WELCOME NEW FACULTY
Dr. Scott Persons
This August, the Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences welcomed Dr. Scott Persons to our faculty team. Dr. Persons serves as both an assistant professor and as the curator of the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History. Dr. Persons became a dino-maniac at the age of two-and-a-half when his father bought him his first dinosaur book. Since then, he has joined fossil hunting expeditions on six continents, including in Mongolia's Gobi Desert; the volcanic ash beds of Liaoning, China; Africa's Olduvai Gorge; and throughout the American and Canadian West. His research focuses on understanding dinosaur ecology and the evolution of dinosaur locomotion. This fall, Dr. Persons is teaching GEOL 333: Paleobiology.
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MEET THE GEOLOGY BOARD OF ADVOCATES
The Geology and Environmental Geosciences department has recently formed a new advocacy group! Its purpose is to connect and communicate with alumni, prospective employers, and peer- and prospective-peer institutions to provide useful information to the students, faculty, staff, and fellow alumni of the Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences at the College of Charleston. The Board’s mission is to provide the best opportunities to prepare our students for the workforce and/or graduate school. Contact either Mike Passarello (mcpassarello 'at' gmail.com) or Tim Callahan to learn more.
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Mike Passarello '08: Board chair
- Mike is one of the founders of the Geology Alumni Endowed Award.
- He graduated from CofC (B.S. Geology, 2008) and earned his M.S. in Geology at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011.
- Mike works for ExxonMobil where he has also volunteered as a science ambassador.
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Mace Brown: co-chair, philanthropy
- Mace has donated most of the specimens and designed displays for the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History. He has worked tirelessly to make it a key resource in science outreach and education.
- He had a long and successful career in financial advising and asset management.
- Mace has worked with students and supported research and museum curation training over the last decade.
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Morgan Shuman Annab '13: communications director
- Morgan graduated from CofC (B.S. Geology, minor in Economics, 2013).
- She earned her M.S. in Geology at Auburn University in 2015 where she studied sea level rise and arsenic pollution in coastal Bangladesh.
- Morgan is a Principal Consultant with RS Energy Group.
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Karen Black '10: co-chair, philanthropy
- Karen is one of the founders of the Geology Alumni Endowed Award.
- She graduated from CofC (B.S. Geology, 2010) and earned her M.S. in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin.
- Karen is a geologist with Core Laboratories in Houston, Texas where she oversees projects and analyzes rock samples from oil and gas wells. Karen is past-president of the CofC Alumni Houston chapter.
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Daniel Boles '04: alumni-student liaison
- Dan graduated from CofC (B.S. Geology and B.A. in French, 2004).
- He received his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law.
- Dan founded Boles Law Firm in Charleston where he specializes in personal injury and civil rights cases.
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Chris Itteilag '08: social coordinator
- Chris graduated from CofC (B.S. Geology, 2008).
- He graduated from Georgetown University in 2014 with a master's degree in Real Estate Development.
- Chris is a licensed realtor at Washington Fine Properties and is passionate about bringing Geology courses to younger students to allow their interest and passion to develop early on.
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Will Vesely '16: social coordinator
- Will graduated from CofC (B.S. Geology, 2016).
- He earned his M.S. degree in Environmental Science at Virginia Tech in 2018.
- Will is a field scientist with Terracon, an environmental and geotechnical consulting firm. He conducts site assessments and wetland delineation around the Southeast U.S.
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SUMMER 2019 ACTIVITIES
The Department had a lot of activities going on this past summer, including Field Studies trips to the western U.S. (GEOL 360) and South Africa (GEOL 365), and also many different student-faculty research projects.
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Field Studies: Western U.S. with Dr. Chadwick and Caitlyn Mayer
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Students help Dr. Chadwick sample a dacite lava flow, Rio Grande Rift.
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Measuring strat sections, Tres Piedras, NM
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Great Sand Dunes, CO.
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Rappelling into Slaughter Canyon Cave, NM.
