The KU Geologic Record
Volume 1, September 2004
Each year, the American Geological Institute publishes an issue of Geotimes summarizing the highlights of recent major discoveries in the Earth Sciences. This year, the issue is separated into sections on Solid Earth, Water and Climate, Beyond Earth, Life Through Time, and Resources. It is quite an accomplishment to have even a single mention in this volume, but. KU geoscientists have demonstrated their leadership roles in research by having a major presence in it. As well as having a number of research discoveries cited, KU researchers were invited to write one of the articles.
KU has one of the strongest research groups in the world working on carbonate rocks. Geotimes invited this productive group to write the article on recent discoveries in Carbonates. Jennifer Roberts (KU assistant professor), Luis González (KU associate professor), Bob Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor), Evan Franseen (KU courtesy professor; KGS senior scientist), and Paul Enos (KU emeritus distinguished professor) all contributed. Ultimately the article was written with the entire KU Carbonate Research Group in the author line.
A discovery of KU faculty members Jennifer Roberts, Luis González, Gwen Macpherson (KU associate professor), and Phil Bennet (University of Texas) was credited with being the first to precipitate the mineral dolomite under controlled, low-temperature experimental conditions using methanogenic microorganisms. Low-temperature precipitation of dolomite has always been one of those experimental goals just out of the reach of geochemists, until now. Dolomite is one of the most common minerals in the record of sedimentary rocks, and evaluating its origin has been so difficult that it still is commonly addressed as the "dolomite problem."
The discoveries of Jason McKirahan (MS ‘99), Bob Goldstein, and Evan Franseen were cited for their work on build-and-fill sequence stratigraphy, a new concept in stratigraphy that integrates paleotopography and sea-level history.
Anita Csoma (PhD ‘03) and Bob Goldstein were cited for developing the diagenetic salinity cycle technique, an approach that uses tiny growth zones in crystals to reconstruct sea level and climate history.
The paper by Dave Newell (PhD ’96; KGS assistant scientist), Bob Goldstein, and Carl Burdick (ConocoPhillips) was cited as the example of resurgent focus on hydrothermal oil and gas reservoirs. These are systems in which hot fluids move though rocks and enhance porosity. Such studies integrate hydrogeology, tectonics, and petroleum geology.
Rolfe Mandel (KGS associate scientist and KU Anthropology associate professor) was mentioned for his work in organizing a pre-meeting field trip in association with the upcoming Geological Society of America meeting.
International recognition can only serve to strengthen our Department, and such a major presence in the Geotimes Highlights of Discoveries issue is a prominent "feather in the cap" of KU researchers.
Groundwater is an important resource for Kansas and for the Nation. Contributions by KU researchers are helping to solve some of the most important problems in hydrogeology. Faculty members Carl McElwee (KU professor), Rick Devlin (KU assistant professor), and John Healy (KGS research assistant) have just received a grant from the US Army. This is a three-year grant for $368,613 on Hydraulic Tomography and High-Resolution Slug Testing to Determine Hydraulic Conductivity Distributions. The focus of this research is on developing techniques useful in remediation of contaminated groundwater.
Since spatial changes in hydraulic conductivity are a major factor governing the transport and fate of a pollutant as it moves through an aquifer, the objective is to improve field techniques for better definition of three-dimensional spatial distribution of hydraulic conductivity in contaminated aquifers. If successful, this research is likely to expand KU funding into a large number of contaminated sites managed by the US Army. Ultimately, it could make a difference in developing better techniques for cleaning contaminated aquifers, leading to a safer and more reliable groundwater resource, greatly impacting the Kansas community as well as global water resources
HISTORY OF THE COLORADO PLATEAU
A grant proposal by Dan Stockli (KU assistant professor) has been approved by the National Science Foundation. This is a two-year grant for $115,182 to look at the Colorado Plateau region of the Western United States. It concentrates on the tectonic controls on erosion of rocks off of the surface, recorded from the cooling history of underlying rocks. As there is a predictable increase in temperature as one goes deep into the crust, the record of cooling below certain temperature thresholds can be used as a record of timing of erosion of rocks off of the surface.
This study uses the (U-Th)/He lab and other facilities that Stockli has built at KU. There are only a small number of labs producing this kind of data in the United States, so his work is very much in demand. Recently, Stockli was also successful in acquiring NSF funding for a technician in this laboratory. With this extra manpower, KU should be able to handle a large volume of data from around the world, thus bringing more focus to the Department and its programs.
