Archived Department News

The following are the news stories released by the Geological Sciences Department from 2016-2020.

Drs. Becker and Hagedorn Studying Tropical Island Groundwater's Effect on Coral Reefs

(Jan 2020)

Drs. Matt Becker and Ben Hagedorn have been awarded two National Science Foundation grants to study how groundwater from tropical islands affect coral reefs. They will travel with students to the high island of Moorea and the atoll of Tetiaroa in French Polynesia. M.S. student applicants for the Fall 2020 interested in working on the project should contact Dr. Hagedorn (Klaus.Hagedorn@csulb.edu) or Dr. Becker (Matt.Becker@csulb.edu).

Dr. Matt Becker and Former Student Adam Hawkins Selected for Major Recognition

(Nov 2019)

Professor Matt Becker and his former Masters student Adam Hawkins were selected for major recognition by the American Geophysical Union's journal Water Resources Research to receive an "2018 Editor's Choice Award". This award is given to the most outstanding papers (only about 1%) published in the journal each year on the basis of their technical significance, novelty, originality, presentation, and broader implications of the publication.

Graduate Students Recognized by the Pacific Section Society for Sedimentary Geology

(Oct 2019)

Geology graduate students Maia Davis and Ryan Weller were just recognized by the Pacific Section Society for Sedimentary Geology with the John C. Crowell Graduate Award for having the two best 2018-2019 Masters theses in sedimentology/stratigraphy. The Pacific Section includes all universities in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.

1st - Maia C. Davis, Cal State Long Beach, "Spatial and geochemical characterization of an anomalous, map-scale dolomite breccia in the Monterey Formation, Santa Maria basin, California"

2nd - Ryan M. Weller, Cal State Long Beach, "Compositional and diagenetic controls of hardness in siliceous mudstones of the Monterey Formation, Belridge oil field, CA: implications for fracture development"

Southern California Earthquake Center Presentation

(Sept 2019)

Professors Onderdonk and Bormann and grad students Amber Tucker, Dan Boyd, Drake Kerr and Clay Kelty presented their research on active faults and tectonic deformation in Southern California at the annual meeting of the Southern California Earthquake Center in Palm Springs, September 7-9, 2019. Amber is working on the Newport-Inglewood fault in coastal Orange County, Dan is working on the Palos Verdes fault offshore of Long Beach, Drake is working on the San Jacinto fault in Cajon Pass, and Clay is working on the Santa Ynez River Fault in the Santa Barbara area.

Book Publication Supported by CSULB Students and Staff

(Aug 2019)

Faculty and recent graduates students played a key role in the publication of a new book about the region: "From the Mountains to the Abyss: The California Borderland as an Archive of Southern California Geologic Evolution". This Special Publication of the Society for Sedimentary Geology was co-edited by Professor Rick Behl and contained 5 peer-review scientific papers by faculty members Behl, Robert Francis, Pam Hill and Greg De Hoogh and former CSULB students Michael Thompson and Chris Castillo. Three of these papers were largely based on Masters thesis research completed here at CSULB.

Ian McGregor Guest Speaker at LABGS

(April 2019)

Ian McGregor was the guest speaker at the Los Angeles Basin Geological Society (LABGS) lunchtime meeting on Thursday, April 25, 2019. The lunch and presentation for geology professionals, students and college faculty was held at The Grand at Willow Street Conference Center in Long Beach.

Ian, a Master's student at CSULB, shared his Thesis work on "Rate and character of late Quaternary uplift and folding in the Santa Maria Basin, California: implications for active faulting".

The onshore Santa Maria area in central California is an inverted basin with several kilometers of estimated shortening that has folded, faulted, and uplifted Miocene deep-water rocks [Woodring and Bramlette, 1950; Namson and Davis, 1990; McCrory,1995]. Abundant outcrop and subsurface data from active oil fields in the area describe the basin stratigraphy and general kinematics through time, however with little focus on the late Quaternary activity of these structures and Quaternary deformation rates, pertinent for seismic risk assessment. A detailed quantitative analysis on the structures within the Santa Maria Basin, in terms of the amount and rate of uplift, shortening, and fault slip that has occurred in the Quaternary, was conducted using the basal contact of a regional, late Pleistocene fluvial deposit as a marker of deformation. Results also aim to evaluate conflicting structural models proposed for present uplift and folding [Namson and Davis, 1990; Seeber and Sorlien, 2000; Lettis et al, 2004].

