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BIWEEKLY BRIEFING
From the desk of Dean Kate Miller
December 21, 2012 


  Dean Kate Miller

Dear Colleagues,

 

In the spirit of Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings, endings , and transitions, I bring you reflections on some of our accomplishments of the last year and some thoughts about what the New Year will bring. All are reminders of how much we have to be proud of as a College.

 

First, the reason we are all here: a record 232 students graduated from the College this calendar year. From recruitment, to retention, to new learning experiences we are all innovating on many fronts. The iGeo, GeoX, and G-Camp for Students programs, now in their second and third years, have been instrumental both in bringing outstanding new freshmen to the College, and in increasing diversity among our students. This year we launched our College's Quality Enhancement Program with the theme Commit to Communicate in an effort to bring more high impact learning experiences to our students. With new funds and faculty support, field, research, writing, and presentation experiences are proliferating across the College.   

 

In another measure of the quality of our programs both the Geography department and the interdisciplinary Water Management and Hydrological Science program garnered glowing reviews from external panels this year.

 

On the international front, Chris Houser, was name the first Global Faculty Ambassador for Texas A&M by the Provost's Office. His duties include interacting with faculty, administrators and staff in colleges, departments and programs as an ambassador for global engagement at Texas A&M.

 

This year we grew our engagement with Brazilian University through the Brazil-Texas A&M University Science and Education Internationalization conference and workshop was held in Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, in March.  The conference has already led to a seminar on water and other research projects are getting off the ground.

 

In December, Oceanography hosted the scientists and students from Ocean University China for a workshop. In addition to exchanging research findings and information, the guests were on hand to see the first student in the shared program receive her Ph.D. at the December commencement.

 

At sea, Fred Chester was the first Texas A&M co-chief on the IODP-JAMSTEC drillship Chikyu. Expedition 343, Japan Trench Fast Drilling Project. The crew set a new scientific drilling record in April, reaching a total of 7740 m below sea level. The previous record set by U.S. drilling vessel Glomar Challenger was 7,049.5 m below sea level in the Mariana Trench.

 

And on the space front, Mark Lemmon is part of the scientific team that successfully landed the rover Curiosity on Mars in August and has been directing Curiosity on its exploration of Mars ever since.

 

Back on Earth, we found many ways to reach out beyond the university community. 

 

Ken Bowman, ATMO, along with Bob French of KBTX-TV, led a workshop on Advances in Meteorology in Texas in October. Attended by many broadcast meteorologists from across the state, they came to learn from us and to help us understand more about what the profession needs from our graduates. 

 

In media news, Geosciences' research stories, ranging from drought, fall weather and El Nino, to future urban expansion and ancient American deserts, from the Gulf of Mexico's hypoxia and unexploded bombs to the continue-to-amaze photos beamed back from Mars, have been seen around the world. This September alone, Geosciences research stories received more than 700 million unique views.

 

And Texas Sea Grant strengthened its ties with us by relocating to campus last February.

 

The impact of our faculty members was made evident in many ways. We have a record number of Fellows inducted this year. Renyi Zhang and Tom Wilheit were elected AGU Fellows. Ping Yang was notified this fall and will be inducted into AMS in January. And Tom Bianchi was also notified in late November of his upcoming induction into AAAS in February.

 

It has been quite a year for several of our faculty and staff members.

 

In addition to being named an AGU Fellow, Renyi Zhang also received an AFS university-level distinguished service award for research. David Cairns and Don Conlee received AFS college-level awards for teaching. Conlee also received the Dean's Distinguished Service Award for Teaching, and just this week, he received the Atmospheric Sciences departmental award for teaching.

 

Finally, we were able to name four faculty members to endowed chairs and professorships this year: Dr. Thomas Bianchi, James R. Whatley Chair in Geosciences; Dr. Kenneth P. Bowman, David Bullock Harris Professor in Geosciences; Dr. Yue-Feng Sun, Mollie B. and Richard A. Williford Professorship in Petroleum Geology; and Dr. Franco Marcantonio, Robert R. Berg Professor in Geology. 

 

Some things to look forward to in the new year: Geology and Geophysics is sponsoring a David Wiltschko Symposium in February. The College will strengthen collaboration and initiate new projects with partner universities in Brazil. We will be interviewing candidates for several new faculty and technical positions in the College, especially those involved in GERG and Oceanography's new direction. We will continue adding programs and looking for other opportunities for our Quality Enhancement Program. And, finally, we look forward to a successful IODP renewal.

 

Good work, good prospects for the future.  

