Say Goodbye

I was sitting in a parking garage down in Houston today when I got a call from Mary Sue Hayward. Sadly, Harriet Hayward passed away last night.

To honor her life and some of her interests, the family has requested that donations be made to:
The Waco Foundation
Designated/Applied to Art Center Waco Fund
900 Austin Avenue
Waco, TX 76701

The foundation may be contacted by phone at 254-754-3404 and it's web address is:
http://www.wacofoundation.org/index.html

To go to a printable donation form, follow this link:
http://www.wacofoundation.org/donation.html

To request further info, call or email me or Art or contact the Geology Dept.

BGS organizes Geo Bowling Night

This was held last Wednesday evening, organized by Ryan Lindsay and Aislyn Trendell. At maximum, between 20 and 25 students attended, and I'm sure that high jinks ensued (since it was reported to me as a HUGE success).

It's Almost Time . . .

. . . for the Fall 2009 Board Meeting.

It will be held from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm on Friday, October 23rd in room E401, Baylor Sciences Building. The Homecoming Geology Department Open House will follow from 7:00-9:00 pm that same evening.

It will be good to see you guys again.

The agenda is available at this link. Don't forget the mineral sale, detailed just below, that will run from 11:00 to 6:00 that same day.

Finally too, we learned of the theme for the spring 2010 fieldtrip, "Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology of Central Texas". The trip will be held on Saturday, February 13th and will probably include the following stops:

Lampasas Cut Plain, Lake Belton - led by Peter Allen and Lee Nordt

Owl Creek, late Pleistocene-Holocene floodplain and alluvial fan section with "spectacular" paleosols, Fort Hood Military Reservation - led by Holly Meier (Holly's Ph.D.) and an unnamed undergraduate leader

Brezina Farm, late Holocene floodplain-channel deposits on Williams Creek near Axtell, in McLennan County, TX, GEO 5340 Paleopedology and GEO 5342 Micromorphology class projects - led by Gary Stinchcomb and Aislyn Trendell with two undergraduate leaders

Finally, a Waco Mammoth Site, 68-72 kyr fluvial, colluvial and alluvial deposits with fossil Columbian mammoths located in Waco, TX - led by John Bongino (his M.S. thesis).

Apparently leaders do not get to have names until they reach at least graduate status or maybe the undergrad leaders have yet to be named. Either way, I'm pretty sure that they actually do have names but either we or they do not know them yet.

Need New Rocks?

The geology department received a bequest from an old alum of his gem and mineral collection. The samples are all mounted and labeled and are being sold on October 23rd for only a buck apiece!


Click here for the full-sized flyer (pdf).

Come see us. Buy rocks!

Dr. Namy survives plane crash yesterday

A lot of you probably know Jerry Namy from his years at Baylor and beyond. He was in a plane crash yesterday afternoon. See this morning's Star Telegram article about the crash here. After we had read it, Art got on the phone and called around to some of the other ex-students in this area. He just walked in and let me know that Cliff Walker tells us Dr. Namy has a dislocated hip but otherwise will be OK.

I have his home address around here somewhere. If anyone would like to send a card or flowers, leave a comment here and I will supply it to you.

First O.T. Hayward Lecture Series Speaker Announced.

Set aside some time the evening of October 6.

Dr. David Montgomery, professor of geomorphology in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at University of Washington, comes as the inaugural lecturer in this series at 7 p.m. on Monday, October 6 in BSB D110. The lecture will be preceded by a reception beginning at 6:30.

. . . and he's even a geomorphologist - how apt is this?

He has written two books and numerous articles that have appeared in such journals as Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. A 2008 MacArthur Fellow, Montgomery’s publications have explored, among other things, how landslides and glacial erosion influence the height of mountains, how rivers originate and shape the landscape, and how human modification of river channels affects aquatic ecosystems.

More about Dr. Montgomery at these links:
American Rivers Science Advisor
2008 MacArthur Fellow David Montgomery

Baylor Geology Advisory Board Meeting Scheduled

Finally, a new announcement on the blog!

I received news of the next Advisory Board Meeting to be held this fall, Friday, October 23rd, the afternoon before the Homecoming Bonfire.

Since I can never find my paper copy of the by-laws, they are now on-line here.

So, if any of you Geo-types are coming in for homecoming, think about arriving a little early. Come to the meeting - the more, the merrier!