Georgia Geology April 1998 Volume 3, Number 1

The Newsletter of the Georgia Geological Society
Editor: Tim Chowns, State University of West Georgia

Contents

• President's Column
• 1998 Annual Field Trip
• Jekyll Island Guide Reprinted
• Overburden
• SE GSA Comes to Georgia
• Highlights of the 1997 Annual Field Trip
• Forum
• Evidence of Evolution
• Exposures
  • Valdosta State University
  • University of West Georgia
  • Georgia Southwestern State University
  • University of Georgia
• Treasurer's Report
• New Geological Society
• Georgia Academy of Sciences in Savannah
• GGS Membership Directory on Disk
• Membership Update

• Return to the GGS Home Page

The Georgia Geological Society held its 31st annual field trip and meeting in October. It was an eclectic field trip put together by Sam Swanson and Dave Wenner (both UGA). The trip covered the range from petrology at Stone Mountain (Roden, Swanson, Whitney), through applied geology and hydrogeology at the Lawrenceville well-field (UGS, USGS, E & C Consulting Engineers, Kemron Environmenal Services), geology of saprolite (Hurst, Schroeder), geology of the area around the Athens campus (Colberg, Dallmeyer), and finally to archeology (Garrison). If everyone learned as much as I did, the trip was a huge success. Thanks to all our leaders for a job well done.

At the business meeting (held in the field, where all good meetings are held), Mack Duncan (Huber) was unanimously elected your president for next year. We also voted to put the membership/address list on disk, as now completed by the real leader of the Society, Tim Chowns, with the aid of former President Burt Carter. In the next few months the Society plans to scan out-of-print guidebooks and put them on a CD-ROM for sale at a modest price. The CD's will probably be updated every year or two as guidebooks go out of stock. For further information on this, see Tim Chowns at the Georgia Academy Meeting in Savannah at the end of this month.

Thanks to Fred Rich of Georgia Southern University, who has agreed to organize this year's field trip to Trail Ridge and the Okefenokee Swamp.

As you can see, the Society is in good shape!

Mike Higgins

OKEFENOKEE, TRAIL RIDGE & HEAVY MINERAL SAND MINING: FIELD TRIP 1998

This year's fall field trip is being organized by Fred Rich of Georgia Southern University and will be held on October 9-11 (Columbus Day Weekend) This trip should be of great interest to members since it involves the recent controversy over mining in the vicinity of the Okefenokee Swamp. The trip will include a visit to the swamp and stops on Trail Ridge as well a tour of DuPont's present mining and processing plant at Starke in Florida. This will be the first time that the society has visited the Okefenokee. Complete details and registration forms will appear in the fall newsletter. Members who are interested in contributing to the organization of the trip should call Fred Rich at 912-681-5361.

JEKYLL ISLAND GUIDE REPRINTED

Check your shelves to see if you have a copy of the Society's 1985 Guidebook: Coastal processes and barrier island development, Jekyll Island, Georgia. by V. J. Henry & W.J.Fritz and Examination of the Altamaha Formation near Oak Park, Emanuel County, Georgia. by P. F. Huddleston: Georgia Geological Society Guidebook vol. 5. As funds allow, it has been the policy of the Society to reprint popular guidebooks. This is still the best geological guide to Jekyll Island and is now available once more at the original price of $10.00 from the treasurer.

OVERBURDEN

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MEETING OF THE SOUTHEAST SECTION OF GSA COMES TO GEORGIA

The 1999 meeting of the Southeast Section of the Geological Society of America will be held in Athens on March 26 and 27, a Thursday and Friday. The meeting is being hosted by the Department of Geology at the University of Georgia. The site of the meeting is the new Classic Center on the edge of both downtown Athens and UGA.

Plans are currently being made for field trips, symposia, and theme sessions. If you are interested in organizing a field trip or a session for the meeting, please contact the committee chairs listed below.

