If we begin with certainties,

we shall end in doubts, but

if we begin with doubts, and

are patient in them, we shall

end in certainties.

—Francis Bacon

Hello alumni and greetings

from Kittrell Hall. Well,

another year has passed and

we have all been very busy

with instruction, research,

and advising Senior Theses.

2008 has been a very good

year for the department in

terms of growth, as we now

have 57 majors enrolled in

the Geosciences program—

the largest number of stu-

dents in over 15 years! We

graduated 9 students last

year, and we anticipate 11

graduates next year. Believe

it or not, there are 25 stu-

dents enrolled in GEOL 2500

(formerly GEOL 2300) for

the spring 2009 semester.

We welcome all the new stu-

dents and the energy they

bring to the department.

2008 also ushered in

harder economic times for

higher education in Tennes-

see. Budget cuts were neces-

sary for TTU and our depart-

ment as state appropriations

were reduced. All economic

indicators suggest that 2009

will be even tougher, as the

state may reduce appropria-

tions for the TBR schools

(like TTU) by 15-20%. This

would mean even deeper

cuts to our department, and

all academic units across

campus. However, we have

a plan in place to deal with

these reductions that will

not degrade the quality of

the program. We will con-

tinue to offer all the neces-

sary courses for graduation,

take the cool field trips,

award scholarships, and

sponsor department activi-

ties just like before. Our

first priority is our students

and their education.

Lastly, I would like to men-

tion the TTU Alumni Men-

toring Program. Mentors

are alumni who are available

to students through email,

phone or in person to share

advice concerning career

success. Our students in the

past have truly benefited

through work experience and

discussions with profession-

als. If you would like to act

as a mentor for a current

Geosciences student, please

contact me: Mharri-

son@tntech.edu.

Student News

Between the fall 2007 se-

mester and the end of the

second summer semester of

2008, we graduated 9 Geo-

science students. Here are

the most recent graduates

from our department: Bran-

don Clowers, Josh Gen-

try, Drew Griswold, Amy

Herren, Phillip Derry-

berry, Will Goodwin,

Chris Record, Brent

Richey, and James Kim-

brell.

The department awarded

four scholarships for the

2008-09 academic year.

Hannah Rutherford was

awarded the Glasscock schol-

arship ($1500), Michael

Gadd was awarded the

Helton Alumni scholarship

($1000), Derrick Ho and

Nathan Burmeister were

awarded the Earth Sciences

Alumni scholarship ($1000

each). Four other students

were awarded scholarships

outside the department.

Michael Gadd was awarded

the LaVelle Smith scholar-

ship ($500) from the Middle

Tennessee Gem and Mineral

Society, and Terry Green,

Andrea Hitchcock, and

Camille Woods were

awarded the Stonecipher

Scholarship ($2000 each)

from the College of Arts and

Sciences. The Stonecipher

Scholarships are for incom-

ing Geosciences freshmen.

Congratulations to the re-

cipients and thank you

From the Chair

From the Chair 1-2

Faculty News 2-7

Student Scholarship/Research 8

News from the Secretary 8

Request for Alumni News 8

Inside this issue:

January 2009

Tennessee Technological University

Department of Earth Sciences

alumni who helped support the Alumni

scholarships with donations to the de-

partment.

In other student news, eight Geo-

sciences students presented their Sen-

ior Thesis research outside the depart-

ment in 2008. Phillip Derryberry,

James Kimbrell, Whitney Fuquay,

Will Goodwin, Brent Richey, and

Matt Silvey presented posters at the

annual TTU Student Research Day.

Phillip Derryberry and James Kim-

brell won a first-place award for their

work. In November, Julie Scott, Der-

rick Ho, and Whitney Fuquay pre-

sented their research at the Tennessee

Academy of Science meeting. Derrick

and Whitney both won first-place

awards and Julie won a third-place

award.

