department of

c o n t e n t sGreetings from the Chair 1

Retirements 2

Brief History of D.F. Williams’ Tenure at the University of South Carolina Pradeep Talwani is Retiring!

New Faculty 3 Howie Scher Michael Bizimis Sasha Yankovsky Subrahmanyam Bulusu

New State-of-the-Art 4Geochemistry Facilities for 2009 Marathon receives the 5 College of Arts and Sciences 2009 Institutional Support Award for support of GEGEO Program

Society of Exploration 6 Geophysicists

Antarctic Research in the 6 International Polar Year Programs and Clubs 8 Graduate Program Undergraduate Program Geology Club

The Graduate Student Experience

University of South Carolina701 Sumter St., EWS 617

Columbia, SC 29208803-777-4535

http://www.geol.sc.edu

Greetings from the ChairDear Friends of USC Geology, We have had a very busy and eventful year. Our department is in the midst of a pro-ductive time, with numerous research

projects being funded, students graduating and a renewed interest in Geological Sciences. We had one faculty retirement in 2008 - Chris Kendall. Of course, Chris is still com-ing to work and is actively advising students and doing research. This summer, Pradeep Talwani and Doug Williams are also set to re-tire. Pradeep and Doug have each been a part of our department for over 30 years! We wish Chris, Pradeep and Doug long, and happy re-tirements, although knowing them and most of our “retired” faculty, we expect to continue to see them around the department for years to come. With the retirements of course, we have also enjoyed the addition of new faculty, the latest additions being Michael Bizimis and Howie Scher, both with PhD’s from the sun-shine state – Michael from FSU and Howie from UF. Be sure to read more about Howie and Michael and their work in this newsletter. We hope they will be happy and productive members of our department for many years to come. Welcome, Michael and Howie! Our department has received more than 3 million dollars through new research projects since August 2008. This impressive level of funding in these difficult economic times re-flects the energy and creative thinking of our faculty who are submitting research propos-als at an unprecedented rate. We have had a successful educational partnership with energy companies and the Government of Equatorial Guinea, and continue to educate their citizens in Geological Sciences and En-gineering. Be sure to read more about the GEGEO project in Jim Kellogg’s article in this newsletter. The department will also house a very impressive trace metals/clean labora-tory which is described in this newsletter. We have graduated around 30 BS degrees, 25 Masters and around 20 PhDs in the past

four years. Our students have been success-fully employed in academia, industry and the government. We have had good enroll-ments in our undergraduate degree program and our graduate programs. There has been renewed interest in our disciplines with focus on energy and exploration and the environ-ment. The applicant pool to our graduate program was particularly strong this year, and we have already sent out graduate stu-dent assistantship offer letters. We would like for you to keep in touch with us. Please drop us a line when you have news to report to chair@geol.sc.edu. We will add to the next edition of the newsletter. We would like for you to go to http://www.geol.sc.edu/alumni/geo_alumni_form.html and please send us your email addresses so that in the near future we can communicate via email. Please mark your calendars – Friday, May 15, 2009 – we will have a retirement celebra-tion for Pradeep Talwani. Also May 16-17 is the USC alumni reunion. Please go to http://uscnews.sc.edu/2008/03072008-ALUM086.html and to www.MyCarolina.org for details. And last but not the least…All of you must have interacted with Joyce Goodwin at some point in your USC stay. Joyce will retire this summer after 35 years of service to USC. We will all miss Joyce very much. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our dedicated, hardworking office staff, Diana Diaz, Toni Bracey, Maurice Rich-ard and Mary Sue Geiger and our informa-tion technologist, Jae Choe. The faculty ad-ministration team have worked incredibly hard this past year ensuring that we meet our teaching requirements and be innovative in recruiting undergraduate and graduate stu-dents. Thanks to Gene Yogodzinski, Associ-ate Chair; Camelia Knapp, Director of Under-graduate Studies and Ray Torres, Director of Graduate Studies. Very best wishes from all of us to you and your families,