 

Kate Miller

Dean

 

College News

 

AAAS ELECTS TOM BIANCHI AS A FELLOW

  Dr. Thomas Bianchi  
  

 

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has elected Dr. Thomas Bianchi (OCNG) as a Fellow. He will be inducted at the annual meeting in Boston in February. 

 

Selected by the Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Science section, Dr. Bianchi was cited for his fundamental contributions to understanding the organic carbon cycling in coastal marine environments and for help in defining the field through his synthesis efforts. His areas of expertise are organic geochemistry, biogeochemical dynamics of aquatic food chains, carbon cycling in estuarine and coastal ecosystems, and biochemical markers of colloidal and particulate organic carbon.

 

More information about the award can be found in GeoNews. 

  

 

 

GEOSCIENCES WELCOMES NEW STAFF MEMBERS

 

 Janet Kling

Janet Kling is the new executive assistant to the dean. She came to Texas A&M from the Texas A&M Health Science Center Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, where she held the same title. Before moving to Dallas, Kling was with the Texas A&M System offices in College Station, first as assistant to the executive vice chancellor for finance and later as assistant to the associate vice chancellor for facilities planning and construction. In that position she assisted with a large department that was responsible for more than 50 construction projects across Texas. 

 

Kling began her career working in finance and insurance where she assisted in editing articles written for national finance magazines and newspapers and in coordinating financial planning conferences and client seminars. A graduate of A&M Consolidated, Kling received her bachelor's degree in secondary education from the University of Texas at Austin.

 

zcummings
  Zach Cummings

Zachary W. Cummings '05 has joined the College of Geosciences as a programmer in the Web Development Office. 

 

Cummings' experience includes developing field-test prototype software, coordinating with contract developers, and assisting senior web developers with layout and scripting. Cummings began his career as a general field engineer for Schlumberger, designing cement and drilling-fluid profiles and programs for unconventional oil and gas wells. He also managed a well-construction team of 48 employees. He was executive director for the Brazos Valley Shuttle Project, where he directed lobbying efforts, public and community relations, and grant writing. 

 

Cummings' latest position was web developer for Connect Technologies, where he coordinated with contract developers and created and maintained databases. Cummings received his Bachelor of Science in ocean engineering, and he is working on his master's degree in computer science from Texas A&M University. 

 

SIX FACULTY AND STAFF RECEIVE DEAN'S AWARDS

 

The College of Geosciences honored outstanding faculty and staff members for their achievements in 2012. The Dean's Distinguished Achievement Awards were presented Friday, Nov. 30, at a dinner in conjunction with the annual holiday reception. Receiving the Dean's staff awards were Michele Beal, Dr. Sonia Garcia, and Dr. Alexei Khalizov. Dr. Kathleen O'Reilly, Dr. Alejandro Orsi, and Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon received the faculty awards. View the full story here.


GEOSCIENCES HOSTS OCEAN UNIVERSITY, CHINA

 

The Department of Oceanography hosted a workshop Dec. 10-11 for faculty and students from Ocean University, Qingdao, China to celebrate the first graduates from the collaborative Ph.D. program and to demonstrate to Ocean University personnel the success of the program. Dr. Chunxue Yang received her degree on Saturday, Dec. 15. Dr. Xinxin Li is awaiting approval of her dissertation by the Thesis Office and will receive her degree in May 2013. Congratulations to both students.

 

The workshop included talks on their research by10 students from the first two intakes for the collaborative program, as well as overviews of various research activities at both institutions by faculty members. The program for the meeting is here.

 

The meeting also provided opportunities for faculty to discuss progress on existing and potential future collaborative research between Texas A&M and OUC.

 

Faculty from OUC were: Drs. Gang Fu (Dean of Graduate School and Professor of Meteorology), Haibing Ding, Xueshuang Han, Xiaopei Lin, Xiuquan Wan, You Wang, Lixin Wu, Guanpin Yang, Zuosheng Yang, and Dongliang Zhao. 

 

Almost all of our Chinese visitors are already engaged as co-chairs of existing students.

 

TAMU faculty making presentations at the meeting were Drs. Piers Chapman, Timothy Dellapenna (TAMU-G) Steven DiMarco, Rob Hetland, Alex Orsi, Achim Stossel, and Dan Thornton. Also presenting were Dr. Raffaele Montouro from the Texas A&M Computing and Information Services. Students presenting were Jie Chen, Mengran Du, Bo Li, Xinxin Li, Xiaohui Ma, Zhao Xu, Chunxue Yang, Jinchang Zhang, Zhaoru Zhang, and Zheng Zhang.

