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November Meeting
Join us Tuesday, November 29, 2016
at the Fernbank Museum of Natural
History, 760 Clifton Road NE,
Atlanta GA. The meeting/dinner
starts at 6:30 pm and the meeting
starts approximately 7 p.m.
This month our presentation is What
Do Geologists Know about Climate
Change? Presented by Dr. Kim Cobb
of Georgia Institute of Technology.
Please find more information and Dr.
Cobb’s bio on the next page.
We haven’t directly covered this topic
in out presentations. There was a
news flash about the Artic
temperatures being way above
normal this year. It will be good to
hear directly from a scientist and not
filtered through an ‘executive
summary’ or a journalist’s summary.
Please come out, enjoy a bite to eat,
the camaraderie, the election of 2017
officers, an interesting presentation
and perhaps discussion.
Atlanta Geological Society Newsletter
ODDS AND ENDS Dear AGS members,
Maybe the last thing you want is another
election? On second thought, maybe you want
another election as soon as possible. Either
way, the election I refer to is the one is for the
officers of the AGS. We have a full slate of
candidates and the election will be held during
the first part of our meeting next week. The
candidates are:
President Ben Bentkowski
Vice President Dr. Pamela Gore
Steven Stokowski
Treasurer John Salvino
Secretary Rob White
If there are others who wish to run, I believe
there will be an opportunity for additional
nominations prior to the election.
I want to thanks to folks who participated in
our business meeting last month. We collected
many good ideas, dutifully recorded by our
Secretary. I’m going to use that summary
along with input from the newly elected
officers to produce a 2017 Plan for the Society.
I do think there are some things we, as the
AGS, could be doing better, to serve the
members better. We’ll be working on those
improvements and efficiencies in the coming
months.
Hope to see you Tuesday!
Ben Bentkowski, Newsletter Editor
Page 2 AGS November 2016
What do Geologists know about Climate Change?
Dr. Kim Cobb, Georgia Tech
Atlanta Geological Society November 29, 2016
Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta
“As a geologist and student of earth history, I knew that climate has always changed…Yet
people were on TV acting like climate change was unusual, something that hadn’t happened
before. Obviously, they had never taken a historical geology course… Whether hare or tortoise,
geologic change can’t be stopped, yet it seemed to me that’s what global warming alarmists
sought.” - G. Dedrick Robinson, in Global Warming: Alarmists, Skeptics, and Deniers – a
Geoscientist Looks at the Science of Climate Change.
“The geologic record contains unequivocal evidence of former climate change…This rich
history of Earth’s climate has been used as one of several key sources of information for
assessing the predictive capabilities of modern climate models… If greenhouse gas emissions
follow a likely trajectory with little to no effort to stabilize emissions…The likely changes in
greenhouse gas concentrations and temperature would substantially alter the functioning of the
planet in many ways.” - Geological Society of America, “Position Statement on Climate
Change,” adopted 2006, revised 2010, 2013, 2015.
In the political debate over fossil fuel emissions, both sides cite Earth’s climate history. What
are the latest tools (isotopic and other) used by geoscientists to study paleoclimate? What are
their ambiguities and limitations? Are there lessons for citizens and policymakers to be taken
from specific episodes in the geologic past? What debates are ongoing about those lessons?
Dr. Kim Cobb is ADVANCE Professor and Georgia Power Faculty Scholar in the Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences Department at Georgia Tech. Dr. Cobb’s research uses corals and cave
stalagmites to reconstruct tropical Pacific temperature and rainfall patterns over the last
decades to millennia. She received her B.A. from Yale University in 1996, and her Ph.D. in
Oceanography from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in 2002. She spent two years at
Caltech in the Department of Geological and Planetary Sciences before joining the faculty at
Georgia Tech in 2004. Kim has sailed on six oceanographic cruises and has received numerous
awards for her research. She sits on the AAAS Climate Science Panel.
MAYBE A DECEMBER AGS MEETING We are working on a possible December AGS meeting for Dec. 27th. We need to make the
final arrangements but there is an opportunity for an out of town speaker. We’lll let you
know as soon as we get things settled. BB, Newsletter Editor
AGS NOVEMBER 2016 Page 3
Geologist Unearths 340 Million-Year-Old Floor of 'Lost Ocean'
Earth's oldest oceanic crust: Geologist finds floor of 'lost ocean' that formed 340 million
years ago, long before the Atlantic was created. The crust is formed under the Tethys
Ocean 340 million years ago.
