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Newsletter
Spring 2005
by Roger Renteria and Susan Delap

Click here for previous news items.

TECHtonics Alumni Newsletter

Current Issue

Commencement 2005

May 14, 2005 -- Congratulations to the 26 EES students who received degrees at Commencement 2005. Hydrology pic. Congratulations to Bill McIntosh for receiving the Distinguished Research Award at this year's commencement.

NMT President's Outstanding Faculty Award

May 13, 2005 -- Geophysics professor Rick Aster received the NMT President's Faculty Award for 2005 in recognition and appreciation for his contri-butions and outstanding leadership role in bringing national academic distinction and recognition to New Mexico Tech. He received the award from President Lopez and the NMT Board of Regents on May 7th during a President's Club dinner. During the presentation, President Lopez described Rick's achievements as follows:

As a distinguished New Mexico Tech professor of geophysics, Dr. Aster has developed and pursued fundamental research and teaching interests in deep Earth imaging, earthquake and volcano seismology, mathematical geophysics, and seismological instrumentation. Since arriving at New Mexico Tech in 1991, he has parlayed these interests into internationally recognized and respected programs.

Along with fellow Tech professor Brian Borchers, Dr. Aster is the co-author of a recently published graduate-level textbook on "Geophysical Inverse Theory and its Applications," which resulted from a class that he and Dr. Borchers have co-taught for years. Some of his current research projects include:

• Imaging the Earth's crust and mantle beneath the western United States to better understand the origins of earthquakes, volcanoes, and tectonic
  processes; and
• Studying the volcanology of Antarctica's Mount Erebus volcano.

We have been fortunate to have Dr. Aster with us here at New Mexico Tech since 1991. Since 1998, Rick has been the principal investigator of the 102-member Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology PASSCAL Instrument Center, a National Science Foundation-funded facility located here on campus.

More recently, Dr. Aster also assumed the duties of principal investigator of the EarthScope USArray Operations Center. USArray is a key component of the ten-year, $200 million EarthScope project that will image the geophysical structure and processes of North America. He has likened this project to a Very Large Array that points inward instead of outward.

I'm proud to note that an 11,000-square-foot annex recently was completed, adjoining the IRIS PASSCAL building, and will now house the offices and labs of the 15 or more professional staff members that will join New Mexico Tech's ranks as part of the USArray project.

Congratulations, Rick! -- S.D.

NMT and Italian Universities Collaborate

May 13, 2005 -- New Mexico Tech and the Honors Center of Italian Universities recently signed an agreement to collaborate on research and education in hydrological sciences, including student exchanges between the institutions. Hydrology assistant professor Enrique Vivoni facilitated the collaboration. New Mexico Business Weekly article. -- S.D.

Student Appreciation Award

May 5 , 2005 -- Congratulations to geology MS candidate Lisa Majkowksi-Taylor for winning an NMT Student Appreciation Award for 2005. Debbie Wallace, who nominated Lisa, says "In addition to all the hard work she has put into her academics, Lisa works in the Graduate Office as program coordinator for the NM Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professorate (NM AGEP). She is devoted to this program and spends many long hours above and beyond what is required of her. Lisa always has time to help students, staff, or anyone who needs her help at any time. She will drop whatever she is doing to help a student get through a difficult time. Even though she does not have any spare time, she is always willing to tutor students to make sure they succeed. She is never negative, always positive, and this attitude shows through in everything she tries to accomplish."

The Student Appreciation Awards were created in 1999 by a group of staff and faculty who wished to provide an additional process for honoring some of the extraordinary, non-academic contributions that our students make. Nominations are solicited from the faculty and staff of NMT. The criteria for nomination include: the student must be in good academic standing, have benefited other students or the community, and most importantly, demonstrates the generosity of spirit and performance above and beyond the call of duty. NMT article. -- submitted by Elaine DeBrine-Howell

2005 WRRI Student Awards

April 28, 2005 -- Congratulations to hydrology MS student Alex Rinehart and hydrology PhD candidate Bayani Cardenas for being selected winners of 2005 Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) student awards.

