Vanderbilt University ––––––––––––––––––

Graduate Studies in Earth and Environmental Sciences

GRADUATE STUDIES IN EARTH & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

OVERVIEW A combination of dynamic research on a wide range of problems and close, enthusiastic interaction among faculty and students makes the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) at Vanderbilt University an excellent place to pursue graduate studies. The department's moderate size –12 faculty, 2 senior lecturers, 11 M.S. and 13 Ph.D. students– results in smaller class sizes and a close-knit atmosphere, while maintaining a vigorous research program and excellent lab facilities. Together these program attributes provide diverse, exciting opportunities to work on critical problems in the Earth sciences.

The Department’s Ph.D. degree, option in environmental science, is jointly administered by EES and Environmental Engineering and aims at linking the two disciplines to address scientific and applied problems. The Master’s degree is also highly valued component of our graduate program and comprises a two-year schedule requiring 24 semester hours of course work and a research thesis.

Vanderbilt is a private, comprehensive university with an enrollment of about 6,000 graduate students and 6,800 undergraduate students. It is located on a large, park-like campus within Nashville, the state capital and a dynamic city with a metropolitan population of more than one million. Fossil-rich Paleozoic limestones underlie the beautiful forested hills in which the city is nestled. The Mississippi embayment (including the New Madrid Fault Zone) and the Precambrian granite terrain of Missouri lie to the west and the complex collisional Appalachian mountain belt to the east. Diverse ecosystems span the state, from the Mississippi delta to Appalachian forests.

ADMISSIONS Applications to the EES graduate program are submitted through the Vanderbilt University Graduate School website: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/gradschool/prospective_students/. Transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and GRE scores are required, plus TOEFL scores for international applicants. The deadline for application is January 15, and all files submitted by this time will receive full consideration. Applications submitted beyond this date may be considered, but financial aid is generally determined in early February. Please note that applications to the Ph.D. program must be submitted through Environmental Engineering with interest in Environmental Resources and Geological Processes.

FINANCIAL AID Most EES graduate students receive financial support in the form of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, or scholarships, which provide tuition, health insurance, and a 9-month stipend of $21,200 in 2015-2016, with added scholarships available for outstanding applicants. Summer research support and teaching assistantships paying up to $6,500 are also available.

FOR MORE INFORMATION EES Director of Graduate Studies Guilherme Gualda Phone: (615) 322-2976 g.gualda@vanderbilt.edu http://www.vanderbilt.edu/ees/graduate.php

RESEARCH AT VANDERBILT Research in the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences is highly diverse, both geographically and topically. Ongoing faculty and student research projects include studies in Antarctica, South Asia, South America, Iceland, Greenland, Australia, and areas throughout the United States. Topics of research emphasis in EES include:

Atmospheric and Climate Sciences

Atmospheric physics, with emphasis on clouds and radiation

Physics of the climate system Environmental remote sensing

Ecology, Paleoecology, and Paleoclimatology

Response of terrestrial hydroclimates to climate change Response of animals and their environments to climatic

and human drivers Reconstruction of past climate with modern ecological

studies

Geochemical Processes

Accessory minerals as geochronometers and environmental monitors

Evolution of trace elements and isotope systems in Earth-surface environments

Geochemistry of vertebrate teeth and speleothems as environmental and climate proxies

Magmatic Processes and Crustal Evolution

Magma chamber dynamics and architecture Plutonic-volcanic links and eruption triggers Origin and evolution of magmas Origin and tectonic redistribution of continental crust

Sedimentary Processes and Environments

Fluvial, coastal, and marine sediment transport, deposition, and morphodynamics

Landscape development along continental margins and source-to-sink systems

Transport Phenomena and Coupled Physical-Biological Processes

Fluid processes and material transport at Earth’s surface and within its crust

Physical and chemical transport on hillslopes, in rivers and in coastal zones

FACILITIES The Department is housed in Vanderbilt’s Stevenson Science Center complex and maintains a suite of state-or-art instrumentation and laboratories. Experimental and analytical facilities readily accessible to students include: Variable-pressure scanning electron microscope

with secondary electrons, back-scattered electrons, cathodoluminescence detectors, and energy-dispersive spectrometer, electron back-scattered diffraction system

Quadrupole ICPMS with coupled 193nm excimer laser ablation system

X-ray computed tomography system and image processing laboratories

Experimental petrology lab (high-T, high-P experiments) Bioapatite geochemistry and dental microwear sample

preparation lab White-light confocal microscope Carbonate microsampler with epifluorescence Optical microscopes (teaching and research) and attached

photomicroscopy apparatus GIS and Remote sensing laboratories Sediment lab, including laser diffraction size analyzer;

portable XRF spectrometer; gamma-ray spectrometer; core-logger with imaging, magnetic susceptibility, gamma-attenuation, and porosity detectors

Microcomputer facilities and supporting hardware Sample preparation facilities and mineral separation lab EES also has extensive, networked microcomputer facilities and supporting hardware, excellent microscopes and photomicroscopy apparatus, complete preparation facilities, and a mineral separation lab. The Science Library has excellent holdings in the Earth sciences.

CURRICULUM AND DEGREE REQUIREMENTS Thirty hours of graduate credit and a research thesis are required for the Master of Science degree. A student’s curriculum is fairly flexible. It is planned by the student in consultation with, and approved by, the Director of Graduate Studies and an advisory committee. All graduate students are expected to have a sufficient background in supporting sciences and mathematics as well as in undergraduate Earth sciences; some make-up work is permitted. Students take most of their courses in the first year and spend summers and much of their second year completing the thesis. Our interdisciplinary PhD program in Environmental Science requires 72 total credit hours, which include course work (independent studies and seminars) and dissertation research. Course work for EES students includes at least two engineering courses and often courses in other sciences and math to complement the emphasis in EES. [Conversely, those students who emphasize the engineering end of the collaboration will take a minimum of two courses in EES to complement their environmental engineering.] We recommend that students enter the program with a Master's degree, either from Vanderbilt or elsewhere; credit from the previous degree may count toward the 72-hour requirement. In any case, a sound scientific background (with or without engineering) for the research direction that is planned is required. As with the MS, the dissertation is planned by the student with his or her advisor and advisory committee. The following courses are eligible for graduate credit and have been offered over the last few years: Earth Systems through Time Petrology Structural Geology and Rock Mechanics Advanced Topics in Earth Materials: Mineralogy Advanced Topics in Earth Materials: Phase

Transformations Advanced Topics in Earth Materials: Thermodynamics Applications of Probability and Statistics Earth Fluids Geochemistry Geomorphology Geospatial Statistics Intro Atmospheric Physics Isotopes and the Environment Macroevolution Magmatic Processes and the Construction of Earth's Crust Microscopic Imaging Paleoclimates Paleoecological Methods Physics of Climate System Remote Sensing Sedimentary Systems: Source-to-Sink Source to Sink

Sustainable Systems Science Ties Bangladesh Transport Processes in Earth and Environmental Systems Volcanic Processes In addition, students may also earn graduate credit in courses offered by other departments that are useful and relevant to the Earth and Environmental Sciences. Anthropology Environmental Anthropology Introduction to GIS and Remote Sensing GIS for Anthropology Research Civil Engineering Fluid Mechanics Water Supply & Wastewater Collection Hydrology Introduction to Environmental Engineering Geographic Information Systems Environmental Engineering Environmental Assessments Environ. Thermodyn., Kinetics, and Mass Transfer Environmental Chemistry Environmental Characterization and Analysis Groundwater Hydrology Pollutant Transport in the Environment Chemistry Organic Chemistry Physical Chemistry Biophysical Chemistry Biological Sciences Evolution Conservation Biology Ecology Statistical Methods in Biology Mathematics Linear Algebra Ordinary Differential Equations Introduction to Probability and Mathematical Statistics Physics Thermal and Statistical Physics Intermediate Classical Mechanics Electricity, Magnetism and Electrodynamics

PROCESS & OUTCOME OF YOUR EDUCATION The Department prides itself on the product of its graduate program: well-trained students who produce important research, finish in timely fashion, and go on to successful careers in the Earth and Environmental sciences and related fields. Our students almost invariably become involved in our collaborations with senior researchers and graduate students at other universities and research institutions, and they publish the results of their investigations, often in major journals (see listings under faculty publications). The Master's program is for two years, and not indefinite; students have their course work and thesis research completed within two years, and their theses are complete or nearly so by the end of this interval. Our students finish their degrees and get jobs in, and stay with, the Earth and Environmental sciences. Among more than fifty who have enrolled in our program over the last ten years, 90% completed their degree; of these, 90% are still in Earth and Environmental science fields. Our M.S. graduates are about equally divided between continuing on for advanced degrees (mostly the Ph.D. at Vanderbilt or other top institutions, in some cases law school) and entering the work force. Those who take jobs immediately after their M.S. enter Earth and Environmental fields in: private industry – environmental firms, petroleum companies; government – research labs, federal and state agencies; national and international non-governmental organizations; and college lecturers and secondary education. The style of our Ph.D. program in Environmental Science is similar to that of the M.S. program, with close supervision by and collaboration with faculty, interaction with other researchers nationally and internationally, an expectation of and support for timely completion, and outstanding research productivity. Recent Ph.D. graduates now hold positions as faculty (tenure-track and lectureship), as post-doctoral researchers at major universities, and as researchers in environmental consulting firms. Those currently in the program now are publishing their research in major journals and gaining experience as outstanding educators.

John Ayers

Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1991 Geochemistry, Petrology, Sustainability Science

Email: john.c.ayers@vanderbilt.edu CV: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/johncayers/cv/

General Interests Elements move on earth’s surface and deep in its interior through the action of mobile agents such as fluids and silicate melts. John’s research focuses on what controls the movement of trace elements in chemical systems. Recent research has focused on using shifts in chemical and isotopic compositions to characterize the… Surface fluxes and atmospheric concentrations of methane

in areas in eastern TN that have been hydraulically fractured (with George Hornberger, MS student Moyo Ajayi).

sources of salinity and arsenic in groundwater and surface waters in the coastal region of SW Bangladesh (with Steve Goodbred and student Greg George, work funded by ONR).

sources of salinity and arsenic in soils in SW Bangladesh (Master’s student David Fry, work funded by ONR).

provenance of soil in Nashville determined by measuring zircon U-Pb age spectra for soil and limestone bedrock (with MS student Nate Katsiaficas and visiting Professor Xiaomei Wang).

potential mobility of titanium and rare earth elements in magmas. PhD student Danny Flanagan is measuring the solubility of the mineral titanite (sphene) in magmas (with Calvin Miller, work funded by NSF).

potential mobility of trace elements in zircon-saturated fluids. PhD student Tim Peters measured zircon/fluid partition coefficients for a wide range of trace elements (work funded by NSF).

Figure 1: All surface waters and groundwaters in SW Bangladesh are mixtures of seawater and rainwater.

Recently John became interested in how changes in chemical systems, often caused by natural resource extraction, affect

sustainability. This caused him to start writing a book titled "Sustainability Science" that will be published by CRC Press in 2017. John has also involved his students in service learning projects related to sustainability. Students in his Geochemistry class have performed environmental assessments for homeowners in urban North Nashville. Courses Taught: Geochemistry, Sustainability Science, Aqueous Geochemistry, Geochemical Modeling

What Students Do Students choose whether they want to do laboratory, field, or theoretical work, or some combination of the three. Students doing lab or field work measure the chemical and isotopic compositions of their samples using a variety of sophisticated analytical tools at Vanderbilt and other locations. Theoretical work involves geochemical modeling, and may involve use of GIS software. John’s students develop problem solving skills and a quantitative understanding of earth processes. This experience is highly relevant to environmental problems. It is thus very practical, leading to job opportunities, and contributing to our knowledge of large-scale earth processes.