A 23,000-square mile section of rock beneath the eastern Mediterranean (highlighted dark
blue) could be the world's oldest region of oceanic crust, dating back up to 340 million
years
At the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean Sea lies the world’s oldest oceanic crust,
according to a new study. Dr. Roi Granot of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in
Israel has discovered that an oceanic crust that has been hiding in the sea’s sediment-
ridden waters may have been part of the ancient Tethys Ocean, according to a release
from the university. Granot believes the 60,000-square-mile crust may have also been
formed around the time Earth’s landmasses formed the supercontinent Pangea, reports
Business Insider.
http://www.geologyin.com/2016/08/geologist-unearths-340-million-year-old.html?m=1
Page 4 AGS November 2016
Geologist Unearths 340 Million-Year-Old Floor of 'Lost Ocean' (cont.)
With the use of magnetic data, Granot and his research team analyzed the crust’s structure
in the basin and discovered that the rocks are characterized by magnetic stripes, the
hallmark of oceanic crust that formed at a mid-ocean ridge, according to the release. As
magma at a mid-ocean ridge axis cools off, magnetic minerals in the newly forming rocks
align in the direction of Earth’s magnetic field. Over time, changes in the field’s orientation
are recorded in the ocean floors, creating a unique “barcode” that provides a timestamp of
when the crust formed.
“I use the shape, or skewness, of these magnetic anomalies to constrain the timing of crustal
formation and find that it formed about 340 million years ago,” Granot wrote in the study.
“I suggest that this oceanic crust formed either along the Tethys spreading system, implying
the Neotethys Ocean came into being earlier than previously thought, or during the
amalgamation of the Pangaea Supercontinent.”
Oceanic crust has a high density, which causes it to be recycled back into the Earth’s mantle
relatively fast at subduction zones, according to the release. This means most of the crust is
less than 200 million years old – significantly younger than the mass found by Granot. “We
don’t have intact oceanic crust that old … It would mean that this ocean was formed while
Pangaea, the last supercontinent, was in the making,” Granot told Business Insider. "But we
are not sure that it is really part of the Tethys Ocean,” he added. “It could be that this
oceanic crust is not related at all.”
The Tethys Ocean was a former tropical body of salt water that existed during much of the
Mesozoic Era, according to Britannica. It separated the supercontinent of Laurasia, which is
now North America and the portion of Eurasia that lies north of the Alpine- Himalayan
mountain ranges, and the Gondwana, which is present-day South America, Africa,
peninsular India, Australia, Antarctica and those Eurasian regions south of the mountain
chain.
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Ben-Gurion University.
AGS NOVEMBER 2016 Page 5
November 19, 2016 AGS PG Workshop
Lecturer: Dr. Tamie J. Jovanelly, Associate Professor of Geology, Berry College
Subject: Getting back to the basics: Physical and Historical Geology Overview
Time: 10:00 am until 12:00 pm
Place: Fernbank Science Center 156 Heaton Park Drive, NE Atlanta, Georgia 30307
http://fsc.fernbank.edu/ 678-874-7102
The purpose of this workshop is to give a broad overview of concepts from Physical and
Historical Geology coursework. The ambitious topic list includes: rock cycle, plate tectonics,
relative and absolute dating techniques, earthquakes, geologic time table, fossilization
processes, and principles of stratigraphy.
Dr. Tamie Jovanelly is an international researcher and Associate Professor of Geology at a
premiere liberal arts college in northwest Georgia called Berry College. She received her PhD
from Kent State University (2006), her MS from University of Nebraska (2002), and her BS from
University of Michigan (1999). Known by her students for her charismatic personality and
enthusiasm for all things geologic, Dr. Jovanelly loves being in the classroom or using the
“world’s largest campus” for outdoor learning experiences.
Topics of research and publication include: modern and ancient tsunami events, groundwater
and surface water interactions, karst topography, water quality in developing countries, and
geoscience pedagogy. As an international researcher for the National Geographic Society (2014)
and as a recent U.S. Fulbright recipient (2014), Dr. Jovanelly continues to spend her summers
researching water quality in East Africa and leading study abroad trips to Iceland, Italy, and
Tanzania. For fun, Dr. Jovanelly enjoys hip-hop dance, teaching yoga, and anything leading to
the spirit of adventure.
Please forward this announcement to anyone that might be interested. Two professional
development hours are available for participants.