CUTTING-EDGE LAB TO BE ESTABLISHED
Luis González (KU associate professor) and Bob Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor) received a $450,000 grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation for funding of a Paleoenvironmental and Environmental Stable Isotope Laboratory. Dale Slusser was the coordinator from KU Endowment and contributed greatly to the proposal's success.
This laboratory will strengthen and expand synergy among KU researchers. Researchers specifically identified as benefiting from the laboratory, and whose research statements contributed to its success, are from the Department of Geology, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Department of Geography: Steve Hasiotis (KU assistant professor of Geology); Jennifer Roberts (KU assistant professor of Geology); Rick Devlin (KU assistant professor of Geology); Joy Ward (KU assistant professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology); Sharon Billings (KU assistant professor of Biology); Luis González; James Thorp (KU professor and senior scientist with the Kansas Biological Survey); Bob Goldstein; Bruce Lieberman (KU assistant professor of Geology); Roger. Kaesler (KU professor of Geology); Gwen Macpherson (KU associate professor of Geology); Bill Johnson (KU professor of Geography); Tom Taylor (Roy A. Roberts Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology); and Edith Taylor (KU professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology).
The researchers' unified efforts in establishing this facility have the goals of:
Understanding the modern feedbacks between biological processes and environmental states, changes, or thresholds.
Developing techniques for evaluating how such biological responses or environmental parameters are preserved in geological materials; and
Analyzing geological materials to reconstruct paleoenvironment and evolutionary or ecosphere response.
This new funding will be pooled with startup funds from KU and NSF funds, both to Luis González, to total $1,156,913 for the facility. It should be one of the finest facilities for stable isotopic analysis in environmental research in the United States.
The strong financial and space commitment from KU impressed the Keck representatives as did support and enthusiasm from Kim Wilcox (College Dean), Rob Weaver (College Associate Dean), George Wilson (Associate Vice Provost), and Robert Hemenway (Chancellor), who all made a solid and very positive impact during the site visit.
BIODIVERSITY IN GROUNDWATER ECOSYSTEMS
Jennifer Roberts (KU assistant professor), David Graham (KU associate professor of Environmental Engineering), Bill Picking (KU associate professor of Microbiology), and a colleague from Allegheny College had their biogeosciences proposal funded through the NSF. The grant will be about $400K over four years.
This joint project is oriented toward examining "Groundwater ecosystems: The interdependence of microbial mineral weathering and population diversity." Results from this project will lend insight into how mineral composition and weathering reactions impact the biodiversity of the surface-colonizing microbial communities for a variety of groundwater ecosystems. This study will lend greater insight into issues of groundwater quality.
Dr. Roberts is performing the geochemistry and mineralogy work while Drs. Graham and Picking will be examining the microbiology aspect of this study. The collaboration with Allegheny will involve their students coming to KU for a summer research program as well as a cross-country, team-taught undergraduate course in Geomicrobiology. Not only will this give a hands-on look at this information to a broader audience, it may serve as a useful recruiting tool for KU Geology.
We are proud of Dr. Roberts's accomplishments and are excited to see the degree to which research in microbial biogeoscience is strongly supported and funded by the geological community. New information gained from this study will continue to demonstrate the Department's leadership role in research.
ANCIENT OCEANOGRAPHY
Luis González (KU associate professor) has just published a new paper on Ordovician rocks. The study shows how isotopic techniques can be used successfully in reconstructing paleooceanography (Ludvison, G. A., Witzke, B. J., González, L. A., Carpenter, S. J., Schneider, C. L., and Hasiuk, F. H., 2004, Late Ordovician carbon isotope excursions and their paleooceanographic significance: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 210, p. 187-214). This kind of work is very important in global change research. Global perturbations in Earth's carbon cycle are easily detectable with carbon isotopes in ancient marine rocks. Such studies should have a major impact on the understanding of the past and future of Earth's ecosystem. Perturbations in atmospheric carbon dioxide lead to major changes in Earth's climate, which affected organisms of the past.