Venkat Lakshmi, PhD, P.E.,Professor and Chair

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Brief History of D.F. Williams’ Tenure at the University of South Carolina Doug Williams arrived at USC in August 1977 as an assistant professor with joint appointments in the Marine Science Program and Department of Geology, fresh from a post-doc at Brown University where he worked on the CLIMAP Project in the Benedum Stable Isotope Laboratory of Robley K. Matthews. At his first Geology faculty meeting, Williams was informed that he was currently occupying the “Williams’ Revolving Chair of Oceanography” because in the previous spring, a physical oceanographer bearing the same surname had been fired. Well, less than four years later, Williams was tenured and promoted to associate professor and earned the rank of full professor three years later. In the Department, Williams has served in several capacities including associate chairman and chairman. He has also been Associate Dean of the SC Honors College for eight years. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Research Award of the Carolina Development Foundation and several teaching awards. In 1995, Williams was elected Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (at the time, the 3rd non-Russian so honored) for his work organizing the Lake Baikal Drilling Project. Over 40 MS and PhDs have earned their degrees with Williams, and he has published over 180 refereed publications including 11 in Science and Nature. Williams is currently Carolina Trustee Professor of Marine and Geological Sciences, and on 30 June 2009, will become Professor Emeritus. In “retirement” Williams plans to dedicate his time and talents to Blue Marble Science, a non-profit whose mission is to “Make Positive Differences in Our Schools” (www.bluemarblescience.com).

Dr. Doug at Pawleys Island with 2nd Grade students from Lemira Elementary of Sumter, SC

Pradeep Talwani is Retiring! Pradeep Talwani is retiring at the end of May 2009 after 36 years at USC, during which time the Geophysics program grew from ‘a spare tire in the Department of Geology’ to one of its main motors. The vast majority of our current alumni have been influenced either through class, research, or hallway conversations with Pradeep. With his students, Pradeep pioneered studies in several research areas. These include the study of Reservoir Induced Seismicity in South Carolina and in Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Spain and Viet Nam. These studies have led to the fundamental understanding of the physics of the involved processes, and the discovery of “seismogenic permeability”, a fundamental property of fractures where the diffusion of fluid-pore pressures is associated with induced seismicity. Another area of research which Prof. Talwani was associated with is the understanding the cause of Intraplate earthquakes, particularly those in the Charleston, South Carolina region. This led to several multidisciplinary studies, (involving geomorphology, geology, geophysics and seismicity) and the development of 2-D and 3-D mechanical models to explain these earthquakes. Several students were involved in mapping the gravity field in South Carolina. With his students he has been engaged in the study of instrumental and prehistoric seismicity in South Carolina. These include the discovery of the first paleoliquefaction feature in Central and Eastern US (CEUS). That spawned the study of paleoliquefaction features for estimation of Seismic Hazard Analysis (SHA) in CEUS, and now form the basis of SHA in CEUS and for citing of critical facilities. His fundamental studies in these and other areas of Geophysics were recognized by USC in presenting Prof. Talwani with the Richard Russell award for Research in Sciences and Engineering in 2008. At USC, Professor Talwani has published more than 100 papers in peer reviewed journals, presented 100s of talks all over the world. He has mentored more than 50 students who are now gainfully employed in academia, government and the oil industry, both in US and abroad. As the director of the South Carolina Seismic Network for nearly two decades, he has been the spokesman for information regarding earthquakes to the state government, media, industry and other academic institutions. Over the last decade, he has developed a course in the History of Sciences related to the Solid Earth. He plans to pursue that and other projects (USC home games) into retirement as a Distinguished Emeritus Professor. Please join us in wishing him and Anita a long and enjoyable retirement!

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Howie Scher joined the USC Department of Geological Sciences and Marine Science program in January 2009. Howie’s research interests encompass a wide range of questions about how the oceans operated in the past, and how the oceans contribute and respond to climate change on all time scales. Using novel geochemical techniques, he examines marine sediment cores for changes in trace metal and isotopic tracers of terrigenous input, ocean circulation, past productivity, and ocean chemistry. In the spring of 2009, Howie will sail aboard the JOIDES Resolution of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program on Expedition 320, the Pacific Equatorial Age Transect (PEAT), where he will help recover sediment that was deposited under the Pacific equatorial high productivity zone at different times during the Cenozoic. These samples will be among the first to be analyzed in the department’s new geochemistry facility, which was built to support the research programs of Howie and Michael Bizimis, another recent hire in the department. Howie graduated from the University of Rochester with a B.S. in Environmental Sciences in 1999, and received a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Florida in 2005. From 2005-2006 Howie taught courses in Environmental Sciences at his alma mater, University of Rochester, as a Visiting Assistant Professor. For the last two years Howie was the Institute of Marine Science Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he examined the trace metal and isotopic signature of several early Cenozoic abrupt climate events.