Figure 2: John and MS student Greg George make measurements and collect water samples in Bangladesh.

Selected Publications (*student) Benneyworth L., Gilligan J., Ayers J.C., Carrico A., George

G., Karim M.D., Akter F., Fry D., Goodbred S., Piya B., Donato D. (in prep.), Drinking Water Insecurity: Water Quality and Access in a Coastal Southwestern Bangladesh Community. The Journal of Environmental Management.

Ayers J.C., George G., Fry D., Benneyworth L., Wilson C., Wallace Auerbach L., Roy K., Karim M.R., Akhter F.,

Goodbred S.L. (in revision) Sources of Salinity and Arsenic in SW Bangladesh 2: Surface Water. Applied Geochemistry.

Ayers J.C., Bryant D.L., Giles K. (in press) Effect of fluid composition on monazite solubility and growth rate at 1.0 GPa and 1000C. American Mineralogist. http://dx.doi.org/10.2138/am-2015-5345

Ayers J.C., *George G., *Fry D., Benneyworth L., Roy K., Karim M.R., Akhter F., Goodbred S.L. (submitted to Applied Geochemistry) Sources of Salinity and Arsenic in SW Bangladesh 1: Groundwater.

Hornberger G.M., Ayers J.C. (2014) Hydraulic Fracturing in the Development of Unconventional Hydrocarbon Resources. Oxford Bibliography Online, Environmental Science. New York: Oxford University Press.

Figure 3: Zircon crystal being replaced by Na-Zr silicates. From an experiment conducted at high pressure and temperature in the Geochemistry laboratory at Vanderbilt.

Goudie D.J., Fisher C.M., Hanchar J.M, Davis W.J., Crowley J.L., Ayers J.C. (2014) Simultaneous in situ determination of U-Th-Pb and Sm-Nd isotopes in monazite by laser ablation ICP-MS. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-cubed), 26 pp., DOI 10.1002/2014GC005431.

*Lasley, Camille, Katsiaficas N., Ayers J.C. (2014) Provenance of a soil atop a terrace along the Harpeth River in Tennessee using immobile trace element concentration ratios. Young Scientist v. 4, pp. 21-22.

Ayers J.C., *Crombie S., *Loflin M., Miller C.F., Luo Y. (2013) Country rock monazite response to intrusion of the Searchlight pluton, southern Nevada. Amer. Jour. Science, v. 313, pp. 345-394. DOI 10.2475/04.2013.04.

*Peters, T., Ayers J.C., Gao S., Liu X. (2013) The response of zircon in eclogite to metamorphism during the multi-stage evolution of the Huwan Shear Zone, China: Insights from Lu-Hf-U-Pb isotopic and trace-element geochemistry. Gondwana Research, v. 23, Issue 2, March 2013, pp. 726–747, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2012.05.008.

Ayers J.C., *Zhang L., Luo Y., *Peters T. (2012) Solubility of zircon in neutral to alkaline aqueous fluids at upper crustal

conditions. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. v. 96, 18-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2012.08.027.

Ayers, J. C., 2012. Sands and Silica. In: Vasey, D. E., Fredericks, S. E., Lei, S., and Thompson, S. Eds.), Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability. Berkshire, Great Barrington, MA.

Luo Y., Ayers J.C. (2009) Experimental measurements of zircon/melt trace element partition coefficients. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta v. 73, 3656-3679. doi:10.1016/j.gca.2009.03.027

Rabbia O.M., Hernández L.B., French D.H., King R.W. and Ayers J.C. (2009) The El Teniente porphyry Cu-Mo deposit from a hydrothermal rutile perspective. Mineralium Deposita. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00126-009-0252-4

Luo Y., Sun M., Zhao G., Li S., Ayers J.C., Xia X., Zhang J. (2008) A comparison of U-Pb and Hf isotopic compositions of detrital zircons from the North and South Liaohe Groups: Constraints on the evolution of the Jiao-Liao-Ji Belt, North China Craton. Precambrian Research v. 163, 279-306.

Ayers, J. C., *Loflin, M., Miller, C. F., Barton, M. D., and Coath, C. D. (2006). In situ oxygen isotope analysis of monazite as a monitor of fluid infiltration during contact metamorphism: Birch Creek Pluton aureole, White Mountains, eastern California. Geology 34, 653-656.

*Lehner S.W., Savage K., Ayers J.C. (2006) Vapor growth and characterization of pyrite (FeS2) doped with Co, Ni, and As: Variations in semiconducting properties. Journal of Crystal Growth, v. 286, 306-317. doi: 10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2005.09.062

*Bryant D. L., Ayers J. C., Gao S., Miller C. F., and Zhang H. (2004) Geochemical, Age, and Isotopic Constraints on the Location of the Sino-Korean/Yangtze Suture and Evolution of the Northern Dabie Complex, East Central China. Geological Society of America Bulletin 116, 698-717.

Gao S., Rudnick R.L., Yuan H.-L., Liu X.-M., Liu Y.-S., Ling W.-L., Ayers J.C., Wang X.-C. (2004) Recycling lower continental crust. Nature 432, 892-897.

Ayers J. C., *DeLaCruz K., Miller C., and Switzer O. (2003) Experimental study of zircon coarsening in quartzite ±H2O at 1.0 GPa and 1000°C, with implications for geochronological studies of high-grade metamorphism. American Mineralogist 88:365-376.

Ayers J.C., Dunkle S., Gao S., Miller C. (2002) Triassic zircon U-Pb and monazite Th-Pb ages recorded in Maowu ultramafics and Shuanghe jadeite quartzite, Dabie Shan UHP belt, east-central China. Chemical Geology 186, 315-331. doi: 10.1016/S0009-2541(02)00008-6

Ralf Bennartz Professor, Earth & Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Free University of Berlin, 1997 Atmospheric & Climate Physics Remote Sensing

ralf.bennartz@vanderbilt.edu

Research Interests My research focuses on the role of water vapor, clouds, and precipitation in the climate system. In particular, I am using models and observations to enhance our understanding of physical processes in the atmosphere that might affect the climate on earth. Ground-based and space-borne remote sensing observations serve as a means for understanding these complex processes.

Current Research The Arctic climate is currently undergoing dramatic changes. In a long-term measurement project on top of the Greenland Ice Sheet we seek to understand why these changes occur. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). We have deployed a large set of instruments to make detailed observations of the state of the atmosphere over Greenland.

Above: Satellite images of Greenland taken on July, 11, 2012. On that day surface temperatures rose above freezing even on Greenland’s highest peaks. We know from ice cores such warm temperatures occur only about once every 150 years. The false-color image on the right side highlights clouds in purple. In our publication Bennartz et al. (2013) we show that these clouds were instrumental in pushing surface temperatures above freezing.

In various research projects funded by NASA we focus on using satellite data to observe clouds and their role in the climate system at regional and global scales. We have studied various regions of the globe, including China (see figure below), the East Pacific and the Atlantic Hurricane basin.

Above: A significant reduction in rainfall occurrence over the East China Sea has been observed between 1980 and now. In our publication Bennartz et al. (2011) we show that this decrease was caused by increased air pollution from mainland China.

What Students Do The overarching goal of graduate student education is to train students to become tomorrow’s leaders in our field. It is therefore of critical importance to support students in developing their skills in research areas that fit their interests. Students should be actively involved in defining their own research projects. Consequently, my students’ research activities vary strongly depending on the individual student’s interests.

Theoretical studies Theoretical research includes studies based on existing observation that could be coming from satellites or ground-based research stations. Students develop models to understand interactions between different physical processes. Observations will be used to evaluate the validity of those models. For example, one of my graduate students (Amato Evan) has studied African dust outbreaks using satellite observations. He developed a theory on how dust clouds can cool sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic by reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the ground.

Amato’s work was published in Science (Evan et al., 2009) and he is now an assistant professor at Scripps and UCSD.

Field Work While my research has a strong theoretical component, I have been leading various field experiments as well. Currently, together with three other universities, we are operating an NSF-funded long-term cloud and radiation observatory at Summit Peak, Greenland. In the last years several of my students went to Greenland for extended observational periods between four weeks and three months (see picture below). In addition, we are regularly participating in NASA measurement campaigns such as the Global Precipitation Mission’s Cold Season Precipitation Experiment, held in winter 2011 in Canada.

International collaborations Our research field is highly international. Students will have regular opportunities to attend national and international conferences. Many of my students have also spent several weeks or months abroad, e.g. at the Free University of Berlin or at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.

Above: Graduate student Claire Pettersen at Summit Research Station on top of the Greenland Ice Sheet at 3,200 m (10,500 ft) The research station is in the back. Photo by Claire Pettersen.

Representative Publications * : Student first author +: Student co-author + Bennartz, R., M. D. Shupe, D. D. Turner, V. Walden, K.

Steffen, C. J. Cox, M. S. Kulie, N. B. Miller*, and C. Pettersen* (2013), July 2012 Greenland melt extent enhanced by low-level liquid clouds, Nature, 496, 83-8610.1038/nature12002.

+ Shupe, M. D., et al. (2013), High and Dry: New Observations of Tropospheric and Cloud Properties above the Greenland Ice Sheet, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 94, 169-18610.1175/BAMS-D-11-00249.1.

Bennartz, R., and M. Schroeder (2012), Convective Activity over Africa and the Tropical Atlantic Inferred from 20 Years of Geostationary Meteosat Infrared Observations, Journal of Climate, 25(1), 156-16910.1175/2011jcli3984.1.

* Hiley,* M. J. , M. S. Kulie, and R. Bennartz (2011), Uncertainty Analysis for CloudSat Snowfall Retrievals, J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim., 50(2), 399-41810.1175/2010jamc2505.1.

+ Bennartz, R., J. Fan, J. Rausch*, L. R. Leung, and A. K. Heidinger (2011), Pollution from China increases cloud droplet number, suppresses rain over the East China Sea, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38(9)10.1029/2011gl047235.

* Rausch*, J. , A. Heidinger, and R. Bennartz (2010), Regional assessment of microphysical properties of marine boundary layer cloud using the PATMOS-x dataset, Journal of Geophysical Research, 115(D23)10.1029/2010jd014468.

* Kulie*, M. S., and R. Bennartz (2009), Utilizing Spaceborne Radars to Retrieve Dry Snowfall, J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim., 48(12), 2564-258010.1175/2009jamc2193.1.

* Evan*, A. T., D. J. Vimont, A. K. Heidinger, J. P. Kossin, and R. Bennartz (2009), The Role of Aerosols in the Evolution of Tropical North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Anomalies, Science, 324(5928), 78110.1126/ science.1167404.

Simon Darroch Assistant Professor, Earth & Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Yale University, 2014 Paleobiology and Paleoecology

simon.darroch@yale.edu (arriving VU in Fall 2015)

Research Interests Simon is interested in all aspects of paleobiology, currently organized into three principal research directions: 1) the paleoecology, taphonomy, and evolution of early Metazoan communities; 2) the impact of mass extinctions on ecosystem structure and function, and, 3) the preservation potential of ecological community attributes (especially diversity gradients) in the fossil record.

Current Research Much of my current work involves the paleobiology and –ecology of the Ediacara biota – a bizarre collection of soft-bodied organisms that flourished in the latest Neoproterozoic, and which largely disappeared at the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary. My research in the Ediacaran is currently based in Namibia, where colleagues and I are investigating the ecology of Ediacaran communities living only a few million years before the beginning of the Cambrian. We are tackling a number of specific questions, including: what happened to the Ediacara biota immediately prior to the Cambrian boundary? How are these organisms preserved? And, what roles did the evolving ‘modern’ fauna play in driving the Ediacara biota extinct?