FUTURE HABITABILITY OF PLANET EARTH
Four KU faculty members (Luis González, Bob Goldstein, Steve Hasiotis, and Edith Taylor) just attended an NSF workshop on research subjects related to deep-time paleoclimate. This workshop is part of a deep-time paleoclimate and geosystems initiative that seems likely to generate significant new NSF funding. The focus is on predicting the long-term habitability of planet Earth by understanding its past. The KU researchers represent a complementary team that is already interacting on paleoclimate reconstruction, and the interaction between paleoclimate and life on Earth.
NEW VOLUME ON SPONGES
Roger Kaesler (KU professor) and the Paleontological Institute have produced the newest Treatise of Invertebrate Paleontology volume. This is the most important reference series used in invertebrate paleontology. The new volume is on the sponges, a group that has seen significant revision in recent years. Along with the 46 volumes that have been published, and the 21 volumes in progress, the Treatise will continue to be an indispensable contributor to the field of paleontology.
FRACTURES IN AQUIFERS
George Tsoflias (KU assistant professor), Van Gestel, Stoffa, Blankenship, and Sen just published “Vertical Fracture Detection by Exploiting the Polarization Properties of GPR Signals,” Geophysics, Vol. 69, No. 3, p. 803-810. The paper investigates high angle of incidence transmission of radar waves through vertical fractures and uses the polarization characteristics of electromagnetic waves to detect the location and orientation of vertical fractures. The significance of the paper is that for the first time a method is presented for the detection of non-reflecting, steeply dipping fractures.
Fractures are important conduits for fluid flow in aquifers, and vertical fractures are amazingly common (just look at any road cut of limestone that you see anywhere in eastern Kansas). The new technique explored in this paper can be used to sense vertical fractures in aquifers remotely. Thus, it could be very useful as a method for tracing contaminant plumes in the subsurface. This paper and its findings will aid in improving groundwater quality in contaminated sites.
GLOBAL STANDARD FOR A CAMBRIAN STAGE BOUNDARY
Dick Robison (KU professor emeritus) co-authored a paper in Geobios entitled “Potential global standard stratotype section and point (GSSP) for a Cambrian stage boundary defined by the first appearance of the trilobite Ptychagnostus atavus, Drum Mountains, Utah, USA." This work figures into a large-scale effort in the geologic community to refine the geologic time scale and apply it to the rock record.
STUDENTS IN GEOPHYSICS RECEIVE AWARDS
Steve Sloan received the 2004-05 GSH/Charlie and Jean Smith SEG Scholarship. Steve is an MS student in near-surface seismology. His advisor is Don Steeples.
Robert Eslick received the 2004-05 ExxonMobil Upstream Research Co. SEG Scholarship. Rob is a senior working on a near-surface seismology senior thesis project with George Tsoflias.
STUDENT IN PALEONTOLOGY RECEIVES AWARD
One of our Ph.D. students, Dan Hembree, has just received the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s Bryan Patterson Award, a grant and award. The society gives only one of these awards each year. Dan earned this honor for his proposal "Using modern burrowing organisms to determine the paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic significance of continental ichnofossils in the Eocene-Oligocene White River Formation, Colorado."
OLD CRUST FROM BRAZIL
Randy Van Schmus (Union Pacific Resources Distinguished Professor) has just published a paper documenting tectonic conditions associated with the earliest conditions of continent formation in South America. Randy's work on Precambrian history in Brazil earned him induction into the Brazilian Academy of Sciences last year. (see Dantas, Van Schmus, Hunspacker, Fetter, Brito Neves, Cordani, Nutman, Williams, 2004, The 3.4-3.5 Ga São Jose do Capestre massif, NE Brazil: remnants of the oldest crust in South America: Precambrian Research, 113-137)
NEW FINDS ON TRACE FOSSILS IN CONTINENTAL SETTNGS
Steve Hasiotis (KU assistant professor) continues to blur the boundaries between sedimentology, stratigraphy, paleontology, and geomicrobiology, enhancing KU's reputation in these fields as he does it. Just this summer, he has made an impressive impact by publishing 158 pages in 6 journal articles. One of the papers came out in Sedimentary Geology. Steve calls this 91-page paper a reconnaissance! The paper concerns trace fossils in sedimentary rocks deposited in continental settings, as opposed to the more commonly studied marine settings. Trace fossils are the products of interactions between organisms and sediment (such as tracks, trails, and burrows). Steve is the world leader in using these trace fossils for reconstructing paleoenvironment and paleoclimate. The Sedimentary Geology paper is on Jurassic paleoenvironment and paleoclimate. It will have an impact on the deep-time paleoclimate community, the oil industry, and the vertebrate paleontologists who study dinosaurs.
