St. Lawrence University Geology Newsletter

Spring 2016

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Congratulations to our

2016 graduates!

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Message from the Chair,

Congratulations to our 2016 graduates! This year we graduated 17 students, which is one more than last year and four

more than our long-term average of 13 geology majors per year (period 1950-present). On behalf of the faculty and staff of

the Department of Geology, I would like to extend congratulations and warmest wishes for a bright future to Rudy Bent-

lage, Alex Camerino, Colin Davis, Stephen DelGaudio, Kaitlynn Doerr, Kalen Griffin, Austin Hart, Morgan Holland, Eleanor

Jones, Cullen LaPointe, John Miller, Will Moynihan, Jaleigh Pier, Grant Reeder, Will Schaeffer, Kathleen Sears, and Mela-

nie Swick.

Among the many highlights this semester, it is pleasure to report that Alexander Stewart reached tenure and will be

promoted to Associate Professor in August. I am also happy to report that we now have three students as Jonathan W.

Harrington ’64 Fellows. The fund has been established through an initial gift from Laura C. Harrington ’90 in memory of

her father Dr. Jonathan Harrington ’64. Grants from the Fund support students with demonstrated financial need

attending a geology field camp, an intensive outdoor course that applies classroom and laboratory training to solving geological problems in the

field. This year’s fellows include Rudy Bentlage, John Miller, and Gabriel Thomas.

This semester’s Ferguson memorial lecture was presented by Jack Shroder, emeritus professor of geology at University of Nebraska. In addition

to the talk entitled “Afghanistan water resource war”, Dr. Shroder also presented the department seminar on “Geomorphological Mapping of

Afghanistan”. Other seminar speakers this semester were Doug Reed (Work and passion for wood, water, and rocks... from graduation in 1970 to

a current multi-university non-matriculated degree in recreational geology), Jeff Cook '67, John Kelly '67, and William Martin '67 (Alumni

Speak: Careers in Energy, the Environment, and Outdoors), and Don Rodbell ‘83 (The Lake Junin (Peruvian Andes) Drilling Project:

Background and Preliminary Paleoclimate Results).

The department and the AAPG Student chapter jointly hosted a two-day ExxonMobil Sequence Stratigraphy and Basin Analysis Workshop in

April. The workshop was superbly run by Ben Rendall ’11. Nineteen(!) attendees were exposed to the latest scientific contributions to the field of

carbonate sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, as well as worked on hands-on exercises with examples from all over the world.

This Spring semester students presented their research at the NE GSA Meeting in Albany, and at the AAPG Convention in Calgary. Students

were also active on campus, with twelve presentations at the St. Lawrence Festival of Science. Nine students participated in the Iceland fieldtrip

that was run by Alexander Stewart and Jay Fleisher ’61 and assisted by Matt VanBrocklin. Another eight went to Jamaica with me.

Our traditional end-of-the-year geology student awards barbecue/party was held at the Wachmeister Station. The Golden Hammer Award went

to Rudy Bentlage ‘15, the senior who most students would like to work in the field with. The Silver Hammer Award (note we opted for a hammer

instead of a ring), which acknowledges the senior with the most knowledge and aptitude for geology, went to Will Moynihan ’15.

Lastly, we would love to hear from you. If you have news to share or would just like to drop us a note by e-mail or post, please do so. If you have

address changes or would like to be put on our e-mail list please return via post or e-mail your contact information. If you have weathered the

economic downturn, and are able to help, please consider making a contribution to the department. Any contributions, small or large are

appreciated.

Please feel free to contact me by e-mail, ahusinec@stlawu.edu or call me, 315-229-5248 if I can be of any help or you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Antun Husinec

SLU Geology on top of the Blue Mountain Peak (2,256 m [7,402 ft]),

Jamaica fieldtrip.

Will Moynihan ’16 presenting his

poster at the 2016 AAPG Annual

Convention in Calgary, Alberta.

It is not an easy task to find the right way to Jurassic carbonate outcrops

in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco!