In terms of mass extinctions, I am currently working on establishing patterns of biogeographic response during these critical intervals in Earth history, with an emphasis on changes in geographic range size, and beta diversity at different spatial scales. I am currently working with brachiopod material collected from Anticosti Island, Quebec, which preserves a fantastic record of the Ordovician-Silurian mass extinction. I am keen to compare these patterns with other extinction events, and try to extract broader generalizations about the responses of organisms to various global change scenarios.

Finally, as paleoecologists we sometimes take the fossil record for granted, without giving much thought as to how faithfully fossils record the composition of the original communities. Actualistic studies and experiments using modern environments give us a chance to test how good the

fossil record really is. I am currently researching questions along these lines on the Island of San Salvador, The Bahamas, using benthic foraminifera and other common components of carbonate sediments. In particular, I am interested in how well small-scale diversity gradients are preserved in the rock record, and how this fidelity differs among depositional environments.

What Students Do My students will address a wide variety of research questions that can be based in the lab or in the field, depending on their own interests and strengths. I’m keen on talking to students interested in soft-tissue taphonomy, and who would help design and perform a wide range of decay experiments simulating Precambrian-type scenarios. In terms of field projects, I will be returning to Namibia, Quebec, and San Salvador in the coming years, and collecting a variety of paleontological, ichnological, and geochemical data, with many ways for students to get involved. Lastly, I am very interested in meeting computationally minded students, who would be keen to try simulating (and testing) the spatial fidelity of the fossil record, using a combination of ArcGIS and R software.

Figure 1: Reconstructed geographic range sizes for North American ungulate families and genera, present in four or more locations: (a), (b) range sizes with point size proportional to the number of localities occupied by each family/genus; (c), (d) range sizes plotted on logged axes; (e), (f) standardized deviation from range size null models (effect size). Dashed lines indicate statistical significance at the 95% confidence interval. Trend lines in (e) and (f) are best-fit lowess lines. (from Darroch et al., 2014)

Representative Publications

Mass extinctions/spatial paleoecology: Darroch, S.A.F., and Wagner, P.J. In press. Responses of beta diversity to pulses of Ordovician-Silurian extinction. Ecology.

Darroch, S.A.F., Webb, A.E., Longrich, N., and Belmaker, J. 2014. Paleocene-Eocene evolution of beta-diversity among ungulate mammals in North America. Global Ecology and Biogeography, v. 23, p.757-768.

Hull, P.M. and Darroch, S.A.F. 2013. Mass extinctions and the structure and function of ecosystems. GSA Short Course: Ecosystem Paleobiology and Geobiology, eds Andrew Bush, Sarah Pruss, and Jonathan Payne, p.115-157.

Ediacaran-Cambrian paleobiology: Darroch, S.A.F., Laflamme, M., and Clapham, M.E. 2013. Population structure of the oldest known macroscopic communities from Mistaken Point, Newfoundland. Paleobiology, v.39, p.591-608.

Zamora, S., Darroch, S.A.F., and Rahman, I.A. 2013. Taphonomy and ontogeny of early pelmatozoan echinoderms: a case study of a mass mortality assemblage of Gogia from the Cambrian of North America. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v.377, p.62-72.

Laflamme, M., Darroch, S.A.F., Tweedt, S., Peterson, K.J., and Erwin, D.H. 2013. The end of the Ediacara biota: extinction, biotic replacement, or Cheshire cat? Gondwana Research, v.23, p.558-573.

Darroch, S.A.F., Laflamme, M., Schiffbauer, J.D. and Briggs, D.E.G. 2012. Experimental formation of a microbial death mask. Palaios, v.27, p.293-303.

Fidelity of the fossil record: Darroch, S.A.F. 2012. Carbonate facies control on the fidelity of surface-subsurface agreement in benthic foraminiferal communities – implications for index-based paleoecology. Palaios, v.27, p.137-150.

Figure 2: Scanning Electron Microsope images of foraminiferal taxa from San Salvador Island, Bahamas

Fossil tapir from the Gray Fossil Site located in eastern Tennessee, sampled for stable isotope analyses.

Larisa R. G. DeSantis Assistant Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. University of Florida, 2009 Vertebrate paleontology and paleoecology

larisa.desantis@vanderbilt.edu, tel. (615) 343-7831 www.vanderbilt.edu/ees/people/faculty/LarisaDeSantis.php

General Interests Larisa DeSantis’s interdisciplinary research program

focuses on understanding ecological dynamics through time, at a variety of spatial scales. She examines modern ecosystems to constrain environmental reconstructions of fossil localities, and uses the fossil record to inform ecologists and conservation biologists about faunal and flora responses to climate change. The integration of the disparate fields of ecology, paleontology, and geochemistry can synergistically improve understandings of long-term ecological dynamics. Specifically, her research goals include: 1) reconstructing ancient environments using modern ecological studies to help constrain paleoecological hypotheses; and, 2) understanding how mammalian communities and their floral environments have responded to climate change during the Cenozoic.

Current Research Paleoecological tools including stable isotopes, dental

microwear, and morphology enable comparisons of modern and ancient terrestrial ecosystems across temporal boundaries. DeSantis integrates these tools to clarify how changing climates have affected mammals and their floral environments through time, globally. Her research program generally focuses on two major areas. The first area aims to clarify the paleoecology of forest environments through time. Tapirs, extant browsers occupying forest environments today, are model organisms for examining forest distributions over the past 55 million years and their modern ecology can help constrain paleoecological interpretations of late Cenozoic fossil localities where tapirs are abundant. Thus, DeSantis examines extant tapir populations throughout Central and South America to constrain ecological and climatic interpretations of fossil localities dominated by tapirs, primarily in the southeastern United States.

DeSantis’s second area of research aims to inform ecologists and conservation biologists about the effects of long term climate change on mammalian communities and their environments. Currently, global climate change affects the composition and dynamics of mammalian communities and potentially increases their risk of extinction. However, the long-term effects of global warming on extinct mammals are less understood. Dietary reconstructions inferred from stable isotopes and dental microwear of fossil mammal teeth can document dietary niche partitioning, enable environmental inferences (e.g. grassland vs. forest), and allow for comparisons of aridity and/or relative seasonality over time. Through the analyses of fossil communities during the late Cenozoic, DeSantis assess the affects of climate change on mammals experiencing interglacial warming in North America to increased aridity in Australia. Although she focuses on ungulate and marsupial mammals, she and students are currently extending analyses to also include xenarthrans (i.e. sloths, armadillos, and relatives), carnivores, and small mammals.

Students and DeSantis excavating fossils at the Gray Fossil Site.

What Students Do Opportunities for M.S. and Ph.D. students include a broad range of projects with questions pertaining to either modern and/or ancient ecosystems. Masters students are encouraged to ask questions that can be appropriately answered using one or two paleoecological methods (e.g. stable isotope analyses, dental microwear texture analyses, morphological analyses, etc…), while Ph.D. students are encouraged to integrate multiple tools to answer interdisciplinary questions. Potential projects likely include laboratory analyses of museum specimens and may incorporate field opportunities. Students are also encouraged to communicate the broader impacts of their research to the public. Masters students pursuing paleoecological research will be well prepared for advanced degrees in either biological or geological disciplines and careers ranging from environmental management to secondary education. Doctoral students are ideally suited to purse academic careers and/or engage in interdisciplinary professions that examine changing environments and climates.

Selected Publications (*denotes students) *Donohue, S.L., DeSantis, L.R.G. §, Schubert, B.W., Ungar, P.S.

Was the giant short-faced bear a hyper-scavenger? A new approach to the dietary study of ursids using dental microwear textures. PLoS ONE (In press, publication date 2013).

*Yann, L.T., DeSantis, L.R.G. §, *Haupt, R.J., *Romer, J.L., *Corapi, S.E., *Ettenson, D.J. Mammalian oxygen isotopes as an indicator of regional climatic differences in Pleistocene North America. Paleobiology 39: 576-590.

*Lashinsky, N., DeSantis, L.R.G. §, *Yann, L.T., *Romer, J.L., *Corapi, S.E., *Donohue, *S., Fathel, S., *Gootee, E., *Romer, J.L., *Velkovski, S. 2013. Is Rapoport's rule a recent phenomenon? A deep time perspective on potential causal mechanisms. Biology Letters (In press, to be published 23 October 2013; available early at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0398)

DeSantis, L.R.G. §, Scott, J.R., *Donohue, S.L., *McCray, B., *Van Stolk, C.A., *Winburn, A.A., *Greshko, M.A., *O'Hara, M. 2013. Direct comparisons of 2D and 3D dental microwear proxies in extant herbivorous and carnivorous mammals. PLoS ONE 8: e71428

*Haupt, R.J., DeSantis, L.R.G. §, Green, J.L., Ungar, P.S. 2013. Dental microwear texture as a proxy for diet in xenarthrans. Journal of Mammalogy 94: 856-866

*Burgess, C., DeSantis, L.R.G. § 2013. Stable isotope ecology of the red-necked wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus): clarifying species-specific responses to climate and geographic variables. Young Scientist 3: 28-31

DeSantis, L.R.G. §, Schubert, B.W., Scott, J.R., Ungar, P.S. 2012. Implications of diet for the extinction of saber-toothed cats and American lions. PLoS ONE 7: e52453

Fisher, E. §, Mackey, K., Cusack, D., DeSantis, L., Hartzell-Nichols, L., Lutz, J., Melbourne-Thomas, J., Meyer, R., Riveros-Iregui, D., Sorte, C., Taylor, J., White, S. 2012. Is Pre-Tenure Interdisciplinary Research a Career Risk? EOS, Transactions American Geophysical Union 93(32): 311

*Kelly, J.E., DeSantis, L.R.G., Tung, T.A. 2012. Reconstructing climate change and food production in the ancient Peruvian Andes using stable isotope analysis. Young Scientist 2: 31-33

DeSantis, L.R.G. §, *Beavins Tracy, R.A., *Koontz, C.S., *Roseberry, J.C., *Velasco, M.C. 2012. Mammalian niche conservation through deep time. PLoS ONE 7: e35624

Dillehay, T. § et al. 2012. Chronology, mound-building and environment at Huaca Prieta, coastal Peru, from 13700 to 4000 years ago. Antiquity 86: 48-70

DeSantis, L.R.G. 2011. Stable isotope ecology of extant tapirs from the Americas. Biotropica (DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-7429.2011.00761.x)

MacFadden, B.J., DeSantis, L.R.G., Labs Hochstein, J., Kamenov, G.D. 2010. Physical properties, geochemistry, and diagenesis of xenarthran teeth: prospects for interpreting the paleoecology of extinct species. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 291: 180-189

Schubert, B.W., Ungar, P.S., DeSantis, L.R.G. 2010. Carnassial microwear and dietary behaviour in large carnivorans. Journal of Zoology 280: 257-263

Prideaux, G.J., Ayliffe, L.K., DeSantis, L.R.G., Schubert, B.W., Murray, P.F., Gagan, M.K., Cerling, T.E. 2009. Extinction implications of a chenopod browse diet for a giant Pleistocene kangaroo. PNAS 106: 11646-11650.

