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Professor
USF School of Geosciences
4202 East Fowler Ave.
NES 107 (Office: SCA 507)
Tampa, FL 33620
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Current Graduate Students:
Ray Johnston (Ph.D.: The elemental signatures and makeup of eruptive serpentinites of the Mariana Forearc (Shipboard Scientist, IODP Expedition 366; IODP Expedition 398)
Johnny Henson (M.S.: magmatic evolution of SE Caribbean islands)
Gabrielle Scrogham (M.S.: stable isotope insights into the diets of farmed fish stocks)
Recent Graduates:
Keir Sanatan (MS: Characterizing the Evolution of Slab Inputs in the Earliest Stages of Subduction: Evidence from the Fluid-Mobile Element (B, Cs, As, Li) Systematics of Izu-Bonin Boninitic Glasses Recovered During IODP Expedition 352)
Anita Marshall (Ph.D.: Evaluation of Academic and Social Engagement in a Technology-Based Collaborative Approach to Inclusive Geoscience Field Learning)
Vic Ricchezza (co-advisor) (Ph.D.: Framing Geologic Numeracy for the Purpose of Geoscience Education: The Geoscience Quantitative Preparation Survey)
Meghan Cook (Ph.D.: Impacts of Experiential Learning on the Affective Domain: Gaining Insight into How to Broaden Participation in the Geosciences)
Alex Maruszczak (Ph.D.: Lithium and Lithium Isotope Behavior During High Temperature Solid/Fluid Exchanges: Examples from Iceland and the Izu-Bonin Forearc)
Christy Bebeau (Ph.D.: Introductory Geology Laboratory Students’ Learnings from and Perceptions of Physical and Virtual Polarizing Light Microscopes – An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study)
Antonio Luna (Ph.D.: Compositional Characteristics and Relationships between Oceanic Basement, Sediment, and
Volcanic Arc Rocks: Geochemical Evolution of the South China Sea and Luzon-Taiwan Arc ))
Recent Undergraduate Researchers:
Gabriel Ahrendt, Zachary Gude, Daniel Wood (Amphibolites from Glade Gap and their relationships within the Buck Creek Suite, NC)
Jesse Scholpp, Stephen Hill, Bradford Mack (Origins of Anomalous MIneral Zoning in IODP Expedition 352 Boninites)
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I pursue investigations in "domain" geoscience, specifically in hard-rock petrology and geochemistry, and in geoscience education, emphasizing the applications of information and computer technologies in the instruction of geology majors.
Geosciences:
My geoscience research is strongly instrument-based: I've historically examined unusual and sometimes difficult-to-measure tracers in rocks as a means of understanding large-scale dynamic and chemical processes in the Earth. Scientifically speaking, I'm interested in the chemical and petrologic manifestations of the phenomenon of plate convergence, which has had me investigating a variety of questions in subduction zone and orogenic belt settings. Most recently this has involved the examination of shallow forearc metamorphic rocks, and arc lavas in subduction settings where the parameters of subduction (convergence rate, slab dip, slab age, inferred slab surface temperatures) show along-strike variation. Making use of "fluid-mobile" elemental and isotopic tracers (B, Cs, As; B isotopes) we can identify and quantify the role of shallowly released, H2O-dominated slab outfluxes in the petrogenesis of arc lavas, and the relationships between this outflux and other recognized slab-derived releases related to the melting of subducted sediments and the dehydration and/or melting of subducted ocean crust. In my role as a Shipboard Inorganic Geochemist on IODP Expedition 366 to the forearc of the Mariana subduction system, we have begun an in-depth examination of shallow subduction related fluid-rock exchange phenomena associated with the serpentinite seamounts and mud volcanoes that are found there. Involvement in the the joint IODP Expeditions 367-368 effort in the South China Sea has led to working on the subduction mass balance for this marine basin, contrasting the compositions of South China Sea ocean crust and sediments with those of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and considering them as inputs to the Luzon/Taiwan subduction system, which produces anomalous arc lavas and consumes only South China Sea crustal and sedimentary materials. I am involved with further work on characterizing the variability in moderately to very old (6-60 Ma) ocean crust as part of the South Atlantic Transect, IODP Expeditions 390-393.
The development and preservation of subduction-modified mantle wedge reservoirs can also be tracked using fluid-mobile tracers, as well as Li and Li isotopes, which are particularly sensitive to the modification of the mantle by alkali-rich slab fluxes. The creation of such mantle domains can best be studied during the initiation and cessation of subduction. Thus, I participated in the International Ocean Discovery Program's drilling Expedition 352, which sampled the full section of volcanic strata associated with the initiation of the Izu-Bonin subduction zone; and I have been involved in the study of volcanic rocks in Anatolia, where a subduction system shut down and transitioned into extension.