Michael Bizimis joined our faculty in August 2008 from Florida State University where he was a research scientist. His research interests lie in the areas of radiogenic isotope and trace element geochemistry, in the broadest sense. His current research is focused on understanding how the Hawaiian mantle

plume interacts with the moving Pacific plate. For that he uses peridotite and pyroxenite mantle xenoliths, which are actual pieces of the mantle beneath the Hawaiian volcanoes brought to the surface by some lava. These xenoliths provide a unique view of how the “plumbing system” of the Hawaiian volcanoes works, by looking from the bottom up. Other ongoing research projects include understanding the scales and origin of geochemical heterogeneities in the upper mantle and the Hawaiian plume, elemental fluxes in arc settings and element recycling by looking at fluid-immobile elements (niobium and tantalum) in lavas and xenoliths and the effects of composition, temperature and pH on element exchange between seawater and ocean floor peridotites during serpentinization.

Sasha Yankovsky, Assistant Professor, Coastal Ocean Dynamics, Ph. D., 1991, Marine Hydrophysical Institute, joined our department in 2006. He came from Nova Southeastern University (Fort Lauderdale, FL) where he held a faculty position. His research interests include the dynamics on continental shelves and in marginal seas: wind- and buoyancy-driven

currents, transient and time-variable processes, waves, wave-current interaction, and mesoscale variability. In his research, Sasha combines numerical modeling and the analysis of observational data. Currently, he studies a generation of long waves on the continental shelf by hurricanes. This work was inspired by Wilma’s landfall in 2005. Other ongoing projects include the modeling of larger-scale buoyancy-driven coastal currents in high latitudes and the study of tidal dynamics and dissipation in the upper estuary.

Subrahmanyam “Subra” Bulusu, an assistant professor in the Marine Science Program & Depart-ment of Geological Sciences, started in Fall 2006. He started the Satellite Oceanography Laboratory. Now USC students will have a chance to learn about satel-lite oceanography first-hand through a new course, Satellite Oceanography, taught by a widely recog-nized authority in the field who arrived in Columbia from Florida State Univer-sity. This type of remote sensing laboratory to study the oceans, places the Uni-versity in the company of a select few schools nation-wide.

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by Michael Bizimis, Howie Scher, and Gene Yogodzinski

In 2008 we began construction of a new, state-of-the-art geochemistry facility, which will be housed on the 3rd floor of the Sumwalt building. This facility will accommodate the immediate research needs of our new faculty members, Michael Bizimis and Howie Scher. It will also greatly expand the ongoing research of Gene Yogodzinski, Bob Thunell and Dave Barbeau. Our long term vision is that the new facility will promote and enhance collaborations between the different disciplines in our department and other departments at USC and will bring USC to the forefront of geochemical research in the solid-earth, marine, and environmental sciences. The facility will have approximately 600 ft2 of custom-designed clean lab space for ultra-low blank trace element and isotope chemistry. This will be a true clean lab, in that air entering the room will be HEPA filtered to remove particulates, and the air pressure in the room will exceed the ambient building pressure, so that when the door to the lab is opened, the air blows out, thus preventing dust and particulates from coming in. The lab will have a dedicated air handling system that will move 6600 cubic feet of air per minute. To put this in perspective, the total volume of air in the lab will be replaced every 1.5 minutes! The clean lab is designed with no exposed metal and has specialty features such as custom-made air flow boxes with built-in hot plates for sample drying in an ultra-clean environment. The ultra-clean nature of this sample preparation facility will allow us to measure ultra-small quantities of trace metals in all types of geological samples. An adjacent 600 ft2 laboratory will house the instrumentation that will be workhorse of the facility. With additional funding from our successful proposal to the National Science Foundation’s program in Major Research Instrumentation, we have already purchased two, state-of-the-art, ICP (plasma-source) mass

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New State-of-the-Art Geochemistry Facilities for 2009

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spectrometers. These are the NEPTUNE, a multi-collector instrument, and the ELEMENT2, a high-resolution, single-collector instrument, both from Thermo-Fisher Scientific. We expect delivery and installation of the instruments by early summer after the completion of the lab. We have also secured funding for a 193nm laser ablation system. The laser system will provide tremendous research opportunities for insitu and spatially resolved analysis of trace element abundances and isotope ratios. What all of this means, in a nutshell, is that our department will soon have truly state-of-the-art, 21st-century geochemical facilities that will open the door to new and exciting research opportunities for our current faculty and students, and will serve as a focal point for attracting additional high-quality faculty and students in the coming years. The future of geochemistry in our department is bright.