Atlanta Geological Society Profession Registration Committee
Ken Simonton, PG [email protected] and
Ginny Mauldin-Kinney [email protected]
Page 6 AGS November 2016
How the Concept of Deep Time Is Changing
DAVID FARRIER OCT 31, 2016
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/aeon-deep-time/505922/?utm_source=feed
The idea that humans are ephemeral compared to the workings of nature isn’t as persuasive as it once was.
Grand Canyon National Park Jim Urquhart / Reuters
Late one summer night in 1949, the British archeologist Jacquetta Hawkes went out into her small back
garden in north London, and lay down. She sensed the bedrock covered by its thin layer of soil, and felt
the hard ground pressing her flesh against her bones. Shimmering through the leaves and out beyond the
black lines of her neighbors’ chimney pots were the stars, beacons “whose light left them long before
there were eyes on this planet to receive it,” as she put it in A Land (1951), her classic book of imaginative
nature writing.
We are accustomed to the idea of geology and astronomy speaking the secrets of ‘deep time,’ the
immense arc of non-human history that shaped the world as we perceive it. Hawkes’s lyrical meditation
mingles the intimate and the eternal, the biological and the inanimate, the domestic with a sense of deep
time that is very much of its time. The state of the topsoil was a matter of genuine concern in a country
wearied by wartime rationing, while land itself rises into focus just as Britain is rethinking its place in the
world. But in lying down in her garden, Hawkes also lies on the far side of a fundamental boundary. A
Land was written at the cusp of the Holocene; we, on the other hand, read it in the Anthropocene.
The irony of the Anthropocene is that we are conjuring ourselves as ghosts that will haunt the
very deep future.
AGS NOVEMBER 2016 Page 7
.
How the Concept of Deep Time Is Changing (cont.)
The concept of ‘deep time’ was first described in 1788 by the Scottish geologist James Hutton,
although only coined as a term 200 years later, by the American author John McPhee. Hutton
posited that geological features were shaped by cycles of sedimentation and erosion, a process
of lifting up then grinding down rocks that required timescales much grander than those of
prevailing Biblical narratives. This dizzying Copernican shift threw both God and man into
question. “The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far back into the abyss of time,” was
how John Playfair, a scientist who accompanied Hutton on several crucial expeditions,
described the effect of looking over the stratified promontory of Siccar Point in Scotland.
But Hutton’s insights really came into their own in the Romantic era of the 19th century. The
affective register of deep time was one of terror and wonder, fashioned to fit a vision of the
sublime that transcended and yet somehow affirmed humanity. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
was smitten by the implacable power of Mont Blanc, “the naked countenance of earth,”
watching balefully as “All things that move and breathe with toil and sound /Are born and die;
revolve, subside, and swell.” Yet “There is grandeur in this view of life,” as Charles Darwin
wrote at the close of On the Origin of Species (1859). His theory of evolution became imaginable
thanks to the window that Hutton pried open onto these terrifying new temporal vistas.
But Hutton’s insights really came into their own in the Romantic era of the 19th century. The
affective register of deep time was one of terror and wonder, fashioned to fit a vision of the
sublime that transcended and yet somehow affirmed humanity. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley
was smitten by the implacable power of Mont Blanc, “the naked countenance of earth,”
watching balefully as “All things that move and breathe with toil and sound /Are born and die;
revolve, subside, and swell.” Yet “There is grandeur in this view of life,” as Charles Darwin
wrote at the close of On the Origin of Species (1859). His theory of evolution became imaginable
thanks to the window that Hutton pried open onto these terrifying new temporal vistas.
Deep time represents a certain displacement of the human and the divine from the story of
creation. Yet in the Anthropocene, ironically we humans have become that sublime force, the
agents of a fearful something that is greater than ourselves. A single mine in Canada’s tar sands
region moves 30 billion tons of sediment annually, double the quantity moved by all the worlds’
rivers combined. The weight of the fresh water we have redistributed has slowed the Earth’s
rotation. The mass extinction of plant and animal species is unlikely to recover for 10 million
years.
Whereas Hawkes described a land shaped by a combination of geological processes, organic life
and human activity, we have decisively shifted the balance. But the need to imagine deep time
in light of our present-day concerns is more vital than ever. Deep time is not an abstract, distant
prospect, but a spectral presence in the everyday. The irony of the Anthropocene is that we are
conjuring ourselves as ghosts that will haunt the very deep future.