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Field Studies: South Africa with Dr. Ali
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Students mapped the upper sequence of the Karoo sedimentary deposits, Jurassic and Triassic periods at Golden Gate National park, South Africa. The sedimentary deposits represent changing climate from wet to progressively arid conditions. This park is well-known because the oldest dinosaur embryos ever discovered were found here.
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Students are studying a dike swarm at the center of the largest meteor impact that the Earth has ever felt - Vredefort Dome – about 2 billion years ago. Students learned about the geology of the area and were led on a field trip by Prof. Roger Gibson from University of Witwatersrand.
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Students learned field mapping methods at the Cape Folds site. These large structures were formed during the Paleozoic due to the collision of the African plate with a portion of the plate that now contains the Falkland Islands in the southern Atlantic. They were originally contiguous with the Ventana Mountains near Bahía Blanca in Argentina.
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Students explored a Pleistocene-aged dune system near the Atlantic coast in the northwest part of South Africa at Langebaan.
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Students studied the Precambrian basement sequence (630 million years old) of the Cape granite suite that formed during the subduction of the Adamaster Ocean under Africa and today defines the high energy coastline of southwestern South Africa near Langbaan.
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Summer Research
We had seven research students last summer doing lab, field and computer-based projects advised by our faculty. Two of the students, Marisa Knight and Grace Eldridge, were supported by the Geology Alumni Endowed Award. THANK YOU to our generous donors! All students presented their research results at the Celebration of Scholars symposium during Convocation on August 19th. Captions for photos below--
Top row: Shannon Ware, "Active and Passive Treatment of Water in Stormwater Retention Ponds" (Dr. Vulava); Erika Gainey - speaking with new major Ashlyn - "Alluvial Fan Evolution in the Santee River Basin since the Last Glacial Maximum" (Dr. Harris); Aidyn Trubey, "Westward Drift of the Lithosphere" (Dr. Beutel); Grace Eldridge - speaking with Dr. Them - "Sorption Behavior of PAHs to Tire Materials" (Dr. Beckingham).
Bottom row: Hailey Connell, "Active and Passive Treatment of Water in Stormwater Retention Ponds" (Dr. Vulava); and Clara Meier, "Was Massive Volcanism Responsible for the Rapid Climate Change and Extinction in the Early Cenozoic?" (Dr. Them). Not pictured: Marisa Knight, "M&Ms: Mercury Anomalies and Mass Extinctions" (Dr. Them).
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ALUMNI KUDOS
Geology alumnus Keith Meany recently received confirmation of his patent for Skubot!! Skubot is a system and method for identifying parts using 3D imaging. One can place a small part or object (say, for engineering instrumentation) in a container which is then scanned in 3D by lasers and compared to a database of parts. The scanned part is compared to the database inventory thus saving countless hours of searching catalogs or aisles of parts in a warehouse or store. Keith already has strong backing by Hewlett-Packard and his company is taking off to the stars!! Congrats, Keith. We are very proud of your ingenuity, vision and perseverance!
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COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON CELEBRATES 250 YEARS!
On January 30, 2020, the College of Charleston will celebrate its 250th anniversary with the theme "History. Made. Here." Click here to stay up to date on all activities as the College approaches this momentous occasion! Celebrating 250 years also means looking ahead to the future. The College of Charleston, led by new president, Dr. Andrew Hsu, is conducting a strategic planning effort to create a shared vision for the College's future and to implement action items to achieve this vision. You can learn more about the strategic planning process here.
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- September 28-29: Storm Makeup Days for Hurricane Dorian. Check with your instructors for details.
- October 1: Undergraduate Application to Graduate in Fall 2019.
- October 7: Incomplete coursework due to faculty for any Summer 2019 course.
- October 11: Drop/Add deadline, Express II classes.
- October 14-15: Fall break (no classes)
- October 25: Withdrawal deadline for full semester classes.
- October 28: Spring 2020 early registration begins.
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