Ian's Thesis advisor is Dr. Nathan Onderdonk. Also on his committee are Drs. Thomas Kelty and Richard Behl.

At the same meeting the LABGS presented scholarships to several students. Receiving two of the awards were CSULB Geology students Megan Mortimer-Lamb, a Master's student of Dr. Rick Behl, and Carl Jung, a soon-to-be-graduating senior. Megan received her award based on her graduate-level 4.0 GPA, her involvement with the local AAPG chapter (currently she is the CSULB Chapter President), for her participation in IBA, and for her "best poster" win at the recent PSAAPG meeting in Long Beach. She plans to finish her thesis this summer. Carl received his award based on his high undergrad GPA and his work within the Geology department. Carl expects to be graduating in Spring of 2020.

Geology Department Gosts the SCGS Meeting 2019

(March 2019)

The CSULB Geology Department hosted the South Coast Geological Society (SCGS) dinner meeting on Monday, March 11, 2019.

The dinner for geology professionals, students and college faculty was held in the Chart Room on West Campus Drive.

The featured speaker, Dr. Nate Onderdonk, a Tectonic and Geomorphology specialist at CSU Long Beach, spoke on his recent neotectonic research.

The San Andreas and San Jacinto faults are the primary plate-boundary structures in southern California and present a large earthquake hazard for the region. Slip-rate measurements, slip-per-event data, and paleoseismic data from sites on the San Jacinto and San Andreas faults near their juncture suggest that; (1) the San Jacinto accommodates an equal amount of plate-boundary motion as the southern San Andreas fault (2) the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults have probably ruptured together multiple times in the past 2000 yr; (3) a joint rupture of the San Jacinto fault with the Mojave section of the San Andreas fault may be a more likely source of "The Big One" in southern California than rupture on the southern San Andreas fault alone; and (4) the lack of major surface rupture on the two faults south of Cajon Pass in the past 200 years is not unusual and neither fault is necessarily "overdue".

Department Hosts the 2019 Joint Conference

(April 2019)

On April 1-3, the department hosted the 2019 joint conference of the Pacific Sections of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Society of Sedimentary Geology and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

At the Awards Dinner several students were honored with awards, including:

• Leo Giannetta received the Patrick L. Abbott Award from the Pacific Section SEPM in recognition of the best graduate student poster at the annual conference.
• Megan Mortimer-Lamb received the Victor Church Memorial Award from the Pacific Section AAPG in recognition of the best poster presented at the annual conference.

Three CSULB Geology Alumni were also honored:

• Alumni, Courtney Marshal and Nicky (Adrianna) Oliver, received Young Professional Distinguished Service Awards.
• Alumni, Yannick Wirtz received the A.I. Levorsen Award for Best Paper presented at last year's conference.

This was a 3-day meeting that included 2 full-day field trips and a day of oral and poster presentations. It had >150 registered participants, about 30 of which were students. People came from all over California to attend, but some from as far as the UK, Alaska, and the east coast. CSULB Geology staff, students and alumni were key in putting this meeting together. 

This meeting brought a lot of positive attention and good will to CSULB and our department. Besides the ones mentioned above, many other alumni were in attendance, some from as far back as 1969 and the 1970's. One of them made a special donation for the department, saying how impressed he was with what we were doing.

Lora Stevens-Landon Co-authors $1M NSF-S-STEM Grant

(April 2019)

Lora Stevens-Landon co-authored the successful NSF-S-STEM grant: Mentored Excellence towards Research and Industry Careers (METRIC). This $1M grant is designed to increase the recruitment, retention, and academic success of STEM students from underrepresented groups.

2018-2019 Student Authors

(April 2019)

AJ White:

• White et al., 2019. Fecal stanols show simultaneous flooding and seasonal precipitation change correlate with Cahokia's population decline. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 116, 5461-5466.
• Briles et al., 2019. Late Holocene anthropogenic and climatic impacts on a tropical island ecosystem of Northern Vietnam. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: Paleoecology
• White et all, 2018. An Evaluation of Fecal Stanols as Indicators of Population Change at Cahokia, Illinois. Journal of Archaeological Science 93, 129-134

K Doiron:

• Stevens et al., 2018. Increased effective moisture in northern Vietnam during the Little Ice Age. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 511, 449-461.

