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Newsletter
Summer 2005
by Roger Renteria and Susan Delap

Click here for previous news items.

TECHtonics Alumni Newsletter

Current Issue

Global Mantle Plume Presentation

August 12, 2005 -- Geochemistry Professor Kent Condie recently gave a presentation on a global mantle plume event at an international convention in Calgary, Canada. Dr. Condie was mentioned in an NMT news article.

Magnitude 4.9 Earthquake

August 10, 2005 -- A magnitude 4.9 earthquake near Raton, NM (New Mexico-Colorado border), occurred on August 10, 2005. It was the largest earthquake in New Mexico in 13 years. More.

Vivoni a New Dad

August 3, 2005 -- Congratulations to new parents Enrique and Amapola Vivoni on the birth of their baby daughter Maria Camila Vivoni Félix. She was born at 5:57 am on August 3, 2005, and weighed 4 lbs 13 oz. Enrique reports that although she arrived a bit early, "She is doing very well as are her mother and father." The proud Dad furnished this photo of Maria at 3 days old. -- S.D.

CRONUS-Earth Project

July 14, 2005 -- Fred Phillips, Professor of Hydrology, is the principal investigator of the recently started CRONUS-Earth Project. The acronym, CRONUS, stands for Cosmic-Ray Produced Nuclide Systematics. Dr. Phillips will coordinate the U.S. arm of the multi-national project that includes research institutions in the European Union.

Powerful cosmic-ray particles are the focus of this project because they only penentrate a few feet below the Earth's surface, so deeper rocks are shielded from cosmic rays. The number of new atoms produced by cosmic rays can reveal the amount of time that has passed since geological events occurred. This can shed light on past climate cycles to reconstruct and analyze environmental changes of the Earth.

The project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for five years, and the goal is to improve the accuracy and reliability of geochronology methods. The research project is intended to establish a benchmark of parameters and models to provide geochonologists with precise estimations of dating on geologic timescales.

Dr. Phillips says that the CRONUS-Earth Project will be managed using a layered, coordinated consortium approach. The U.S. arm of the project spans 12 other research institutions, including the University of Arizona, University of Washington, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the PRIME Lab at Purdue University. -- R.R.
NMT Article, NSF Article

CRONUS-US site: http://www.physics.purdue.edu/cronus/
CRONUS-EU site: http://www.cronus-eu.net/

The Rio Chagres, Panama

July 13, 2005 -- The newly published book, The Rio Chagres, Panama — A Multidisciplinary Profile of a Tropical Watershed, by Springer, Inc., includes four chapters co-written by
Jan Hendrickx, Professor of Hydrology, and Bruce Harrison, Associate Professor of Geology.

The two EES professors contributed to the book along with several international scientists to explain the physical and geological components of the Rio Chagres. The river is the main supply of water that keeps the Panama Canal running. Dr. Hendrickx and Dr. Harrison have been studying the hydrologic properties of the dense tropical forest soils of the Panama Canal for about five years. -- R.R.
NMT Article

SWRP Awarded $17.8M

June 14, 2005 -- The Southwest Regional Partnership (SWRP), a consortium of over twenty partners in nine states, was recently awarded $17.8 million by the U.S. Department of Energy for the second phase of its carbon sequestration project. Brian McPherson, Associate Professor of Hydrology, is leading the consortium by overseeing the project for carbon sequestration, a component of the DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE-NETL) Strategic Center for Coal. Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing, separating, storing, or reusing carbon dioxide to prevent emissions from entering the atmosphere.

PhD students Weon Shik Han and Jason Heath are working with Dr. McPherson by doing their dissertation research on the project. Project members at New Mexico Tech include Associate Professor Junhang Dong of Chemical Engineering and Assistant Professor Hai Xiao of Electrical Engineering, who are working on well bore sensors for the project.

The goal is to carry out a technology validation program tailored for the southwestern U.S. by doing geologic pilot tests in Utah, New Mexico, and Texas for carbon sequestration. Each sequestration test will include an injection of a minimum of 75,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide to test reservoirs that may host larger carbon sequestration operations in the future. These tests also will demonstrate a broad variety of carbon sink targets and multiple benefits such as testing of deep saline sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, and enhanced coal bed methane production.

The research is part of the President’s Global Climate Change Initiative (GCCI), which has the goal of reducing the amount of greenhouse gas intensity by 18% over the next ten years, while sustaining economic growth with new and clean energy technologies. Partners in the SWRP for carbon sequestration consist of state and federal government agencies, universities, industries, and groups including the Western Governors Association.