 

"We anticipate that similar such workshops will be held every two or three years in addition to the annual visits of Texas A&M faculty to OUC to meet potential students," said Chapman, who organized the conference. 

 

 

HOLIDAY IT TASK FORCE

The IT staff has begun conducting a sweep to clear up help desk tickets that are overdue and incomplete. This project will begin Monday, Dec. 17 and end Jan. 11, 2013, a total of 13 days. This will involve regular IT staff and two student workers hired expressly for this project.


IT staff and students will be contacting faculty and staff regarding overdue and incomplete help desk tickets.

 

GRANTS ENHANCE COMPUTING RESOURCES

The College, in conjunction with the departments, has submitted a total of five Computer Access and Classroom Instructional Technology grant proposals. These annual programs have, in the past, provided welcome funds for improving student access to computing resources as well as classroom improvements for the College. 

These grant programs are expected to be continued in fall 2013. Funds of this type can be used to improve the College's instructional efforts and computer access. so IT is prepared to continue proposing innovative uses for these funding opportunities.

More information about these and other Texas A&M IT grant programs can be found at the grant programs site.

 

  FACILITIES UPDATE AND ENERGY-SAVINGS NOTICE 

The passenger elevator in old Halbouty, and all its components, will be replaced in the interval between semesters. Demolition will begin on Thursday, Dec. 13. Personnel who park in the numbered reserved spots at the base of the building will be notified of their relocation by Transportation Services. The job is contracted to be completed by Jan. 13; the contractor, however, is confident they will be done earlier. They will work every day except Christmas and New Year's Day to ensure the passenger elevator is ready by the first day of class.


Maureen Reap will announce more details of this job as they are settled.

Annual Holiday Energy Savings Program O&M, Halbouty, CSA, and the TAES Annex will again participate in the annual energy savings program promoted by Utilities and Energy Services over the Christmas-New Year's holiday. In all the buildings except Halbouty, the buildingwide air conditioning systems will be "cut back", effective at COB on Friday, Dec. 21, and will be restored to normal operation on Wednesday, Jan. 2. "Cut back" means that instead of maintaining a temperature range of 72˚-76˚, the systems will allow the buildings to go as low as 68˚, or as high as 80˚, before coming on. In O&M, those rooms on the 24/7 operation list will not be affected by the cut-back.

The Halbouty Buildings have pneumatic systems and are not zoned to allow for local cut-backs. The only room that is independent is 101. The department has no events planned for Room 101 over the break, so that room was cut back Dec. 12 and will be restored to its normal temperature range on Thursday, Jan. 10. This is to give that huge room ample time to equilibrate before classes begin the next week. 

 

FUNERAL PLANS SET FOR FORMER DEAN JOHN CALHOUN

 

Texas A&M recently learned about the death of Dr. John D. Calhoun, Jr., former dean of Geosciences, who served in that capacity from 1969 to 1971. Jim Hiney, communications coordinator with Texas Sea Grant has posted a page in memory of Dr. Calhoun. A funeral will be held in Texarkana, Dec. 26. A graveside service is planned for 10 a.m., Dec. 27 at the College Sta�tion Cemetery. Friends of the family are welcome to attend either service.  

Professional Activities

STUDENT NEWS

 

Two students receive travel awards

Two Geosciences majors, Fiona Wilmost (GEOG) and Dillon Amaya (ATMO) received the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation Grant for student travel.   

 

Wilmost will present her preliminary research results on the resettlement of ex-combatants in El Salvador's lower Lempa River at the Association of Geographers conference in Los Angeles, Calif.   

 

Amaya will intern with the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Labratory this winter. The program involves a research cruise on the USS Ron Brown that will travel from Charleston, S.C., to Puerto Rico. Amaya is studying to be a physical oceanographer. 

 

EXPEDITIONS

 

Five Oceanography students were in the Gulf of Mexico on the Pelican as part of the BP-funded GISR program. They are Laura Spencer, Alison Smyth, Noura Randle, Jordan Young, and Ivan Maulana. They are collecting samples for their own use and assisting chief scientist Jim Ledwell (WHOI) with recording the movement of the intert tracer he released in August. Follow their blogs at Tracing the Flow in the Gulf of Mexico. 

