AZGS puts its shoulder to the wheel at GSA-2019

The Geological Society of America (GSA) brings its 131st annual meeting to the Phoenix Convention Center from 22-25 Sept. The timing is perfect; it’s the sesquicentennial anniversary of John Wesley Powell’s expedition through Grand Canyon and the centennial celebration of Grand Canyon National Park.

More than 5,800 geoscientists will attend next week’s GSA-2019 conference. The Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS) is playing an active role. AZGS Director and State Geologist Phil Pearthree is editor and chair of GSA’s field trip committee, which is hosting 20 regional field trips from Baja California and northern Sonora, Mexico, to the Sierra Nevada of California, to locales in Arizona.

AZGS geologists are co-authors on 17 technical presentations and on five technical/poster sessions.  The presentations topics range from: zombies of the Phanerozoic!, to the origin of the Lower Colorado River, to mafic enclaves in the Mount Perkins Pluton. Jeri Young Ben-Horin and her team will describe ground-rupturing earthquakes on the Mead Slope Fault at Lake Mead; and AZGS’s newest hire, economic geologist Carson Richardson and his colleagues from the Univ. of Arizona, will discuss spatiotemporal patterns in Cenozoic normal faulting in the Northern Great Basin (see below).

In addition, AZGS geologists are co-leading five field trips (map): volcanoes of northern Arizona’s San Francisco volcanic field; examining earth fissures – an anthropogenic geologic hazard – near Phoenix; cruising the southern reach of the Colorado River and deliberating on the origin of the extensional corridor; origin of the Verde Valley and Verde River; and structures and porphyry copper systems near Globe-Superior, Arizona.  

Last, AZGS Senior Research Scientist Ann M. Youberg and her co-authors will receive the 2019 E.B. Burwell, Jr., Award for their paper ‘Prediction of spatially explicit rainfall intensity–duration thresholds for post-fire debris-flow generation in the western United States’: Geomorphology, Vol. 278, p. 149-162.

----------------------------------  AZGS at GSA-2019 Annual Conference ------------------------------------

In the citations below, AZGS geologists are denoted with a star. PCC is the Phoenix Convention Center
Technical sessions are scheduled from Sunday, 22 Sept., to Wednesday, 25 Sept. Field trips occur before and after the general session.

GSA-2019 Technical Programs: Presentations co-authored by AZGS staff*

• Barnes, B.D., Sclafani, J.A. and *Zaffos, Andrew, Zombies of the Phanerozoic: How Prevalent are Dead Clades Walking? Weds. 2:15 – 2:30 PM, PCC Rm 225AB, North Building
• *Ben-Horin, Jeri Y., *Pearthree, P. A. and *Gootee, B. F., Ground-Rupturing Earthquakes on the Mead Slope Fault, Arizona. Sun 3:00 – 3:15 PM, PCC 224B, North Building.  
• Bright, J., Cohen, A. S., Cassidy, C. E., Crossey, L.J., Crow, R., Dorsey, Rebecca J., *Gootee, B.F., House, P. K., Karlstrom, K E. and *Pearthree, P.A.,  Towards Developing a Lower Colorado River Corridor Coring (Locoring) Project: What Subsurface Bouse Formation Sediments can tell us about Late Miocene (?) and Early Pliocene Tectonics and Paleoclimate in the Southwestern U.S. Mon. 5:05 – 5:20 PM, PCC Rm 221AB, North Building
• Brown, H. M., Reynolds, S. J., *Gootee, B. F. and Boyd, A. K., Bedrock and Quaternary Geology of the Hassayampa River Canyon, Wickenburg, Arizona. Tues. 9:00 AM – 6:30 PM, PCC Hall AB, North Building.  
• Carlson, G., Carnes, L. K., Walker, Ian J., Arrowsmith, R., Turner, C., Feary, D. A., *Gootee, B. F., Leonard, Joel S. And *Cook, J. P., Monitoring Anthropogenic Earth Fissure Hazards in Arizona with UAS-SFM. Weds. 9:00 AM – 6:30 PM, PCC Hall AB, North Building
• *Conway, F.M. and  Bechtol, V., The Role of a Rigorous Geoinventory of the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area, Arizona. Mon. 10:05 – 10:20 AM, PCC Rm 101C, West Building
• *Cook, J. P. and Conway, B. D.,  Mapping and Monitoring Earth Fissures in Arizona: a Widespread Man-Made Geohazard. Mon. 11:00 – 11:15 AM, PCC Rm 221AB, North Building  
• Crow, Ryan, Schwing, Jonathan E., Karlstrom, Karl E., Heizler, Matthew, T., * Pearthree, Philip A., House, P. Kyle, Dulin, Shannon A., Stelten, Mark E. and Crossey, Laura J., Redefining the Age of the Colorado River. Mon. 3:50 – 4:05 PM, PCC Rm 221AB, North Building
• Fenerty, Brendan, Ridinghafer, Jacob, Lizarazu, Iaos, McGuire, Luke, Rasmussen, Craig and *Youberg, Ann M., Quantifying the Spatial Distribution of Pyrogenic Carbon Following the 2018 Buzzard Fire in The Gila National Forest, New Mexico, Sun. 11:30 – 11:45 AM, PCC 224A, North Building
•  *Gootee, Brian F., House, P. K., *Pearthree, P.A., Crow, R. and Bright, J., The Trigo Sediments -- An Early Pliocene Offlap-Sequence Recording the Demise of Paleolake Blythe, Lower Colorado River Corridor, Southwest USA. Mon. 4:35 – 4:50 PM, PCC Rm 221AB, North Building
• *Johnson, B.J., Field Relationships within Mafic Enclave Swarms in the Mount Perkins Pluton, Northwestern Arizona. Sun. 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM  PCC Hall AB, North Building, Booth No. 239
• McGuire, L., *Youberg, A.M., Williams, J. and Sankey, J.B.  Geomorphic and Hydrologic Processes in Post-Wildfire Environments: Drivers, Impacts, and Hazards. Sun. 8:00 AM – 12:00 PM, PCC Rm 224A, North Building
• McGuire, L. and *Youberg, A.M., Refining Thresholds for Runoff-Generated Debris Flows: Insights from a Recently Burned Area in the Gila National Forest, New Mexico, USA, Sun 8:35 – 8:50 AM, PCC Rm 224A, North Building
• *Richardson, C A., Seedorff, E., Pape, J. R., Barton, M. D. and King, C. A. ,  Cenozoic Normal Faulting in Northern Great Basin: Time-Space Patterns, Insights into The Pre-Extensional Architecture, and Implications for Ore Deposits. Mon. 4:45 – 5:00 PM, PCC Rm 231ABC, North Building
• Thorkelson, D.J. and *Johnson, B.J., Correlation and Significance of Paleoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic Features along the Western Margin of Laurentia, from Yukon to Arizona. Sun. 9:15 – 9:30 AM, PCC Rm 229B, North Building
• Wieland, L. and *Conway, F.M., Grand Canyon Panorama Project: A Tool for Showcasing and Sharing a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mon. 5:00 – 5:15 PM, PCC Rm 101AB, West Building
• *Youberg, A.M., *Cook, J. P., *Pearthree, P. A., *Gootee, B. F. and *Bookman, L.M., Development of the Arizona Statewide Landslide Inventory Database; Practical and Geological Lessons Learned. Mon. 2:50 – 3:10 PM, PCC Rm 224A, North Building

