Erika Vye, a recent PhD graduate in geology and one of the leaders of Geotours, a geoheritage project, published an article in the February-March 2017 issue of Lake Superior Magazine, called “Land, Water and History.”
The article examines the geological history of Lake Superior and the lands that surround it in the U.S. and Canada.
Michigan Tech alumnus Jeff Nuttall (’68) and his wife Louise have donated an outstanding copper crystal to the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum.
The crystal of copper, from the Quincy Mine in Hancock, has near-perfect form. The museum has the finest cumulative collection in the world of crystallized copper specimens. The Nuttalls’ donation is more than twice the size of the next-best crystal of the same form in the museum’s collection. Among the thousands of copper crystals from the Copper Country in other museum and private collections, very few show such perfect form.
Associate Curator Chris Stefano notes that “Despite its small size, this specimen is among the finest copper crystals in the museum’s extensive holdings.”
Nuttall is a semi-retired geologist running Vicksburg Petroleum out of Houston, Texas and has an extensive collection of minerals from the local region. He has a great love for the Copper Country and has collected minerals since his time at Michigan Tech.
By A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum.
Outstanding alumni and friends will be recognized at the Alumni Reunion Awards Dinner on August 5, 2016.
The Humanitarian Award will be presented to James Tanis ’57, ’58 Geological Engineering / Geophysics and Janet Tanis, Sedona, Arizona.
The award is presented to those alumni and friends who, through their outstanding involvement and dedication, have made a significant contribution of volunteer leadership or service which has improved or enriched the lives of others and the welfare of humanity and whose accomplishments reflect admirably on or bring honor to their Alma Mater.
Their 2007 honeymoon in East Africa was a life-changer for Jim and Jan. It’s also been a life-changer for hundreds of vulnerable children helped through the Bwindi Community Program they founded to bring hope to vulnerable children through the power of education.
A chat with 13-year-old Brian, who sold them a gorilla carving, led him to the Tanises helping him attend secondary school.
Eventually, he asked the Tanises if they could help these young people in the same way they’d helped him. The non-profit program sent the first 21 kids to school in 2010. BCP continues to grow—to 140 students in 2015—thanks to donors in six countries who sponsor individual students. In 2016 a sister charity was formed to focus on primary-grade students, while BCP focuses on secondary school and beyond. Jim serves as board president, Jan as treasurer.
Provost Honored with Penn State’s Hosler Alumni Scholar Medal
Provost Jackie Huntoon has received the Charles L. Hosler Alumni Scholar Medal from Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS). She was presented with the award at the college’s annual spring Wilson Awards Banquet.
“I am very honored to receive this award,” said Huntoon. “I feel particularly fortunate for having been able to meet Dr. Hosler at the Wilson Banquet and learn more about his life and achievements.”
Huntoon earned her doctorate in geology from Penn State in 1990.
Read more at Tech Today, by Jenn Donovan.
Mining Engineering Pre-College Camp Scholarships: The week-long Mining Engineering program engages interested 9-11th grade students in the field of mining. Led by faculty, staff, and graduate students from Michigan Tech, participants get hands-on with engineering, explore future careers in extraction and mining, and learn from role models in industry.
Dr.-Ing. Rudolf “Rudy” Greuer of Houghton, Professor Emeritus of Mining Engineering at Michigan Tech, passed away on Sunday, January 18th, 2015 in Michigan’s Copper Country. Rudy was born on April 6th, 1927, in Guetzlaffshagen, German Pomerania. Rudy was a veteran of World War II, serving in the German armed forces prior to spending a period of Soviet captivity as a prisoner of war. After his military service and during his studies, Rudy worked as a miner in metal, coal, and potash mines in Germany and the United Kingdom. He attended the School of Mines in Freiberg, East Germany from 1948 to 1950. He later graduated with a Diplom (Masters) of Engineering in Mining Engineering from the Technical University at Clausthal, West Germany in 1953. He was granted the Doctor of Engineering in 1955 from the Technical University in Mining Engineering.
GMES PhD student, Elisa Piispa, has won an Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting. The title of Elisa’s presentation was “Paleomagnetism of the 1.1 Ga Baraga-Marquette dykes (Michigan, USA)”. The AGU Annual meeting was held in San Francisco, CA, December 15-19, 2014. Piispa’s PhD advisor is Aleksey Smirnov.
Michigan Tech 1999 MS Geology Alum Gari Mayberry was featured in the Washington Post article “Gari Mayberry: Lessening the impact of natural disasters worldwide” She is employed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) while working at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). wHer work involves the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) where she is leading and coordinating the U.S. government’s response to disasters overseas and mitigation of geological hazards.
Read her Alumni Profile: Gari Mayberry
The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI) Cities on Volcanoes 8 Conference was held September 9-13, 2014 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Nine students, alumni, and faculty/staff presented at the conference.
Those in attendance are pictured (left – right) below: Jennifer Telling, post-doc; Verity Flower, PhD candidate; Christine Sealing, MS graduate – INVOGE program; Kathleen McKee, MS graduate; Lauren Schaefer, PhD candidate; Anieri Morales Rivera, MS graduate; John “Jay” Wellik, MS graduate – PCMI program; Simon Carn, Associate Professor; and Lizzette Rodriguez, PhD graduate
This wednesday October 1, Prof Emeritus Hank Woodard of Beloit College will visit friends in Houghton, Pete and Carol Ekstrom. Woodard has been a forceful leader of earth sciences education for more than 50 years, at Beloit College. Geosciences are absent or under emphasized in US schools so most professionals in the field do not discover its advantages until they come to college. And even then, many colleges either do not offer the field or they underfund it, perceiving it to have limited interest.