From the Pelican
Night view from the Pelican
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES

 

Dr. Matthew Howard (OCNG), represented the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative's (GoMRI) Gulf Integrated Spill Research Consortium (GISR) along with Dr. Scott Socolofsky (TAMU Civil Engineering) at  the Subsea Blowout Modeling Workshop, Nov. 27-28, University of California, Berkeley. Howard conveyed standards and best practices for exchanging model output for the GoMRI-sponsored work. 

 

Also, Dr. Howard, as a member of the Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) Advisory Team, reviewed the NSF-sponsored R2R project at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), Columbia University Dec. 17-18. The R2R project ensures data from built-in underway sensor systems installed on UNOLS vessels are quality-controlled and curated. 

 

Dr. Anthony Filippi (GEOG) was invited to participate in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Expert Meeting: "Role of Remote Sensing in Forest and National GHG Emission Inventories," IPCC, Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Hayama, Japan, Oct. 23-25. His participation was supported by the Subcommittee on Global Change Research of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, National Science and Technology Council/U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the Joint Office for Science Support of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).   

 

On behalf of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon (ATMO) made a presentation Dec. 14 as part of a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., where he summarized the causes of the current drought and reviewed recent studies on the future prospects for drought in the United States. 

 

PUBLICATIONS    

 

Unsworth, S.J., E.M. Riggs and M. Chavez, 2012, "Creating pathway
toward geoscience education for Native American youth: The importance of cultural relevance and identity," Journal of Geoscience Education, V. 60, n. 4, November, pg. 384  
  

  

Quardokus, K., S. Lasher-Trapp, and E.M. Riggs, 2012, "A Successful Introduction of Authentic Research Early in an Undergraduate Atmospheric Science Program," Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, V. 93, n. 11, November, pg. 1641, DOI:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00061.1  

AGU ROUNDUP, PART 1

  

Presentations at AGU

The College of Geosciences was well represented at the 45th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Dec. 3-7, in San Francisco. More than 20,000 geoscientists attended. 

  

Students and professors involved in the Costa Rica REU program, directed by Dr. Chris Houser (GEOG), and professors conducting research on the cloud forest:

 

REU students presented on the following topics: climatology (Natalie Teale), ecohydrology (Esther Buckwalther, Nathan Tourtellotte, Gracie Orozco) and soils (Jordan Burns, Rachel Oien) of the Soltis Center for Research and Education. Copies of their posters will be made available through the REU website. 

 

"Exploratory Water Budget Analysis of A Transitional Premontane Cloud Forest in Costa Rica Through Undergraduate Research," Ryan Arnott (ATMO graduate student) and Chris Houser (GEOG), Sarah D. Brooks (ATMO), Oliver W. Frauenfeld (GEOG), Steven M. Quiring (GEOG), Anita D. Rapp (ATMO), E. Brendan Roark (GEOG), and Alfredo Delgado and Jason P. Ackerson, Soil and Crop Sciences, and REU students  

 

"Microscale Throughfall and Precipitation Heterogeneity in a Transitional Cloud Forest," Steven M. Quiring (GEOG), Oliver W. Frauenfeld (GEOG), E. Brendan Roark (GEOG), Anita D. Rapp (ATMO)

 

ATMO group

"On Precipitation in the Southeastern Pacific Marine Subsidence Region," Anita D. Rapp, Matthew Lebsock, Tristan L'Ecuyer 

 

"Radar Observations of MJO/Wave Interactions Durin DYNAMO/ CINDY2011/AMIE," Amanda M. DePasquale, Courtney Schumacher, Anita D. Rapp 

 

OCNG and GEPL group, including Dr. Debbie Thomas' students

"Reconstruction of South Pacific Dust Accumulation during the Early Paleogene Greenhouse," Dillon Amaya (MET/OCNG student), and Debbie Thomas (OCNG/GEPL), Franco Marcantonio (GEPL), Robert Korty (ATMO), Matthew Huber, Gisela Winckler, and Carlos Alvarez Zarikian (IODP) 

 

"The Paleogene record of South Pacific Deep Water: Nd isotopes from IODP Site U1370," Amelie Berger (ENGS/OCNG student), and Debbie Thomas and Carlos Alvarez Zarikian 

 

"Seawater Osmium Isotope Records from Pacific ODP and IODP Sites: refining the Paleogene curve and dating red-clay sequences," Zach Rolewicz (ENGS/OCNG student) and Debbie Thomas and Franco Marcantonio 

 

"The Late Paleogene Evolution of Southern Ocean Deep-water Formation: the Onset of Global Thermohaline Circulation," Debbie Thomas, Robert Korty, Matthew Huber, and Mitch Lyle (OCNG) 

 

"Carbonyl sulfide hydrolysis in polar ice cores and the feasibility of recovering a paleoatmospheric history," Melinda R. Nicewonger (MET student), Kamil M. Aydin, Eric S. Saltzman, Tyler J. Fudge, Edwin D. Waddington, Kristal R. Verhulst

  

Dr. Kate Miller and colleagues presented "Crustal structure across the Bighorn Mountains, northern Wyoming: Insights into lithospheric evolution from the NSF-EarthScope Bighorn Project," Lindsay L. Worthington and Kate C. Miller (GEPL), Eric A. Erslev, William L. Yeck, Anne F. Sheehan. 

