EDITOR’S CORNER
Diverse Articles by and For Students.
John L. Berry, CPG-4032
It is with great trepidation and also a great deal of antici- pation that I look forward to being your TPG Editor for the next year: trepidation because it is a great responsibility for a great organization, and anticipation because I hope to learn much more about AIPG, about you, our members, and what you expect from TPG. I also want to thank Jean Patota, your retiring editor, for all the help and advice she has given to me during the transition: she has been a pillar of strength and a fount of good advice. Thank you, Jean!
Let me introduce myself: I have been a member of AIPG since about 1978 (my CPGS certificate was issued by “The Association of Professional Geological Scientists” – who remembers that era?). I joined because I had been, for a couple of years, an independent consultant, and I had run into a couple of situations that had made me aware that I might, at some point in my career, need access to ethical advice and, perhaps, support. I was also much concerned, at that time in my life, about both the poor reputation that some prospectors (who called themselves geologists) had given to the profession, and about the powerlessness of geologists in the industry vis- á-vis engineers and others: only chemists had a lower status! However, even though I have been an Associate Editor of TPG for a long time, this is the first time that I have ever held office in the Institute: I have tended to focus my energies on my local geological societies. Therefore, TPG has been very important to me: it has been my only regular contact with AIPG, and I have been an avid reader, particularly of David Abbott’s ethics columns.
I trained as a geologist, oceanographer and geophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania and at Columbia. I have had a very varied and satisfying career doing mineral exploration on four continents and hydrocarbon exploration on every con- tinent (except Antarctica) and in every ocean, as well as more academic work in the Arctic Ocean, on chemical weathering in the southeastern USA, on the structure and tectonics of western China, and on various remote sensing techniques. I taught environmental science for a couple of years at a tech- nical institute in western North Carolina. In 1999 I became an independent remote sensing consultant but am now semi- retired. Since leaving the corporate world I have also been an avid intercontinental cyclist and a woodcarver: a background in structural geology, always thinking in 4-D, is good prepa- ration for making sculptures out of wood! I hope this diverse background gives me the breadth of experience necessary to select content for TPG that will appeal to everyone.
My ambition is for TPG to be the go-to place for useful infor- mation on the practice of geology, on the status of geology as a profession, and on the ethical quandaries that we sometimes find ourselves facing, as well as a place for conversation on
the issues we face and future opportunities for the profession. I hope, particularly, that young people entering the profession will find, through TPG and through AIPG, information and support that will enhance their careers and lead them to new opportunities. Please, if you have had interesting, exciting, or learning moments in your career that would thrill your colleagues, make them laugh, or help them in their career or business, take up your pen and submit an article or a brief note: it’s not fair to keep all the good stuff to yourself!
This particular number is the annual Student Edition of TPG. We include student articles on a new way of teaching introductory geology courses that is being tried at Wayne State University, and on some interesting carbonate rocks in the foothills of the Himalayas. This work demonstrates the use of fossils - in this case giant foraminifera – and textures to determine the changes in water depth and environment of deposition during a relatively short time interval. We also have a student’s reactions to her first state Geological Society field trip, and to giving her first professional paper at a meeting, as well as a delightful poem about the southern Appalachian mountains. Two papers from students at West Point are quite groundbreaking, one in its use of mathematical modeling to describe some complicated groundwater flow situations, and the other in its approach to collection of comprehensive data on dam failures, so that safety analyses may be better founded. The final student paper describes the petrologic evolution of a gold-mineralized pluton near Anchorage, Alaska: it makes me jealous just to read about the field work!
Jeff Frederick recounts a rather spectacular adventure in the High Cascades, and another describing an adventure in the Darien Gap, an area that is now inaccessible. Not every geologist is a mountain climber, but many of us have had other types of thrilling experiences and it is often the prospect of these adventures that draws us to the profession. Students will be reassured by two papers that are concerned with various aspects of risk and safety, as well as how to avoid accidents and how to insure against them. Safety on the job has come a long way since my early days in the mining industry, now 50 years in the past, and it is indeed a good thing that it has. Charles Dimmick, and the Letters to the Editor remind us that idealism and service to the public are among the things that motivated many of us as students.
I encourage you to send your suggestions for content, your ideas for improvement of TPG, and your criticisms, to me through Head Office (
aipg@aipg.org) or at
jlbassoc@flash.net. This is especially important if, for you as it was for decades for me, TPG is your main or only contact with your organization, AIPG. We need to know what you want and expect from your Institute and from your magazine!
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