Technical Sessions with AZGS Moderators

• 2 T5. Geomorphic and Hydrologic Processes in Post-Wildfire Environments: Drivers, Impacts, and Hazards. Luke McGuire, *Ann M. Youberg, Jason Williams, and Joel B. Sankey, Flagstaff, AZ Phoenix Convention Center - Room 224A, North Building, 8 AM Sunday
• T45. Porphyry Copper and Related Mineral Deposits of Arizona, the Basin and Range Province and Beyond. Sarah Elizabeth Baxter, *Michael Conway | Phoenix Convention Center - Hall AB, North Building, 9 AM Weds. (Poster session)
• 290 T45. Porphyry Copper and Related Mineral Deposits of Arizona, the Basin and Range Province, and Beyond  Sarah Elizabeth Baxter and Michael Conway | Phoenix Convention Center - Room 126ABC, North Building, Weds. 1:30 PM

GSA-2019 FIELD TRIPS

• 406 Riggs N, Ort M. H., Connor C., Alfano, F. and *Conway, F.M.  Volcanology and Associated Hazards of the San Francisco Volcanic Field. 19-21 October
• 408 Carnes, L.K., Carlson, G., and Cook*, J.P., Exploring Arizona Earth Fissures: An Anthropogenic Geologic Hazard. 20 Sept.
• 415  Philip A. Pearthree*, P. Kyle House, Joseph P. Cook* and Kelin Whipple, The Co-Evolution of Verde Valley and the Verde River, Central Arizona. 21 Sept.   
• 421 House, P.K., Howard K.A., John B.E., Pearthree*, P.A. and Crow, R.S., A River is Born: Highlights of the Geologic Evolution of the Colorado River Extensional Corridor and its River: A Field Trip Honoring the Life and legacy of Warren Hamilton. 25-27 Sept.
• 426 Barton, M.D., Seedorff, E., Favorito, D., Greig, R. and *Richardson C.A., Exploring Superimposed Laramide Contraction, Porphyry Copper Systems, and Cenozoic Extension in the Globe-Superior-Ray-San Manuel area, East-Central Arizona. 26-28 Sept.

Other activities

• Conway, F.M., GSA-2019 Chair of Community Education
• Pearthree, P.A., GSA-2019 Chair and Chief Editor of Field Trips
• Richardson, C.A., Early Career Perspectives: A Career in a State Survey, Tuesday
• 2019 E.B. Burwell, Jr., Award – Ann M. Youberg and co-authors for 'Prediction of spatially explicit rainfall intensity–duration thresholds for post-fire debris-flow generation in the western United States': Geomorphology, Vol. 278, p. 149-162.

Posted M. Conway 9/17/2019