Department News

The big field trip in 2008 was the geo-

biology excursion to central California

from May 12-19. Five Geosciences stu-

dents, seven Biology students, and two

faculty members participated in this

trip that included stops to the Pacific

coast—Big Sur area, the Sierra Nevada,

and Death Valley. The students were

exposed to a diversity of geology, flora

and fauna not found anywhere else in

the world. For 2009, the summer field

trip is to Yellowstone and Grand Teton

Parks. More about this trip in the next

newsletter.

In October, the department celebrated

Earth Sciences Week again by selling

hot dogs, baked goods, rocks, minerals,

and fossils, with all the proceeds going

to the Geoclub. It was a fun day and it

allowed us to broadly advertise our pro-

gram.

In 2008, we were fortunate to have

had three invited speakers come to the

department to discuss their research.

Dr. Jennifer Jackson from Caltech gave

two talks about the physiochemical

properties of the mantle and high-

pressure mineral physics. Dr. Dan Lar-

sen from the University of Memphis

talked about the New Madrid seismic

hazard. Finally, Clayton McMillan

(Geosciences graduate, 2005) talked

about the water resources in southern

Florida. All the speakers spent time

with students afterwards discussing

geoscience careers and/or graduate

school. Again, we thank the speakers

for their time and for sharing their ex-

pertise.

For those interested in paleontology,

here is something for you. We cur-

rently have about 6 Geosciences stu-

dents who are actively engaged in the

preparation of Late Cretaceous dino-

saur bones from Montana. A slab of

rock from the Two Medicine Formation

was recently moved to Cookeville as

part of a local dinosaur museum dis-

play. Several of our students are in-

volved in the preparation, molding,

casting and reconstruction of skeletal

mounts of the dinosaurs on the slab.

Dr. Knox has more about this in his

section below.

Finally, I want to introduce our new

department secretary, Patty Dyer.

Patty comes to us from the department

of Mechanical Engineering where she

worked as a secretary. Our previous

secretary, Lindsey Welch, had the op-

portunity to attend graduate school out

of state, so she resigned this past sum-

mer. Patty started working for us in

July and we are thrilled that she did—

she is a hard worker with a wonderful

personality. Be sure to say hello to

Patty if you stop by the department for

a visit.

Enjoy the rest of the newsletter and

see what the Earth Sciences faculty has

been up to this past year. Have a won-

derful 2009 and please keep in touch.

—Mike Harrison

Chair, continued

Page 2 Department of Earth Sciences

Jason Duke

Hello graduates. I trust that all of

you are doing well and hope that

some of you are getting to do a little

(or a lot) of GIS and GPS in your

jobs. Our GIS program is thriving

here at Tech and I am still teaching

both GIS I and II. Both classes are

always at capacity and the interest

in GIS is still growing. I am still

keeping the classes on the cutting

edge of GIS and we are still working

on projects in GIS II for state parks,

county and city governments and

various other fields of research. I

would love to hear from any former

students if you have any questions

about GIS or if you just can say hello

and let me know what you are work-

ing on these days. You can reach me

via e-mail at duke@multipro.com

anytime. Take care.

—Jason

Rick Finch

Ric Finch and Janie Finch con-

tinue to run Rutahsa Adventures

(www.rutahsa.com ) taking adven-

turous travelers to exotic destina-

tions in Central and South Amer-

ica. Recent trips have included

some special excursions for cavers

to world-class caves in Guate-

mala. Ric continues to be active in

caving, making a presentation at

the First Congress of Central

American Speleology in Honduras

(2006), and is leading an expedi-

tion to Honduras in March 2009

to map two unusual caves, one

with a thermal stream, and one

deep cave developed in conglom-

erate (see attached photos).

He is also scheduled to make a

presentation at the 15th Interna-

tional Congress of Speleol-

ogy (Kerrville, TX, July 2009) on

the results of the study of the En-

sor Sink - Tires to Spare Cave hy-

drology that he and Sid Jones did

for the city of Cookeville.

News from Faculty

his work on aquifer storage and recovery

at the South Florida Water Management

District.