Field Trips: Erv Garrison and Sue Goldstein: field99@gly.uga.edu

Symposia and Theme Sessions:

Steve Holland, Mike Roden, Sally Walker: tech99@gly.uga.edu tech99@gly.uga.edu

Other information about the meeting and Athens is available on a meeting web site: http://www.segsa99.gly.uga.edu

This is a chance for all of Georgia to show off our geology and the interesting things going on in Georgia geoscience. Host a theme session, lead a field trip, come to Athens next spring!

CLASSIC FIELD TRIP FROM ATHENS

Sam Swanson and Dave Wenner are to be congratulated on organizing a very successful field trip in Athens last fall. .Highlights included a visit to Stone Mountain, and an Expo at the Lawrenceville well-field. This was followed on Saturday by a Saprolite Worship Service led by Vernon Hurst and Paul Schroeder. On Sunday the group examined the Athens Gneiss with Mark Colberg, then returned to the Geology Department at the University for coffee and donuts with host Dave Dallmeyer who entertained us with tales of Piedmont geology. The trip ended with a visit to the Scull Shoals Archaeological Site where Erv Garrison discussed the use of shallow geophysical techniques in investigating the site. This was a great trip and we appreciate the numerous leaders and assistants who contributed to it's success. For those of you that missed out, watch out for an opportunity to visit some of the same localities at next year's Southeastern Section of GSA (see above).

You may be a geologist if.....

1. Your spouse complains of grit in bed and its not cookie crumbs.

2. Your car swerves, looses power or stalls whenever approaching a road cut.

3. Your favorite ice cream is Rocky Road.

FORUM

Members will notice that the Newsletter is now able to publish short articles describing original research. Manuscripts must be of exceptional merit. Alternatively, the author may be a friend of the editor. This number includes a discussion and reply to the paper "Evidence of evolution from genealogical research" which appeared in last fall's edition. If you did not read the original you better get out to the dumpster or find a friend who never cleans off their desktop!

Evolution?

Burchard D. Carter

In the late 1700's the Scottish geologist James Hutton discovered and expostulated a tremendous body of evidence that the earth was very old; he insisted on interpreting it as infinitely old. In the mid 1800's the Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell discovered and expostulated an equally impressive body of evidence for the uniform operation of natural processes; he interpreted it to mean that nothing catastrophic has ever occurred. Now, in the late 1900's, in our own hallowed journal, yet another Briton is insisting on reasoning beyond his data. Unlike his forbears, however, Chowns (1997) has muddled his uniformitarianism as well.

Chowns' data are probably impeccable, and he is to be commended for their elucidation. His first order interpretations are likewise brilliant - certainly the apparent changes in gestation period he has discovered mean exactly what he says. After all, Georgian England was a devoutly protestant nation, making any alternative explanation for the observed birth timings highly unlikely. However, Chowns' interpreted evolutionary mechanism, though sufficient, is not necessary to explain the observations. In science, no hypothesis is to be favored until all known alternatives have been convincingly discredited. (Unless the hypothesis appears on the cover of a popular news magazine, in which case it automatically becomes the epitome of truth itself.)

Chowns interprets the expanded modern gestation period of humans in a heterochronic light, suggesting a paedomorphic evolution of modern humans from their late 18^th century ancestors. Heterochronic evolution can occur via changes in the time of appearance or of growth rates of somatic features, or by changes in the timing of sexual maturity. Paedomorphosis results in descendant species having juvenile characteristics relative to their ancestors; peramorphosis is the opposite, and is the essence of the old "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" hypothesis. In order to verify heterochronic evolution, and certainly in order to identify the specific mechanism, a complete ontogenetic characterization of both the ancestral and descendant population is required. This, of course, is lacking from Chowns's data, which include the latter but not the former. Assuming that heterochrony has operated, we could postulate a paedomorphic process (via delayed onset of growth of some characters, as Chowns speculates) or a peramorphic one (via delayed sexual maturation). Either hypothesis, however, predicts that modern adult humans should look either like juvenile Englishmen of the Georgian period or like prematurely aged ones. In fact, paintings of famous men of the day (e.g., King George himself, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc), allegedly done at known ages, suggests that neither juvenilization nor extrapolation of ontogeny has occurred since that period. This casts doubt upon the entire heterochronic hypothesis.