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Guten Tag,

I want to start my contribution to this newsletter with a shout out to the seniors that have worked hard with me on

their senior thesis this spring. This is the first generation of senior thesis that I have been advised since staring at SLU

three years ago. Cullen LaPoint ’16, Grant Reeder ’16, Rudy Bentlage ’16, and Jaleigh Pier ’16 have all successfully

turned their projects into senior thesis. I continued to work with Neil Seifert ’17 on our data bias project and we were

able to involve Dr. Leah Rohlfsen a SLU sociologists and one of her students to analyze and interpret the data – a true

interdisciplinary liberal arts collaboration. As another student accomplishment, I want to mention that Maeve

Bowdish ’18 was awarded an internship fellowship from SLU to go and work over the summer in the education

department of the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca.

At the end of April, I took my spring Paleontology class on a three day camping trip into the Paleozoic of New York

State. During this joint fieldtrip with SUNY New Paltz the students had ample opportunity to collect fossils and

experience the beauty of clastic sediments and biostratigraphy (and yes everybody found a trilobite!) cumulating in a visit of the Niagara Gorge

and Niagara Falls.

To create an out of the class room experience for my Historical Geology class, I took the students to the Museum of Nature in Ottawa. Due to

the high enrollment in this class (37 students), we had to rent a bus to transport everyone. As part of this trip we held a selfie competition and

the results were widely admired.

I presented my research on modeling crushing predation with Finite Element Analysis at the SLU Science café in May. During SLU’s open

house organized by the admissions office, I taught sample Geology classes in April and conducted a program for the Liberty Partnership

Program, aiming at the attrition of challenged high school students; I also hosted a high school senior from Potsdam as job shadow in February.

Judith Nagel-Myers

Paleo field trip April , 2016, Fall brook, Genesee, NY

Paleo field trip April , 2016, Moon Shine

Falls, Ledyard, NY

Winning entry of Geo 104 Selfie

Contest, Museum of Nature in Ottawa

Hi All,

I have completed my first year of teaching at St Lawrence and am ready for the summer (I assume you are ready, as

well!). I taught Petrology and Environmental Geology this semester and it was great to involve with a diverse, spirited

and enthusiastic students. In addition, I worked with Stephen DelGaudio’16 for his senior thesis. For his research on the

structural analysis of the Carthage-Colton Shear Zone, Stephen identified characteristic meso- and microstructures using

regular petrological microscopes in the department and a scanning

electron microscope with EBSD system at Colgate College. He

presented his research at GSA meeting in Albany and Festival of

Science. Stephen successfully finished his work here at St Lawrence

and now moving to Memorial University for a master’s degree. We

will miss his cool personality, awesome TA skills, and NY Mets apparel!

Personally, I will be busy this summer visiting various labs at the U of Minnesota

Minneapolis) in June and going back to Turkey for some time to visit family/friends and

a short fieldwork.

I wish you all a great summer!

Erkan Toraman

Stephen DelGaudio’16

This past spring has been quite busy and productive. Its official, I have been formally approved (by PSC, the

President and the Board of Trustees) for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor! I taught Glacial Geology

(GEOL 314) and Dynamic Earth (GEOL 103) this semester. As a follow up to the glacial geology course, I will

be taking students to Iceland with Dr. P. Jay Fleisher ’61 and Mr. Matt VanBrocklin. I haven’t been to Iceland

in nearly 15 years, so having Jay along (and his 2015 GeoVentures/GSA experience) is a welcome transition to

the “new” Iceland. In addition to work in Iceland, I will be taking Helen Eifert ’18 and Meg Musser ’18 to

Alaska to continue dendrogeomorphological work with Dr. Trent Hubbard ’94 (AK DGGS). This project,

funded by the Center for Intercultural and International Studies (CIIS), has us developing a spruce chronology

(Meg) and collecting samples from mass-movement affected spruce trees (Helen) near Tonsina, AK in order to

provide some insight to the (pre) historical activity of the site. Helen will be working her data this summer as a

SLU Fellow with Meg completing an independent project with her data in the fall. We are hoping to get one/both to GSA in Denver this fall.

