Continuation of Earth
Sciences article -- see previous page
Geological and
environmental sciences
As chair of the department
of geological and environmental sciences, Gail Mahood has
the enviable task of welcoming the first three of the new
crop of faculty.
One is Pamela Matson, a
member of the National Academy of Sciences and a
MacArthur "genius" fellow, who arrived this
month to take a joint professorship in geological and
environmental sciences and the Institute for
International Studies (IIS). She comes partly as a result
of that "reaching out" that Orr says the earth
scientists are learning to do. He teamed up with Walter
Falcon, director of IIS, to persuade the provost to tempt
Matson away from the University of California-Berkeley. A
biogeochemist who studies the cycling of nitrogen through
soil, water and air, Matson also works on the
agricultural practices and policies that can create
large-scale, man-made disruptions of this fundamental
cycle.
The first ocean margins
professor is Robert Dunbar from Rice University. Dunbar
uses the tools of paleogeography and geochemistry to
study climate change. He is using the growth bands of
corals, similar to tree rings, to chart Pacific Ocean
temperatures over the past 600 years, and he leads a
project in Antarctica to study how meteorological forces
influence sea ice distribution.
Assistant Professor Trevor
Ireland has come from the University of New Zealand to
supervise the ion probe, in conjunction with Professor
Mike McWilliams. Among Ireland's interests:
cosmogeochemistry. He studies stardust, using the ion
probe to identify materials that were formed outside the
solar system.
Both Matson and Dunbar
will teach in the Earth Systems program. Mahood said
their scientific work and Ireland's also bridges
two areas of current strength in the GES department: the
geochemists who use nuclear magnetic resonance,
synchrotron radiation and other tools to probe the
history of various kinds of formations, and the
sedimentary geologists who study how ancient soil and
marine basins turned to rock.
Mahood said there were
good reasons why the departments of geology and applied
earth systems merged in 1993 into a department named
geological and environmental sciences. One is the
realization that environmental processes and solutions
to environmental problems are important questions for
earth scientists to tackle. "Many of the big
breakthroughs in the future will come from studying the
interface between biological systems and the rocks that
support them," Mahood said. "We're just now
beginning to learn how many processes, even deep within
the earth, are catalyzed by organisms."
Another reason for the
emphasis is that GES already includes a strong
environmental component, particularly in hydrogeology,
where Steven Gorelick, Keith Loague and Professor
Emeritus Irwin Remson carry on a tradition started in the
1930s by groundwater pioneer Cyrus Tolman. Most other
faculty also have developed an environmental cast to some
of their work: Gordon Brown, for example, uses his
expertise in the geochemistry of minerals to answer
questions about soil contamination, and Mahood's
knowledge of volcanic granites has proved valuable in
analyzing the cause of acid lakes in the Sierra Nevada.
Geophysics: poised
for breakthroughs
In the midst of change,
the school also has been successful because it has stayed
the course on its best work, according to geophysics
department chair Amos Nur and Mark Zoback, who turned
over the chairmanship to Nur on Sept. 1. Nur says that
the high standing of Stanford's geophysics department is
rising higher as their colleagues elsewhere recognize the
value of working with industry an approach that
academic geophysicists once snubbed. Led by Jon
Claerbout, a pioneer in seismic imaging, the
geophysicists have well-established scientific
collaborations with researchers from industry gaining
data from oil exploration, for example, and adding their
scientific perspective to help solve real-world problems
of reservoir engineers.
Stanford geophysicists
pioneered the study of plate tectonics and the evolution
and movements of the earth's crust work that directly
applies to earthquakes, volcanoes and other hazards for
those of us who live on the San Andreas Fault and similar
borders of tectonic plates. The scientists continue to
expand the technology that can be used to understand the
Earth's movements. "We are poised to take advantage
of breakthroughs in technology that can lead to
breakthroughs in science," Zoback said.
The most recent example is
the 1995 arrival of Howard Zebker, an associate professor
with a joint appointment in geophysics and electrical
engineering. Zebker's synthetic aperture radar technique
allows him and his geophysics colleagues to monitor
complex movements of earthquake faults and volcanoes from
satellites.
Petroleum
engineers; managing a limited resource
Petroleum engineering
chair Roland Horne said his department is gearing up for
another "boom" after a dozen years of
"bust" in the perennially cycling oil industry.
"Our graduate student offices were empty this
summer," he said. "Even graduate students who
didn't want summer jobs were being tugged at the elbow by
oil companies." During the long industry slump, some
petroleum engineering departments closed their doors,
Horne said.
However, Stanford
petroleum engineers' research, and their graduates, have
remained in demand by aiming to lead the world in
reservoir simulation and geostatistics. The scientists
analyze and make images of the complicated structure of
oil and gas reservoirs to find ways to extract more of a
dwindling and finite resource. One mark of the
department's leadership: a student body that is 80
percent international, as governments from around the
world send their brightest young engineers to Stanford.
The department is seeking
another faculty member who works on advanced reservoir
simulation. In addition, it is expanding on the use of
this technology for environmental purposes. Associate
Professor Martin Blunt uses reservoir simulation
technology to gauge the flow of environmental
contaminants. And Horne leads the department's geothermal
energy program; the job of harnessing steam from the
earth, pioneered by the late Professor Hank Ramey, is now
an international concern, with projects as far away as
the Philippines. SR
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