The highlights of the last two years include: my professional leave during spring 1996 that allowed time for field work in Central America, the organization of a water resources conference in Spokane in April 1997, and my first field visit to an active volcano in Hawaii in May 1997.
In the spring of 1996, I traveled to Central America with Dr. Thomas Miller (EWU adjunct professor in geology) for several weeks during the leave period where we continued field work in the karst. This year we were invited to accompany a National Geographic Society funded archeological expedition into the Bladen River valley, a remote and seldom visited section of the rain forest in Belize. We specifically mapped the caves at the head of the valley, finding more than 5 km of new, unexplored and unknown cave passage which redefines what we know about the hydrology and subterranean drainage systems in this area. At the same time, we also participated in the filming of a documentary on the caves and karst of the region. It aired on public television in late summer 1997, on a new series called Anyplace Wild. Note that I suffered miserably from a tick-transmitted relapsing fever (Borrelia recurrentis) upon return to the United States - I was treated with some potent antibiotics and am well. Despite this, Tom and I are planning to return to the jungle in the spring of 1998.
In addition, I continued
my research on the hydrogeology of northern Spokane County with my graduate
student Reanette Boese. Reanette successfully defended her thesis,
and she is employed by the Spokane County Water Quality Management
Program.
Doug Christenson has also finished his thesis work on storm water discharge
in the Cheney area and works for a civil engineering firm in Spokane.
In the background I have at least four more students at various stages
of their thesis work: Deanna Clarkson is nearing completion on her
study of nitrate contribution to the Rathdrum Prairie aquifer from tributary
drainage basins, funded by the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality;
Kayti Didrickson is working on a water budget study of a small watershed
in western Washington; Doug Gearhart is beginning his work on evaluating
the pump-and-treat system at a local landfill; and Dennis Murray is analyzing
the impact of mine wastes on groundwater quality in Ferry County.
Sadly, once these students complete their M.S. degrees, we will shelve
the graduate program in geology due to low enrollments, an apathetic faculty,
and an unsupportive administration.
Spending winter quarter on professional leave measuring and comparing Permian bryozoans and preparing a manuscript was one of the highlights of 1996 for me. The other exciting thing was learning that I had received a two-year undergraduate research grant from the Petroleum Fund of the American Chemical Society, which began in July of 1996. This grant provides undergraduate scholarships of $2,500 for two students to learn how to do bryozoan research in the field during the summer and in the laboratory during both summers and the academic year. The first two students to be named American Chemical Society Scholars under this program are James D. Biggar and Theresa McKay. Theresa has graduated and has been accepted into the graduate school. The newest undergraduate scholar in the program is John Wallis. Jim and Theresa worked on bryozoans from the Salt Range of Pakistan and John studied Pennsylvanian bryozoans of the Naco Formation, Arizona.
In December, we received word that the joint paper by Mehemed Gheddida, Bruce Wardlaw, and myself on the Jumpoff Joe Formation was finally published. This paper took three years from submission to publication.
Also in December,
the President of the Northwest Mining
Association presented me with the
President's Award for past service to the association.
I share this award with many of our alumni
who have helped me present the summer course
for teachers over the past 28 years.
Recent emphasis of research in geochemistry at EWU is on the use of lead isotopes to identify the source of lead in surface and ground waters, soils and sediments in the Coeur d'Alene-Spokane area. Lead isotope data suggest that some of the drinking water wells tapping the Spokane Valley aquifer contain lead from the Coeur d'Alene mining district. I continue to collaborate with graduate students and researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies on projects related to impact of mining activities on trace element geochemistry and lead isotopic composition of soils, sediments and water. I visited Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jerusalem and Cairo during the months of April and May 1997 to present some of the results of our studies at international conferences. I presided on a session on environmental and engineering geology at the 1997 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America held in Salt Lake City and presented two papers at the meeting.
I have also been enjoying
working in the Geochemistry Laboratory,
which is presently equipped with
more instruments and better facilities than
in the past. Recently, I have been able to develop
several new sensitive methods for analysis of
ultra-trace amounts of a large number of elements in
high purity metals and electronic materials by inductively
coupled plasma mass spectrometry and Zeeman
graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry.