According to Alex's advisor, Enrique Vivoni, the funding from Alex's winning proposal will help with the costs of the summer field campaign in the Valles Caldera. -- S.D.

The Rob Bowman Show

April 20, 2005 -- Hydrology professor Rob Bowman was a featured speaker in Joe Day's documentary "High And Dry: Drought in New Mexico," broadcast on KNME-TV (PBS) on April 20-24. From KNME's programming notes: "Ali MacGraw narrates the program that looks at water issues in New Mexico. Despite a wet spring, the state's long-term drought is not over. The program looks at whether New Mexico can sustain its rapid population growth and development and looks at wise water use and conservation methods."

Rob was one of the show's scientific experts among a bevy of speakers that included former U.S. Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall of Santa Fe. The decision to always picture Rob speaking against a backdrop of a muddy and swollen Rio Grande was an interesting contrast with the show's drought theme. Rob's quantification of New Mexico's drought situation was lively, including clever remarks such as how aquifers in the state that took hundreds of thousands of years to form aren't going to be recharged by turning off your tap for a year. -- S.D.

EES at NMGS Meeting

High-Tech New Mexico

April 3, 2005 -- Harold Tobin was recently on talk radio KKOB-AM on the morning show called "High-Tech New Mexico" along with Randy Normann, a geothermal researcher from Sandia National Laboratories. Their talk was about the placement of geothermal sensing equipment in very deep and harsh conditions to collect seismic data before and after large earthquakes occur.

One such location to place geothermal sensing equipment to measure the temperature and water pressure of the rocks is off the coast of southwest Japan in the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone. The Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE) project is a multi-disciplinary, integrated study of the SW Japan subduction interface, with proposed drilling of the fault system. NanTroSEIZE is led by Tobin.

Tobin says that they "need instruments that can withstand 150 to 180 C, which are are well up the range normal electronics don't work." Sandia National Labs has developed instruments that can withstand high temperature and harsh conditions and are using the same technology and applying it to seismic equipment.

Currently they are looking to place these instruments in the fault zone in SW Japan to monitor the seismic activity and learn the physics of the subduction zone and better understand the precursors of earthquakes. Harold Tobin and Randy Normann's talk was based on this Sandia National Labs news article. -- R.R.

Young Investigator Program

March 22, 2005 -- Assistant Professor Enrique Vivoni is the recipient for the Department of the Army's Young Investigator Program (YIP) award from the Environmental Sciences Division. His three-year award is from 2005 to 2008 and will fund one graduate student in the EES Department. Article. -- R.R.

Outstanding Student Paper Award

March 1, 2005 -- Congratulations to hydrology PhD candidate Bayani Cardenas who received an Outstanding Student Paper Award for his presentation at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting for 2004. The paper was titled "Hydrodynamic interactions of free-flowing fluids and pore-fluids in bedforms." Abstract. -- S.D.

The Lone Paleoclimatologist

February 26, 2005 -- Professor Fred Phillips was quoted in this Albuquerque Tribune article about the record setting rains in New Mexico that have occurred in the beginning of the year. Phillips said that it is anybody's guess whether the wet weather will continue. He mentioned that between "30,000 to 15,000 years ago -- New Mexico was in an ice age and was certainly wetter." Fred added that El Ninos tend to last between one and three years, and that in the future New Mexico will probably not get any wetter.

The Albuquerque Tribune mistakenly referred to Fred Phillips as an overnight paleoclimatologist, but in reality he is a hydrology professor and the director of the Hydrology Program at New Mexico Tech. -- R.R.

Rio Grande Rift stretches like taffy

February 24, 2005 -- Alumnus Dave Wilson and Rick Aster et al. were recently published in Nature for their work on the Rio Grande Rift system. In the Albuquerque Journal article, Aster describes the rift formed by being gently stretched like taffy. The rift has been stretching for over 30 million years, and this is why the Sandia and Manzano Mountains are to the east and volcanoes to the west of the Rio Grande Valley.