I would like to propose an alternative explanation for the observed changes in gestation. The critical piece of information required to elucidate the mechanism of change completely is, unfortunately, missing from our data. We have reasonable data on timing of key events, and we can make reasonable assumptions about the adult morphology of Georgian humans. If we knew the condition of newborns of that population we could cinch the matter, but alas we do not. Chowns has postulated heterochrony on the basis of the assumption that newborn Georgians looked like newborn modern humans. Let us suppose instead that they did not. Imagine that no changes in onset or rate of ontogenic change have occurred over the last 200 or 300 years. By implication, Georgian newborns would have emerged from the womb looking exactly like modern humans do 4.5 months into pregnancy.

This may be viewed by some as an outrageous hypothesis, but I submit that it is no more so than Chowns' original. In fact, a number of seemingly unrelated observations make better sense if we take it as a working hypothesis, and this certainly increases its appeal. For instance, it is a well established fact that infant and juvenile mortality in 18^th and 19^th century Britain were appalling - Charles Dickens elucidated these and related phenomena soon after the period in which Chowns' basic data were recorded. What better explanation for such death rates than that newborns were suboptimally adapted for life ex utero. Except for the gentry, nutrition was generally poor at the time. Begging, poaching and bread stealing were common, but discouraged by the most stringent measures. It is a well-established fact that premature birth may result from inadequate nutrition. Perhaps, conversely, generally inadequate nutrition is a strong selective pressure for early birth. Finally, the curious lack of paintings of newborns, the precise data that we are lacking, makes sense if those newborns were outrageously small, red, and shriveled as my hypothesis predicts.

We thank Dr. Carter for his perceptive precis of phylogeny, paedomorphosis and paramorphosis, but absolutely, categorically, irrefutably, positively, strongly, strenuously, forcefully and unflinchingly deny overinterpreting our data.

Viscount Lord Chowns

"Radiometric dates are always given with a margarine for era."

(Honest folks this is for real!!)

EXPOSURES

VALDOSTA STATE UNIVERSITY

The status of geoscience at Valdosta State University is growing. This is in large part due to the introduction of a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Environmental Geography in September 1996. This program has been well received by students and less than 2 years after the degree's inception we have 52 Environmental Geography majors. There have been several exciting new developments in the major including the addition of new faculty, development of a new GIS laboratory, a GIS partnership with Moody Air Force Base and NASA, internship opportunities for our majors, and establishment of a new laboratory of physical environmental science (through the Department of Chemistry at VSU).

Two new scientists have joined the geoscience program at VSU. Dr. Henri, Grissino-Mayer, a dendrochronologist with academic roots at the University of Georgia (M.S.), and the University of Arizona (Ph.D.), brings his strength in biogeography to the department. Henri is well known for his work on reconstructing climate change and forest-fire history in the American southwest. He has also constructed numerous web pages on tree-ring research, he manages the denrochronology internet forum as well as the biogeography specialty group forum for the Association of American Geographers.

The GIS program at VSU has been strengthened with the addition of Ms. Mary Ingham, a VSU undergraduate with a M.S. from the University of South Florida. Ms. Ingham's masters work examined the distribution of and controls on bogs in West Virgina. Since her arrival at VSU, Mary has been instrumental in establishing a new GIS partnership between VSU, Moody Air Force Base, and NASA. This partnership has led to the establishment of a new GIS laboratory at VSU, as well as several internships for our majors. Mary has made a significant contribution to VSU and, regretably, will be moving on to a new position with NASA next year. We are currently seeing a replacement for this position (see our advertisement)

