Geology Open Night

One hour toward professional development is available for teachers and professional geologists attending the Geology Open Night lectures.

New insights into lunar geology from mid-infrared  remote sensing measurements Timothy Glotch Department of Geosciences 7:30 PM Friday Sept. 22, 2017 Since its insertion into lunar orbit in 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment has provided continuous mid-infrared measurements of the lunar surface. These measurements have provided new insight into mineral composition of the lunar surface, and volcanic, cratering, and space weathering processes, among other advances. This talk will provide an overview of our new understanding of the Moon enabled by Diviner's measurements, particularly in relation to volcanism and space weathering. Timothy Glotch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook. His research is focused on using laboratory spectroscopic techniques and sophisticated light scattering models to enable more quantitative interpretation of spectroscopic data sets. This work includes using laboratory visible/near-infrared reflectance, thermal infrared emission, and Raman spectroscopies, both on remote sensing platforms and in the laboratory, to determine the composition of geologic materials on the surfaces of the Moon, asteroids, Mars, and its moons. He is a Co-Investigator on Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, which has been orbiting the Moon since 2009. In 2012, he was awarded the National Science Foundation Early Career Award. He is the Principal Investigator of the $5.5M Remote, In Situ, and Synchrotron Studies for Science and Exploration (RIS4E) team, which is part of NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI)

Five Years of Exploring Mars with the Curiosity Rover Kirsten Siebach Department of Geosciences 7:30 PM Friday Oct. 27, 2017 The Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity is a car-sized robotic explorer that landed on Mars in August 2012 to investigate layered sedimentary rocks in Gale Crater. These rocks record the story of a time more than 3 billion years ago when Mars, like Earth, had liquid water in lakes and rivers at the surface. Curiosity’s investigations have revolutionized our understanding of Mars: the planet had more volcanic diversity than predicted, long-lived liquid water in rivers and lakes at the surface, environments that would have been habitable for life, multiple episodes of groundwater, and repeating cycles of crater fill and erosion. The instrument suite onboard Curiosity has enabled the highest resolution ever achieved in in-situ imaging of planetary surface samples, the first age date on another planet, multiple scales of compositional measurements, and mineralogy of fifteen rock samples. In this talk, I will summarize key results including what we have learned from Curiosity about the history of the Gale crater basin and Mars in general, and the work I have done to understand the components influencing the chemistry of sedimentary rocks by separating effects from volcanic diversity, sediment transport, and water chemistry. Kirsten Siebach is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University working with Professor Scott McLennan. She is a member of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Science and Operations team and her work is centered around understanding the history of water interacting with sediments on Mars through analysis of sedimentary rock textures and chemistry. She will be moving to Houston, TX in January to become an Assistant Professor in the Rice University Department of Earth, Environmental, and Space Sciences.

Stable isotopes, their intermolecular distributions, and why it matters Greg Henkes Department of Geosciences 7:30 PM Friday Nov. 17, 2017 In high school chemistry you (hopefully) learned what an isotope is. Isotope geochemistry is the science of studying natural variations in isotopes of various elements to understand process, mass balance, and the physical chemistry of our present world, as well as past ones. Exciting developments in stable isotope geochemistry are underway that allows scientists to peer into the isotope structure of molecules in gases, minerals, and organic compounds. These developments have been primarily driven by improvements in mass spectrometry — the tool of choice for isotope geochemists. Currently, the most studied Earth material using these improved instruments are carbonate minerals, which precipitate in a variety of interesting environments, including the surface of the ocean, in oil and gas reservoirs, and in volcanoes. Much like an astronomer showing you the interesting objects they’ve seen in their, or their colleagues, telescopes, I will summarize some of the most recent important discoveries made about carbonate rocks and their intermolecular isotope geochemistry.  Gregory Henkes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook. His research interests are the light stable isotope (e.g., H, C, N, O, S) geochemistry of sedimentary rocks and organic materials. This work is largely focused on making accurate and highly precise isotope ratio measurements in his gas source mass spectrometry laboratory, with an eye towards novel and technically challenging isotope systems. These observations are employed to answer a number of questions in Earth science, but mainly paleoclimatology and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and marine biogeochemistry.

 

You may also be interested in the following lectures: Astronomy Open Night, The World of Physics and The Living World These lectures are usually held in ESS 001 at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays during the academic year. Professional Development letters are available for teachers and geologists for attending these lectures.