In the letter to Nature, the scientists who collaborated on the project were able to get a detailed picture of the crust and upper mantle of the Rio Grande Rift by placing seismic instruments across the surface of the rift. The image from the data collected from these seismic instruments shows how the Earth's crust has stretched, creating the rift valley system. NSF Article. NMSU Press Release. NMT Article. -- R.R.

Mt. Taylor Quadrathlon

February 23, 2005 -- "The New Mexico Tech Viejos" --pictured left to right: Bill Rison, Ron Thomas, Paul Krehbiel, Tim Hankins, and Rob Bowman -- all participated in the quadrathlon. Rob Bowman, hydrology professor, also ran for the team quadrathlon. The team placed first in their age group. NMT Article. Detailed results and more at the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon site. -- R.R.

Newly Published Books

February 14, 2005 -- Kent Condie recently published Earth as an Evolving Planetary System, and Rick Aster co-authored Parameter Estimation and Inverse Problems.

Kent Condie's Earth and an Evolving Planetary System presents an overview of key topics and questions about the evolution of the Earth's crust and mantle over the past four billion years. He explains the various components of Earth and these interactions that have affected the history of the biosphere, oceans, and atmosphere.

Parameter Estimation and Inverse Problems was co-written by Rick Aster, Brian Borchers, a professor of mathematics at New Mexico Tech, and Clifford Thurber, a geophysics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The book features an understanding of fundamental and practical issues associated with parameter fitting and inverse problems, as well as a basic theory of inverse problems. Story. -- R.R.

The Planet Within

February 8, 2005 -- Penny Boston presented "The Planet Within; Caves from New Mexico to Mars" at the LodeStar Astronomy Center Planetarium in Albuquerque, NM, on February 8, 2005.

Showcase of Promising Scientists

February 3, 2005 -- Enrique Vivoni was selected to speak at the seminar series "A Showcase of Promising Scientists in Natural Resources," sponsored by the School of Natural Resources at University of Arizona. He talked about "Incorporating the spatial variability in climate, hydrologic and ecosystem processes into watershed simulations." -- R.R.

Distinguished JOI/USSSP Lecturer

February 3, 2005 -- Harold Tobin has been selected as a distinguished Joint Oceanographic Institutions/U.S. Science Support Program (JOI/USSSP) lecturer for the 2005-2006 academic year. He has been a shipboard scientist on five ODP expeditions to the Cascadia, Barbados, Costa Rica, and SW Japan. His latest study is NanTroSEIZE, which stands for Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment. NMT Article. -- R.R.

Chapman Conference

January 24, 2005 -- Brian McPherson co-convened the Chapman Conference on the Science and Technology of Carbon Sequestration on January 16-20 in San Diego. The goal of the conference was to bring together scientists, engineers, and others who study long-term natural and deliberate sequestration of carbon. A particular focus was on methods and prospects for verification and assessment of sinks for anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2). Brian and hydrology grad student Jason Heath gave presentations at the conference. -- S.D.

4.5 Million-Year-Old Fossils

January 20, 2005 -- Nature Magazine published an article that reports on new early Pliocene hominid discoveries in Gona, Ethiopia. The fossils that were recently discovered were accurately dated at the New Mexico Geochronology Research Lab (NMGRL).

William McIntosh was cited as one of the co-authors of the research paper to Nature titled, "Early Pliocene hominids
from Gona, Ethiopia." The paper was written by an international team of scientists, including one from Spain.

McIntosh, Associate Professor of Geochemistry in the NMT's Department of Earth & Environmental Science, is a volcanologist and geochronologist at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. He also is the co-director of the NMGRL. The NMGRL dated the fossil samples to be about 4.5 million years old. NMT Article. Nature Magazine Paper (PDF 427 KB). -- R.R.

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