This article appears courtesy of Aeon Magazine.
Page 8 AGS November 2016
The Deadliest Volcano in the United States Just Got Really Weird
Maddie Stone http://gizmodo.com/the-deadliest-volcano-in-the-united-states-just-got-rea-1788437042
A plume of steam and ash billowing out of Mt. Saint Helens in 1982, two years after the most
destructive eruption in US history. Image: Wikimedia
Picture a volcanic eruption: fiery lava and smoke billowing skyward as a towering mountain
empties its over-pressurized belly of a hot meal. At least, that’s how most of us think it works.
So you can imagine volcanologists’ surprise when they discovered that Mount St. Helens, which
was responsible for the deadliest eruption in US history, is actually cold inside. Apparently, it’s
stealing its fire from somewhere else.
Mount St. Helens is one of the most active volcanoes of the Cascade Arc, a string of eruptive
mountains that runs parallel to the Cascadia subduction zone from northern California to British
Columbia. It’s also one of the strangest. Most major volcanoes of the Cascade Arc sit neatly
along a north-south line, where the wedging of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate beneath the
North American plate forces hot mantle material to rise. Mount St. Helens, however, lies to the
west, in a geologically quiescent region called the forearc wedge.
“We don’t have a good explanation for why that’s the case,” said Steve Hansen, a geoscientist at
the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Seeking answers, Hansen recently led a seismic mapping survey of Mount St. Helens. In the
summer of 2014, his team deployed thousands of sensors to measure motion in the ground
around the volcano. Then, they drilled nearly two dozen holes, packed the holes full of
explosives, triggered a handful of minor quakes, and watched as seismic waves bounced around
beneath the mountain. “We’re looking at what seismic energy propagates off in the subsurface,”
Hansen explained. “It’s a bit like a CAT scan.”
AGS NOVEMBER 2016 Page 9
The Deadliest Volcano in the United States Just Got Really Weird
(cont.) Their analysis, which is published today in Nature Communications, appears to have created
more questions than it answered. From seismic reflections, Hansen and his colleagues
learned that the types of minerals present at the boundary between Earth’s crust and mantle
are markedly different to the east and west of Mount St. Helens, confirming that this area is
geologically special. But instead of finding a hot mantle directly beneath the volcano, seismic
data indicates a relatively cool wedge of serpentine rock.
Not only is Mount St. Helens out of place, but it also lacks the magma reserves we’d expect
given its violent history. So, where on Earth is Mount St. Helens getting its fuel?
Hansen suspects the volcano’s magma source lies to the east, closer to the rest of the Cascade
Arc, where material in the upper mantle is hotter. But that still leaves the question
of why gooey rock being forced westward, through the crust or upper mantle, to erupt in this
one off-kilter location. Earthquakes in the deep crust may be partially responsible, but more
data is needed to confirm such a link.
Fortunately, more data is exactly what Hansen, and other scientists associated with the
Imaging Magma Under St Helens (iMUSH) project, are now collecting. What geologists learn
about this weird volcano—how its magmas form, how they move around, when and why
they erupt—could improve our understanding of volcanic arc systems around the world.
“Mount St. Helens is pretty unusual,” Hansen said. “It’s telling us something about how the
arc system is behaving, and we don’t yet know what that something is.”
[Nature Communications]
Located about 5 miles (8 km) south of Interstate 40 near Winslow, AZ, Meteor Crater is one
of the world’s best-preserved meteor impact sites. Approximately 50,000 years ago, the iron-
nickel core of an asteroid impacted Earth. Traveling at a speed near 30,000 mph (48,000
km/hr), the 150 ft (46 m) diameter rock disintegrated on impact with the explosive force of
nearly 20 Megatons of TNT (10^17 Joules). The crater created on impact was close to 700 ft
(213 m) deep and over 4000 ft (1220 m) in diameter. Over 175 million tons (159 billion kg) of
limestone and sandstone were excavated and thrown out of the crater at distances close to 1
mile (1600 m).
Page 10 AGS November 2016
Fernbank Events & Activities
Martinis & IMAX® Series Finale Friday, November 18, 2016 It’s “Last Call” for Fernbank’s Martinis & IMAX®. Fernbank After Dark Debuts Feb. 2017
Learn more
Holly Jolly Film Fest
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Join us for this festive series presented in
celebration of Winter Wonderland and
featuring special activities, cultural
performances and more.