DeSantis, L.R.G., Feranec, R.S., MacFadden, B.J. 2009. Effects of interglacial warming on ancient mammalian communities and their environments. PLoS ONE 4: e5750

DeSantis, L.R.G. 2009. Teaching evolution through inquiry-based lessons of uncontroversial science. The American Biology Teacher 71(2): 106-111

DeSantis, L.R.G. 2009. Straight from the mouths of horses and tapirs: using fossil teeth to clarify how ancient environments have changed over time. Science Scope 32(5): 18-24

DeSantis, L.R.G., Wallace, S.C. 2008. Neogene forest from the Appalachians of Tennessee, USA: geochemical evidence from fossil mammal teeth. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 266: 59-68

DeSantis, L.R.G., MacFadden, B.J. 2007. Identifying forested environments in Deep Time using fossil tapirs: evidence from evolutionary morphology and stable isotopes. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 258: 147-157

DeSantis, L.R.G., Bhotika, S., Putz, F.E., Williams, K. 2007. Sea-level rise and drought interactions accelerate declines on the Gulf Coast of Florida, USA. Global Change Biology 13: 2349-2360

DeSantis, L.R.G. 2007. Clarifying tropical cyclone activity in centuries past. Science Teacher 74(6): 78-84

David Jon Furbish Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. University of Colorado, 1985 Hydrology, Geomorphology and Fluid Mechanics david.j.furbish@vanderbilt.edu; tel. (615) 322-2137 www.vanderbilt.edu/ees/people/faculty/DavidFurbish.php

General Interests David Furbish’s research involves environmental fluid mechanics and transport theory applied to problems in hydrology and geomorphology, and the intersection of these fields with ecology. His work combines theoretical, experimental, computational and field-based components aimed at understanding the dynamics of Earth surface, and near-surface, systems spanning human to geomorphic time scales. David has taught courses in geology, hydrology and geomorphology, transport processes in Earth and environmental systems, and fluid dynamics. He is author of the text, “Fluid Physics in Geology,” published by Oxford University Press.

Current Research David’s current research is centered on two interrelated projects. The first project involves theoretical and experimental studies of the physics and probabilistic nature of sediment particle motions, and is aimed at clarifying our understanding of the transport and dispersal of sediment and sediment-borne substances in rivers and on hillslopes. The second project concerns desert plant-soil interactions, and is aimed at clarifying the interrelationship between desert shrub community dynamics and soil transport, wherein shrubs behave as sediment capacitors in regulating the transport and dispersal of soil material by rain splash and surface flows.

Selected Publications Hillslopes

Furbish, D. J. and Haff, P.K. 2010. From divots to swales: Hillslope sediment transport across divers length scales, Journal of Geophysical Research — Earth Surface, 115, F03001, doi: 10.1029/2009JF001576.

Furbish, D. J., Haff, P. K., Dietrich, W. E. and Heimsath, A. M. 2009. Statistical description of slope-dependent soil transport and the diffusion-like coefficient, Journal of Geophysical Research – Earth Surface, 114, doi: 10.1029/2009JF001267.

*Mudd, S. M. and Furbish, D. J. 2007. Responses of soil-mantled hillslopes to transient channel incision rates. Journal of Geophysical Research — Earth Surface, 112, F03S18, doi: 10.1029/2006JF000516.

*Mudd, S. M. and Furbish, D. J. 2006. Using chemical tracers in hillslope soils to estimate the importance of chemical denudation under conditions of downslope sediment transport. Journal of Geophysical Research — Earth Surface, 111, F02021, doi: 10.1029/2005JF000343.

Heimsath, A. M., Furbish, D. J. and Dietrich, W. E. 2005. The illusion of diffusion: Field evidence for depth-dependent sediment transport. Geology, 33, 949-952.

*Mudd, S. M. and Furbish, D. J. 2005. Lateral migration of hillcrests in response to channel incision in soil mantled landscapes. Journal of Geophysical Research — Earth Surface, 110(12), F04026, doi: 10.1029/2005JF000313.

*Mudd, S. M. and Furbish, D. J. 2004. Influence of chemical denudation on hillslope morphology. Journal of Geophysical Research — Earth Surface, 109, F02001, DOI:10.1029/2003JF000487.

Furbish, D. J. 2003. Using the dynamically coupled behavior of land-surface geometry and soil thickness in developing and testing hillslope evolution models. in P. Wilcock and R. Iverson (Eds.), Prediction in Geomorphology, American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Monograph 135, Washington, D.C., 169-181.

Rivers *Byrd, T. C. and Furbish, D. J. 2000. Magnitude of

deviatoric terms in vertically-averaged flow equations. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 25, 319-328.

*Byrd, T. C., Furbish, D. J. and Warburton, J. 2000. Estimating depth-averaged velocities in rough channels. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 25, 167-173.

Furbish, D. J. 1998. Irregular bed forms in steep, rough channels: 1. Stability analysis. Water Resources Research, 34, 3635-3648.

Furbish, D. J., *Thorne, S. D., *Byrd, T. C., Warburton, J., *Cudney, J. J. and *Handel, R. W. 1998. Irregular bed forms in steep, rough channels: 2. Field observations. Water Resources Research, 34, 3649-3659.

*Thorne, S. D. and Furbish, D. J. 1995. Influences of coarse bank roughness on flow within a sharply curved river bend. Geomorphology, 12, 241-257.

Furbish, D. J. 1993. Flow structure in a bouldery mountain stream with complex bed topography. Water Resources Research, 29, 2249-2263.

Furbish, D. J. 1991. Spatial autoregressive structure in meander evolution. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 103, 1576-1589.

Coastal Processes *Mudd, S. M., Fagherazzi, S., Morris, J. T. and Furbish, D.

J. 2004. Flow, sedimentation, and biomass production on a vegetated salt marsh in South Carolina: toward a predictive model of marsh morphologic and ecologic evolution. in S. Fagherazzi, A. Marani and L.K. Blum (editors), The Ecogeomorphology of Tidal Marshes, American Geophysical Union, Washington, D.C., pp 16-187.

*Mango, A. J., Schmeeckle, M. W. and Furbish, D. J. 2004. Tidally-induced groundwater circulation in an unconfined aquifer modeled with a Hele-Shaw cell. Geology, 32, 233-236.

Fagherazzi, S., Gabet, E. J. and Furbish, D. J. 2003. The effect of bidirectional flow on tidal planforms. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 29, 295-309.

Hydrology Fagherazzi, S., Furbish, D. J., Rasetarinera, P. and

Hussaini, M. Y. 2004. Application of the discontinuous spectral Galerkin method to groundwater flow. Advances in Water Resources, 27, 129-140.

Fagherazzi, S., Rasetarinera, P., Furbish, D. J. and Hussaini, M. Y. 2004. Numerical solution of the dam break problem with a discontinuous Galerkin method. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 130, DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9429(2004)130:6(1).

*Sun, H. and Furbish, D. J. 1997. Annual precipitation and river discharges in Florida in response to El Niñño- and La Niñña-sea surface temperature anomalies. Journal of Hydrology, 199, 74-87.

*Sun, H. and Furbish, D. J. 1995. Moisture content effect on radon emanation in porous media. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 18, 239-255.

Furbish, D. J. and Parker, W. C. 1992. On the lengths of crossing excursions: the case of a discrete normal process with underlying exponential autocovariance. Stochastic Hydrology and Hydraulics, 6, 167-182.

Furbish, D. J. 1991. The response of water level in a well to a time series of atmospheric loading under confined conditions. Water Resources Research, 27, 557-568.

Furbish, D. J. 1988. The influence of ice layers on the travel time of meltwater flow through a snowpack. Arctic and Alpine Research, 20, 265-272.

Fluids and Transport Phenomena **Covey, A. C., Furbish, D. J. and Savage, K. S. (2010)

Earthworms as agents for arsenic transport and transformation in roxarsone-impacted soil microcosms: A μ-XANES and modeling study, Geoderma, 156, 99-111, doi: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2010.02.004.

Furbish, D. J., Schmeeckle, M. W. and Roering, J. J. Thermal and force-chain effects in an experimental, sloping granular shear flow. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 33, 2108-2117, doi: 10.1002/esp.1655.

Furbish, D. J., *Hamner, K. K., Schmeeckle, M. W., *Borosund, M. N. and *Mudd, S. M. (2007) Rain splash of dry sand revealed by high-speed imaging and sticky-paper splash targets. Journal of Geophysical Research – Earth Surface, 112, F01001, doi: 10.1029/2006JF000498.

**Sonke, J. E., Furbish, D. J. and Salters, V. J. M. 2003. Dispersion effects of laminar flow and spray chamber volume in capillary electrophoresis-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry: A numerical and experimental approach. Journal of Chromatography A, 1015, 205-218.

Furbish, D. J. 1997. Fluid physics in geology: An introduction to fluid motions on Earth’s surface and within its crust. New York: Oxford University Press, 476 pp.

Paleontology and Life Processes **Challener, R. C., Miller, M. F., Furbish, D. J. and

McClintock, J. (2009) An evaluation of sand grain crushing in the sand dollar Mellita tenuis (Echinoidea: Echinodermata), Aquatic Biology, 7, 261-268, doi: 10.33354/ab00199.

Furbish, D. J. and Arnold, A. J. 1997. Hydrodynamic strategies in the morphological evolution of spinose planktonic foraminifera. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 109, 1055-1072.

Furbish, D. J., Arnold, A. J. and **Hansard, S. P. 1990. The species censorship problem: a general solution. Mathematical Geology, 22, 95-106.

* student author supervised by Furbish ** student author supervised by collaborating faculty

Jonathan Gilligan Associate Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D., Yale University, 1991 Coupled Human-Natural Systems, Environmental Policy, Agent-Based Modeling jonathan.gilligan@vanderbilt.edu https://my.vanderbilt.edu/jonathangilligan/

Motivation Human activity constantly alters the surface of our planet: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the biosphere, and the landscape all bear clear signs of our presence. In turn, our lives are thoroughly shaped by our surroundings. My work seeks to understand the connections between human activities and the physical environment and to use that understanding to help both individuals and policymakers to understand the decisions they make about environmental issues, and to be more effective at using those decisions to achieve their goals.

Ongoing Research My research is largely divided into four main areas connected by some common themes:

Common Themes I work in multidisciplinary collaborations with social scientists, environmental scientists, engineers, and public policy scholars. My role is generally to make connections and integrate the work from different disciplines. One of the principal tools I am using to do this is agent-based modeling, a technique for simulating ecosystems and human communities with computers to explore the way large-scale patterns of behavior can emerge spontaneously from individual-level choices and actions.

Breaking the Climate Policy Deadlock Climate policy in the US has been caught in a gridlock for more than a decade. My research has focused on identifying and evaluating policy options that would be feasible to enact and implement quickly, even in today’s highly partisan atmosphere. These measures are less ambitious, but could nonetheless contribute substantially to slowing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, and could serve as building blocks toward achieving a comprehensive set of policies to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

One piece of this research focuses on the largely neglected potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through voluntary measures by individuals and households. Energy consumed directly by individuals and households in the US is responsible for almost 40% of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions. My colleagues and I find that a well-designed national program to encourage voluntary actions by individuals and households could reduce emissions significantly.

Integrated Social Science, Engineering, and Environmental Science in Bangladesh Bangladesh is both very vulnerable to environmental change and also very resilient. It is the most densely populated large nation on earth, and most of its land is close to sea level, so many analysts to predict that rising sea levels will displace tens of millions of people, leading to mass

migrations and political destabilization. But the real story is not so simple: both the impacts of sea level rise on the landscape and the response of the populace involve complicated connections between human activities and the physical environment.

I am part of a multidisciplinary team of social scientists, engineers, and earth scientists studying rural farming communities in the Southwestern coastal region of Bangladesh. In this project, I am exploring the use of agent-based modeling to identify and examine scenarios under which communities become especially resilient or vulnerable to disruption by natural hazards.

