Geology Alumni in the News

Jeff Pipes ’83 & Carls Helping Carls

Opportunity Uncorked: A Mentor Externship in Wine Country!

California winemaker Jeff Pipes ’83 admits that he wasn’t sold on Carleton’s Mentor Externship program at first. Having a student work with him and live with his family sounded like a big commitment.

“Wine is an intense and competitive industry,” explains Pipes, who owns Pipestone Vineyards with his wife, Florence Wong ’84. “I’m incredibly busy. Having an extra person around to teach and train takes time.”

But once he began reading applications from eager Carleton students, Pipes couldn’t help but be impressed. “There were 30 applications, and I could have happily hired every one of them. They were all great. The hardest part was narrowing it down to just one.”

That “one” turned out to be Amelia Harris ’12, an Environmental Studies major with a special emphasis on food and agriculture—a perfect fit for Pipestone Vineyards, where Pipes and Wong strive to practice sustainable agriculture and environmentally friendly farming.

To recognize exceptional work, the Geological Society of America awarded Benjamin Parks ’11, 1^st place for his outstanding poster presentation. A panel of judges was very impressed with the scientific aspects of his work, as well as the polished poster presentation that he gave. Congratulations Ben!

Adam Maloof ’98 is awarded James B. Macelwane Medal by American Geophysical Union for significant contributions to the geophysical sciences by an outstanding young scientist.

In the May-June issue of the journal American Mineralogist, a team of scientists announced the discovery of the new mineral krotite, one of the earliest minerals formed in our solar system. It is the main component of an unusual inclusion embedded in a meteorite (NWA 1934), found in northwest Africa. These objects, known as refractory inclusions, are thought to be the first planetary materials formed in our solar system, dating back to before the formation of Earth and the other planets.

This particular grain is known affectionately as “Cracked Egg” for its distinctive appearance. Dr. Harold C. Connolly, Jr. and student Stuart A. Sweeney Smith at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) first recognized the grain to be of a very special type, known as a calcium-aluminum-rich refractory inclusion. (“Refractory” refers to the fact that these grains contain minerals that are stable at very high temperature, which attests to their likely formation as very primitive, high-temperature condensates from the solar nebula.)

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Hidden behind an old rock quarry south of Fredericksburg is a nondescript sandpit that opens a window on the world of 14 million years ago, a spot where dolphins frolicked and sharks hunted. Today, teams of student and volunteer diggers are pulling out a jackpot of fossils sandwiched between layers of bluish-gray rock.

“We don’t know how they got here,” said Alton Dooley, a paleontologist at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, as he chipped away at the clay surrounding a newly uncovered bone. Dooley and other scientists say this is one of the biggest fossil sites east of the Mississippi – staggering in both number and diversity of species. “The most striking thing is the sheer number of bones and teeth that are packed in such a small area. In 20 years, we’ve only excavated about 4,000 square feet, and we’ve pulled out tens of thousands of specimens.”

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Bess Koffman ’04, a PhD student at the University of Maine, shows in a video how she studies ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland to reconstruct the seasonal variations and unusual events (like volcanic eruptions) on Earth thousands of years ago.

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UC Davis geologists have been using laser scanning and underwater video to capture images of life in an ice-covered Antarctic lake.

Dawn Sumner, professor of geology, and graduate student Tyler Mackey have been studying bacterial communities called microbialites in the lake. These microbialites, which can grow into rocklike structures, are similar to the earliest known fossils of life on Earth from billions of years ago.

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Karin Brown, Amherst College assistant swimming coach, and Susannah Rudel, a junior and member of the swim team, discuss the swim team’s prospects and the annual “Ted Mullin Hour of Power,” a nationwide swim-a-thon to raise cancer awareness and funds in memory of Karin’s former teammate and friend at Carleton College, Ted Mullin.

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A wonderful geology alumni drama unfolded in the past few weeks as Stu Grubb was given a new kidney by his freshman year roommate Glen Carleton, both  hydrologists from the class of 1985.

Stu has suffered from kidney disease for most of the past decade, but their other freshman roommate, Dave Lefkowitz ‘85,  wrote in late October, “Recently the situation has become much more serious. Last month he had to go on dialysis and begin the excruciating process of finding a kidney donor.  Stu is lucky to have a few very good friends who volunteered to donate a kidney, and amazingly, the closest match is our other freshman roommate, Glen Carleton. Glen will be making the trek from his home on the banks of the Delaware River to the Twin Cities for the surgery in mid-November.”

The surgical transfer of the kidney took place Nov. 16 and was completely successful for both Stu and Glen.  Both of them were out of the hospital in a few days and home for Thanksgiving, their digestive systems on the way to returning to normalcy.

Here is Stu’s blog posting from Nov. 27:

“Obviously, I have lots to be thankful for this year.  I can hardly talk about all the support people have given us without getting all emotional.

“I am also thankful for the ability to eat and drink almost everything again.  The last few months, I have been on a low-phosphorous, low-potassium diet (limited cheese, fruit, vegetables, potatoes, beans), and I had to limit my water intake.  Before that I was on a low-protien (vegetarian) diet for 8 years.  Now the doctors are encouraging me to eat and drink extra cheese, potatoes, beans, meat, and Diet Coke to help my body cope with all the drugs.

“It has been wonderful.  If I could, I would make an extra huge bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy and just roll around in it.  Friends brought blueberry muffins and lentil soup, which were great, and my Mom prepared some delicious meals too.   A few times I ate so much that the outward pressure on my stitches was a little painful.  I think a little moderation is in order on the Thanksgiving leftovers.

“No, on second thought, I am just going to eat ‘til it hurts.  Doctor’s orders.

–       Stu”

Congratulations and best wishes to both of you amazing people!

(For more information see Stu And Glen’s Blog)

Hannah Hilbert-Wolf may only be in her third year of studying geology at Carleton College, but she’s got some impressive field experience and publication credits: This past year was her sixth field season on the Monument. (Yes, she’s been coming out here since she was in high school.) And in addition to co-authoring papers, Hannah was recently an author on a published paper.

Hannah was the most recent recipient of a Partners grant that aims to promote scientific research on the Monument. She found time between classes and conferences this fall to talk to me on Skype about her project.  Click here to listen to our discussion.