Microfossils 2 Initial Organizing Committee Assembled

NAMS has plan in place for the March 2009 conference "Geological Problem Solving with Microfossils 2." As of June, 2008, we have had numerous submittals of titles and topics from a variety of micropaleontology disciplines. Please visit our Meetings Page for more information.

NAMS Sessions at 2008 AAPG/SEPM Highlights Micropaleontology

NAMS activities at the 2007 AAPG/SEPM annual meeting, which was held April 20-23 in San Antonio, TX, highlighted some of the best of micropaleontology.

Three NAMS sponsored activities made for a productive meeting.

1. Poster sessions: NAMS organized two concurrent poster sessions at the 2008 AAPG Annual Convention in San Antonio; Advances in Chronostratigraphic and Paleoecologic Analysis: Case Studies I & II. The sessions, co-chaired by Nancy Engelhardt-Moore and Ron Waszczak, attracted high quality presentations that illustrated the contribution of micropaleontology to solving geological problems related to age, depositional environment, and paleooceanography. Special mention must go to Martin Crundwell and Malcolm Arnot, who were awarded the SEPM poster presentation prize, and to Jamie Shamrock and David Watkins, who received an SEPM honorable mention.

The poster presentations included, in alphabetic order:

• AlShuaibi, A. A.: Coniacian to Lowermost Campanian Stratigraphy of the Austin Chalk, Northeast Texas.
• Aubry M. J., Bonnemaison M., VanCouvering J. A.: Typhoon: A Web Integrated Micropaleontological Database System.
• Browning E., Leckie R., McClain P., Nathan S., John C.: Testing the Possible Linkages between the Miocene Reticulofenestra Event, the Biogenic Bloom, Tropical Gateways and Sea Level Changes.
• Cheng J., Laurel C.: Using Benthic Foraminifera to Understand Seagrass Abundance, Salinity and Sea Level Variation in Florida Bay.
• Crundwell M. P., Arnot M. J.: Sub-Millennial Anatomy of Late Miocene Deep-Water Mass-Transport Deposits: Case Studies of the Use of Foraminifera to Decipher the Stratigraphic Architecture of the Mount Messenger Depositional System, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand.
• Gary A., Johnson G., Yu E.: Reducing Uncertainty in Paleoecological Models Using Fuzzy Logic.
  
• Huber B. T., Cervato C., Fils D.: Chronos Online Taxonomic Databases for Planktonic Foraminifera.
  
• Jaramillo C., Rueda M., Torres V.: A Quantitative Palynological Zonation for Eastern Colombia.
  
• Martin R. E., Leorri E., McLaughlin P. P.: Ecostratigraphic Expression of Holocene Parasequence Boundaries in Incised Valleys along Delaware Bay: Response to Rapid Sea-Level and Climate Change.
  
• Medina J.: Paleoenvironments and Biofacies Based on Eocene Foraminifera of the Pauji Formation of the Area Zulia East, Western Venezuela.
  
• Mizintseva S. F., Browning J. V., Miller K. G.: Integrated Late Santonian-Early Campanian Sequence Stratigraphy New Jersey Coastal Plain: Implications to Global Sea-Level Studies.
  
• Nebrigic D. D.: Bioprovinciality within Foraminiferal Assemblages- Cenomanian/Turonian Texas Gulf Coast.
  
• Schmieder J., Fritz, S.: Evidence of Regional Holocene Climate Change Based on Four Different Diatom Records across the Nebraska Sand Hills.
  
• Shamrock J. L., Watkins D. K.: Evolution of the Cretaceous Calcareous Nannofossil Genus Eiffellithus and Its Biostratigraphic Significance.
  
• Winter D., Sjunneskog C., Scherer R.: Pliocene Diatom Biostratigraphy and Paleoecology of the Andrill Mcmurdo Ice Shelf Core AND-1.

2. Research Group Program: An evening program of talks and informal discussion, co-sponsored by NAMS' Marine Micropaleontology Research Group and the SEPM Quantitative Stratigraphy Research Group.

3. NAMS Council Meeting: The NAMS 2008 Council Meeting was held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, San Antonio, on Sunday, April 20. Jason Lundquist stepped down from his long-standing role as Newsletter Editor, while Nancy Engelhardt-Moore was farewelled from the Past-President position. The Newsletter Editor role was assumed by Tony Gary and Martin Farley was welcomed as President-Elect. Discussions at the meeting included; the state of NAMS membership, the Gary Jones Jones Fund for NAMS Student Research, and NAMS activities at the upcoming GSA Convention in Houston (October, 2008), Microfossils II conference (March, 2009), and AAPG/SEPM Convention in Denver (June, 2009). At the time of the council meeting NAMS had a membership count of 171 financial members that are paid through 2006 and later. The Gary Jones Fund sits in an overall SEPM Foundation Fund which had a 9% return in 2007, and it is hoped that the Fund can also be grown through voluntary contributions. The next meeting of the NAMS Council will take place at GSA Houston, where NAMS has also agreed to sponsor the Cushman Foundation Reception for $500. The Microfossils II Conference is in preparation, while NAMS will be running an oral/poster session at the AAPG/SEPM Convention in Denver; “Advances in Biostratigraphic and Paleoenvironmental Analysis”.

 

NAMS Council News: In with the new, thanks to the old

As noted in the above report on the 2008 Council meeting at the San Antonio AAPG conference, NAMS installed two new officers in April.

Dr. Martin Farley, Department of Geology and Geography at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke was chosen as President-Elect.

Dr. Anthony Gary, Energy and Geoscience Institute, University of Utah, is the new NAMS Newsletter Editor.

 

Micropaleontology Conference Volume in the works

Review and editing work is nearly complete at SEPM for a volume of papers presented at the NAMS-cosponsored conference, "Geologic Problem Solving with Microfossils," held in memory of former NAMS President Garry Jones in March 2005 at Rice University in Houston. The volume is being edited by Thomas Demchuk (ConocoPhillips) and Anthony Gary (University of Utah) and being published by SEPM.

 

NAMS 2007 Student Grant Awarded

NAMS is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2008 Garry Jones Memorial Grant for NAMS student research is Julie B. Retrum for her project “A Paleoclimatic and Paleohydrologic Reconstruction of Pleistocene Fossil Lake, Oregon using Faunal Assemblages”. Ms. Retrum is a doctorial student at the University of Kansas. She will be undertaking a multidisciplinary study to provide a highresolution paleoclimatic reconstruction of Fossil Lake and quantify paleohydrologic changes in the lake‘s history. The goal is to gain a better understanding of late Pleistocene microbiota biodiversity and paleoclimatic history of the Pacific Northwest, including the onset of glacial and interglacial cycles. Julie attended the University of Minnesota at Morris from 1997 to 2002 where she received B.A.’s in Biology, Statistics and Geology all with distinctions.

The reviewers were very impressed by the high quality of the 14 proposals submitted this year. The proposals were ranked on scientific merit, faculty recommendation and financial need. A call for proposals for next year’s award will be sent out late this year with an anticipated deadline of late February, 2009.

 

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