T (Zefrjahn) Brosnan:

• DiNapoli et al., 2019. Rapa nui (Easter Island) monument (ahu) locations explained by freshwater sources. PLOSOne. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210409
• Brosnan et al., 2018. Coastal groundwater discharge and the ancient inhabitants of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile, Hydrogeology Journal, 1-16.

M. Ruane, N. Clark and K. Faulkner:

• Hagedorn et al., 2018. Assessing aquifer vulnerability from lumped parameter modeling of modern water proportions in groundwater mixtures: Application to California's South Coast Range. Science of the total environment 624, 1550-1560.

Dr. Richard J. Behl and Dr. Michael R. Gross Release the SEPM Field Guidebook 14

(May 2018)

Geology Department Chairman Dr. Richard J. Behl and Dr. Michael R. Gross release the SEPM Field Guidebook 14, Stratigraphy, Diagenesis, and Structural Deformation of the Monterey Formation, Central California Coast.

This field trip guidebook uses the Miocene Monterey Formation as a natural laboratory to understand the origin, distribution and physical properties of biogenic, siliceous and organic-rich mudrocks deposited from clastic-starved, upwelling systems above marginal marine basins. Based on a successful week-long, professional short-course led for many years by the authors, the guidebook teaches how to distinguish types of siliceous, calcareous/dolomitic, phosphatic and organic-rich rocks and to understand relationships between depositional environment, sediment and rock composition, diagenetic evolution, and bedding style or stacking patterns. Knowledge of the chemical and mineralogic character and the physical properties of these rocks is then applied to understand variations in mechanical stratigraphy and fracture architecture that can enhance prediction of petroleum reservoir properties.

The field guide takes the user to spectacular, classic outcrops of different facies of the Miocene Monterey Formation exposed along the coast of southern and central California. The great heterogeneity of the Monterey Formation permits investigation of siliceous, calcareous, phosphatic and carbonaceous mudrocks and their different properties and deformational behavior that can be applied to other mudstones around the world. Their occurrence within a complex and varied tectonically active setting provides exposures that presenting different aspects, perspectives and styles of deformation from extension to compression to strike-slip faulting, with bedding-scale to formational-scale expressions.

Geology Students Awarded LABGS Scholarships

(April 2018)

Two CSULB Geology students, Joseph Gutierrez and Leo Giannetta, were among a select group of students recently awarded scholarships from the LABGS (Los Angeles Basin Geologic Society).

They won the LABGS scholarships based foremost on academic achievement, but also on participation with the local level organizations, the Imperial Barrell Award competition, and departmental involvement.

Joseph is a Senior, walking this year and officially graduating after Summer Field. Leo is a Master's student working on Dr. Rick Behl on 3D stratigraphic characterization of vertical and lateral compositional variations in the Eocene Kreyenhagen Shale of the San Joaquin Basin in California.

Geology Department Alumni 2018 Camping Trip

(April 2018)

The Geology Department hosted a CSULB Geology Department Alumni camping trip on the weekend of April 6-8, 2018.

CSULB Geology Students Visit Raymond-Temple Elementary School

(April 2018)

In April, geology students from the CSULB Department of Geological Sciences made multiple visits to Raymond-Temple Elementary in Buena Park. About a dozen graduate and undergraduate majors excited the elementary kids by teaching them about dinosaurs, volcanoes, minerals, etc. Thanks to the members of the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) Chapter and other students in the department.

Conception and organization of this event was done by the AAPG Community Outreach Chair, Kelsey Doiron. Community outreach is integral to stimulating the growth of the next generation of geoscientists. We thank everyone for volunteering their time for this worthy cause. Follow our club on Instagram for more updates @csulb_aapg.

Geology Department Hosts the SCGS Meeting 2018

(March 2018)

The CSULB Geology Department hosted the South Coast Geological Society (SCGS) dinner meeting on Monday, March 5, 2018.

The dinner for TBD geology professionals, students and college faculty was held in the Chart Room on West Campus Drive.

The featured speaker, Dr. Rick Behl, the Chairman of the Geological Sciences Department at CSU Long Beach, spoke on "The Santa Barbara Record of Two Volcanic Winters Triggered by Twin Yellowstone Supervolcano Eruptions 631,000 years ago."