In collisional settings I've pursued a variety of investigations that have involved geochemically unraveling the long and complex metamorphic histories of ancient orogenic belts, toward identifying key lithologic associations that can be used to place constraints on tectonic events. In the US Appalachians, we have focused on constraining the origins of highly metamorphosed mafic and ultramafic rocks that occur as minor, if ubiquitous, lithologic constituents within the Central and Eastern Blue Ridge provinces in North Carolina - current efforts here include an undergraduate-driven project that is characterizing amphibolite sequences south and west of the Buck Creek ultramafic body in Clay County, NC. We have expanded and varied off of this core effort (via the elbow grease of some highly motivated graduate students!) into examinations of the latest Precambrian meta-volcanic assemblages of the Mount Rogers Formation in SW Virginia; the petrology and origins of the Balkan-Carpathian Ophiolite in Bulgaria and Serbia; and the petrogenesis of Carboniferous, post-collisional granitoids in the Danubean domain of the southern Carpathians of Romania. Other motivated graduate students have led me into extraterrestial realms of inquiry, looking at late Cenozoic meteor impact sites in Panama, questions in astrobiology, and most recently in trying to link spectrally anomalous "A-class" asteroids to the existing global collection of meteorites. In all these cases students have taken heavy advantage of the analytical geochemistry facilities at USF and our partnering institutions in pursuing their research.
Geoscience Education:
Undergraduate researchers were heavily engaged in our Appalachian efforts, both as part of a five-year REU Site program (1997-2002), and individually - some 70 students have taken part in and "run with' pieces of this work over the years. This and my longstanding involvement with the Council on Undergraduate Research has led me into a range of scholarly directions in the broad area of geoscience education.
A recently completed NSF Transforming Undergraduate Education in STEM (TUES) Program-funded project helped expand the classroom use of geoanalytical research activities for undergraduates and test their educational benefits, making use of the remotely operable FCAEM electron microprobe and scanning electron microscope instruments in introductory and upper-level geoscience courses at four different FL colleges and universities; and we completed work on the GEODE (Google Earth in Onsite and Distance Education) NSF-TUES national-scale project that has sought to engage geoscience faculty in the use of Google Earth-based educational resources and in testing their effectiveness. These projects build on earlier efforts, piloting microprobe-based investigations in a mineralogy/petrology course at USF, and in helping develop "MARGINS Mini-Lessons," in which the interrogation of research datasets from past NSF-MARGINS projects is facilitated via a specialized geospatial platform (GeoMapApp). A recently funded NSF-IUSE project focuses on the development and testing of scientifically accurate animations of deep-earth geological processes for use in introductory and upper-level classrooms (for examples of such animations, click HERE ).
Supporting Faculty Development for Geoscientists and National Curricular Change:
From 2003-2005 I was the Geosciences Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the NSF, and since that time I have been heavily involved in faculty development efforts for geoscientists on a national scale. The RTUGeoEd project (an NSF-TUES Type 2 collaborative effort, with Jill Singer at Buffalo State College) sought to help faculty identify and address "on the ground" challenges in geoscience education through the development of classroom implementation and/or resource development projects to be submitted to the NSF for grant support. I was a presenter in the 2015 National Research Council Convocation on the Integration of Discovery-Based Research into Undergraduate STEM Curricula, which seeks to engage faculty and institutions across the STEM disciplines in bringing undergraduate research a "high impact" educational practice, into wider use in introductory-level science courses as a means of growing the number of STEM graduates nationally - the convocation report outlines a range of strategies and practices, including our work with remotely operable instrumentaiton. Both the GEODE project and our remote instruments Type 2 effort involves extensive faculty development opportunities to help put these new instructional tools and practices in the hands of all the earth sciences faculty who may benefit from them.
I was on the convening committee for the Summit on the Future of Undergraduate Geoscience Education, and NSF-funded initiative which sought both to identify the state-of-the-art in Bachelor's level geoscience educational practice for the benefit of our community, and to respond to emerging needs in the discipline into the future. This effort spawned a related, ongoing NSF-funded project targeting graduate geoscience education, the Summit on Improving Geoscience Graduate Student Preparedness for the Future Workforce, on which I serve as a co-Principal Investigator and Convener. The findings of these paired efforts have been synthesized into a national report, Vision and Change in the Geosciences: The Future of Undergraduate Geoscience Education, which I co-authored, and a growing information and resource site, maintained by the American Geosciences Institute, aimed at supporting geoscience departments in reviewing and transforming their undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
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