A piece of the Dedicated Air Handler for the Clean Lab is lifted to the roof of Sumwalt by crane.

Adel Chaouch, Ph.D., P.E. Marathon Oil CompanyCorporate Social Responsibility Director

Marathon Oil has received the College of Arts and Sciences 2009 Institutional Support Award for its major role in the success of the GEGEO (Guinea Equatorial GEOscience program). This is a collaborative program between the University of South Carolina and the National University of Equatorial Guinea (UNGE), Africa, to train students in Geosciences. The program trains students in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and sponsors scholarships for students to complete bachelor degrees in Geology and Engineering at USC. In September 2003, the GEGEO Program enrolled 22 students in a three-year geotechnical program in Malabo. Currently, fifty students are enrolled in the program. In 2004, the first two students from UNGE were selected for full scholarships to earn BS degrees in Geological Sciences and Geophysics in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina. Currently there are seven students in the USC program in Geological Sciences, Geophysics, and Engineering. Three of the scholarship students have already graduated with BS degrees in Geophysics and a fourth is expected to graduate in May. One hundred percent of the scholarship students are making successful progress toward degrees at USC. Several have been consistently on the Dean’s list, and one student won a Magellan Research Award last year. The GEGEO Program is sponsored by funding from the energy industry. Marathon Oil became a Full Sponsor of the GEGEO Program in 2006, and with their 2009 sponsorship Marathon will have provided $900,000 for the Program. Marathon has also generously supplied four summer internships to GEGEO students and has just hired one of the CAS USC graduates to a full time position. Dr. Adel Chaouch, the International Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for Marathon, has played the key role of Chairman of the GEGEO Industrial

Advisory Board since 2006. His leadership has resulted in the expansion of corporate support and the establishment of a sound industrial financial sponsorship of the GEGEO Program (over $4 million total, $900,000 in 2009) as well as directly providing scholarships, internships and employment opportunities for CAS graduates. In addition, Dr. Chaouch has given the GEGEO Program invaluable advice and direction in moving closer to the petroleum industry’s requirements, and servicing the needs in Equatorial Guinea of both industry and the government of Equatorial Guinea. At USC the GEGEO Program Co-Directors are Jim Kellogg and Robert Thunell, and the Program Coordinator is Adriana Chacon.

Marathon receives the College of Arts and Sciences 2009 Institutional Support Award for support of GEGEO Program

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The Geophysical Society at the University of South Carolina (GS-USC), a student chapter of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), has seen an exciting 2008 and is expecting an eventful 2009. Last summer, a few of our chapter members were able to participate in an SEG funded project investigating Neogene tectonics and karst environments in Puerto Rico. The USC students used our in-house equipment and collected numerous ground penetrating radar (GPR) and GPS profiles during a one week field campaign while training graduate and undergraduate students from The University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM). These data targeted faults on the SW of the island as well as active sinkholes in the north. Last November, our chapter vice-president, Antonio Cameron, represented the chapter at the SEG/Chevron Student Leadership Symposium at the SEG Annual Meeting in Las Vegas. The purpose of this symposium was to engage the students in a leadership skill development program mentored by professionals in private industry as well as academia. Our Gamecock Petroleum Team won first place in the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) sponsored Imperial Barrel Award (IBA) competition in the Eastern Regional Section and