We recently had the ceiling in KH col-

lapse into my office on the 3rd floor! The

entire floor is closed while they repair and

inspect other areas. Good thing it hap-

pened after exams and I was not in the

office.

On the research front, I presented a

paper on sinkhole flooding at the AAG

meeting in Boston in April. That is an

awesome city, as far as cities go. We are

currently under a contract with the city of

Cookeville to map sinkhole floodplains, so

this was part of that research. The pro-

ject involves Dr. Mills and Dr. Li as well

as some current students. At home, the

kids are getting older and more interested

in what dad does. Hannah (9) and Marua

(7) like to come over and collect rock

samples from the rock bin outside Kittrell

Hall. Isaiah (2) just likes to go anywhere

with Daddy. Best wishes for a happy and

prosperous 2009.

—Evan

Larry Knox

Hi everyone! This past year was one

of travel, developing new courses, and

even working on dinosaurs here in

Cookeville. I can also tell you that

walking on crutches or moving around

in a wheel chair is not much fun at all!

In January of 2008 I pulled the Achilles

tendon on my right foot, and then fell

on a slippery floor while using crutches

and injured my big toe on the same foot.

I got to spend the next four months on

crutches and in a wheel chair in the

department. All of this because, I be-

lieve, I switched to a new brand of arch

supports that caused the injury to my

Achilles tendon. Despite some trepida-

tions (because my foot had not healed)

we took off for the southwestern U. S.

in May to visit several national parks.

I’m including some pictures from these

parks; I hope you will enjoy them.

News from Faculty Faculty and Emeritus Faculty were asked for contributions; here are their comments . . . . . . . .

Page 3 Volume 5, Issue 1

Derryberry, James Kimbrell, and

Matt Silvey. Phillip is now a M.S.

graduate student at UT—Knoxville,

James is working in the family oil busi-

ness in Louisiana, and Matt will work

for the BLM in Missouri starting Janu-

ary 2009. I wish them all the best in

their careers.

My own research continues to focus

on the structural geology of middle Ten-

nessee. The work done by Phillip,

James, and Matt has helped me better

understand the fluid history and grain-

scale strain field associated with the

Sequatchie Valley Thrust fault. Still,

there is a lot to learn, as not much work

has been done on this fault. I continue

to look for Senior Thesis students who

are interested in this type of research.

As chair, my teaching duties are re-

duced, but I continue to teach upper-

level geoscience courses, such as Struc-

tural Geology/Tectonics and Field Geol-

ogy. I will be involved tangentially

with the 2009 Yellowstone Park sum-

mer field trip, but it will be Dr. Mills

from our department who gets to go

this time. Maybe I’ll luck out for the

2010 trip.

Take care everyone. Be sure to stop

by Kittrell Hall 303 if you are ever here

for a visit.

—Mike

Evan Hart

Hello alumni! 2008 has been an excit-

ing year. I continue to teach Hydrogeol-

ogy, Water Resources, and Hazards.

The best part of course is going on field

trips. This year we did mostly local karst-

related trips and even did another dye

trace with the hydro students, with help of

local hydrogeologist Steve Anderson. I

am sure you will remember the names of

some of our field trip stops: Ensor Sink,

Tires-to-Spare Cave, Thunderhole, Farris

pit, and Window Cliffs. Another field trip

was to Center Hill Dam, where we toured

the seepage rehabilitation project, with

2003 graduate Scott Massa. We also

had 2005 graduate Clayton McMillan give

a presentation to our department about

—Ric

Mike Harrison

Hello again. My duties as chair, pro-

fessor, and father have been keeping

me quite busy the past year. The twins,

Patrick and Philip, have grown a lot

since I last wrote, and they are chatter-

ing all the time. They love watching

animated films (like Toy Story) and

playing with trucks. I included a photo

below.

