ESS News and Photos

Maymester 2012 : Yellowstone Field Trip
In May, 2012, Drs. Barineau, Brown, Cruzen, and Frazier led a group of 28 graduate and undergraduate students to regions of geologic interest in the northern Rocky Mountains including: the Great Salt Lake, Arches National Park, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park. This trip allowed students to earn credit hours in both introductory geology and upper level courses in the geology of North America and also provided students with valuable skills associated with field procedures

Graduation Fall 2012: The Earth Space Science department is proud to have conferred three Bachelor of Science degrees, and five Master of Environmental Science degrees during this Fall Commencement.

The Bachelor of Science degree recipients are:

Zachary Edwards: BS in Earth Space Science-Astrophysics and Planetary Geology Track, summa cum laude.

- Mr. Edwards and Ms. Randall graduated with academic honors and completed the additional requirements of Columbus State's Honors program; Honoris Causa is designed for academically talented students committed to engaging in their discipline through experiential learning and creative scholarship. Their participation signifies not only high academic performance, but also participation in student-generated service projects and additional undergraduate research projects.

The Master of Environmental Science recipients are:

Faculty Research: Dr. David Schwimmer coauthored an article recently published in PLOS One, a web based peer reviewed journal. His research along with scientists from the Museum of Natural History in Paris, and the American Museum of Natural History, examines the phylogenetic characteristics of Megalocoelacanthus dobiei, an Upper Cretaceous Coelacanth. The findings help support that coelacanths experienced a wider range of morphologies and ecologies than previously thought, and also earlier in their evolutionary history. The full article can be found at PLOS One: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0049911

Graduate Research: Earlier this year Sandra Neufeldt, a graduate student in Columbus State's Environmental Science Masters program presented her research on dam distribution and associated impact on the watershed connectivity of the Piedmont and Southeastern Plains regions of Georgia. By the use of GIS mapping methods she was able to quantify both dam distribution and stream order placement. The data goes on to show the influence of dams upon higher order streams in both urbanized and agricultural areas, based upon the land use.

November 2012: Dr. David Schwimmer led a combined Sedimentary Geology and Fossil Record field trip to Cloudland Canyon, Georgia. Students examined Mississippian and Pennsylvanian limestone formations throughout the region, and also the related fossils of the period.

October 2012: Dr. David Schwimmer, presented his research at the 72nd Annual Meeting Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Raleigh, North Carolina. The research focused on the Late Cretaceous vertebrates of the Hannahatchee Creek site in Western Georgia, and was part of the Cretaceous Faunas of Appalachia symposium at the conference.

June/July 2012: GeoCorps internships, this summer three Columbus State University ESS majors were accepted to internships with the Federal Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service. The three CSU students were selected from a highly competitive candidate pool of applicants nationwide. Kate Lodder, was assigned to the Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Her work was part of the park's public outreach program, by working with the park's educational programs she conducted lectures to the public. Danny Redding was assigned to the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Danny's work focused on the cataloging and excavation of fossils in the region. Alex Colon worked at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Alex worked with the U.S. Geologic Survey conducting activities using GIS to mapping erosion events in the region. These internships provide unique opportunities to experience real world application of the methods learned in the classroom. For more information visit http://rock.geosociety.org/g_corps/index.htm .

July 2012: Columbus State University's Coca-Cola Space science Center received a main engine nozzle from NASA. The $15 million dollar nozzle that the center will exhibit has flown to space nine times and on all four shuttles in service during its lifetime – Atlantis (three times), Discovery (twice), Endeavour (once) and Columbia (three times). It was involved in 39 total engine starts — 24 for development and testing, three for engine certification and 12 actual launch-pad firings, including a flight readiness firing before Endeavour's maiden voyage and two launch-pad aborts.

June 2011: Dr. Bill Frazier, who is scheduled to take over in July 2011 as Chair of the ESS Department, has established a Twitter account (BillFrazierESS) and an ESS Department Blog so that people can keep up with recent events and activities in the Department.

May 2011: Dr. Clint Barineau and Dr. Shawn Cruzen ran a Maymester combined Geology and Weather course in which students traveled cross-country to study the different geological regions of the southern United States, up to the Rocky Mountains. See video of the trip compiled by geology major Cheryl Wilkes!

Spring 2011: ESS faculty successfully proposed two new programs within the ESS department, adding an Environmental Science track to our B.S. in Earth and Space Science degree. They also transformed our pre-Engineering program into a full Associate Degree in Engineering Studies.

Summer 2010: Dr. Zodiac Webster held a two-week, NASA-funded teacher training GEARS seminar in teaching astronomy for Georgia Teachers. Over 20 attended for this site. They performed a series of projects that both helped their own professional development, and gave them material to work over with their students. It introduced them to resources such as the Mead Observatory's Remote Imaging Solar Observatory (RISO), spectroscopic tubes, online data repositories and analysis tools, and much more. The purpose was to give the teachers tools they need to begin or improve Astronomy courses, or to include Astronomy as part of a general science course.

Summer 2010: Dr. Rosa Williams, with students Michal Johnson, Kate Lodder and Zach Edwards, worked to implement a new version of the Magellanic Clouds Supernova Remnant Database (MCSNR DB). This database is the result of a long-term research project on the properties of MC supernova remnants, highly collaborative (see the webpage) and consisting of data at multiple wavelengths. It has already been cited in two papers submitted to a refereed journal (Badenes et al. 2010) and once in a paper on which Dr. Williams collaborated (Klimek et al. 2010). A paper describing the results tabulated in the database is in preparation.

ESS faculty & students demonstrate astronomy, geology, & physics principles for Faith Middle School Science Club