nepal with Dr. Martin. Besides Irish
dancing and saltwater fly fishing, let’s hope
she also likes Yak butter!

SENIOR THESIS PROGRAM
The Department of Geology senior
thesis program, coordinated by Prof.
Phil Candela for the past decade,turned 35 this year. Since 1972 there
have been 487 completed senior theses
advised by our faculty.
Faculty members that have advised
the most students in this program include:
Ann Wylie (59), Peter Stifel (55), Galt
Siegrist (45), Jerry Weidner (32), Bob
Ridky (31), Phil Candela (29), Karen
Prestegaard (28), and Tony Segovia(27).
There was a crowd of excellent
graduating seniors in 2006. Again thisyear, their final presentation included aposter session in the Geochemistry hallway. We wish each of our departing
students, and newest alumni, the best ofluck with their future endeavors.

Dusty Aeiker (left), Deducing the depth oforigin of granulite xenoliths from zirconrutile thermometry: a case study from
Tanzania (advisors Rudnick, McDonough& Piccoli)

John James, Magmatic liquid crystallization of sulfides in the Ellicott City granodiorite: Implications on ore metals (advisors Rudnick & Piccoli)

David Limburg (left), An Analysis of
Apatite Chemistry in Garnet
Porphyroblasts and in the Matrix ofMetamorphic Rocks (advisor Piccoli)

Lynnette Pitcher (center), The Behavior of
Rhenium and the Platinum Group Elements
during Fractional Crystallization of theKilauea Iki Lava Lake in Hawaii (advisors
Walker & Helz)Andrew Shansby (right), Comparison of
the Petrology of Samples from Two
Amphibolite Facies Localities from theAndrelândia Group, Brazil (advisors
Brown & Piccoli)

Andrew Masterson, Anomalous Fractionation Patterns of Multiple S-Isotopes in
the Broadband UV Photolysis of He-SO2(advisors Wing & Farquhar)
Brendan Williams (right), A Sulfur
Isotopic Study of Neoproterozoic Evaporites in the Shaler Supergroup, Victoria
Island, Northwest Territories, Canada(advisors Kaufman & Johnston)*
Kate Burgy, The Measurement of SmallScale Structures to Determine Their
Influence on the Orientation of the Mather
Gorge of the Potomac River, Maryland andVirginia, USA (advisors Martin & Zen)

Ashley McCleaf (left), Hydraulics Effecting Bedrock Erosion at a Stream
Knickpoint (advisor Prestegaard)**

To see the posters from this year’s
presentations and lists of theses
over the past 35 years go to http://
www.geol.umd.edu/pages/undergraduates/SeniorThesis.htm.

ety of Washington, the oldest society ofits kind in the US. The GSW holds meetings with three 20 minute talks from local and regional geologists at the Cosmos Club in Dupont Circle about once amonth. If you live in the region, pleaseconsider joining this supportive society(http://www.gswweb.org).

OUTREACH ACTIVITIES
Department of Geology faculty outreach to the local geological community
spans the gamut of activities. For example, over the past several years Bill
McDonough, James Farquhar, andJay Kaufman have mentored highschool students from Oxen Hill, Charles
Flowers, Montgomery Blair and Eleanor
Roosevelt high schools in the Geochemical Laboratories. This past year, Aarisha
Shrestha, an intern working with Prof.
Kaufman, was highly successful with
her Science Fair project titled “Environmental Setting for Earth’s Earliest Eukaryotes.” She won first place in Earth/Environmental Sciences, and third overall
in the Eleanor Roosevelt science fair.
This allowed her to compete in the 58th
Annual Prince Georges Area Science
Fair where she won the Grand Prize
competing against 158 other finalists.

Aarisha Shrestha, Eleanor
Roosevelt HS senior with her Grand
Prize poster from the Prince
Georges County Science Fair.
Aarisha was then invited to present her
work at a symposium in Texas and at
the Intel International Science Fair in Indianapolis. She is currently a freshmanat the University of Maryland.
Geology Department faculty similarly
played key roles in the Geological Soci-2006 GSW officers (l to r) Bill
McDonough (Secretary), Rich
Walker (President), Jay Kaufman(Program Chair)