As I go into my 30th year of teaching at EWU I am finding it increasingly more difficult to convince students that I am still 39 years old! This is now my second year of a reduced teaching (and salary) contract in order to allow time for research and other activities. I am working on a revised and expanded "Geologic Story of the National Parks and Monuments" textbook. The amount of revision and expansion is very large and so is the amount of time needed! When things are going well it is like writing a new term paper every week. Only 40 more parks and monuments to go! I did manage to have one research paper published in 1996 in the Canadian Journal of Earth Science along with colleagues Dale Stradling (Geography) and Paul Carrara (USGS) on "The southern limit of Cordilleran ice in the Colville and Pend Oreille valleys of northeastern Washington." Fun activities of any year are going into the field. I team-taught a one-week summer class on "Kicking Ash at Mount St. Helens" and a fall course on "Geology of the Snake River Plain." Professor Buchanan and I got to climb Mount St. Helens for the umpteenth time and the fall class got to visit John Day, Hagerman, Thousand Springs, Craters of the Moon, and the Madison Canyon landslide in the West Yellowstone area. I'm looking forward to our summer 1998 course on "Red Rocks and Rattlesnakes" to the Utah-Colorado-Wyoming area.
1996 started off with my being reelected department chair for another four years. Lower than expected university enrollments, smaller class sizes, and the resulting loss of revenue has caused more belt-tightening. This, in addition to formulating a new departmental plan and updating the departmental accreditation paperwork, kept me very busy during the fall and winter quarters. I took a long-overdue sabbatical last spring.
I continue to teach Historical Geology and Stratigraphy, along with the summer undergraduate research course. This fall, I added Environmental Geology, which had been taught by Bill Steele. As a member of the International Cambrian Stage Subcommission, I attended a field conference in Spain in summer 1996. One of the really neat side trips was visiting a cave with Cro-Magnon art, not to mention visiting castles, cathedrals, and walled cities, and spending a little time on the beach at Costa del Sol.
In the summer of 1997,
I led a two-week field trip in southern
Nevada for some of my Spanish colleagues.
Late in the summer, I attended the Second
International Trilobite Conference, where I reported
informally on some of my research results. There
was so much interest and controversy, I agreed
to co-lead a field trip to examine my data next
May. I expect that this will be a very lively trip.
I'm currently enjoying good health and the largest Structural Geology class in years: 12 students. Recovery from rotator cuff surgery is complete, and I recommend having surgery to anyone with such a problem. My research concerning propagation of native terrestrial orchids of the genus Cypripedium has been going very well, and I can grow all but one U.S. species, c. montanum, from seed. I presented results of this work at a meeting at the National Arboretum last March, and the Proceedings volume for this meeting is now out in both book and CD ROM form. I've also developed a home page for our little orchid seedling business and it can be found at: http://www.ior.com/scl
The computer has become
increasingly important in all aspects
of my life, and I'm currently using
the internet more and more in classes.
[The above was
written by Steele just prior to announcing that he was taking early retirement
and would not return fall quarter, 1997. Bill and his wife Carol
have moved to Bovey, Minnesota, and he wishes his former students the
best.]
I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to join the faculty of the Geology Department as the new Mineralogist-Petrologist. Since my arrival a year ago, the mineralogy-petrology curriculum has been improved with the acquisition of a Javelin video camera and Sony monitor for teaching optical techniques and examining rocks and minerals under the microscope. In mid-November of 1997 I submitted a NSF proposal to support the purchase of a new powder X-ray diffractometer to replace obsolete and inoperable equipment.
Although most of my research interests lie in the New England Appalachians (granulite facies partial melting reactions and their products; spessartine garnet quartzites and diffusional processes), I have recently started a research program in the St. Maries, ID region. The mapping of metamorphic rocks in central Idaho that was done years ago has not been re-evaluated -- structural problems dealing with accretionary boundaries and suture zones need resolution. It is clear that there has been no rigorous petrologic work done on the metamorphic rocks in central Idaho to ascertain the metamorphic P-T conditions and P-T-t evolution using thermobarometric techniques. My research deals with the resolution of these kinds of problems -- my petrologic work continues and Jim Raubolt is doing a senior thesis on the geochemistry of units from the Precambrian Wallace Formation. This summer will be spent mapping and collecting samples for continued petrologic and geochemical analysis. Geologists from the Idaho Geologic Survey are in favor of developing a research program on some of the metamorphic rocks in this region -- with some cooperation, and luck, a good and even-funded research program can be developed between the University of Idaho and Eastern Washington University.
I attended a workshop
entitled "Innovative and Effective
Teaching in the Geosciences" in June at the College
of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA; presented
papers at Washington State University in September
and at the national meeting of the Geological
Society of America meeting in October (Salt
Lake City); and will present another paper at the
northeastern section of the Geological Society of America
meeting to be held in March (Portland, Maine).