Other geoscience faculty at VSU remain active. Dr. Jeffrey Tepper continues his work on the petrology and trace element geochemistry of Cascade plutonic rocks, as well as investigating trace element geochemical records of environmental change within lake sediments near Valdosta. Dr. Drew Hyatt will present two papers at the seventh international permafrost conference in Yellowknife Canada, and continues his investigations of the hydro-geomorphology of the south Georgia coastal plain. Both Drew and Jeff are collaborating with other scientists at VSU on environmental research that makes use of state-of-the-art equipment (e.g. ICP, HPLC, CHN analyzer, Laser Diffraction Particle size analyzer etc.) available through the new Physical Environmental Science Laboratory. Dr. Larry McGlinn brings his skill in GIS to bear on the question of siting controversial land uses in Georgia as well as teaching all courses in GIS in the Environmental Geography major. Larry also continues to pursue research interests in the culture of southeast Asia. Dr. Edward Chatelain continues his investigations of short-term climatic driven fluctuations in Alpine Glaciers in the American Northwest, as well as developing new interests in the use of topographic models in geoscience education. Finally, Dr. Charles Lieble, a cultural geographer with interests in Appalachian Geography, is currently involved in collaborative work that examines the historical and geomorphological development of a gully in central Georgia that was first described by Sir Charles Lyell in the mid 1800's.

Drew Hyatt

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STATE UNIVERSITY OF WEST GEORGIA

This has been a year of major change and continued progress in the Geology Department at West Georgia. Dr. Julie Bartley (Precambrian paleobiology, sedimentology and stable isotope geochemistry) and Amy Daniels (Geographic Information Systems, Remote Sensing) joined the faculty in the Fall and immediately made significant impacts on the teaching and research activities in the Department. It looks like we will be adding one, or possibly two, additional positions next year so the department continues of expand.

The Department won the 1997 Regents Award for Teaching Excellence for which we received $5000 and 15 minutes of fame. We have responded to the inevitable "What have you done for us lately" question by continuing to publish books and articles in peer-reviewed journals, by expanding our educational outreach programs, and by submitting proposals requesting record amounts of dollars (for us) to FEMA, NSF, EPA, the Department of Education and BOR. Most of these proposals are still pending, but Dave Bush has received funding from FEMA for the third year in a row. Dave is encouraged at the prospects of a better hurricane season than last year!

We have spent the entire year in various stages of destruction and construction as the Callaway Building received its first major renovation in thirty years. We think we have survived, but the last hammer has yet to leave the building. Out of the construction, we have some memorable highlights. The geochemistry and ICP labs now have new casework and working fume hoods so that those so inclined can conduct scientific research in them. The fume hoods actually work and no longer vent out the window. We have a new lab currently used for courses in Science Foundations that will revert to the Department in two years. The x-ray machine is no longer located in the student lounge, and we will have a new elevator to carry rocks and equipment out of the basement. For those of you who pine for the old days, rock prep retains its rustic charm.

Although the construction of the elevator continues, it produced the best Kodak Moment (Geological Division) of the construction. The construction company constucted the block and brick shell before they drilled the shaft for the elevator hydraulics. One day a large truck from Pennsylvania rolled up with 1920s vintage cable tool rig on board. The crew proceeded to pound out a hole ~24" in diameter by 6' deep at the rate of 4" (yes four inches) an hour. The building shook and classes were destroyed for the better part of a week. We plan to enter this in the Guiness Book of World Records.

We started our own hydrogeologic research station this year by drilling two deep wells to complement a well previously drilled on campus. In the process we drilled a flowing artesian well (3.5GPM) that yielded ~40 GPM in the airlift test in addition to a dry (0.75 gpm) hole. We plan to expand the research station, and Randy Kath and Jim Mayer have submitted a major proposal to EPA to study contaminant transport using the research station.