Regarding research, I submitted an NSF grant (with Drs. Lowell and Deifendorf, University of

Cincinnati) on leaf-wax palaeohydrology for the Adirondacks; we are hoping to get multiple

students involved in coring lakes this coming January, brrrrrr. I recently had two papers published

in GSA Special Publication and Springer regarding science diplomacy and the use of soldier-

scientists to improve recovery efforts in developing nations. In addition, my chapter, Dams of

Afghanistan, is coming out this summer in Dr. John (Jack) Shroder’s (Ferguson Lecturer, 2016)

new book, Transboundary Water Resources. In addition, Catherine Heinrich ’15, Trent Hubbard ’94

and I have a paper in review, which is the culmination of CH’s senior thesis work in east-central

(interior) Alaska using dendrogeomorphological techniques to evaluate mass-movement timing

along the ALCAN. The most recent news, I have received an NSF grant to begin working

collaboratively with colleagues at the University of Cincinnati using sedimented leaf-waxes as a

proxy for palaeohydrology in the Adirondacks. This project will fund two students for field work

and isotopic laboratory work.

My senior student, Melanie Swick ’16, is diligently wrapping up her senior thesis on the dendroecol-

ogy/archaeology and climatology from her barn-beam samples collected last summer as a SLU Fellow. Melanie has accepted an offer from

Central Washington University to begin her master’s degree in Quaternary Science. My other senior student, Ellie Jones ’16, has successfully

wrapped up her senior project on hemlocks; she is planning on teaching science at a private high school next year.

Henry Knox Stewart, age 4, helping at

Matt’s sugarbush.

Dr. Alexander K. Stewart

Warm(er) Greetings Everyone!

Hope you all have had a nice transition to spring. I am getting excited for the summer field season and have

some wonderful things planned. After graduation, when my daughter Ann finishes off her four years at SLU, I

will be heading to the Geological Association of Canada meeting in Whitehorse. There, my former research

student and now research colleague, Sean Regan will present new data on the Snowbird Tectonic Zone we

collected from two transects across it last summer. For those not familiar with the Snowbird Zone, it is a major

structure crossing the heart of the Canadian Shield. We are interested in its origin and when the Rae and Hearne

cratons it separates came together. I will also give a talk on the genesis of Marcy anorthosite massif based on

some new ideas my field work has led me to.

After we return I will begin working with several students on various projects. Lisa Grohn will continue her

work, started last summer on our trip to Nunavut, related to the Snowbird Project. Lisa, by the way, has had a

stellar track season and will participate in the NCAA championships later this May. I will also have an exchange

student from Brazil who will be working with me on a variety of projects. Neil Seifert will start a project in the

eastern Adirondacks related to his interests in petrology and rock climbing. I hope to bring everyone along, from

time to time, to help with the mapping project I will pursue with Marian Lupulescu of the State Museum in the Mineville area. We are

interested in the origin of the magnetite-apatite mines of the Lake Champlain region and what better way to understand them then start on

the ground with some basic field mapping?

Later in the summer we have another transect planned across the Snowbird Tectonic Zone, this one between the two we completed last year

near Snowbird Lake, NWTs. If at all possible I hope to take a trip to Alaska to visit my daughter Ann who will be working in Kennecott,

Alaska for the summer. I reminded her that I did essentially the same thing after graduation winding up on the shore of Great Bear Lake in

the NWT’s serving as a field assistant for Gerry Ross (’78). Maybe she will develop the northern bug as well? On a personal note George

Robinson and I are in the process of finalizing a book on the amazing mineral localities of the Grenville Province. It has been a real pleasure

getting to know George and his wife Susan, and the department has benefitted greatly from their generous spirit!