Adaptation to Water Stress by Rice Farmers in Sri Lanka South Asia has been very successful at feeding its growing population by dramatically increasing agricultural production. Farmers, who would traditionally grow one crop of rice per year are now growing two or even three. Growing rice throughout the year, not just in a traditional rainy season, makes farmers extremely vulnerable if rains do not come on time, if reservoirs run low, or if groundwater is depleted. If farmers know in advance that water may be scarce, they have

many options, and it is important to understand what information is most useful to them. I am part of a multi-disciplinary project, including psychologists, sociologists, geographers, engineers, and environmental scientists that is studying rice farmers in the Mahaweli watershed in Sri Lanka. The Mahaweli contains both traditional “purana” farming communities, centered on small rain-fed reservoirs managed by the local farming communities, and a large highly engineered and centrally managed water-management system that incorporates large reservoirs, an extensive network of irrigation canals, and hydroelectric generation. We are examining both the institutional processes of allocating water between irrigation and electrical generation, providing training and material support for farmers, and also the way farmers make decisions, both as individuals and as communities, about what to grow and when to grow it.

What Students Do Students working with me combine social-science, environmental science, and computer modeling to build connections between physical environmental science, social sciences, and policy. The nature of these connections can vary: Current students are working on projects that include: using agent-based modeling to study how the accuracy of seasonal weather forecasts affects how useful those forecasts are to rice farmers; combining agent-based modeling with role-playing games in rural communities in Bangladesh to

understand why community drinking-water succeed or fail; combining fieldwork measuring water quality rural Bangladesh with satellite remote-sensing imagery and demographic data to measure regional variations in access to safe drinking water. Students perform field research, analyze data, write and run computer models, write up and publish their work on scholarly journals, and present their work at national meetings, such as AGU.

Recent publications 1. “Accounting for political feasibility in climate instrument

choice,” by J. M. Gilligan and M. P. Vandenbergh, Virginia Environmental Law Journal (in press).

2. Sustaining Tennessee in the Face of Climate Change: Grand Challenges and Great Opportunities, by M. Abkowitz, J. Camp, R. Chen, V. Dale, J. Dunn, D. Kirschke, D. de la Torre Ugarte, J. Fu, J. Gilligan, Q. He, D. Larsen, E. Parish, B. Preston, J. Schwartz, A. Vergara, B. Wesh, and T. Wilbanks (Sustainable Tennessee, 2012).

3. “Macro-risks: The challenge for rational risk regulation,” by M. P. Vandenbergh and J. M. Gilligan, Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum 21, 401–431 (2011).

4. “Design principles for carbon emissions reduction programs,” by P. C. Stern, G. T. Gardner, M. P. Vandenbergh, T. Dietz, and J. M. Gilligan, Environmental Science and Technology 44, 4847–48 (2010).

5. “The behavioral wedge: best policies to promote voluntary greenhouse gas reductions by individuals and households,” by J. Gilligan, T. Dietz, G. Gardner, P. Stern, and M. Vandenbergh, Significance 7, 17–20 (2010).

6. “Ethics in geologic time: Should we care about distant generations?” by J. Gilligan, in R. Espejo, ed., Opposing Viewpoints: Ethics, vol. 2 (Gale, 2010).

7. “Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce U.S. carbon emissions,” by T. Dietz, G. Gardner, J. Gilligan, P. Stern, and M. Vandenbergh, Proc. Nat’l. Acad. Sci. 106, 18 452–18 456 (2009).

8. “Costly myths: an analysis of idling beliefs and behavior in personal motor vehicles,” by A. R. Carrico, P. Padgett, M. P. Vandenbergh, J. Gilligan, and K. A. Wallston, Energy Policy 37, 2881–2888 (2009).

9. “Flexibility, clarity, and legitimacy: Considerations for managing nanotechnology risks,” by J. M. Gilligan, Environmental Law Reporter 36, 10 924–10 930 (2006).

Steven L. Goodbred, Jr. Professor, Earth & Environmental Sciences Ph.D., 1999 College of William and Mary Virginia Institute of Marine Science Sedimentology and Quaternary Environments

https://my.vanderbilt.edu/stevengoodbred/ steven.goodbred@vanderbilt.edu

General Interests Our research investigates how various forcing mechanisms – climate, tectonics, marine processes, and humans – interact along continental margins to define the behavior of river deltas and coastal environments. These settings are home to half of the world’s population, putting humans, infrastructure,

and economies at risk while placing huge demand on local land, energy, and water resources. Throughout history such coastal populations have endured recurring catastrophes caused by storms, flooding, and land loss – less obvious are the longer-term impacts of climate change, sea-level rise, and overpopulation. Interwoven with this continental-margin fabric are many fundamental research questions concerning past environmental change, the recurrence and impact of coastal hazards, and the effect of humans on the landscape. These are a few of the broader issues related that we pursue in our research.

Current Research Our current research is primarily taking place along the rivers and mega-deltas of South Asia, principally centering on the country of Bangladesh and its dominant landform, the Ganges-Brahmaputra river delta. Truly a land of superlatives, this system drains the world’s highest mountain range, transports the largest sediment load to form the biggest delta, and serves as home to the most densely populated nation and largest coastal mangrove system. It is an amazing region! Presently we are funded through two multi-institutional, multi-year grants with the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. The 5-year NSF project, titled Life on a tectonically-active delta: Convergence of earth science and geohazard research in Bangladesh is aimed at understanding how tectonics and fluvial processes interact to define delta evolution and river behavior – these interactions are first order controls on the hazards of riverbank erosion, flood distribution, and channel avulsion. More information on this research can be found at www.banglapire.org The ONR project is titled Environmental stress and human migration in a low-lying developing nation: A comparison of co-evolving natural and human landscapes in the physically and culturally diverse context of Bangladesh. This 5-year project brings together several EES faculty with social scientists and engineers from other departments at Vanderbilt. As a large, interdisciplinary team we are seeking to understand how climate change and related environmental impacts are influencing human migration patterns and adaptation strategies in the low-lying coastal regions of Bangladesh. See www.vanderbilt.edu/ISEEBangladesh/ There are multiple opportunities for graduate student research with both of these projects, covering a broad range of Earth science and environmental topics.

What Students Do One of the tools our group uses in these studies is radioisotope geochronology, which makes use of sediment-bound radionuclides to reconstruct patterns of accretion and

Digital elevation map of Bengal basin and Ganges-Brahmaputra river delta. The delta has formed with Himalayan sediments delivered by two of the world’s largest rivers, and the basin itself is being tectonically deformed at the convergence of three plates.

sediment dynamics. This suite of nuclides – including 7Be, 234Th, 137Cs, and 210Pb – encompass timescales from months to decades and are delivered via atmospheric, terrestrial, and marine pathways, thereby allowing a broad range of questions to be addressed. The radionuclides are measured by gamma-decay spectrometry in Vanderbilt's Sediments Lab. Our work has increasingly employed other geochemical approaches, particularly using elemental and isotopic fingerprints to assess the provenance of sediments from different source areas. In addition to these techniques, other methods used in our study of the sedimentary record include coring and seismic-reflection profiling. The Sediments Lab supports a Geotek high-resolution core logger with magnetic susceptibility, natural gamma attenuation, and high-resolution digital camera used for the continuous downcore measurement of physical sediment properties. Recent graduate students have conducted a range of projects based on these research programs. For M.S. students, such sedimentary research is appropriate for careers in environmental consulting, environmental law, science writing, and science teaching. At the Ph.D. level, students will become prepared for careers in college teaching, academic research, and the petroleum industry. Graduate students working on foreign projects will have the opportunity to travel overseas and spend time in the field. Such projects are best suited to the longer term of a Ph.D. curriculum, but many hard-working M.S. students have also done well in tackling these foreign research projects. In building the skills and experience for a career, the questions being addressed through our research are timely, relevant, and exciting, especially concerning contributions of the earth sciences to human-related environmental issues. The experience in a foreign nation and the signficance to pressing societal issues can also open doors with international consulting firms and non-governmental agencies.

Selected Recent Publications (*student; **post doc)

Full publication list can be found at Research Gate or Google Scholar: researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Goodbred scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZUKz3yMAAAAJ&hl=en

*Auerbach, L., Goodbred, Jr., S.L., Mondal, D., **Wilson, C., Ahmed, K.R., Roy, K., Steckler, M., Gilligan, J., Ackerly, B. 2015. Flood risk of natural and embanked landscapes on the Ganges-Brahmaputra tidal delta plain. Nature Climate Change. 5:153-157.

**Wilson, C.A. and Goodbred, Jr., S.L., 2015. Building a large, tide-influenced delta on the Bengal margin: Linking process, morphology, and stratigraphy in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system. Annual Review of Marine Science, 7:67-88.

Goodbred, Jr., S.L., *Youngs, P.M., *Ullah, Md.S., *Pate, R.D., Khan, S.R., Kuehl, S.A., Singh, S.K., and Rahaman, W., 2014, Piecing together the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river delta: Application of Sr sediment geochemistry to reconstruct river-channel histories and Holocene delta evolution. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 126:1495-1510.

*Pickering, J.L., Goodbred, Jr., S.L., Reitz, M., *Hartzog, T.R., Mondal, D.R., and Hossain, Md.S., 2014. Holocene channel avulsions inferred from the Late Quaternary sedimentary record of the Jamuna and Old Brahmaputra river valleys in the upper Bengal delta plain. Geomorphology, 227:123-136.

*Rogers, K.G., Goodbred, Jr., S.L., Mondal, D.R., 2013. Monsoon sedimentation on the ‘abandoned’ tide-influenced Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta plain. Estuarine, Coastal, and Shelf Science, 131: 297-309.

*Rogers, K.G., and Goodbred, Jr., S.L., 2010. Mass failures associated with the passage of a large tropical cyclone over the Swatch of No Ground submarine canyon (Bay of Bengal). Geology, 38: 1051-1055.

*Weinman, B.A., Goodbred, Jr., S.L., Zheng, Y., van Geen, A., Aziz, Z., Srivastava, P., 2008. Arsenic concentrations in shallow groundwater of Araihazar, Bangladesh: Geological control through floodplain evolution. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 120: 1567–1580.

LEFT: This plot of strontium isotopes and concentrations from sediments in the Bengal Basin demonstrate how we use geochemistry to identify the provenance of delta sediments. We are able to distinguish both the source terrain within the Himalayas and the river that delivered the sediments. With this information, we are working to reconstruct the history of river channel avulsion and climate-related erosion patterns. RIGHT: Most of our work is based on field sampling, and here recent PhD student Kimberly Rogers collects sediments from the Sundarbans coastal mangrove forest, while an armed Forest Service guard stays on the lookout for Royal Bengal tigers.

Guilherme Gualda Associate Professor, Earth & Environmental Sciences Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2007 Igneous Petrology and Volcanism

g.gualda@vanderbilt.edu http://my.vanderbilt.edu/ggualda/

Motivation The fundamental goal of my research is to better

understand the evolution of magma bodies, in particular silica-rich magma bodies. I aim to unravel the processes that shape the evolution of these magma bodies, and to constrain their physical state at various stages of their evolution. I pay particular attention to the stages leading to eruption, and in the conditions that make eruptions possible, likely, or inevitable. I am especially interested in combining the volcanic and plutonic records in this effort.

I pursue these problems by exploring the detailed record of magmatic processes preserved in minerals and vesicles (i.e. bubble casts), such that my research lies at the interface between petrology, mineralogy, and geochemistry. I study two facets of the rock record. I use the physical distribution of crystals and vesicles, their sizes and contact relations – what we call textures. I also use mineral compositions and compositional variations (zoning) not only to yield information on the internal histories of crystals, but also to correlate the textural evolution with the more studied chemical evolution.