We have expanded our educational outreach programs by expanding our course offerings to education students and in-service teachers including a course on water that was conducted entirely over the Internet. Given the dynamics of such courses on our campus, we will probably continue to expand this area in the future. The need for such outreach was made abundantly clear to us as we watched the local water authority hire a dowser to find a source of groundwater for Carroll County.

We continue our tradition of field-work with faculty engaged in projects as close to home as remapping the campus and siting high yield water wells in Carroll County and as far away as Africa, the Northwest Territories and Australia.

In summary, we had a lot of individual successes this year, but what impresses me more as the Chair of the Department is the success of the collective whole of the Department that arises from the unselfish teamwork shown by everyone. We had a great year in 1997 and look forward to a better year next (assuming we survive semester conversion).

Johnny Waters

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GEORGIA SOUTHWESTERN STATE UNIV.

Our geophysicist (Bill Anderson) left the first of the year for a position at Los Alamos National labs. We suspect the teaching load and the New Mexico parts of the new job were the deciding factors. We're presently advertising for a replacement, but we're changing the position to an environmental geologist/low temp geochemist and/or GIS specialist, emphasizing our tradition as the "Department of Mostly Geology and a Little Physics". As part of the appeal-enhancing effort for this hire we've moved the old GIS equipment into the much larger (formerly geophysics) room, added several student computers, and turned it into a very nice computer lab. The SEM and seismic equipment that used to be there went into the smaller room and into storage, respectively. Our seismic work is by no means dead, however; see below. We think we are finally ready to be semesterists, after spending a good bit of time and effort figuring a way to get all our future students' requirement needs met within four years.

Phil Manker continues as head, at least for a couple more years. He is still working with various agencies obtaining and supplying remotely sensed data on sea surface waters of the southeastern region. He, Dan Askren, and Bill Anderson (in absentia) are making seriuos progress on the x-ray diffractometer for a future Mars lander. Burt Carter is accumulating data and helping students accumulate data to model real past and hypothetical future marine extinctions. He is also allegedly still working on that same paper he's been editing the final draft for submission of for the past 60 or 80 years, but this is something that'll need to be seen in manuscript to be believed. He's also taking a number of graduate biology courses so as to be credentialed to teach courses with BIO prefixes, should their enrollments climb and our plunge under the new requirements.

Tom Weiland is hoping to divest himself of the GIS lab responsibilities. He's worked hard building the thing for several years and is looking forward to being a volcanologist again. He and Dan Askren have received an Eisenhower Foundation grant for a proposal entitled "Improving earth science education with interactive courseware and Georgia geology modules. Tom is presently setting up a NT-server for the department.

Michael Pangia is awaiting word on whether he'll spend yet another summer in Boston studying magnetosphere physics. Part of last academic year he spent at Tech with Tim Long, learning how to upgrade the department's seismic station. It looks like this is finally all coming together. Optical cable should be laid soon between the seismograph vault and the department, and computers for each end are already in house, waiting to be set up. Once this is accomplished we should fairly quickly be able to access real-time or stored seismic data and provide it on line via the internet to anyone interested.

Dan Askren has been working on the Mars diffractomenter and on preparing the Eisenhower Grant proposal he and Tom received. He has begun a project, sponsored by DNR and the local Clean and Beautiful Commission, to buy and distribute a large number of radon sensors among local homeowners. The idea is to get a good baseline for radon concentrations in this area of the Coastal Plain. Dan and Tom will be taking a crowd of students to Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana this summer.

Burt Carter

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UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