Vural Cakir Gives Seminar Talk

(March 2018)

The Geology Department's February 21 seminar speaker was CSULB Geology MS student Vural Cakir. Vural is a Master's Grant recipient from the Turkish Fulbright Commission. He shared the culture and geology of Turkey in a fun and informal talk with lots of pictures. The title of Vural's talk was "The Culture, History, and Geology of Turkey." The seminar was held in HSCI room 382.

Vural's hails from Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. However, he worked in an underground chromite mine in a town called Beyagac for a year and that constituted a big, enlightening part of both his geology knowledge and his perspective of life, thus he considers it as his second "hometown". Vural graduated from Ankara University's Department of Geological Engineering; in 2016.

Vural's current project, with Dr. Greg Holk, is related to utilization of B, O, and H stable isotope data for constraining the sources of fluids that flowed through a shear zone in the Sierra Nevadas during Late Cretaceous. For future plans, he is striving to lead the younger generation of Turkey into science by serving as a role-model, hopefully as a well-known scientist.

Patrick O'Connell Wins Outstanding Student Presentation Award

(October 2017)

Patrick O'Connell won the Outstanding Student Presentation Award for his talk at the Groundwater Resources Association of California's 2017 Conference and 26th Annual Meeting. Patrick's presentation title was: "A percolation monitoring program using distributed temperature sensing."

Patrick and his advisor, Dr. Matt Becker, developed a user-friendly infiltration monitoring program (in MATLAB) for the Orange County Water District (OCWD) to monitor recharge basin infiltration rates, spatially and temporally. The program uses distributed temperature sensing (DTS) and hydraulic time series data, along with XYZ coordinates, to identify when and where infiltration rates vary. Results indicate a combination of basin water level heights, sediment compaction, clogging and heterogeneity have significant impacts on basin percolation performance.

Leo Giannetta Wins First Place at the PSAAPG Student Expo

(October 2017)

Leo Giannetta (Advisor: Rick Behl) won first place in the Master's division for best poster at the Pacific Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists Student Expo at Cal State Northridge on October 7, 2017.

His presentation was titled, "Using Clay Microporosity to Improve Formation Evaluation in Potential Residual Oil Zones: Cypress Sandstone, Illinois Basin". This work was completed just prior to joining the CSULB MARS Project to earn his Masters degree.

Dr. Rick Behl Elected President of the Pacific Section of AAPG

(June 2017)

Geology Department Chairman Dr. Rick Behl has been elected to a 3-year progressive term as President-Elect -> President -> Past-President of the Pacific Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) (2017-2020). Dr. Behl has been active in the society as a meeting organizer and field trip leader for many years and was awarded the Distinguished Educator Award by the Section in 2010.

Since 1924, the Pacific Section has held an annual technical conference and published field trip and symposium volumes on the stratigraphy, sedimentology, structural geology and petroleum geology of the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii. Each year, the Pacific Section funds approximately $20,000 in student scholarships to undergraduate and graduate geology students, including many won by CSULB students.

The AAPG was founded in 1917, with the original purpose of fostering scientific research, advancing the science of geology, promoting technology, and inspiring high professional conduct as well as providing publications, conferences, and educational opportunities to geoscientists and disseminating the most current geological information available to the general public. The AAPG is made up of about 40,000 members in 129 countries.

Dr. Francis's New Book Presented to Sue Ollweiller

(January 2017)

Professor Robert Francis presented a copy of his new book (published in 2016)- "Black Gold in California: the story of the California petroleum industry" - to Sue Ollweiler at the annual Johnson-Conrey Fellowship Holiday Luncheon in January.

Sue is the Executive Director of the Carl W. Johnson Foundation, which, since 2011, has provided $500,000 for 2-year scholarships for outstanding graduate students in geological sciences. The program is currently funded through 2021.

Geology Department Alumni 2017 Camping Trip

(May 2017)

The Geology Department hosted a CSULB Geology Department Alumni camping trip on the weekend of April 29-30, 2017. The campout was at the newly rain-replenished Lake Cachuma.

40 CSULB grads, faculty, spouses and friends, plus 5 potential future students, stayed at the beautiful Pawnee Plateau group campsite overlooking the lake. The weather was perfect.