Ongoing Research Current projects fall into 3 main groups, variable in nature

but all dealing with the evolution of silica-rich magmatic systems. They vary in scale, from the study of individual eruptive deposits formed by supereruptions, to the study of a large magmatic system active over ~2 Ma, to the evolution of an igneous province composed of ~20 individual plutons. They also vary in scope, from detailed studies of magmatic evolution using textures and mineral chemistry, to studies of the geochronology and geochemistry of magmatic systems, to projects aimed at developing modeling tools to explore the evolution of magmatic systems. All of these efforts benefit from collaboration with colleagues from various institutions, as well as from the participation of students, from

undergraduates to Ph.D. students. All of these efforts benefit from the participation of students, both undergraduates (denoted by § below) and graduate students (denoted by *).

“Giant magma bodies and their supereruptions” (with Alfred Anderson, Steve Sutton, Mark Rivers–Univ Chicago; Darren Gravley, Florence Bégué*–Univ Canterbury; Antonio Nardy, Ana Carolina Luchetti*–UNESP, Brazil; Ayla Pamukcu–Brown Univ, Calvin Miller, Archer Chattin*, Lydia Harmon*, Samantha Tramontano*, Kylie Wright§, Michelle Connor§, Brooke Hollmann§–VU) Supereruptions eject 100s-1000s km3 of magma towards the surface in a matter of days to weeks. We are using a combination of crystal size distributions, trace-element zoning of quartz and sanidine, and textures of melt inclusions in quartz to assess the conditions and the timescales of crystallization of giant magma bodies, including the processes leading to supereruption. Deposits studied include Bishop Tuff (CA), deposits from the Taupo Volcanic Zone (New Zealand), and Paraná Volcanics (southern Brazil). We infer timescales on the millennial and decadal scales that are 1-2 orders of magnitude shorter than previously thought. Thermodynamic models provide new insights into the structure and organization of these bodies of magma in the crust.

“Evolution of silicic magmas” (with Mark Ghiorso–OFM Research, Chad Deering–Michigan Tech, Calvin Miller, Abraham Padilla*, Dylan Thomas§–VU) Trace elements can provide unique constraints into the evolution of magma bodies, but modeling is hampered by the lack of appropriate understanding of the distribution of trace elements in minerals and of models that permit satisfactory modeling of major and accessory mineral crystallization from melts. We are currently developing a new set of thermodynamic models that, when combined with new compositional data on minerals we have started collecting, will allow much more sophisticated modeling of the evolution of magmas within the crust; we seek to better understand the processes by which magmas are created and modified.

Lydia Harmon (left), Sam Tramontano (right), and Darren Gravley (U. Canterbury) working in the Serra Geral region, southern Brazil

“Ediacaran magmatism in South Brazil” (with Susanne McDowell–Hannover College, Renato Almeida, Liliane Janakian–Univ São Paulo) Significant silicic magmatism took place in southern Brazil some 580 Ma, and dozens of plutons and a few volcanic sequences are now exposed at the surface. Our goal is to understand the evolution of magmatism in the region and to explore the causes for and history of exhumation of these

intrusions, using information from both the magmatic and sedimentary record. We are currently using the laser-ablation microprobe to obtain geochronological and geochemical data on zircons in order to better understand the chronology of magmatic evolution, the spatial and temporal extent of A-type magmatism in southern Brazil, and its relationship to the sedimentary and tectonic evolution of a variety of sedimentary basins.

Recent publications (see: http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xmM0vpQAAAAJ)

*Pamukcu AS, Gualda GAR, Bégué F, Gravley DM (2015) Melt inclusion shapes: Timekeepers of short-lived giant magma bodies. Geology, 43: 947-950 [DOI:10.1130/G37021.1]

Ghiorso MS & Gualda GAR (2015) An H2O-CO2 mixed fluid solubility model compatible with rhyolite-MELTS. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 169: 53 [DOI:10.1007/s00410-015-1141-8]

*Pamukcu AS, Gualda GAR, Ghiorso MS, Miller CF (2015) Phase-equilibrium geobarometers for silicic rocks based on rhyolite-MELTS. Part 3: Application to the Peach Spring Tuff (Arizona-California-Nevada, USA). Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 169: 33 [DOI:10.1007/s00410-015-1122-y]

Gualda GAR & Ghiorso MS (2015) MELTS_Excel: A Microsoft Excel-based MELTS interface for research and teaching of magma properties and evolution. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 16: 315-324 [DOI:10.1002/2014GC005545]

Bégué F, *Pamukcu AS, Gualda GAR, Ghiorso MS, Gravley DM, Deering CD (2014) Phase-equilibrium geobarometers for silicic rocks based on rhyolite-MELTS. Part 2: Application to Taupo Volcanic Zone rhyolites. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 168: 1082 [DOI:10.1007/s00410-014-1082-7]

Ghiorso MS & Gualda GAR (2015) Chemical thermodynamics and the study of magmas. Encyclopedia of Volcanoes, in press [DOI:10.1016/B978-0-12-385938-9.00006-7]

Gardner JE, Befus KS, Gualda GAR, Ghiorso MS (2014) Experimental constraints on rhyolite-MELTS and the Bishop Tuff magma body. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 168: 1051 [DOI:10.1007/s00410-014-1051-1]

Gualda GAR & Ghiorso MS (2014) Phase-equilibrium geobarometers for silicic rocks based on rhyolite-MELTS. Part 1: Principles, procedures, and evaluation of the method. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 168: 1033 [DOI:10.1007/s00410-014-1033-3]

Bégué F, Deering CD, Gravley DM, Kennedy BM, Chambefort I, Gualda GAR, Bachmann O (2014) Extraction, storage and eruption of multiple isolated magma batches in the paired Mamaku and Ohakuri eruption, Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand. Journal of Petrology, 55: 1653-1684 [DOI:10.1093/petrology/egu038]

*Pamukcu AS, Gualda GAR, Rivers ML (2013) Quantitative 3D petrography using x-ray tomography 4: Assessing glass inclusion textures with propagation phase-contrast tomography. Geosphere, 9: 1704-1713 [DOI:10.1130/GES00915.1]

Gualda GAR & Ghiorso MS (2013) The Bishop Tuff giant magma body: An alternative to the Standard Model. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 166: 755-775 [DOI:10.1007/s00410-013-0901-6]

*Pamukcu AS, *Carley TL, Gualda GAR, Miller CF, Ferguson CA (2013) The evolution of the Peach Spring giant magma body: Evidence from accessory mineral textures and compositions, bulk pumice and glass geochemistry, and rhyolite-MELTS modeling. Journal of Petrology, 54: 1109-1148 [DOI:10.1093/petrology/egt007]

Gualda GAR & Ghiorso MS (2013) Low pressure origin of high-silica rhyolites. Journal of Geology, 121: 537-545 [DOI:10.1086/671395]

Ghiorso MS & Gualda GAR (2013) A method for estimating the activity of titania in magmatic liquids from the compositions of coexisting rhombohedral and cubic iron-titanium oxides. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 165: 73-81 [DOI:10.1007/s00410-012-0792-y]

Baker DR, Mancini L, Polacci M, Higgins MD, Gualda GAR, Hill RJ, Rivers ML (2012) An introduction to the application of x-ray microtomography to the three-dimensional study of igneous rocks. Lithos, 148: 262-276 [DOI:10.1016/j.lithos.2012.06.008]

Gualda GAR, *Pamukcu AS, Anderson AT Jr., Ghiorso MS, Sutton SR, Rivers ML (2012) Timescales of quartz crystallization and the longevity of the Bishop giant magma body. PLoS ONE, 7: e37492 [DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0037492]

Gualda GAR, Ghiorso MS, *Lemons RV, *Carley TL (2012) Rhyolite-MELTS: A modified calibration of MELTS optimized for silica-rich, fluid-bearing magmatic systems. Journal of Petrology, 53: 875-890 [DOI:10.1093/petrology/egr080]

*Pamukcu AS, Gualda GAR, Anderson AT Jr. (2012) Crystallization stages of the Bishop Tuff magma body recorded in crystal textures. Journal of Petrology, 53: 589-609 [DOI:10.1093/petrology/egr072]

George M. Hornberger Distinguished University Professor Director, Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment Craig E. Philip Professor of Engineering Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Stanford University, 1970 Hydrology

office: 155 Buttrick Hall. phone: 615-343-1144 email: g.hornberger@vanderbilt.edu

I currently devote much of my time to work with the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment (VIEE). VIEE fosters policy-relevant research, education and outreach addressing key environmental issues through multidisciplinary assessments of the environmental impacts of individual, institutional, and societal choices related to mitigation of and adaptation to climate

change, water resources, and energy production and use. My teaching is focused in my main areas of expertise, Physical Hydrology and Hydrogeology. I also teach a graduate course on Water and Energy Resources. In addition to my involvement in teaching and research at Vanderbilt, I have many external synergistic activities. For example, I currently serve as Chair of the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Academies, and as Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Geosciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2014-15 I chaired a Committee on Research Needs for Development of Unconventional Hydrocarbon Resources in The Appalachian Basin for the Health Effects Institute. I also chair the Geoscience Policy Committee of the American Geological Institute and am a member of the Geology and Public Policy Committee of the Geological Society of America (GSA). I am a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, a fellow of GSA, and a fellow of the Association for Women in Science. General Interests Water resources are under pressure from many human activities, from climate change to urban development. I and my colleagues and students collect and analyze data to understand how natural processes interact with human abstraction of water in complex ways. My current work aims to understand how groundwater, surface water, energy production, food production, climate, and human abstraction of water interact in complex ways.

Current Research My work has centered on the coupling of field observations with mathematical modelling. My current work is broadly interdisciplinary, focusing on coupled natural-human systems. Water resources are under pressure from many human activities, from climate change to urban development. My colleagues, students, and I collect and analyze data to understand how climate, groundwater, surface water, and human abstraction of water interact in complex ways. Current projects include work in Sri Lanka on adaptation to drought, in Bangladesh to understand the controls on freshwater availability in the mostly saline delta, and in the United States on how cities evolve water conservation practices. I also am collaborating on a project with John Ayers to measure methane seepage in the area of eastern Tennessee where there has been development of shale gas. What Students Do Students working with me currently are engaged in the research topics mentioned above: Thushara Gunda – Sri Lanka project; Scott Worland and Elise Hunter – water conservation project; Chelsea Peters – Bangladesh project. Students working on projects internationally travel abroad for some of their work. Thushara DeSilva just started her Ph.D. in 2015; she will be looking at reservoir optimization as part of the Sri Lanka project. Jenny Murphy, who graduated in 2010, now works for the USGS in Nashville. Yi Mei completed his Ph.D. in July 2013 and currently works for Risk Management Solutions in California; Scott Worland completed his M.S. in 2014 and now doubles as a hydrologist with the USGS and a Ph.D. candidate here; Deb Perrone and John Jacobi completed their Ph.D.’s in 2014; Deb is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford and John works for AON Risk Services in Chicago. Elizabeth Stone completed her M.S. this past May and has stayed on as a Research Assistant with the Sri Lanka project. Other former students, who completed their work with me at the University of Virginia, hold jobs in academia, with the USGS, and with environmental consulting firms.

Shale gas committee at drilling site

Dr.’s Mei, Jacobi, and Perrone, May 2014

Selected Publications BOOK Hornberger, G.M., Wiberg, P.L., Raffensperger, J.P., and P. D’Odorico. 2014. Elements of Physical Hydrology, 2nd Edition. Johns Hopkins Press. JOURNAL ARTICLES (VU graduate students in bold) Hornberger, G.M., Hess, D.J., and J. Gilligan 2015. Water Conservation and Hydrological Transitions in Cities. Water Resources Research 51: 4635–4649. Worland, S., Hornberger, G.M. and S. Goodbred. 2015. Source, transport, and evolution of saline groundwater in a shallow Holocene aquifer on the tidal deltaplain of southwest Bangladesh, Water Resources Research 51: 5791–5805.