The move to semesters in the fall of 1998 will also mark the introduction of a new undergraduate core curriculum in geology at UGA. The new curriculum was developed after two years of surveys (many of the GGS members contributed), endless discussions, and many hours of hard work by the geology faculty. The heart of the new curriculum is a four-course sequence that covers topics fundamental to our understanding of earth processes. Earth Materials (GEOL 3010) combines elements of mineralogy, optical mineralogy, and petrology. Surficial and Near-Surficial Processes (GEOL 3020) deals with weathering, erosion, geohydrology, and low temperature geochemistry. Life, Environment, and Ecologies of the Past (GEOL 4010) covers the principles of paleobiology and stratigraphy. Internal Earth Processes (GEOL 402 ) includes elements of geophysics, igneous and metamorphic petrology, structrual geology, and tectonics. These courses, along with two introductory courses, field methods, field school, and three geology electives, constitute the new undergraduate geology core curriculum The field methods course has an expanded set of exercises including new exercises on shallow geophysics, hydrology/geochemistry, and surveying. An extensive writing component has also been added to field methods and this course is now recognized as an "intensive writing" course, only the second science course to be so designated at UGA. The writing assignments will all be brief and will cover a variety of topics (resume, business letters, interoffice memos, electronic communication, descriptions of map and strat column units, client reports, recommendations for further studies). Writing assignments are to be completed within 72 hours, will be corrected, returned, and resubmitted. The emphasis is on lots of writing and lots of critiques. The introductory geology courses for A.B. students have also been changed for Fall 1998. The new University of Georgia core curriculum no longer requires a laboratory sequence for A.B. students. Students must now take one lab science course, and the second science course may be in a different science with or without a lab. The UGA sequence (GLY 115-116; physical and historical) has been reviewed to include two stand-alone courses (GEOL 1121 and 1122) with an optional lab (GEOL 1121L and 1122L) in both classes. We hope to continue to attract high enrollments in introductory geology with this new flexibility.

TREASURER'S REPORT

Balance in account March 31st 1997       $5129.13

Balance in account March 31st 1998       $4663.22

NEW GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY IN STATE

We learn from the current edition of "The Rock Knocker " that there is a new geological society on the block. The Savannah Geological Society is growing rapidly. At their January dinner meeting the membership voted on dues: 26 million in favor, 3 opposed! If you are interested in joining, and preventing this kind of lop-sided voting in future please contact Earl Titcomb (Fax 912-353-8878).

SPRING MEETING IN SAVANNAH

Members are reminded that the Society will be meeting at Armstrong Atlantic State University

in Savannah on April 24-25 in connection with Georgia Academy of Science. Registration will take place in the Lobby of University Hall between 12.00-5.00 pm Friday and 8.00-10.30 am Saturday. The cost is $45.00 for GAS members ($70.00 including membership for nonmembers) and $35.00 for students. The Earth Science Program begins at 7.45 am on Saturday April 24 and will end at lunch time.

A list of Earth Science papers is included on pages 9-10, but members should check out the following website for more details: http://www.armstrong.edu

or call Tim Chowns 770-836 6478 or Drew Hyatt 912-333-7389. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting especially if you live in the Savannah area.

MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY ON DISK

Copies of the membership directory of the Georgia Geological Society are on sale to members only. The list, including names, addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail is presented as a spreadsheet on 3 1/2 floppy disk. This is a handy way to store and update one's address book and to print mailing labels if necessary. The list was originally prepared in Excel but can be translated into other formats. Members should send the attached form together with $5.00 to secretary Burt Carter. Please indicate the format you prefer.

Please send me a copy of the directory of the Georgia Geological Society on floppy disk. I enclose a check for $5.00 payable to the Georgia Geological Society.

Name_________________________________

Address_______________________________

______________________________________

______________________________________

Preferred format_______________________

Mail to:	Dr. Burt Carter
	Dept of Geology & Physics
	Georgia Southwestern State Univ.
	Americus, GA 3170

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MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

If there have been any changes in your address please send the following information to:

Tim Chowns, Department of Geology, State University of West Georgia , Carrollton, GA 30118.

Name________________________________________________________________

Business Affiliation and Address

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Address for mail if other than above

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Telephone Numbers Business_____________________________________________

Home_______________________________________________

FAX________________________________________________

E-mail Address__________________________________________________________

Have you paid your dues for 1997-98? $5.00__________________________________

Georgia Geological Society
Department of Geology
State University of West Georgia
Carrollton, GA 30118

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