There were four 1/2-day field trips: (1) Figueroa Mountain (serpentinites and knockers), (2) Sweeney Road (diatomites, porcelanites and chert in the deformed Monterey and Sisquoc formations), (3) Zaca Creek (fluvial strath terraces, viticulture and soils, followed by a Zaca Mesa Winery tour), and (4) Gaviota beach (submarine channels, injectites and fractures in porcilanites and shale of the Monterey Formation).

All agreed, "The Beach" was and still is a great place to learn geology.

Geology Students Awarded PSAAPG and LABGS Scholarships

(April 2017)

John Farrell and Cesar Mejia were among the students recently awarded scholarships from the PSAAPG and LABGS (Pacific Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Los Angeles Basin Geologic Society).

John and Cesar won the scholarships from the PSAAPG, while LABGS scholarships were awarded to Kelsey Doiron, Mo Nonu, Ryan Weller, Melissa Lizarraga and Joseph Gutierrez. Former CSULB graduate, Jenifer Leidelmeijer, now pursuing her Masters degree, also received funds.

The scholarships were awarded based foremost on academic achievement, but also on participation with the local level organizations, the Imperial Barrell Award competition, and departmental involvement.

Geology Department Hosts SCGS Meeting 2017

(March 2017)

The CSULB Geology Department hosted the South Coast Geological Society (SCGS) dinner meeting on Monday, March 6.

The dinner for 74 geology professionals, students and college faculty was held in the Chart Room on West Campus Drive.

The featured speaker, Dr. Matt Becker, the Conrey Chair in Hydrogeology and Professor in the Geological Sciences Department at CSU Long Beach, spoke on "Where Groundwater Meets Ocean: California, Easter Island, Hawaii, and Tahiti."

As groundwater migrates towards the ocean, freshwater rises to the surface on top of denser seawater. Groundwater seeps may form at the coast while the remainder flows directly to the ocean as "submarine groundwater discharge." The groundwater/ocean interface can have important implications for humans and the environment. For example, in some ancient cultures, coastal seeps were an important source of freshwater. Groundwater fluxes to the ocean can have a profound influence on marine ecosystems. Some examples of coastal groundwater systems will be presented from island environments including Kauai (Hawaiian Is.), Moorea (Tahitian Is.), Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island, Chile), and Santa Catalina Island (California). Concepts of groundwater discharge at seawater interfaces will be reviewed briefly followed by some results from surveys from these island locales.

Geophysicist Dr. Jayne Bormann Joins CSULB Geology Department

(January 2017)

Dr. Jayne Bormann joined the CSULB Geology Department in January of this year. Dr. Bormann received her PhD from the University of Nevada, Reno and was most recently at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

Dr. Bormann attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA, where she studied geology and raced on the intercollegiate Nordic ski team. She graduated in 2004 with a B.A. Cum Laude in Geology, after which she spent 3 years coaching junior development and high school cross-country skiing in Minnesota.

In 2007, she entered graduate school at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she worked as a research assistant in the Center for Neotectonic Studies and in the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory. She studied active tectonics and seismic hazard in the Walker Lane using both paleoseismic and geodetic observations, and completed her PhD in geophysics in 2013. She then joined the Nevada Seismological Laboratory as a Postdoctoral Fellow in September of 2013. Her postdoctoral research used marine seismic reflection techniques to image fault structures in the Inner California Borderlands.

She plans to continue her research in the development of active tectonics of the Pacific/North American plate boundary while developing new tools to characterize seismic hazard along active faults.

Some of Dr. Bormann's work includes:

Accommodation of missing shear strain in the Central Walker Lane, western North America: Constraints from dense GPS measurements.

Active faulting in the Inner California Borderlands: new constraints from high-resolution multichannel seismic and multibeam bathymetric data.

A Synoptic Model of Fault Slip Rates in the Eastern California Shear Zone and Walker Lane from GPS Velocities for Seismic Hazard Studies.

Neotectonics, geodesy, and seismic hazard in the Northern Walker Lane of Western North America: Thirty kilometers of crustal shear and no strike-slip?