Steve’s most recent papers are: Hasiotis, S. T. 2004, Reconnaissance of Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation ichnofossils, Rocky Mountain region, USA: environmental, stratigraphic, and climatic significance of terrestrial and freshwater ichnocoenoses. Sedimentary Geology, v. 167, p. 277-368; Hasiotis, S. T., Wellner, R. W., Martin, A., and Demko, T. M., 2004, Vertebrate burrows from Triassic and Jurassic continental deposits of North America and Antarctica: their paleoenvironmental and paleoecological significance. Ichnos, v. 11, p. 103-124; Kvale, E. P., Hasiotis, S. T., Mickelson, D., and Johnson, G. D., 2004, The history of dinosaur track discoveries in Wyoming with emphasis on the Bighorn Basin. Ichnos, v. 11, p. 3-9; Hembree, D. I. (KU PhD student), Martin, L. (KU professor; Senior Curator – Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center), and Hasiotis, S. T., 2004, Amphibian burrows and ephemeral ponds of the lower Permian Speiser Shale, Kansas: Evidence for seasonality in the Midcontinent. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 203, p. 127-152.
WHAT LIVES IN ACID MINE DRAINAGE?
A paper by Steve Hasiotis (KU assistant professor) came out recently in Geomicrobiology and looks at the conditions in modern acid mine drainage as possible analogs for ancient systems that may have existed on Earth. Steve's work, along with that of Jennifer Roberts (KU assistant professor), Bob Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor), and Tony Walton (KU associate professor) continue to find ways to integrate microbiology into the geological sciences. A recently approved tuition-enhancement position, allocated to the Department, will further our efforts to excel in what is likely to be one of the hot and exciting areas of the geological sciences in the near future.
Steve’s paper is: Brake, S., Hasiotis, S. T., and Dannelly, K., 2004, Diatoms in acid mine drainage systems and their role in the formation of iron-rich stromatolites. Geomicrobiology Journal, v. 21, p. 1-10.
THE MORPHOLOGY OF STEVE?
Steve Hasiotis (KU assistant professor) is a co-author of a paper entitled "The Morphology of Steve." "The paper ... in the "Annals of Improbable Science" ... originated as a parody of the creationist practice of compiling lists of "scientists who doubt Darwinism"--such lists being intended to cast doubt that evolution is based on sound science. People at the NCSE (National Center for Science Education) decided to do a parody of this approach taken by the Discovery Institute, where the so-called "intelligent design" creationists have an online-list of about 100 scientists/ engineers/ physicians who "doubted Darwinism." [Excerpted from the citation in this paper.] (Scott, E. C., Hasiotis, S. T. 2004, The Morphology of Steve. Annals of Improbable Research, July-August, p. 24-29).
KU GEOLOGISTS IMPRESSIVE AT 2004 AAPG CONVENTION
The annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists was held in Dallas this spring, and it was a big one for KU! Not only did Jayhawks appear to be ubiquitous at the meeting, with 32 presentations, but their contributions continued to receive prestigious awards. The following are the honors and awards garnered by KU faculty, students, and alumni:
The Jules Braunstein Memorial Award is given each year at the annual convention in recognition of the best poster session paper presented the previous year at the annual convention. This year the award was presented to current Jayhawks, Alan Byrnes (KGS assistant scientist), Evan Franseen (KGS senior scientist), W. Lynn Watney (KGS senior scientist), and Marty Dubois (MS ’81, KU PhD student, KGS research geologist) for their poster entitled "The role of moldic porosity in Paleozoic Kansas reservoirs and the association of original depositional facies and early diagenesis with reservoir properties."
Each year, the best paper published in the Society for Sedimentary Geology's Journal of Sedimentary Research is awarded at the convention. This year's award went to alumnus Gene Rankey for his paper entitled "Spatial patterns of sediment accumulation on a Holocene carbonate tidal flat, northwest Andros Island, Bahamas."