Learn more
Noon Year’s Eve
Saturday, December 31, 2016
A family-friendly celebration featuring a balloon drop at noon.
Learn more
Fernbank Forest Native Tree Tour
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Visit some of the tallest trees in Atlanta during a special guided tour of Fernbank Forest.
Learn more
AGS NOVEMBER 2016 Page 11
The World’s Largest Dinosaurs
On view Sept. 17, 2016 – Jan. 2, 2017
Winter Wonderland
On view Nov. 18 – Jan. 8, 2017
What does it mean to be big? Go beyond traditional
fossils and explore the greatest, most massive
dinosaurs ever discovered as they would have looked
hundreds of millions of years ago. Visitors will have a
chance to examine life-sized bones, muscles, internal
organs, and more to discover the staggering anatomy
of some of the biggest creatures that ever lived.
Learn more
Winter Wonderland On view Nov. 18 – Jan. 8, 2017
This holiday-inspired exhibition features trees and
other displays decorated by local cultural partners
that recognize celebrations including Christmas,
Hanukkah and the Festival of Lights, as well as
traditions and practices like origami, indigenous art
and national symbols. Learn more
Page 12 AGS November 2016
Now showing in the Fernbank IMAX movie theater:
The Search for Life in Space Showing through January 1, 2017*
A new era of space exploration has begun. It’s the search to find something that changes everything—
signs of life somewhere else in the universe. Journey from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, to the ice
moons of Jupiter and Saturn, beyond our solar system and out into the far reaches of space in search
of planets like ours.
Dinosaurs Alive Showing through January 1, 2017* Run time: 40 minutes
Embark on a global adventure of science and discovery—featuring the earliest dinosaurs of the
Triassic Period to the monsters of the Cretaceous “reincarnated” life-sized for the giant IMAX®
screen. Presented in conjunction with the special exhibition, The World’s Largest Dinosaurs.
Fernbank Museum of Natural History (All programs require reservations, including free programs)
AGS NOVEMBER 2016 Page 13
AGS Committees
AGS Publications: Open
Career Networking/Advertising: Todd Roach
Phone (770) 242-9040, Fax (770) 242-8388
Continuing Education: Open
Fernbank Liaison: Kaden Borseth
Phone (404) 929-6342
Field Trips: Open
Georgia PG Registration: Ken Simonton
Phone: 404-825-3439
Ginny Mauldin-Kenney,
ginny.mauldin@gmailcom
Teacher Grants: Bill Waggener
Phone (404)354-8752
Hospitality: John Salvino, P.G.
Membership Burton Dixon
Social Media Coordinator: Carina O’Bara
Newsletter Editor
Ben Bentkowski
Phone (404) 562-8507, (770) 296-2529
Web Master: Ken Simonton
www.atlantageologicalsociety.org
AGS 2016 Meeting Dates
Listed below are the planned meeting
dates for 2016. Please mark your calendar
and make plans to attend.
2016 Meeting Schedule November 29, 2016
Tentative December 27
2017 Meeting Schedule
January 31
February 28
PG Study Group meetings Usually last Saturday of the month.
NOTE!!! Because of Thanksgiving, the
November class is a week early
NOVENBER 19
No December PG Class
January 28
February 25
AGS Officers
President: Ben Bentkowski
Phone (770) 296-2529
Vice-President: Open
Secretary: Rob White
Phone (770) 891-0519
Treasurer: Lucy Mejia
Past President
Shannon Star George
Page 14 AGS November 2016
ATLANTA GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
www.atlantageologicalsociety.org
ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FORM
Please print the required details and check the appropriate membership box.
DATE:_____________________________________________
NAME:____________________________________________
ORGANIZATION:____________________________________________________________
TELEPHONE (1): TELEPHONE (2):
EMAIL (1): EMAIL (2):
STUDENT $10
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP $25
CORPORATE MEMBERSHIP $100 (Includes 4 professional members, please list names and emails below)
NAME: EMAIL:
NAME: EMAIL:
NAME: EMAIL:
NAME: EMAIL:
For further details, contact the AGS Treasurer: Lucy Mejia: telephone: 404-438-9584;
Please make checks payable to the “Atlanta Geological Society” and remit with the completed form to:
Atlanta Geological Society, Attn: Lucy Mejia
2143 Melante Drive, Atlanta, GA 30324
CASH CHECK (CHECK NUMBER:___________)
