Upcoming! New Vice President of Pacific Section SEPM Helps Plan Fall Field Trips


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Upcoming! New Vice President of Pacific Section SEPM Helps Plan Fall Field Trips

September 2007

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Above: Amy Draut surveying on the Elwha River. [larger version]

Above: Participants in the October 7, 2007, Pacific Section SEPM field trip will visit the Carmelo Formation at Point Lobos State Reserve on the central California coast, a well-exposed example of conglomeratic submarine-canyon fill. [larger version]

Aerial view of Stanford Linear Accelerator campus

Above: Aerial view of Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) campus, site of the October 6, 2007, Pacific Section SEPM field trip. Inset photograph at center right shows skeleton of the rare marine desmostylian mammal, Paleoparadoxia, discovered during excavation in 1964 (see URL http://www2.slac.stanford.edu
/VVC/paleo.html). [larger version]

The Pacific Section of the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) recently welcomed U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientist Amy Draut as its new Vice President. As part of her new duties, Amy is helping to organize two daylong field trips:

"Geology and Stratigraphy of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), Menlo Park, California," to be led by Kenn Ehman (Chevron Energy Technology Company) and Susan Witebsky (SLAC) on Saturday, October 6, 2007, and
"Paleogene Conglomeratic Submarine Canyon Fill, Point Lobos State Reserve," to be led by Ed Clifton (USGS Scientist Emeritus) and Larry Rychner (Chevron Production, retired) on Sunday, October 7, 2007.

The trips are open to both members and nonmembers of SEPM. To learn more, visit URL http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/pacsepm/SEPMfieldtrips.htm.

Amy is currently a research geologist with the USGS Western Coastal and Marine Geology team. She received a B.S. in geological sciences from Tufts University in 1997 and a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in 2003. Her dissertation focused on fine-grained sedimentation on the northern Gulf of Mexico coast and shallow continental shelf. While in graduate school, Amy also developed a lasting interest in the evolution of volcanic arcs and arc-continent collisions, studying the tectonic, sedimentary, and geochemical evolution of arcs in the Ordovician Caledonide orogen of western Ireland and the Jurassic Talkeetna Formation of Alaska.

After graduate school, Amy moved west to work as a postdoctoral researcher with USGS geologist Dave Rubin on sediment-transport investigations in the Grand Canyon; she became a permanent member of the Western Coastal and Marine Geology team in 2006. Amy’s recent work for the USGS includes investigating the role of eolian sediment in the preservation of archeological sites along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, tracing fluvial sediment on the shallow shelf offshore of Santa Barbara, California, and on the north shore of Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i, and monitoring sediment grain size and channel topography of the lower Elwha River, Washington, in preparation for a major dam-removal project. She is currently tying together her interests in modern and ancient sedimentary processes by editing a Geological Society of America Special Paper on the sedimentary record in arc-collision zones.

Studying the Elwha River, Washington, in Preparation for Dam Removal
November 2006

Mapping the Sea Floor Off Santa Barbara, California
September 2006