At each convention, AAPG runs a special poster session for students, and this year two KU PhD students received awards. Galo Salcedo was awarded second place for "Depositional Environments of Lower Pennsylvanian Reservoir Sandstones, Southwestern Kansas", and Qi Lianshuang was awarded fourth place in the session for "Geostatistical 3D Reservoir Modeling of Mississippian St. Louis Carbonate Reservoir Systems, Kansas."
Following is a list of the 32 presentations by Jayhawks at the meeting. It is an impressive list of cutting-edge science of outstanding diversity.
• Recognizing Continental Trace Fossils in Outcrops and Core (SEPM Short Course), Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor) and Robert W. Wellner
• Geological and Geochemical Factors Influencing the Emerging Coalbed Gas Play in the Cherokee and Forest City Basins in Eastern Kansas, K. David Newell (KGS assistant scientist), Troy A. Johnson (KU MS student), W. Matthew Brown (KU MS student), Jonathan P. Lange (MS ‘04), and Timothy R. Carr (KGS senior scientist).
• Geostatistical 3D Reservoir Modeling of Mississippian St. Louis Carbonate Reservoir Systems, Kansas, Qi Lianshuang (KU PhD student).
• Regional Mapping of Formation Waters from Brine Chemistry Integrated with Petrophysical Data, John H. Doveton (KGS senior scientist), and Dana Adkins-Heljeson
• Thermal Regime of the Midcontinent El Dorado Oil Field (Kansas) interpreted from High Resolution Temperature Logs, Jason R. McKenna, Daniel F. Merriam (KGS senior scientist emeritus), and David D. Blackwell
• Depositional Environments of Lower Pennsylvanian Reservoir Sandstones, Southwestern Kansas, Galo Aristides Salcedo (KU PhD student).
• Microbial Precipitation of Dolomite in Methanogenic Groundwater, Jennifer Roberts (KU assistant professor), Luis A. González (KU associate professor), and G. L. Macpherson (KU associate professor).
• Models for Environmentally Sound and Economically Viable Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Opportunities, Timothy R. Carr (KGS senior scientist), Alan P. Byrnes (KGS assistant scientist), Martin K. Dubois (MS ’81, KU PhD student), and Scott W. White (KGS as. scientist).
• Theory and Practice of a Web-based Intelligent Agent in the Location of Pay Zones on Digital Well-Log Files, John H. Doveton (KGS senior scientist), W. Lynn Watney (KGS senior scientist), and Geoffrey C. Bohling (BA ’86, BS ’87, PhD ’99, KGS assistant scientist).
• Build-and-Fill Sequences: Predictable Patterns of Creation and Destruction of Paleotopography in Small-Scale Sequences, Evan K. Franseen (KGS senior scientist) and Robert H. Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor).
• Diagenetic and Sea-Level Controls on Porosity Preservation: An Example from Oolitic and Crinoidal Carbonates, Mississippian, Kansas and Missouri, Matthew E. Ritter (MS ’04) and Robert H. Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor).
• Linking Biota, Soils, Hydrology, and the Soil-Water Budget in northeastern Kansas: Developing Ichnologic Signatures as proxies for Ancient Climates through actualistic studies, Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor), Daniel I. Hembree (MS ’03, KU PhD student), Kristen L. Myshrall (MS ’03), Emily A. Laut (KU undergraduate student), Rachel Mathis (KU undergraduate student), and Jennifer Roberts (KU assistant professor).
• Rates and Character of Opposite-Sense Small-Scale Tectonic Rotations Associated with Sinistral Transcurrent Shear Zones, Cabo de Gata Region, SE Spain, Paul Montgomery, Evan K. Franseen (KGS senior scientist), Robert H. Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor), and Mark W. Hounslow.
• Casts of Modern Continental Burrows as Trace Fossil Analogs in the Reconstruction of Paleoenvironment and Paleoclimate, Daniel I. Hembree (MS ’03, KU PhD student) and Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor).
• Use of Relational Database and GIS Tools to Assess Carbon Sequestration Volumes: The MIDCARB Database, Beverly Seyler, Scott M. Frailey, Timothy R. Carr (KGS senior scientist), James A. Drahovzal, Brandon C. Nuttall, John A. Rupp, Wilfrido Solano, and Lawrence H. Wickstrom.