Carla Weaver's Proposal Selected for Professors Around the World (PAW)

(December 2016)

Geology department lecturer Ms. Carla Weaver's proposal "Volcanic Hazards in Naples Metropolitan Area" has been selected for funding for the faculty incentive travel grant program, Professors Around the World (PAW). This grant will fund preparatory work to develop a relationship with the University of Ca' Foscari, in hopes of developing a yearly CSULB study-abroad course to Italy to study different natural hazards. Ms. Weaver is working on plans to take CSULB Geology students to Italy to study natural hazards in areas affected by past, and possibly future, volcanic eruptions.

The grant from the Professors Around the World program is providing her funding to scout the Naples area to identify suitable teaching locations involving active volcanoes as well as the impacts of eruptions on populated areas. The funding includes travel to Mt. Vesuvius, the volcanic fields of Campi Flegrei (the Phlegrean Fields) and Naples (also a metropolitan area that could be devastated by volcanic activity). She will be looking into examples of destruction caused by volcanic explosions, such as the famous archeological sites of Pompei and Ercolano.

The PAW grant is based on her lecture and laboratory courses (GEOL 110 and GEOL 110L) in which students learn about natural disasters and hazards and their impact upon humans, including the study of the principles underlying earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, climate change, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and coastal processes. Her classes analyze examples of present and past events, and discuss case studies in different regions of the United States as well as the rest of the world. These classes are the primary geology courses that satisfy the GE science requirements.

Ms. Weaver is researching these Italian natural disasters to gain a deeper knowledge of natural disasters on a global scale. She wants to better understand the different factors involved and how politics and cultural dynamics might result in natural processes turning into full-scale disasters. This includes the infamous 1963 Vaiont dam disaster in northeastern Italy (the worst natural disaster in the history of Italy, in which a massive landslide and flood was the result of the improper siting of a dam and reservoir in a geologically unstable valley - considered by UNESCO as one of the few “avoidable” disasters in human history); the 2009 M=6.3 earthquake which devastated the city of L'Aquila in the southeastern region of Italy (killing 300 people, destroying historical buildings and displacing thousands of people); and the environmental issues of the Venetian lagoon (with regional subsidence wreaking havoc on the coastal environment and resulting in salt contamination of the local groundwater).

Funding Available to Study Fluid Flow in Bedrock

A Department of Energy Geothermal Grant of $450,000 over three years to study fluid flow in bedrock using fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing technology is funding two Masters of Science students through September of 2017. Contact Dr. Matthew Becker for more information.

Johnson-Conrey Endowment

The Johnson-Conrey Endowment to support outstanding graduate students was renewed for a 2nd 3-year term. Each of the Graduate fellowships provides a 2-year $15,000/year scholarship.

We try to understand the role of groundwater in the hydrologic cycle by integrating measurement and simulation. This work is carried out in the field, the laboratory, and on computers. The Hydrogeology Program at CSULB is supported by the Bert and Ethel Conrey Endowment.

MARS Project Reaches Funding Milestone

The CSULB Geology's MARS Project industrial affiliates program surpassed the $800,000 milestone of total corporate donations that over 5 years have provided research and salary support to more than 18 graduate and 8 undergraduate students. Contact Dr. Rick Behl for more information.

AAPG and SEPM Awards

(October 2016)

Two CSULB research presentations won awards at the recent joint meeting of the Pacific and Rocky Mountain sections of the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) and SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology). Michael Thompson and his advisor, Prof. Dan Francis, won the H. Victor Church Award for the best poster presented at an annual meeting for "Tectonic Evolution of the Palos Verdes Fault - Lasuen Knoll Segment, Offshore Southern California". Ryan Weller(with co-author Dr. Rick Behl) won the Patrick Abbott Award for the outstanding poster by a graduate student for "Compositional and diagenetic relationships and controls of mechanical behavior in siliceous mudstones of the upper Monterey Formation, Belridge Oilfield, San Joaquin Basin, California".

Stan Finney Elected Secretary General of IUGS

(September 2016)

Professor Stan Finney has been elected Secretary General of the 121 nation International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) at the 35th International Geologic Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. Dr. Finney had served as the Chair of the International Commission on Stratigraphy for the IUGS, one of the largest non-governmental scientific organizations in the world and, a key scientific body in the IUGS which precisely defines global units that are the basis for the International Geologic Time Scale.

Dr. Finney also teaches undergraduate Paleontology & Biostratigraphy and a graduate seminar on Integrated Stratigraphy and the Geologic Time Scale.