In 2008, three students completed

their Senior Thesis with me: Phillip

Philip and Patrick

Faculty news, continued

Page 4 Department of Earth Sciences

Canyon De Chelley, AZ

Canyon De Chelley, AZ

Delicate Arch, Arches NP, UT

Landscape Arch, Arches NP, UT

Canyonlands NP, UT

Trail at Arches NP, UT

Capital Reef NP, UT

Bryce NP, UT

Faculty news, continued

Page 5 Volume 5, Issue 1

Half Dome (above), Nevada & Vernal Falls (below), Yosemite NP, CA

Bristlecone pine at Bryce NP, UT

Zion NP, UT

Long Valley Caldera, CA

Tufa towers at Mono Lake, CA (near

north end of chain of craters associ-

ated with volcanic eruptions)

May in the Sierra Nevada!

To the right and below is a slab of

rock from the Two Medicine Fm.

(Cretaceous) of Montana. It is cur-

rently in Cookeville where Jerry Ja-

cene, a long-time friend of mine, is ex-

posing and stabilizing the bone mate-

rial from at least three large predatory

dinosaurs (Daspletosaurus torosus) and

three hadrosaurs. Several departmen-

tal students are helping Jerry prepare

the slab, which will be molded and cast

as a replica. Later the bones will be

removed and skeletal mounts will be

constructed where possible. Ultimately

Page 6 Department of Earth Sciences

Faculty news, continued

ture above are Jesse Hill and Seth Coats

(geology) and Kyla Anderson (Biology).

My current research is on the evolution of

Carboniferous amphissitid ostracodes, and

I am teaching a new course called Paleobi-

ology in the spring semester of 2009.

—Larry

Jerry will open the Highlands Pre-

historic Museum at the site of the old

Wilson Sporting Goods building just

south of where the Cookeville depot

now stands. That is the current loca-

tion of the dinosaur rock slab. Other

TTU students working on the dino-

saur slab who didn’t make the pic-

Grand Teton NP, WY

Eocene fish from Green River Fm.,

Fossil Butte NP, WY

Large Black Bear in Yellowstone

NP, WY

Grand scenery along Wyoming

route 296!

l to r: Jerry Jacene (Highlands Prehistoric Museum); William Hutchison

(Nashville State CC); Lillian Crouse (TTU geology); John Corley (TTU geology);

Grant Lynch (TTU Biology); Justin Holman (TTU Biology).

Page 7 Volume 5, Issue 1

Faculty news, continued

H. Wayne Leimer

—Wayne

Hugh Mills

No long trips or other excitement to

report this year. In fact I don't think I

have been more than 100 miles outside

of Tennessee this year. (One consolation

is two infant grandchildren in Oak

Ridge). There are times to venture forth

on bold adventures and there are times

to hunker down. The near future at TTU

looks like a hunkering down time. On

the other hand, given the drastic cuts

that seem to be in the works, we're doing

pretty well, with the number of majors

reaching a level not seen since the early

1980's. We're still waiting for the full

impact of the mandatory senior-thesis to

hit - that should take care of any leisure

time we may now have, as well as any

time for our own research.

One thing alumni could do to boost our

morale without costing much is simply

to drop by and say hello. We really do

love to see our graduates. An if you can't

come in person, at least drop us an

email. I wish you all a happy new year.

—Hugh

Frank Stapor

Dr. Stapor has spent eight

months doing petroleum geology consult-

ing for the Venezuelan National Oil

Company over the past year and half.

The climate in the mountains south of

Caracas is wonderful, almost identical to

April and early May in Cookeville. How-

ever, the traffic is horrible and puts

most large US cities to shame. The De-

cember 2008 collapse of oil prices proba-

bly spells the end for my overseas con-

sulting. I have begun to do active re-

search in heavy mineral equivalence in

beach sands, using samples collected

many years ago in South Carolina

which have been put through the de-

partment’s settling tube, largely by stu-

dents in Environmental Sedimentology.

In addition, I now am involved in a pro-

ject to determine the depositional his-

tory of Holocene beach ridge plains in

Beaufort Co., SC, using OSL (Optically

Stimulated Luminesence) age dating.

