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Geology Students Present at National Conference

College students just don’t present in national academic conferences every day. Nonetheless, a few months ago, 12 geology students and one computer-science student presented posters and talks at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

They had to produce some solid work to earn consideration, let alone attend and participate. Congratulations to all of them:

Elizabeth Elium ’15 and Arthur Stier ’15: Poster presentation, “Spatial variation and the survivability of an Acropora cervicornis patch reef in Belize” based on research they, along with Candice Stefanic, conducted the past two summers in Belize with Prof. Lisa Greer.

Emilyn Gjertsen ’16: Poster presentation, “Extracting a paleoenvironmental record of mid-Holocene climate from a Dominican Republic carbonate serpulid tube geochemistry,” based on the results of her R.E. Lee Summer Scholars research with Prof. Greer.

Chelsi Hewitt ’15: Poster presentation, “Understanding the effects of high flow events on short-term longitudinal variability in water quality, based on research last summer as an R.E. Lee Research Scholar with Prof. Paul Low.

Hal Hundley ’14: Poster presentation, “Experimental rock deformation of Cambrian-Ordovician carbonates from the valley and ridge of the Appalachians,” based on summer research he conducted with Prof. Chris Connors.

Karen Roth ’14: Poster presentation, “Geochemical variability of obsidian in western New Mexico with laboratory-based pXRF,” based on the project she worked on last summer with the Keck Geology Consortium, of which the Geology Department is a member.

Rachel Samuels ’15: Poster presentation, “Trends in the management of produced water from the hydraulically fractured natural gas wells in the Marcellus Shale Play,” based on work she did last summer, as an R.E. Lee Scholar, with Prof. Low.

Candice Stefanic ’15: Talk, “Is Coral Gardens, Belize, a refugium for the coral Acropora cervicornis?” Research data she helped collect in Belize the past two summers with Prof. Greer while an R.E. Lee Summer Scholar.

James Tyrrell ’14: Poster presentation, “Management of produced water from oil and gas wells in California: past trends and future suggestions,” based on work he did last summer with Prof. Low.

Virginia Wala ’16: Poster presentation, “Quartz lattice preferred orientation patterns from porphyroclasts in mylonites of the Rockfish Valley Shear Zone, central Virginia,” based on research she conducted with Prof. Jeff Rahl as an R.E. Lee Summer Scholar.

Cory Walker ’15, of Computer Science: “Coral vision: software for improving efficiency in coral monitoring,” based on work she did last summer with Elizabeth Elium and Arthur Stier and Prof. Joshua Stough (Computer Science) and Prof. Greer.

Kendall Wnuk ’14 and James Biemiller ’15: Poster presentation, “Episodic erosion dynamics affecting dispositional basins of Northwest Argentina,” based on research they conducted with Prof. Dave Harbor and Prof. Jeff Rahl. James was an R.E. Lee Summer Scholar.