  

Oceanographers presented "A numerical investigation of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya freshwater transport filling and flushing times on the Texas-Louisiana shelf," Xiaoqian (Michael) Zhang, Robert D. Hetland, Martinho Marta-Almeida and Steven F. DiMarco (OCNG) 

  

Sessions by Dr. William Sager (OCNG) and his student Jinchang Zhang

William W. Sager, Jonathan M Bull, Kolluru Sree Krishna, "Active Faulting in the Ninetyeast Ridge and Implications for Diffuse Boundaries of the Indo-Australian Plate Plate" 

  

Jinchang Zhang, William W. Sager, Jun Korenaga, "Shatsky Rise Oceanic Plateau Structure from 2D Multichannel Seismic Reflection Profiles and Implications for Oceanic Plateau Evolution" 

  

Takashi Sano, William W. Sager, Joerg Geldmacher (IODP) Anthony A P Koppers, Ken Heydolph, Renat Almeev, Takeshi Hanyu, Adelie Delacour, "What we have learned about Shatsky Rise Oceanic Plateau from IODP Expedition 324" 

  

Maurice Tivey, Masako Tominaga, William W. Sager, "The last frontier? High-resolution, near-bottom measurements of the Hawaiian Jurassic magnetic anomaly sequence" 

  

Adrienne J. Oakley, Nicholas Jame Mathews, Masako Tominaga, Maurice Tivey, William W. Sager, Daniel Lizarralde, "New seamounts and broad seafloor depressions revealed in shipboard geophysical data from the Early Cretaceous - Middle Jurassic seafloor, Central-Western Pacific" 

  

 Michael T Chandler, Paul Wessel, Brian Taylor, William W. Sager, "Reassembling the Ontong Java-Manihiki-Hikurangi large igneous province: Insights and challenges"

 

Drs. Oliver Frauenfeld and Brendan Roark (GEOG) and five students from the Climate Science Lab presented the following at AGU. Photos can be found on the labs' Facebook page

 

"Simulation of Soil Temperature Distribution in Russia Based on the VIC Land Surface Model," Liang Chen, Oliver W. Frauenfeld, and Tingjun Zhang

  

"Season Rainfall Variability and its Impact on Vegetation Dynamics in the Southwestern United States: An outlook on future water budget issues," Dagbegnon C. Sohoulande, Vijay P. Singh, and Oliver W. Frauenfeld

  

"Validating Annual Growth Bands of Deep Sea Corals from the Gulf of Mexico and Southeastern United States, Leslye M. Mohon, E. Brendan Roark, Renald N. Guillemette, Nancy Prouty, and Steve Ross

  

"Increased Accuracy in Statistical Seasonal Hurricane Forecasting, Roshanak Nateghi, Steven M. Quiring and Seth D. Guikema"

 

"Terrestrial Arctic Amplification Due to Changes in the Eurasian Soil Thermal Regime," Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Liang Chen, and Tingjun Zhang 

 

"The Change of the North American Monsoon Seasonal Precipitation in the CCSMv.4 under IPCC CO2 Emission Scenarios," Manuel Hernandez, Joseph J. Tribbia, and Julie Caron 

 

"Evaluation of Soil Moisture Simulations Using In Situ Data from 

Iowa, 1954 to 1990," Shanshui Yuan and Steven M. Quiring

  

"Gulf of Alaska and California bamboo corals: Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca records," Wilson Sauthoff, Michele LaVigne, Tessa M. Hill, E. Brendan Roark, Robert B. Dunbar, Thomas P. Guilderson, and Howard J. Spero 

 

"The North American Soil Moisture Database," Trent Ford and Steven Quiring 

 

Dr. Heath Mills (OCNG) was part of a poster session on the subsurface biosphere. Also presenting was former student Dr. Brandi Reese

Reese, B.K., M. Ariza, C. St. Peter, C. Hoffman, K. Edwards and H.J. Mills, "Re-Defining the Subsurface Biosphere: Characterization of Fungal Populations from Energy Limited Deep Marine Subsurface Sediments."