And, at long last, my research into the

chlorite bodies of northwestern North

Carolina is about to be published. Many

students who took field trips to this re-

gion with me in Field Methods may re-

member these bodies from the metamor-

phic geology mapping exercise.

—Frank

Around the building:

Just below is a picture of Evan Hart’s

office just before Christmas when the old

plaster ceiling fell down on top of the

drop ceiling. We were happy to find out

that Evan was not under the stratigra-

phy!

The third floor was closed off for asbes-

tos removal.

Mid-TN Zinc Corp., 11 April 2008 tour.

l to r: Chris McMichael (B.S., TTU, ‘98); Dr. Fran-

cis Otuonye, Ass. V.P. Research, TTU; Mike

Gadd (TTU senior); Dr. H. Wayne Leimer; Matt

Silvey (TTU senior); Josh Gentry (B.S. TTU,’07)

Coy Mine, Jefferson City, East TN Zinc Co.

October 2008 field trip

Evan’s office

Asbestos removal

Scholarship and Research, 2007-2008

Glasscock Scholarship Hannah Rutherford

Helton Alumni Scholarship Michael Gadd

Earth Science Alumni Scholarship Derrick Ho

Earth Science Alumni Scholarship Nathan Burmeister

Lavelle Smith Scholarship Michael Gadd

SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT

Page 8 Volume 5, Issue 1

Patty Dyer

Hi Everyone! I have been with the Department of

Earth Sciences as Secretary since the middle of July

2008. This position allows me to work closely with

the students, families, faculty and staff campus

wide, which I find enjoyable and rewarding. I have

worked for TTU for seven years. During these seven

years at TTU, I have worked in the Accounts Pay-

able (Business Office), and Mechanical Engineering

departments.

I’m married to Mike Dyer, previous WHUB/WPTN

Program Director for 37+ years; and have two chil-

dren, Erin K. Ledbetter and Joshua Kimes. I previ-

ously retired from the local manufacturer, Fleet-

guard, with 24 years of professional experience

working as Administrative Assistant to the Plant

Manager, Customer Assistance and Sales. I enjoy

people, sports, reading, cross-stitching, and working

with the church in my spare time.

It has been a pleasure talking and meeting so

many of you during my short time here, and look

forward to hear more about your accomplishments,

success and families. I will continue to update the

Earth Sciences Alumni information as changes or

made. I am requesting that if any of you have

changed professions, addresses, or have news to

share, to contact me at the Department of Earth

Sciences either by phone (931) 372-3121, email

psdyer@tntech.edu, or by mail at Tennessee Techno-

logical University, Department of Earth Sciences, P

O Box 5062, Cookeville, TN 38505. I encourage you

to call or visit the department anytime you are in

the area, and look forward to meeting you.

—Patty

Martha Gentry Smith

I just want everyone to know that I am really en-

joying retirement! I still have lots of things to do,

and I have been able to do some travelling. I am

sending my warmest regards to everyone. I would

love to hear from any of you. You can still reach me

at my old Tennessee Tech email address

mgsmith@tntech.edu or by phone at 931-528-5966.

—Martha

News from our secretaries, both

Current and Former!

REQUEST FOR ALUMNI NEWS

We hope that you have enjoyed learning about

events in the department and what the faculty have

been doing. What we don’t have is news about you! I

am requesting that any of you who have news to

share send your items to me. I will include any

items sent to me in the next newsletter, which I plan

to be published in early 2010.

Items should be 100 words or less, or one digital

picture and 50 words. Email is preferred. Address,

Email, phone, and fax numbers are listed to the left.

The deadline for the next newsletter is Nove-

mer 1, 2009. We want to hear from you!

Knox Phone: 931-372-3523

Dept. Phone: 931-372-3121

Dept. Fax: 931-372-3363

Email: LKNOX@TNTECH.EDU

Address: Larry Knox

P.O. Box 5125, TTU

Cookeville, TN 38505

—Larry Knox