HOW CAN YOU HELP US?
There’s excitement at Maryland in Geology with our achievements in 2006. We’re recruiting world-class faculty and talented
students. We are exploring new frontiers at the edge of discovery. Our Faculty are receiving recognition for their achievements.
We have one of the best Geochemistry Programs in the world. And we’re all working together to become one of the top Geology
Departments in the Nation.
But, we need your help to reach this goal! How can you help us?
In this tight economy, the support of alumni and friends like you is the key to our success and to maintaining our commitment toexcellence. Whether you support us yourself or put us in contact with someone who can, your contribution is sincerely
appreciated. Your tax-deductible donation will help us strengthen our program with faculty and student recruitment tools, stateof-the-art facilities, an enhanced fieldwork program for our undergraduates and innovative outreach programs.
A growing problem for our undergraduates is the transfer of the cost of Tertiary education from the State to the individual via
reduced State support and increased tuition rates. The increased cost commonly increases the time it takes to complete thedegree, and our ability to help is limited by a significant under-funding in scholarship support for students. In Geology, this isparticularly important, since there are the additional costs associated with fieldwork, particularly Field Camp and research for
the Senior Thesis, and additional financial help from the Department for those students in need commonly allows these students
to succeed. Through the generous support of our alumni, faculty and friends, we were able to provide financial support to several
students to assist with the costs of field camp in 2006. But we must do more.
Please consider strengthening your connection to the Department. I ask you to join with me and the faculty in supporting ourstudents reach their goals. I invite you to join the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences as members of the
Dean’s Circle (gift level >$2,000) or the Newton Society (gift level >$1,000). An envelope is enclosed, giving you a convenient
opportunity to participate, right now, in the exciting and important work that our students and faculty are doing.
You can assist us to support future generations of Geology majors by earmarking your tax-deductible gift for Geology.
Your generous help allows us to provide grants to undergraduate students from the Fernow Field Fund to assist with the costs ofField Camp, and to award prizes for the Best Senior Thesis from the Stifel Undergraduate Research Fund and for the Best(cont. on back cover)2006 Department of Geology, University of Maryland

Front row (Faculty), left to right: Karen Prestegaard, Ann Wylie, Rich Walker, Nick Collins, Bill McDonough, James Farquhar, Phil
Picolli, Andy Campbell, Igor Puchtel, Mike Brown, Aaron Martin, Phil Candela, Roberta Rudnick, Sarah Penniston-Dorland, Sash HeirMajumder, John Merck, Jay Kaufman.
Second row along stairs (Graduate Students and Research Associates), left to right: Andy Masterson, Ryan Kerrigan, Kate
Scheiderich, Rachel Potter, Kristin Miller, Erik Hankin, Zachary Blanchet, Tom Ireland, Adam Mansur, Melissa Wilmot, Rick Arevalo,
Barry Reno, Jingao Liu, Kristina Brody, Chrisy France, Yan Chen, Lin Qiu, Katya Klochko, Nick Geboy, Michael Mengason, Tracey
Centorbi, Tetsuya Yokoyama, Keiko Yokoyama, Todd Karwoski, Noah Miller
Back row (Staff), left to right: Dorothy Brown, Ginette Villenuve, Jeanne Martin, Sandy Romeo, Rosalind Pinkard
Not shown (Faculty): Tom Holtz, E-An Zen, Luke Chang (emeritus), Pete Stifel (emeritus); (Research Associates): Sonja Aulbach, Ralf
Halama, Fauna Korhonen; (Research Assistants): Richard Ash, Dan Earnest; (Graduate Students): Margaret Baker, Jeremy Bellucci,
Pramod Doguparty, Heather Franz, Jenise Honesto, Adrian Hughes, David Johnston, Gwen Rhodes, Ruth Schulte, Brian Tattich

Graduate Student Presentations from the Chang Graduate Research Fund. The Hutton General Fund is used to address otherneeds in our drive for excellence in Education. In the future we aim to offer funded Summer Internships to undergraduate
students.
Gifts to the Department of Geology also may be made directly to the Department by check or online (http://www.geol.umd.edu/
pages/contribute.htm) using a credit card. Contributions to the Department of Geology by check should be made out to the
University of Maryland College Park Foundation with “Geology” in the memo. To ensure that Geology is the receiver of your gift
to the University of Maryland, please be careful when completing the Online Gift Form. On line two, please scroll down to “Other:Specify the gift designation in the following field”, and on the third line in response to the question “Specify “Other” Fund or
School/College” insert “Geology”. If you do not change these items, Geology will not receive your gift.
I want to thank those of you who responded last year, and on behalf of the Department, offer my thanks, in advance, for your earlyand positive response to this request for your help this year.

Michael Brown