In any event, our best wishes to all of you. Especially those of you who must now retool your skills are the cyclic contraction of the energy

industry! You will find something super to do. I recall how easily my geology tools meshed with my first job with the Bureau of Environmental

Exposure investigation at the NYSDOH.

Over and out,

Jeff

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We are saddened by the death of Russell Jacoby who taught Mineralogy, Petrology, and Structural Geology at St. Lawrence University

during the 1970’s and 1980’s. We extend our condolence to his family.

Dear Friends,

I’m afraid this has been a rather unexciting Winter spent close to home. It has not been particularly

productive which feels unusual for me and I will try not to get used to it. Probably the biggest news is that

my brother has now recuperated from both the triple bypass surgery and the carotid artery cleanout that

he had this past March. He was recuperating nicely from the later when a vein in his neck sprung a leak

and they did an emergency air transport to Burlington for a patch-up. He now seems to be fine. We spent

quite a bit if time at my brother Glenn’s place in VT which served as the way station while Ray was in the

hospital. It seemed difficult to concentrate on work through this whole thing so I rather marked time while

attending to simpler duties.

I am still working on the butterfly Garden at Johnsonburg with a group of us ‘60s J’burg staff members. Ray and I were down there for

cleanup weekend in April and we stayed to plant, mulch and otherwise prep the garden for spring. I installed 2 of the 5 gates and will

do the last 3 over Memorial Day week end (hopefully). I am building them in Canton and transporting to NJ. Ray is skeptical that my

design will actually keep the deer out but if people lock them properly I think they will work. We are hoping the camp can use the

garden as a site for natural history instruction. Interestingly, the nature instructor this year will be a young lady in SLU class of 2016!

She has been attending church with us here in Canton throughout her college career so we will miss her. I will be able to keep in touch

through J’burg however.

Other news, my grandson, Owen, is approaching 1 yr and is walking so Lance and Em have to watch out!! They will visit this summer

and I am looking forward to it. Will have him fishing in another yr. or 2.

Jane and Glenn decided they wanted a spring break this year so for the past week we all have been touring the Eastern Townships of

Quebec before the tourist season begins. We returned today (5/15) and it snowed at their place in VT. However, it was beautiful the

entire time we were there. While we drove around I learned a lot about the glacial geomorph of the region. We also visited Asbestos

and the Thetford mine and I observed lots of slate and schist grade metamorphic outcrops! Pretty country. What a huge amount of

glacial meltwater passed through that region on its way south through VT. Wow!

Finally, it seems I will be doing additional mussel survey work for ALCOA during the first 10 days of June on the Grass River and

perhaps for 2 wks. after that on the St. Regis River. There are some serious ecological studies going on up here and the few clams are a

major part of the equation. The work is a bit extreme sometimes, but I will give it the old college try.

After June, I hope to be fishing and golfing for the rest of the summer!! I wish all of you a great summer and hope to see you when you

pass through Canton. You can always look me up at 15 Church St. if you don’t find me at the department.

Best to all,

Dr. E.

pg. 5 of 8

Ben Rendall ’11 running the ExxonMobil Sequence Stratigraphy and Basin Analysis Workshop in

our new classroom.

pg. 6 of 8

SELECTED FACULTY PUBLICATIONS SINCE LAST NEWSLETTER

Husinec, A., 2016, Sequence stratigraphy of the Red River Formation, Williston Basin, USA: stratigraphic signature of the

Ordovician Katian greenhouse to icehouse transition. Marine and Petroleum Geology, v. 77, p. 487-506 10.1016/j.marpetgeo.

2016.07.003

Read, J.F., Husinec, A., Cangialosi, M., Loehn, C.W. & Prtoljan, B., 2016, Climate controlled, fabric destructive, reflux

dolomitization and stabilization via marine- and synorogenic mixed fluids: an example from a large Mesozoic, calcite-sea

platform, Croatia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 449, p. 108-126. DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.02.015

Stewart, A.K., 2016, Dams in Afghanistan: in, Transboundary water from Afghanistan: issues of climate change,

apportionment and land-use implications, Shroder, J., McNamara, P., Ahmadzai, S.J. and Weihs, B. (eds.), Elsevier, p.

