Greetings friends,

While floods are not to be taken lightly and the losses can be terrible, the G&G Deltaic Geology course taught by Dr. Sam Bentley is taking advantage of the Mississippi River Flood 2015-2016 to study the processes that drive the Mississippi River Delta. The class and Dr. Bentley's Research Group will be observing flood impacts via the Bonnet Carre Spillway, Old River Control operation, and Mississippi floodplain inundation, looking at formation of new land on the Atchafalaya and Wax Lake deltas, and ancient examples from old Mississippi Delta lobes.

Also in Spring 2016, three graduate students have accepted invitations to attend an intensive ten-day long field course during early April. We look forward to hearing about their experiences when they return to campus.

With graduate students focused on the Mississippi River flood and the field course, Dr. Alan Brown and I are taking advantage of this opportunity to extend an IBA-like experience to more than five students (an IBA team is limited to five students). The course goal is for the students to form an exploration company. We will visit the Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute, to work an industry dataset to explore for oil/gas, and the students will present their findings to a panel of industry experts.

Geology graduate James Smith is the lead author of a report that suggests that the Mississippi River is a key contributor to wetland development. The article, published December 2 in Scientific Reports, a Nature.com journal, provides the first account relating the long-term input of sedimentation to the Mississippi Delta from both hurricane flooding and river flooding spanning many decades.

The article is based on Smith's senior thesis, supervised by   Sam Bentley, LSU geology professor and Billy and Ann Harrison Chair in Sedimentary Geology, and Gregg Snedden, ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

 Click HERE to read the full article 

 Click HERE to read article by the Advocate

 Click HERE to read article on Nature.com

More than 60 AAPG Foundation Trustee Associates and their guests traveled to Colorado Springs recently for the 38th annual Trustee Associates meeting, which mixed business, networking, and relaxation.

Amy Luther, Geology & Geophysics' Assistant Professor/Field Camp Director, and PhD student Tara Jonell were invited to the event to lead a field trip focusing on the geology of the Colorado Springs Region. Luther and Jonell took the group to see exposures at numerous locations including the Garden of the Gods, Red Rocks Canyon, and Lake Pueblo State Park.

EnvironMentors is a science and environmental science-based mentoring program, which works to support and strengthen high school student success in science and environmental fields.

Every Monday over the course of the school year the a select group of students from Scotlandville Magnet High School are transported to LSU's campus to meet with their mentors to develop and conduct an environmental research project. Mentors guide their student through all stages of the scientific method including posing a question, completing background research, designing and conducting an experiment, and presenting the findings at the EnvironMentors Science Fair.

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