Geology graduate students awarded research funding from GSA and Sigma Xi

Grad students Meilani Bowman-Kamaha'o, Michelle Harris, Eliya Hogan and Tabitha Trosper have been awarded funding from GSA and Sigma Xi in support of their thesis research.

Meilani Bowman-Kamaha'o

Meilani is a first year graduate student studying the application of the channel flow hypothesis and the development of extruded gneiss domes in the Himalayan Mountains, NW India. She and advisor Dr. Jeff Lee conducted field work in August and September of 2010 across Gianbul Dome, NW India. Funding from Sigma Xi will support Ar/Ar thermochronology to be completed at the USGS Denver under the supervision of Dr. Michael Cosca. The thermochronology work will test if Gianbul Dome was emplaced via extrusion.

Meilani completed her BA in Geology at Occidental College, Los Angeles CA in May 2010 and is expected to graduate from CWU in the Summer of 2012. Thanks are due to the field guides in India (Raju, Tensing, and Morsing) and special thank you to Sigma Xi for supporting this research!!!

Meilani on bridge over a roaring river that runs along Miyar Valley. Photo taken by Jeff Lee.

Michelle Harris

Michelle received funding in support of work on her thesis "Documenting Magmatic Processes at Filicudi Island, Aeolian Arc, Italy: Integrating Quantitative Modeling and Plagioclase Textural and In Situ Compositional Data".

Eliya Hogan

After obtaining a B.S. in Geology at CWU in 2010, Eliya enrolled as a graduate student to work under the supervision of Dr Jeff Lee studying structure and tectonics. This summer she plans to spend about 10 weeks mapping structures and rock units in the Mina deflection, a geologically convoluted region in California and Nevada.

Her data will be used to discover how fault slip can be transferred and affected within an intracontinental setting. $2000 was granted to Eliya by the Geological Society of America to aid in this exciting research endeavor.

Tabitha Trosper

Tabitha received funding from GSA to support her thesis entitled "Relationships between Snake River paleofloods, occupational patterns and archaeological preservation at Redbird Beach archaeological site in lower Hells Canyon, Idaho".

In her thesis research, Tabitha has described and dated the slackwater flood deposits and geomorphic features within a flood terrace along the Snake River in lower Hells Canyon, Idaho. The results of her study suggest that temporal and spatial patterns of human occupation and preservation of archaeological materials at this site were influenced by floods from the Snake River and geomorphologic changes likely initiated by locally-derived debris from Redbird Creek and/or Snake River channel migration.