Antarctica has been located at the geographic South Pole for the past 100 or so million years, but conventional wisdom suggests that it has only had large ice sheets since about 35 million years ago. University of South Carolina geoscientists are examining why Antarctica did not have a significant ice cap prior to this time, and more importantly, why it suddenly acquired one. Assistant Professors Dave Barbeau (tectonics & sedimentation) and Howie Scher (geochemistry/paleoceanography), and Carolina Distinguished Professor Bob Thunell (marine sedimentology/pa-leoclimatology) are testing a long-standing hypothesis that sug-gests the geographic distribution of the continents and ocean basins

has profoundly affected the climate of Antarctica. Over the past fifty million years, plate tectonics separated the Antarctic Peninsula from southernmost South America. Prior to this separation, the configuration of the continents were such that they may have allowed warm, tropical ocean currents to reach all the way to Antarctica, keeping it mild and ice-free. This is similar to how the Gulf Stream keeps northwest Europe relatively warm today, despite a latitude equivalent to northern Canada. When the Antarctic Peninsula and South America separated, the Drake Passage opened, causing a profound change in the circulation of the global ocean. This opening allowed the development of a cold, fast current which today revolves around Antarctica, isolating it from warmer currents. Whereas it is well known that Antarctica experienced a dramatic glaciation about 35 million years ago, the precise timing of the separation of Antarctica and South America remains widely debated. Hence, it is difficult to evaluate whether these plate

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will now compete in Denver at the International Finals. The IBA is a seismic interpretation and reservoir analysis competition, and Gamecock Petroleum is: Chance Amos (captain), Khandaker Zahid, Nickles Badger, Melvin Fillerup, and Josh Turka. The GS-USC has historically competed very successfully for SEG scholarships, and we currently have three highly qualified SEG scholars in the program.

Submitted by Melvin Fillerup, President

Antarctic Research in the International Polar Year

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The Laurence M. Gould

By David Barbeau

This past December and January, Amanda Savrda (M.S. ’10) and Barbeau traveled to the British Antarctic Survey’s Rothera Research Station and environs in the southern Antarctic Peninsula to collect additional provenance and thermochronometry samples for analysis. Savrda will use the collected samples for her thesis research.

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tectonics and ocean circulation phenomena caused the glaciation of Antarctica. Funded for three years by the National Science Foundation as part of the International Polar Year 2007-2009, the project is integrating a range of data types to compare the timing of plate tectonic separation and Antarctic glaciation. If the timing of the tectonic, paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic events are reasonably close, this gateway hypothesis remains viable. If they are not, some other factor such as decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was a more likely culprit.

Field and Laboratory Work Barbeau and his students are using sediment provenance and thermochronometry data collected from each side of the Drake Passage to reconstruct the plate tectonic history of the region. David Gombosi (M.S. ’08, currently Ph.D. student at Syracuse) joined Barbeau and two students from the University of Arizona in a month-long cruise to the northern Antarctic Peninsula aboard the US Antarctic Program’s research vessel Laurence M. Gould during November and December 2007. On the heels of the cruise, Gombosi and Barbeau were joined by Khandaker Zahid (Ph.D. ’10) and Amy Moragues (Journal of South American Earth Sciences manuscript manager at USC) for a month of field work in Argentine Tierra del Fuego to assist in Zahid’s dissertation research and Gombosi’s thesis research.

Amanda Savrda (above; M.S. student) records field notes from Alexander Island, Antarctica

Members of Team Barbeau (left) reboard the Laurence M. Gould after a day of sampling rocks from the northern Antarctic Peninsula

Susan Herron (above; B.S. student) prepares an Antarctic thin section billet in the departmental rock preparation facility

Justin Davis (above; B.S. student) separates Antarctic minerals using an electromagnet inthe Tectonics and Sedimentation Laboratory

In Scher and Thunell’s laboratories, Aimee Pusz (Ph.D. ’11) is analyzing chemical proxies preserved in fossil foraminifera and fish teeth in order to determine when ocean circulation first start-ed through Drake Passage, when continental ice caps started to form, and when ocean temperatures decreased. These efforts constitute a component of Pusz’s dissertation research and ben-efit from the able assistance of Eric Tappa (M.S., ’83), who man-ages Thunell’s Marine Sediments Lab.

Further Reading and Coverage Additional information, including photographs, video and media coverage from Public Radio International, Reuters, and University publications can be found on the project webpage: www.geol.sc.edu/barbeau/ipy/index.asp

Back at USC, undergraduate ma-jors Justin Davis, Susan Herron, Alex Brown and Christiann Boutwell are using departmental rock preparation facilities to create high-purity mineral separates and whole-rock powders for geochro-nologic, geochemical and thermo-chronologic analysis in collaborat-ing laboratories.