Gunda, T., Hornberger, G.M., and J. M. Gilligan 2015. Spatiotemporal Patterns of Agricultural Drought in Sri Lanka: 1881-2010. Int. J. Climatology. doi: 10.1002/joc.4365. Perrone, D., G. Hornberger, M. Van der Velde, and O. Van Vliet. 2015. U.S. Water Resource Use: Past, Present, and Projected. Journal Am. Water Resour. Assn. 51: 1183-1191. Lyons-Duncan, L. Perrone, D., Jacobi, J.H., and G. M. Hornberger 2015. Drought: Using High Resolution as Part of the Solution. Environ. Sci. Tech. 49: 2639–2647. Gu, C., Crane, J., Hornberger, G.M. and A. Carrico. 2015. The effects of Household Management Practices on the Global Warming Potential of Urban Lawns. J. Environ. Mgmt. 151: 233-242. Hornberger, G. M. and J. C. Ayers 2014. Hydraulic Fracturing in the Development of Unconventional Hydrocarbon Resources. Oxford Bibliographies Online, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199363445/obo-9780199363445-0006.xml. Mei Y, Hornberger GM, Kaplan LA, Newbold JD, and AK Aufdenkampe 2014. The Delivery of Dissolved Organic

Carbon from a Forested Riparian Hillslope to a Headwater Stream. Wat. Resour. Res. 50: 5774–5796. Perrone D and GM Hornberger 2014. Water, Food, Energy: Scrambling for Resources or Solutions? WIRES-Water 1: 49-68.

Flewelling S.A., Hornberger, G.M., Herman, J.S., Mills, A. L. and W.M. Robertson 2014. Evapotranspiration Causes Diel Patterns in Stream Nitrate Concentrations. Hydrol. Proc. 28: 2150-2158. . TsangY-P, Hornberger GM, Kaplan LA, Newbold JD, and A Aufdenkampe, 2014. Spatial distribution of groundwater evapotranspiration: impacts on modeling stream flow. Hydrol Proc. 28: 2439-2450. Murphy,JC, Hornberger GM and RG Liddle 2014. Concentration–discharge relationships in the coalmined region of the New River basin and Indian Fork sub-basin, Tennessee, USA. Hydrol. Proc. 28: 718-728. Jacobi, J., D. Perrone, L. Duncan, G. Hornberger 2013. A Tool for Calculating the Palmer Drought Indices. Wat. Resour. Res. 49: 6086–6089. Mei Y, Hornberger GM, Kaplan LA, Newbold JD, and A Aufdenkampe 2012. Estimation of Dissolved Organic Carbon Contribution from Riparian Zone to a Headwater Stream. Wat. Resour. Res 48: WR010815 . Perrone, D., Murphy, J. and G.M. Hornberger 2011. Gaining perspective on the water-energy nexus at the community scale. Environ. Sci. & Tech., 45:4228–4234.

Chelsea Peters, well drilling in Bangladesh

Thushara Gunda collecting water sample, Sri Lanka

Maria Luisa Jorge Assistant Professor Ph.D. University of Illinois at Chicago, 2007 Movement Ecology, Conservation Biology malu.jorge@vanderbilt.edu http://www.vanderbilt.edu/ees/people/faculty/MaluJorge.php

General Interests My research interest is to understand how large mammals choose the habitats they use and how human activities (especially land-use) affect large mammals’ long-term persistence. Large mammals are fundamental for community and ecosystem structure as they usually represent the largest biomass of an area, they occupy distinct trophic levels (top predators, meso-predators, herbivores) and they are frequently the first ones to disappear from areas where there is human interference, because of direct (poaching) and indirect effects (habitat reduction, domestic diseases). I have been conducting my research in Brazilian ecosystems because Brazil harbors one of the world’s greatest diversity of species and ecosystems, and it has a gradient of history of human exploitation, with ecosystems with more than 100 years of land change, others with less than 50 years of land change, and few with large tracts of continuous pristine habitats. Also, as Brazil’s economic growth is intensified, so are the challenges of maintaining economic growth and preserving natural systems and biodiversity. Understanding the effects of land change on Brazilian ecosystems will help in efforts to reduce biodiversity loss and harmful effects on ecosystem function at local and regional scales, as well as on the global scale.

Current Research My current research involves understanding large mammals’ spatial needs at two spatial scales (regional and local). For the regional scale, I use species distribution modeling to map habitat suitability and understand environmental factors that are affecting species presence. I have modeled potential distribution of four large mammals (jaguars, tapirs, peccaries and wolly-spider monkeys) in the Atlantic forest and our results show that most of what is left not suitable for any of the four species, even large and protected tracts of forest. For the local spatial scale, I use radio-telemetry as well as camera-trapping to understand how landscape features (such as proportion of native habitat and connectivity) affect individual movement and habitat selection. I have been working with two species (the white-lipped peccary, Tayassu pecari, and the bush-dog, Speothos venaticus), in two ecosystems: savanna and rainforest. White-lipped peccaries are social ungulates (55-80 lbs) are called “ecosystem engineers” because where they forage, they completely change the understory structure and recruitment, affecting ecosystem regeneration dynamics and ultimately patterns of biodiversity. I am using GPS technology to track white-lipped peccaries’ movements and understand their needs at local spatial scale with fine-grained resolution. The bush dog is a rare Netropical small wild dog (7-13 lbs) and the sole in the Neotropics to live in packs. Until the 1990s, there was no information about bush dogs’ ecology in the wild. Since 2004, we have been radio-tracking bush dogs in a region of moderate land use change (Western Brazil). So far we have found that both spcies are able to move around heterogeneous landscapes, but they are heavily dependent on native habitats and habitat connectivity to move and meet their daily needs. As the proportion of native habitat is converted into croplands and cattle ranches, the area exploited by a group greatly increases and they become vulnerable to predation, poaching and domestically transmitted diseases. Furthermore, peccaries have a greater impact in the ecosystem as they use their preferred areas more intensively. My future plans include continuing to explore habitat suitability at regional level using species distribution modeling with other species and in other ecosystems. I also plan to use individual-based models to help predict how animal decisions about their movement in changed landscapes will affect their population viability and the viability of native ecosystems. Finally, I intend to link animal behavioral changes to changes in vegetation regeneration, nutrient cycling and carbon fixation through a compbination of techniques such as remote sensing and isotopic analyses.

Habitat suitability of white-lipped peccaries in a pristine island in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest

Movement-based home range kernel of GPS-monitored white-lipped peccaries in a human-modified landscape in Western Brazil

Puma (Felis concolor) captured in a camera trap

Selected Publications MLSP Jorge, CSS Bernardo, R Rodarte, L Culot, RS Bovendorp, L Hortenci, R Souza, F Pedrosa, A Hettena, M Galetti. Temporal changes in mammalian abundance in a global biodiversity hotspot. In review. Oryx. Lima ES, MLSP Jorge, RSP Jorge and RG Morato 2014. The bush dog Speothos venaticus: area requirement and habitat use in cultivated lands. Oryx 49, 1-7. Galetti M, E Eizirik, B Beisiegel, K Ferraz, S Cavalcanti, AC Srbek-Araujo, P Crawshaw, A Paviolo, PM Galetti Jr, ML Jorge, J Marinho-Filho, U Vercillo and R Morato 2013. Atlantic Rainforest's Jaguars in Decline. Science 342 (6161): 930 Jorge MLSP, M Galetti, MC Ribeiro and K Ferraz 2013. Mammal defaunation as surrogate of trophic cascades in a biodiversity hotspot. Biological Conservation 163:49-57. Lima ES, KE DeMatteo, RSP Jorge, MLSP Jorge, JC Dalponte, HS Lima & S Klorfine 2012. First telemetry study of the bush dog (Speothos venaticus): providing information on home range, activity, and habitat selection. Wildlife Research 39(6): 512-519. Jorge MLSP, JS Brown and M van der Merwe 2011. Handling time and the evolution of caching behavior. Behavioral Ecology 23(2):410-417. Jorge MLSP and HF Howe 2009. Can fragmentation disrupt a conditional mutualism? A case from Central Amazon. Oecologia 161:709–718. Jorge MLSP 2008. Effects of forest fragmentation on two sister genera of Amazonian rodents (Myoprocta acouchy and Dasyprocta leporina). Biological Conservation 141(3): 617-623.

Calvin Miller Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D. UCLA, 1977 magmatic processes; volcanoes & plutons

calvin.miller@vanderbilt.edu; tel. 615-322-2232; http://www.vanderbilt.edu/ees/calvinmiller/

General Interests I teach courses for grad (and advanced undergrad) students in igneous geochemistry, volcanic processes, origin and history of Earth’s crust, and occasional special topics in related areas. Our research emphasis is on felsic magmatism and what it tells us about how volcanoes work and how Earth's crust is formed and modified. We are especially interested in what leads to eruptions, small to super-scale (the ultimate volcanic hazard)

Current Research My students and I aim at the following problems:

magma chambers: what are they? what are the materials like that reside in them?; how are materials transported into, within, and out of them? how long do they "live," how do they vary during their lifetimes?

volcano-pluton connections: what is the relationship between the processes and products at volcanoes and at plutons?

how do these processes determine when and whether a chamber erupts? How are eruptions reflected in the plutonic products of a magma chamber?

...using the following general strategies and methodologies: field work in spectacularly exposed ancient plutonic and

volcanic sections, as well as on modern volcanoes. Currently, we are working in tilted crustal sections in

southern Nevada where 10-15 km cross-sections of plutons and their

erupted products are exposed; on rhyolites and granites in Iceland; and on the 19 Ma Peach Spring supereruption, which buried much of E Calif, W Arizona, & S Nevada. (with Guil Gualda)

accessory minerals, especially zircon and sphene: imaging of zoning and elemental analysis of zones, U-Pb and U-series dating (by USGS/Stanford SHRIMP) - documenting dramatic fluctuations in chamber conditions, long-term storage and mixing of materials (with John Ayers, Guil Gualda)

analog experiments to evaluate magma dynamics (transport and mechanical interactions of liquids and crystals) - masterminded by David Furbish

all supported by "classical" petrography and elemental and isotopic petrochemistry.

...and collaborations are absolutely critical!: at Vanderbilt, students and I work with Guil Gualda, David

Furbish, and John Ayers in each project that we undertake, we also collaborate

formally and informally with researchers at other institutions, nationally and internationally

Students My students have studied a wide range of problems in igneous and metamorphic petrology, mineralogy, and tectonics. Currently, most focus on the sort of issues listed above. Their work is almost invariably field-based and employs a variety of analytical techniques and experiments at Vanderbilt and other labs to address well-focused problems. The aim is both to produce fundamental research and to gain an understanding of research methods and problem-solving in general. MS and PhD students enter academia or pursue careers in environmental science, secondary education, and government survey geology. Current grad students include Michelle Foley (MS), studying the Peach Spring Tuff supereruption, and Danny Flanagan (PhD), investigating the preserved record of magmatic processes in sphene through field and experimental work (with John Ayers). Two PhD students finished their dissertations, summer 2015, on Icelandic magmatism in 2015: Abe Padilla (processes recorded in silicic intrusions), & Tenley Banik (histories of ancient central volcanoes); Tenley has just started a faculty position at Illinois State Unversity, and Abe is working in Antarctica. Susanne McDowell and Tamara Carley (2014 PhDs) have begun faculty positions at Hanover and Lafayette colleges.