• Collaborative Geo-Engineering Reservoir Characterization and Modeling on the Web, W. Lynn Watney (KGS senior scientist), John H. Doveton (KGS senior scientist), Timothy R. Carr (KGS senior scientist), Geoffrey C. Bohling (BA ’86, BS’ 87, PhD ’99, KGS assistant scientist), John Victorine (KGS systems analyst), JP Pakalapati (Networking & Telecommunications Systems Programmer), Saibal Bhattacharya (KGS assistant scientist), Alan P. Byrnes (KGS assistant scientist), Glen Gagnon (KGS senior systems analyst/programmer), Ken Stalder (KGS web administrator), Melissa Moore (KGS systems analyst), Martin K. Dubois (KU PhD student), Willard J. Guy (KGS coordinator), and Kurt Look (KGS program assistant).
• Controlled Instantaneous Supersaturation: Experimental Carbonate Precipitation Under Geologically Plausible Scenarios, Luis A. González (KU associate professor), Vionette De Choudens (KU PhD student), and Jennifer Roberts (KU assistant professor).
• The Indian Basin, New Mexico: A Tectonically Valved Hydrothermal Dolomite Reservoir, Erik J. Hiemstra (MS ’04) and Robert H. Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor).
• Geologic Factors Controlling Natural Gas Distribution Related to the January 2001 Gas Explosions in Hutchinson, Kansas, Susan E. Nissen (KGS research geophysicist), W. Lynn Watney (KGS senior scientist), Saibal Bhattacharya (KGS assistant scientist), Alan P. Byrnes (KGS assistant scientist), and David Young (KGS research assistant).
• Identification of Dinosaur Tracks in Palustrine-lacustrine Deposits of the Morrison Formation: Their Significance to Lacustrine Sequence Stratigraphy, Debra S. Jennings (KU MS student).
• Incised Valleys within Tidally Influenced Deltaic Strata: Torrey Member of the Lower Triassic, Moenkopi Formation, Timothy E. Perkins (KU MS student) and Diane L. Kamola (KU associate professor).
• Variations of in situ stresses as indicators of active fractures and faults, M. Lee Allison (KGS senior geologist).
• Evaluating Uplift Rates, Subsidence Rates, and Origin of Drowning Unconformities Using Marine Cements, Gianni Mallarino, R. H. Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor), and Pietro Di Stefano.
• Examples of how Ancient Soil Biota Mediated Features in Paleosols: Lower Eocene Willwood Formation, Wyoming, Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor) and Mary J. Kraus.
• Integrating Ichnofossils and Substrates to Interpret Avulsion in Floodplain Deposits in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Big Horn Basin, Wyoming, Brian F. Platt (MS ’04, KU PhD student), Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor), and Mary J. Kraus.
• Interoperability of Databases and Software Tools: Building Geoinformatics and the Cyberinfrastructure, M. Lee Allison (KGS senior geologist).
• Sequence Stratigraphy of the Lower Sekwi Formation, Selwyn Basin, Northwest Territories, Canada, Kelly A. Dilliard, Michael C. Pope, Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor), and Bruce S. Lieberman (KU associate professor).
• Stratal Architecture and Paleoclimate in Continental Depositional Systems: The Record of Landscape Evolution in the Upper Triassic Chinle and Upper Jurassic Morrison Formations, Colorado Plateau, USA, Timothy Demko and Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor).
• Controls on Differential Evolution of Triassic Carbonate Platforms of the Nanpanjiang Basin, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Yunnan, South China, Daniel J. Lehrmann (PhD ’94), Paul Enos (KU professor emeritus), Marcello Minzoni (KU PhD student), Donghong Pei (KU PhD student), Paul Montgomery, and Jiayong Wei.
• Porosity Reduction in Meteoric-Marine Mixing Zones: Case Studies Illustrate some of the Controls on Calcite and Aragonite Precipitation in Mixing-Zones, Anita E. Csoma (PhD ’03) and Robert H. Goldstein (KU Department Chair, Haas Distinguished Professor).
• Preliminary report on the ichnofossils of the Lower Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation, north-central Utah, Emily S. Tremain (KU MS student), Stephen T. Hasiotis (KU assistant professor), and Julie A. Maxson.
• Paleotopographic and Sea-level Controls on the Sequence Stratigraphic Character of a Heterozoan Carbonate Succession: Pliocene Carboneras Basin, Southeast Spain, Peter Dillett (MS ’04), Robert H. Goldstein and Evan K. Franseen (KGS senior scientist).
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