Christiann Boutwell (above; B.S. student) disaggregates an Antarctic quartzite with a jaw crusher in the departmental rock preparation facility

David Gombosi (right; M.S. ‘08), Kendra Murray and Willy Guenthner collect a granitoid sample from Cape Tuxen, Antarctica

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Department of GeoloGical ScienceS

columbia, Sc 29208

Non-ProfitOrganization

U.S. POSTAGEPAID

Permit #766Columbia, SC

Undergraduate ProgramBy Camelia Knapp, Director

The undergraduate program currently includes 45 students (37 Geologists and 8 Geophysicists). Our students have done out-standingly in the last years, both academically and research wise. We have been fortunate to have McNair, Carolina, and Li-eber scholars. We had three Barry M. Goldwater scholars in the last 5 years, one of the most prestigious scholarships nationwide. Cur-rently, two of our students hold Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) scholarships. Many of our students work with a faculty advisor on research projects, and we have had an increased number of Magel-lan scholars through the University’s Office of Undergraduate Research. Beginning with fall of 2009, our department will sponsor Stephen Taber Undergraduate Scholarships to newly declared majors in Geology or Geo-physics with high academic records. These scholarships are supported by an endowment from the Stephen Taber trust. Employment and internship opportunities for our undergraduate stu-dents have been excellent. Some examples include the Southern California Earthquake Center, Island Oil and Gas, Nobel Energy, or Hess Corp. Our students are also very active outside the classroom as many of them enthu-siastically participate in student organizations such as the Geology Club or the Geophysical Society at USC.

Geology ClubBy Emily Graham

The club worked with Safari After-School Program to present samples of rocks, minerals, and fossils to elementary students from 06-08 as part of our Young Minds Rock outreach program. We participated in A.C. Moore Elementary’s Earth Day education program in 08 and 09, again bringing samples and teaching geology to the students. This year we participated in Conder Elementary’s annual Science Day event, representing the geosciences. In the fall of 07 we went to Raccoon Mountain Caverns, TN to observe a karst environment and go spelunking. In the Spring of 08 we went to Costa Rica, in conjunction with 318, to study active volcanism. This spring we have a camping trip planned in the Table Rock area of SC. We also raised funds for our Young Minds Rock outreach program and our field trips through t-shirt and calendar sales both years.

The Graduate Student ExperienceBy Melvin A. Fillerup, Graduate Student Representative

Graduate student thesis and dissertation research in the Department of Geological Sciences at USC made strong showings at AGU, GSA, Ocean Science, SEG and AAPG meetings during 2008. This last year we also saw a significant portion of our number depart for academic and industry positions. These individuals are continuing their geologic careers as postdocs, university instructors, and petroleum geoscientists with ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Hess. Current graduate students are participating in research both locally and internationally in the coming year. We have also been enjoying resurgence in department social gatherings which have helped to build unity among some of the new and finishing graduate students. A number of grads are involved in community outreach by volunteering in local middle and high schools as well as organizations such as scouting. We appreciate these opportunities for community outreach, socializing, and research that we experience in our department, and realize there is more to becoming good geoscientists than coursework.

Graduate ProgramBy Raymond Torres, Director The graduate program continues to thrive. Currently we have 44 grads in the program and 24 of them are being supported by external grants. In this past cycle there were 31 graduate admission applications, mostly from US stu-dents. We expect to admit 10 or 12, and that should take our grad enrollment up to about 50. This year the Department developed the Taber Graduate Research Fellow-ship supported with an endowment from Stephen Taber trust. The Taber Fel-lowship is designed to attract and retain high achieving new Ph.D. students. The Fellowship includes a teaching assistantship plus $12,000 in cash per year. Overall the stipend, fellowship and benefits amount to over $100,000 for three years. Graduate Student Day, or Grad Day is coming early April. This is an annu-al competition where the Graduate School showcases its research from across the campus. This year the Geology Department conducted a competition to determine the Grad Day representatives. The overall winner was Ms. and currently Dr. Emily Sekula-Wood. Her research presentation was on contami-nat cycling in the Santa Barbara basin. Finally, we continue to attract the attention of various oil companies dur-ing their recruiting rounds. This year we had Exxon, Hess, Shell and Maersk conduct interviews. Currently there are four students anxiously working to finish their dissertations to start a career in the oil industry.