CL image of zircon, Spirit Mtn batholith, NV, showing fluctuations in T and elemental chemistry during growth (Claiborne et al 2006)

Abe Padilla & Tamara Carley collecting 1875 pumice, Askja caldera, Iceland

Interaction between mafic and felsic magmas, Aztec Wash pluton, Nevada

Selected recent publications Edited volumes: Large Silicic Magma Systems, DeSilva, S., Bachmann, O., Miller,

C.F., Yoshida, T., Knesel, K., eds., 2007, Special Issue of Jour of Volc and Geotherm Res: 167, nos. 1-4, 335 pp.

Supervolcanoes, D.A. Wark, C.F. Miller, eds, 2008, special issue of Elements, v. 4, no. 1

Selected recent papers (grad students designated by ‘*’) *Banik, TJ, Wallace, PJ, Höskuldsson, Á, Miller, CF, Bacon, CR,

Furbish, DJ, 2014, Magma–ice–sediment interactions and the origin of lava/hyaloclastite sequences in the Sída formation, South Iceland: Bulletin of Volcanology 76: 785-1003.

*McDowell SM, Miller CF, Mundil R, Ferguson CA, Wooden JW, 2014, Transient high-temperature magmatism in the Miocene southern Black Mountains volcanic center, western Arizona, USA: Evidence from volcanics and resurgent intrusions of the Silver Creek caldera, source of the 18.8 Ma Peach Spring Tuff supereruption: Contr Mineral Petrol 167: 1031-1051.

*Carley, T.L., Miller, C.F., Wooden, J.L., *Padilla, A.J, Schmitt, A.K., Economos, R.C., Bindeman, I.N., Jordan, B.T., 2014, Iceland is not a magmatic analog for the Hadean: Evidence from the zircon record: Earth & Planetary Science Letters 405: 85-97.

*Pamukcu, A.S., *Carley, T.L., Gualda, G.A.R., Miller, C.F., Ferguson, C.A., 2013, The evolution of the Peach Spring giant magma body: Evidence from accessory mineral textures and compositions, whole-rock and glass geochemistry, and rhyolite-MELTS modeling: Jour. Petrology.

Ferguson, C.A., McIntosh, W.C., Miller, C.F., 2013, Tectonically dismembered source caldera for the Peach Spring Tuff is a potential three-dimensional strain-marker in the Colorado River extensional corridor: Geology (in press).

Bindeman I, Gurenko A, *Carley T, Miller C, Martin E, Sigmarsson O, 2012, Silicic magma petrogenesis in Iceland by remelting of hydrothermally-altered crust based on oxygen isotope diversity and disequilibria between zircon and magma with implications for MORB: Terra Nova, 24: 227-232

*Colombini, L., Miller, Gualda, G.A.R., Wooden, J.L., Miller, J.S., 2011, Sphene and zircon in the Highland Range volcanic sequence (Miocene, southern Nevada, USA): Elemental partitioning, phase relations, and influence on evolution of silicic magma: Mineralogy & Petrology 102: 29-50.

*Carley, T., Miller, C., Wooden, J., Bindeman, I., Barth, A., 2011, Zircon from historic eruptions in Iceland: Reconstructing storage and evolution of silicic magmas: Miner. & Petrol. 102: 135-161.

*Claiborne, L.L., Miller, C.F., in press, Teaching radioactive decay & radiometric dating: an analog activity based on fluid dynamics: Journal of Geoscience Education.

Miller, C.F., Furbish, D.A., *Walker, B.A. Jr., *Claiborne, L.L., *Koteas, G.C., *Bleick, H.A., Miller, J.S., 2011, Growth of plutons by incremental emplacement of sheets in crystal-rich host: Evidence from Miocene intrusions of the Colorado River region, Nevada, USA: Tectonophysics 500: 65-77.

*Claiborne, L.L., Miller, C.F., Wooden, J.L., Mazdab, F.K., 2010, Trace element composition of igneous zircon: A thermal and compositional record of accumulation and evolution of a large silicic batholith, Spirit Mountain, Nevada: Contr. Mineralogy Petrology 160: 511-531.

*Claiborne, L.L., Miller, C.F., *Flanagan, D.M., Clynne, M.A., Wooden, J.L., 2010, Zircon reveals protracted magma storage and recycling beneath Mount St. Helens: Geology 38: 1011-1014.

*Fisher, C.M., Loewy, S.L., Miler, C.F., *Berquist, P.J., Van Schmus, W.R., Hatcher, R.D., Wooden, J.L., Fullagar, P.D., 2010, Whole rock Pb and Sm-Nd isotopic constraints on the growth of the southeastern Laurentia during Grenvillian Orogenesis: GSA Bulletin 122: 646-1659.

Bachmann, O., Miller, C.F., de Silva, S.L., 2007, The volcanic-plutonic connection as a stage for understanding crustal magmatism: Jour. Volc. Geotherm Res. 167: 1-23.

*Walker, B.A. Jr., Miller, C.F., * Claiborne, L.E., Wooden, J.L., Miller, J.S., 2007, Geology and geochronology of the Spirit Mountain batholith, southern Nevada: implications for timescales and physical processes of batholith construction: J. Volc. Geoth. Res. 167: 239-262.

*Claiborne, L.E., Miller, C.F., *Walker, B.A., Wooden, J.L., Mazdab, F.K., Bea, F., 2006, Tracking magmatic processes through Zr/Hf ratios in rocks and Hf and Ti zoning in zircons: An example from the Spirit Mountain batholith, Nevada: Mineralogical Magazine 70: 517-543.

Grad student abstracts/meeting presentations, 2014: * Banik, T.J., Miller, C.F., Coble, M.A., Economos, R., Fisher, C.,

2014: Magmato-tectonic interplay and silicic magma production at Hafnarfjall-Skarðsheiði central volcano, Iceland 1st International IAVCEI Workshop on Volcano Geology, Madeira, Portugal.

*Carley, T.L., Sigmarsson, O., Vogler, E., Miller, C.F., Coble, M.A., Hanchar, J.M., Fisher, C., Wooden, J., Economos, R., 2014: Using detrital zircon to resolve the longevity and origin of abundant silicic magma at the Breiduvik volcanic complex, Iceland: 1st Intl IAVCEI Workshop on Volcano Geology.

*Padilla, Abraham; Miller, Calvin; Bindeman, Ilya; Economos, Rita C.; *Carley, Tamara; *Banik, Tenley J.; Schmitt, Axel: Generating the world’s lowest magmatic zircon δ18O, 2014: melting of intensely hydrothermally altered sources at austurhorn intrusive complex, SE Iceland. GSA Annual Meeting abst w/prog 46(7):

*Banik, T.; Miller, C.; Coble, M., New geochronologic and geochemical constraints on the formation of Cu ore-bearing porphyry dike units, Yerington, NV. GSA Meeting abstract 46(7):

*Banik, T.J., Miller, C.F., Coble, M., Economos, R., Fisher, C., 2014, Short- and long-lived silicic central volcanoes in Iceland: Árnes and Hafnarfjall-Skarðsheiði

*Padilla, A.J., *Carley, T.L., Miller, C.F., Wooden, J.L., Economos, R.C., Schmitt, A.K., Fisher, C.M., and Hanchar, J.M, 2014, Evolution of the Austurhorn Intrusive Complex revealed by zircon elemental and isotopic geochemistry and geochronology

Jessica Oster Assistant Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences Ph.D., 2010 UC Davis, B.A., 2003 Oberlin College Paleoclimatology, Low Temperature Geochemistry, Chemistry of Cave and Karst Environments jessica.l.oster@vanderbilt.edu (615) 322-1461

General Interests Jessica is interested in reconstructing the response of terrestrial hydroclimates to past climate change - including rapid climate transitions and long-term changes in mean climate. To do this, she develops records of isotopic and geochemical variability in terrestrial materials such as cave deposits (speleothems) and soil minerals. Speleothems and soil minerals capture the response of soil and groundwater to environmental changes on the surface, including changes in rainfall amount and source, temperature, and vegetation amount and type. These deposits are vital tools for investigating questions of global climate variability because they provide paleoclimate records in low and mid latitude terrestrial environments where other paleoclimate archives may be scarce. Jessica is also interested in understanding how modern cave systems respond to seasonal and interannual environmental changes with an eye toward using this understanding to provide an interpretative framework for calibrating paleoclimate records from cave deposits.

Current Research Jessica’s current research is focused on understanding how cave and soil minerals record environmental changes and using this knowledge to reconstruct past climate change. Current active areas of research include: 1) Jessica is conducting detailed multi-proxy studies of speleothems from caves in coastal and Northern California. Comparison of oxygen, carbon, and strontium isotope variations and elemental concentrations in speleothem calcite reveals complex interactions between local hydrologic changes and climatic variability across Northern California during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Jessica also works with climate model output to investigate potential driving mechanisms of regional precipitation variability in western North America during the last deglaciation (see Oster et al., 2015a). Masters students Nick Hermann and Izzy Weismann are currently involved in this project. 2) Jessica is working with scientists at the USGS and the University of Illinois to investigate how trace element and isotope signals are transformed as they move from the soil through the epikarst, to the cave. This work couples monitoring of modern cave environments with geochemical modeling to quantify thresholds across which soils and cave waters respond to climate changes and how these signals might be preserved in speleothems. PhD student Aaron Covey is closely involved in this work using data from monitoring of a Tennessee cave. 3) Jessica is working with scientists at Cambridge and the Berkeley Geochronology Center to develop modern, seasonal-scale records of stable and radiogenic isotope variability using fast growing speleothems from northeast India. These very high-resolution records will provide a calibration data set for more accurate interpretations of how the Indian Monsoon has varied during the last glacial cycle (see Myers et al., 2015).

Ph.D. student Aaron Covey installing artificial substrates to grow calcite in a cave in Tennessee.

What Students Do: Jessica has exciting opportunities for students developing climate records from caves in coastal and Northern California and India as well as in modern cave environments in California and Tennessee. Students will be able to work with multiple stable and radiogenic isotope systems and gain experience with geochrononology as well as the interpretation of paleoclimate proxy records. Jessica is looking for students who enjoy caving and who seek hands-on experience with geochemistry and geochemical models.

Courses Taught Isotopes and the Environment Paleoclimates Climate Change and Human History

Isotopes and Environment students after a caving field trip in Tennessee, Spring 2015. Recent Publications (*denotes student) Oster, J.L., Ibarra, D.E., Winnick, M.J., Maher, K. (2015) Steering of the westerly storm track over western North America at the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature Geoscience 8, 201-205. Myers, C.G.*, Oster, J.L., Sharp, W.D., Bennartz, R., Kelley, N.P., Covey*, A.K., Breitenbach, S. (2015) Northeast Indian stalagmite records El Niño dynamics: implications for moisture transport and drought in India. Geophysical Research Letters 42, doi:10.1002/2015/GL063826. Oster, J.L., Montañez, I.P., Santare*, L.R., Sharp, W.D., Wong, C.I., Cooper, K.C. Stalagmite records of hydroclimate in central California during Termination 1. Quaternary Science Reviews (in press). Oster, J.L., Montañez, I.P., Mertz-Kraus, R., Sharp, W.D., Stock, G.M., Spero, H.J., Tinsley, J., Zachos, J.C. (2014) Millennial-scale variations in western Sierra Nevada precipitation during the last glacial cycle MIS 4/3 transition. Quaternary Research 82: 236 – 248. Oster, J.L., Ibarra, D.L., Harris, C.H., and Maher, K. 2012. Influence of eolian deposition and rainfall amounts on the U-isotopic composition of soil water and soil minerals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, v. 88, p. 146 - 166

Serial micromilling of an annually banded aragonite speleothem sample from India using the CM-2 micromilling system.

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