213-268 (invited).

Stewart, A.K., 2016, U.S. Army-Afghan hydrological development efforts (2008-2014): an improved approach to

military aid: Geoscience for the Public Good, GSA Special Publication, Wessel, G. and Greenberg, J. (eds.)., p. 193-204

(invited).

Stewart, A.K., 2016, U.S. Army Agribusiness Development Teams: The role of the geologist in the counterinsurgency:

Military Geosciences and Desert Warfare–past lessons and modern challenges, MacDonald, E. and Bullard, T. (eds.), Springer

STUDENTS PRESENTERS AT 2016 MEETINGS

Moynihan, W.C., Husinec, A.& Prtoljan, B., 2016, Jurassic Upper Toarcian-Early Aalenian oncoid- and ooid-rich facies of the

Adriatic Carbonate Platform, southern Croatia, in AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Abstracts Volume, Calgary, AB,

Canada.

Swick, M., Liebelt, E., Pitre, M., Stewart, A., and Pierce, C., 2016, Mapping the St. Lawrence County Poorhouse Cemetery in

Canton, NY: Undergraduate Symposium of the 85th Annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists,

Atlanta, Georgia (Poster).

DelGaudio, Stephen Jr. and Toraman, Erkan (2016) Observed deformation at microstructure level in quartz at the Colton-

Carthage shear zone, St Lawrence County, NY, GSA NE Annual Meeting, Albany.

Kaitlynn Doerr and Judith Nagel-Myers 2016. The impact of hydropower dams on the shell morphology of the unionid Elliptio

complanata (Raquette River, St. Lawrence County, NY)

Reeder Grant, Mastorakos Ioannis, and Yuya Philip, and Nagel-Myers Judith. Crushing predation on bivalve species: Finite

element analysis of durophagous predator/prey interactions.

SENIOR THESIS

Melanie Swick, Preliminary dendrochronological investigation using historical-structure lumber: a repository for the pre-

settlement environment, northwestern Adirondacks (Advisor A. Stewart)

Will Moynihan - Coated-grain dominated facies of Jurassic Upper Toarcian-Early Aalenian carbonates, Adriatic Carbonate

Platform, Croatia (Advisor A. Husinec)

Stephen Jr. DelGaudio - Constraining the timing and kinematics of deformation in the Adirondacks: Microstructural analysis of

the Colton-Carthage Shear Zone, St. Lawrence County, New York (Advisor E. Toraman)

LaPointe, Cullen W., Morphometric Analysis of Shapes Changes in a Middle Devonian Pterioid Bivalve Lineage. (Advisor J.

Nagel-Myers)

Pier, Jaleigh Q., Temperature Induced Body Size Increase in a Benthic Marine Mollusk Fauna from Seymour Island, Antarctica.

(Advisor J. Nagel-Myers)

Bentlage, Rudolf J., Intensities of Drilling Predation on Bivalves around Oil Platforms in the Southern Persian (Arabian) Gulf.

(Advisor J. Nagel-Myers)

Reeder Grant W. Crushing predation on bivalve species: Finite element analysis of durophagous predator/prey interactions.

(Advisor J. Nagel-Myers)

pg. 7 of 8

The past four years as a Geology major at

St. Lawrence has been rich with experi-

ence. I am blessed that I had the pleasure

of going to Arizona with Dr. Chiarenzelli

and to Jamaica with Dr. Husinec. I don't

think I would of had this experience at

any other school. Thank you to all of the

professors and my peers for making these

last few years so memorable. It has been a

great run class of 2016!

I can't wait to cross paths on our future geology

Seniors

Kathleen Sears

My four years in the St. Lawrence geology

department has been an incredible

experience. I’ve learned a lot, but most

importantly I’ve had a lot of fun with it.