For more information about the SWRP and carbon sequestration, visit http://www.southwestcarbonpartnership.org
-- R.R., S.D.

Kirk Bryan Award for Excellence

June 8 , 2005 -- Fred Phillips has been selected as one of two 2005 recipients of the Kirk Bryan Award for Excellence by the Geological Society of America. The award is given annually in recognition of outstanding contributions to the interdisciplinary field of Quaternary geology and geomorphology. He will receive the award during a ceremony at the GSA Annual Meeting this October in Salt Lake City. Congratulations to Fred for this outstanding honor!

Protecting the Snowy River Cave

June 1, 2005 -- Penny Boston was featured in the Albuquerque Journal article on the Snowy River cave in Southern New Mexico. Dr. Boston has explored the caves and said that the living organisms inside the caves are essentially "rock-eaters" because they have developed the ability to digest minerals in these caves for energy. She also has discovered 16 new bacteria strains that were previously unknown to science.

Federal protection is planned for the cave because of the unique formations that are found inside. The protection effort is being led by Senator Pete Domenici to conserve and preserve the caves. Dr. Boston participated in an early follow-up expedition in the cave formation that is part of the Fort Stanton Cave near Capitan, NM. Boston says that going into one of these caves is "like [taking] a trip to fairyland."

Albuquerque Journal article (Paid subscribers can view the Journal article.) Article also on El Defensor Cheftain.
-- R.R.

The rumbling ground of New Mexico

May 31, 2005 -- Imagine that all of a sudden there is a roaring sound and everything starts shuddering, pattering, and bouncing around due to the shock of tremors. New Mexico is used to feeling light quakes that cause minor damage. Unlike the ones in California, they can happen here too.

Rick Aster and Allan Sanford were featured in the June issue of New Mexico Magazine in the article titled, "Quakes," and they talked about the past earthquakes and what may be projected for earthquakes in New Mexico.

Notable earthquakes in the area have happened in Socorro, but hardly cause a stir. In 1887 an earthquake in Mexico caused rocks to tumble and minor damage throughout New Mexico. The shock even hit the new courthouse in Albuquerque. Light earthquakes soon followed. Socorro is home to several light quakes because the town is positioned above a magma chamber 12 miles below the surface.

In this state, there have been many earthquakes that have caused confusion among other things, damage to structures, but are little risk to people. Dr. Aster says, "We're always trying to make people aware that although the risk is lower here, lower than California, it is not negligible." He also mentioned that there is no possiblity in New Mexico for an earthquake like the devastating one in Sumatra that caused a tsunami in December.

Dr. Sanford points out that as many earthquakes that have happened in New Mexico in the past 130 years happen in California in three years. He also says that humans can create earthquakes, like the one in 1992 in Hobbs, NM, as a result of extracting oil and replacing it with water, which can cause instability. Thousands of years might pass before a large earthquake occurs again in this state. -- R.R.

GSA-Subaru Award

May 23, 2005 -- Congratulations to alumna Michelle Walvoord (MS Hydrology '99, PhD Hydrology '02) on winning the GSA-Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award for 2005. The Woman in Science is an award that is awarded to a woman who has greatly impacted the field of geosciences based on their PhD research. The award will be presented at the GSA annual meeting in Salt Lake City and is sponsored by the car manufacturer, Subaru. Michelle is currently a research hydrologist for the USGS in Denver, Colorado.

The Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake

May 23, 2005 -- Rick Aster and Sue Bilek were part of a team who contributed to the article in this month's issue of Science Magazine titled "The Great Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake of 26 December 2004." They talked to the Albuquerque Journal about their article in Science. In the article, they explain that a plate about the size of California shifted 50 feet underwater. This caused a tsunami that killed nearly 300,000 people who lived near the Indian Ocean.

Dr. Bilek mentioned that there was a difference in earthquake activity before and after the quake. The area where the earthquake occurred is a subduction zone, and the two moving plates "locked" and then released their energy causing a seven-minute burst of movement.

The result was catastrophic and has never been observed with instruments before. Dr. Aster also mentioned that the Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake's power is "the equivalent of 1,400 one-megaton nuclear bombs buried at half-mile intervals along the entire length of the earthquake zone."

Albuquerque Journal article (Paid subscribers can view the Journal article.) Science Magazine article. -- R.R.

Last Updated: March 18, 2008. Email comments to Webmaster.
© 2002-2005 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
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