 

Dr. Eric Riggs (GEPL and Dean's Office) made the following presentations: 

Riggs, E.M. and J.S. Herrera, "Gestures and metaphors as indicators of conceptual understanding of sedimentary systems." 

 

Riggs, E.M., "Texas A&M Geosciences and the growing importance of transfer students." 

 

Dr. Chris Houser (GEOG) presented on outcomes of the REU program in a geo-education session. He also made a presentation on his own research related to the video analysis of aeolian streamers in northeast Brazil. Also presenting from the Coastal Geomorphology group were Bradley Weymer, Patrick Barrinneau, Mallorie Jewell and Ryan Arnott. 

 

Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon (ATMO) blogged from AGU in his Climate Abyss column. He also gave an invited oral presentation, "Improving Climate Literacy: A State Climatologist's Perspective," in the session on Climate Literacy titled 

 

In the session on Advanced Drought Monitoring and Prediction With Applications to Decision Making, Nielsen-Gammon presented "A High-Resolution Drought Monitoring Prototype Tool for the United States." 

 

Dr. Oliver Frauenfeld (GEOG) organized and attended the annual meeting of the U.S. Permafrost Association during AGU.

 

Dr. Matthew Howard presented "The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative: Building a Big-Data System," M.K. Howard, F.C. Gayanilo and J.C. Gibeaut (both TAMU-CC) at the Informatics session.

 

Howard also attended the Marine Metadata Interoperability Steering Team meeting at AGU.

 

Media at AGU 

AGU's online publication Blogosphere featured Dr. Oliver Frauenfeld's presentation on the effect of thawing Arctic soils in Eurasia on regional atmospheric patterns and global climate.

 

Dr. Heath Mills' research presented at AGU was featured in Nature, the New Scientist and on NSF's science news site, Science 360. 

  

Dr. Matthew Howard (OCNG), represented the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative's (GoMRI) Gulf Integrated Spill Research Consortium (GISR) along with Dr. Scott Socolofsky (TAMU Civil Engineering) at  the Subsea Blowout Modeling Workshop 27-28 November at the University of Berkeley. Howard conveyed standards and best practices for exchanging model output for the GoMRI sponsored work. 

  

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES 

Dr. Anthony Filippi (GEOG) was invited to participate in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Expert Meeting: "Role of Remote Sensing (RS) in Forest and National GHG Emission Inventories," IPCC, Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Hayama, Japan, Oct. 23-25. His participation was supported by the Subcommittee on Global Change Research of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR), National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)/U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and the Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS) of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).  

   

Dr. Chris Houser (GEOG) was interviewed by NPR Nov. 30 regarding how dunes develop and recover after storms, specifically how developers along the barrier islands of New York and New Jersey should plan for changes in dune lines to ensure island resiliency. 

  

Chris Houser (GEOG), Christian Brannstrom (GEOG) and graduate students Anna Santos, Heather Lee and Sarah Trimble contributed their research on beach user perception of rip currents to upcoming episodes of Science and the Sea. Their research will also be the focus of a story in the upcoming issue of Texas Shores, where the graduate students will also be featured in a sidebar story. Their interview on this research will air sometime around christmas.     

 

Dr. Matthew Howard (OCNG), represented the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative's (GoMRI) Gulf Integrated Spill Research Consortium (GISR) along with Dr. Scott Socolofsky (TAMU Civil Engineering) at  the Subsea Blowout Modeling Workshop 27-28 November at the University of Berkeley. Howard conveyed standards and best practices for exchanging model output for the GoMRI sponsored work.

Dr. Matthew Howard (OCNG), as a member of the Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) Advisory Team, reviewed the NSF-sponsored R2R project at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO)  at Columbia University in New York on 17-18 December.  The R2R project ensures data from built-in underway sensor systems installed in UNOLS vessels are quality-controlled and curated.  

  

PUBLICATIONS

  

Zhang, X., R. D. Hetland, Martinho Marta-Almeida and S. F. DiMarco, 2012: A numerical investigation of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya freshwater transport, filling and flushing times on the Texas-Louisiana shelf. Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, 117, C11009, doi:10.1029/2012JC008108.  

 Calendar

Calendar items are also posted on the College of Geosciences' 

Facebook page.

 

See the Geosciences Seminar site for future spring 2013 seminars.

Please submit items of general interest to the College to Karen Riedel.
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