I love how this department gives you

opportunities to go anywhere. Next year

I will be going to the University of

Vermont to pursue my master’s degree. I

will be doing my thesis research on lead

soil remediation.

Grant Reeder

Becoming a geology major and transferring into

St. Lawrence has been one of the best decisions of

my life. It has afforded me a great opportunity to

continue my studies in graduate school next year

and given me an outstanding base of knowledge

before entering the job force. More importantly,

the geology department has introduced me to the

most personable and outstanding professors I could

have hoped for coming to college, along with a

great group of fellow students and friends. The

geology department and St. Lawrence as a whole have really made my time

here amazing and while I’m excited for graduation and to move one, there

is no doubt in my mind that I will miss coming back to Canton, NY every

semester and setting up shop in Brown Hall. It’s hard to believe graduation is already around the

corner and even more so that four years have already

passed by! Even though I joined the Geology Dept. a

little late and ended up doing the major mostly back-

wards I have to say this department is an especially

welcoming fun-filled bunch. My SLU experience would

not have such an amazing ride without them and I feel

they have fully prepared me to take my next step in

graduate school. Next year I am looking forward to

attending the University of Connecticut’s Ecology and

Evolution department for a Master’s degree working on

a Paleontology project with Dr. Andrew Bush.

Stephen DelGaudio

Jaleigh Pier

Over the past four years, I have

thoroughly enjoyed my time

laughing, living and learning in

the Geology Department. This

department is made up of very

gneiss and caring people that truly

want to see their students succeed

in every aspect of college, not just

geology related things. I am

thankful that I had such a

wonderful experience and I hope

that other students will be able to enjoy SLU and the Geology Department

as much as I did! Kalen Griffin I cannot express how lucky I

am to have found and become

involved with the geology

family at SLU. The professors

and the department have made

available many opportunities

for travel and research, and left

me with memories that I will

hold onto forever. Next fall, I

will be attending Idaho State

University to begin my Masters

degree in geology with a focus in carbonate sedimentology

and sequence stratigraphy. Will Moynihan

I never anticipated being a geology

major, now its hard to imagine

spending 4 years studying anything

else. I have been able to go on some

amazing field trips, conduct an

independent research project, and

write a senior thesis. All of this has

made me ready and excited to study

Miocene bivalves in Georgia next year

as a master’s student.

Cullen LaPointe

pg. 8 of 8

Seniors I am Melanie Swick and I am graduating with a

double major in Geology and Anthropology. The

day I declared my Geology major was the same

day that my 100-level Geology professor

announced that ice is a mineral and that it

exists as igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic

rock. Simply stated, my mind was blown. Since

then, I sold my soul to the Geology dept. and I

have been prowling the halls of Brown ever since.

Logically, since my geoscience career at St. Lawrence University began with

ice, it is fitting that I will end my undergraduate career with a field course

in Iceland studying glaciers and tephrochronology. Later this year I will

continue my studies at Central Washington University. There I will receive

a Master’s as I study Glacial Geology. Melanie Swick

I could not be happier about choosing Geology as my

major at St. Lawrence. The past 4 years I have devel-

oped a deep understanding of the Earth sciences and

their many applications in the real world. On top of this

knowledge, the many connections and wonderful friend-

ships made in the Geology department are incompara-

ble to any other department at St. Lawrence.

John Miller

Upon graduation I will at-

tend a field course just

northwest of Boulder,

Colorado. Afterwards I am

hoping to travel around and

look at rocks!

Rudolf Bentlage

Back row: Dr. Toraman, Jaleigh Pier, Ellie Jones, Dr. Nagel-Myers, Morgan Holland, John Miller, Alexander Camerino, Stephen

DelGaudio, Dr. Stewart

Kneeling: Dr. Chiarenzelli, Rudolf Bentlage, Melanie Swick, Kalen Griffin, Cullen LaPointe

Missing: Dr. Husinec, Will Moynihan, Colin Davis, Kathleen Sears, Kaitlynn Doerr, Grant Reeder, Will Schaeffer, Alexis Brown