Tech Geoscientists Present Research at GSA

by George Zamora

SOCORRO, N.M., April 15, 2002 -- The findings of two geological research projects focusing on the geochronology of rocks encountered in two different areas in New Mexico recently were presented by two New Mexico Tech geoscientists at the 36th annual meeting of the South-Central Section of the Geological Society of America, which was held last week in Alpine, Texas.

Shari Kelley, an adjunct professor of geology at New Mexico Tech, and Virginia McLemore, senior economic geologist with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR), presented the results of their research studies at the annual convention of more than 325 geoscientists.

The NMBGMR is a research and service division of New Mexico Tech and serves as the state geological survey.

Kelly's presentation, "Age and Characteristics of DeBaca Terrane, East-Central New Mexico," reviewed field and laboratory work performed on rocks encountered in well drillings in the Tucumcari Basin. Her project was a collaborative effort with fellow researchers Jose Amarante of New Mexico Tech, Matthew Heizler of the NMBGMR, Melanie Barnes of Texas Tech, and Kate Miller of the University of Texas at El Paso.

McLemore's presentation, "Geochronology of Proterozoic Granitic and Mafic Rocks in the Northern Burro Mountains, Grant County, New Mexico," was also partly the result of geologic dating techniques employed by Heizler at the New Mexico Geochronology Laboratory, as well as McLemore's own field research in southwestern New Mexico that was conducted in collaboration with geoscientists O. Tapani Ramo and Paula Kosunen of the University of Helsinki in Finland and Michael Hamilton of the Geological Survey of Canada.