Post Rocky Mountain (or, Hooray! I didn't screw up my talk)

I'm back from Orem, Utah - although it turns out I'm going back out there again in June - and as it turned out, I had a pretty good time at RMGSA. Of course, seeing my friends from W&M is always great, and they did a wonderful job on their poster presentations. My talk, despite it being early in the morning, went well - I managed not to get completely nervous, forget what I was going to say, or flub the answers to the questions I received. I even got some useful feedback, since the room was full of people who'd been working on mapping around my study area for, oh, decades. (This was somewhat intimidating at first, since I have relatively little experience in Utah geology, and I'm a young female person.)

But it all worked out in the end - better than the poor girl who had half her graphs fade out and had to draw them back in with a digital pen. (That would have completely freaked me out, and although I wasn't terribly interested in her subject matter, I have to say she recovered pretty well.) The conference setting was pretty nice, too - in the library at Utah Valley University, which has incredible views of the Wasatch and Utah Lake. (The rooms were a bit small, and it must have been annoying to the students trying to use the library to have a bunch of noisy geologists around, but for the most part the setting was fine.)

Here are a few of the talks I listened to:

TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF THE CENTRAL WASATCH RANGE: GEOMETRIC, KINEMATIC AND AGE ANALYSES OF NOTABLE STRUCTURAL FEATURES: HARRIS, Ron, Geological Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, rharris@byu.edu

EVIDENCE OF EXTENSIONAL AND COMPRESSIONAL TECTONISM ON SATURN'S MOON TITAN: RADEBAUGH, Jani, Department of Geological Sciences, Brigham Young University, S-389 ESC, Provo, UT 84602, jani.radebaugh@byu.edu

GRABENS GONE WILD: LATE CENOZOIC EXTENSION ON THE FISH LAKE PLATEAU, UTAH: BAILEY, Christopher¹, BUCKLEY, Trevor R.¹, BOWLES, Christopher J.¹, and MARCHETTI, David W.², (1) Department of Geology, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187, cmbail@wm.edu, (2) Geology Program, Western State College of Colorado, 600 N. Adams St, Gunnison, CO 81231

LITHOSPHERIC BOUNDARIES, MAGMATIC PROCESSES AND CRUSTAL SCALE FLUID CONNECTIONS OF THE GREAT BASIN AND ITS TRANSITION TO THE COLORADO PLATEAU AS TRACED BY ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY STRUCTURE: WANNAMAKER, Philip E., Energy & Geoscience Institute, University of Utah, 423 Wakara Way, Suite 300, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, pewanna@egi.utah.edu

PLEISTOCENE GLACIATIONS ON THE FISH LAKE PLATEAU, UTAH: MARCHETTI, David W., Geology Program, Western State College of Colorado, 600 N. Adams St, Gunnison, CO 81231, dmarchetti@western.edu, HARRIS, M.Scott, Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424, BAILEY, Christopher, Department of Geology, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187, and BERGMAN, Sarah, Geology, Carleton College, One North College Street, Northfield, MN 55057

IMPLICATIONS OF WIDESPREAD, PALEOVALLEY-FILLING ASH-FLOW TUFFS OF THE WESTERN GREAT BASIN FOR PALEOTOPOGRAPHY, REGIONAL TECTONICS, AND TUFF VOLUMES: HENRY, Christopher D.¹, FAULDS, James E.¹, HINZ, Nicholas H.¹, GARSIDE, Larry J.², and BODEN, David R.³, (1) Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, chenry@unr.edu, (2) Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, University of Nevada Reno, MS 178, Reno, NV 89557, (3) Physical Sciences, Truckee Meadows Community College, Reno, NV 89512

THE GREAT BASIN ALTIPLANO DURING THE MIDDLE CENOZOIC IGNIMBRITE FLAREUP: INSIGHTS FROM VOLCANIC ROCKS: BEST, Myron G., Department of Geology, Brigham Young University, S389 ESC, Provo, UT 84602, myron_best@byu.edu, CHRISTIANSEN, Eric H., Geological Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, eric_christiansen@byu.edu, BARR, Deborah L., U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Las Vegas, NV 89134, GROMME, Sherman, 420 Chaucer St, Palo Alto, CA 94301-2201, DEINO, Alan, Berkeley Geochronology Ctr, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709, and TINGEY, David, Department of Geological Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602

And, of course, there were a few W&M posters to visit:

SEDIMENTARY GEOLOGY OF THE NORTHERN FISH LAKE PLATEAU, CENTRAL UTAH: CARBAUGH, Joyce E. and BAILEY, Christopher, Department of Geology, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187, jecarb@wm.edu

BEDROCK GEOLOGY OF THE MT. TERRILL AND HILGARD MOUNTAIN 7.5' QUADRANGLES, HIGH PLATEAUS, UTAH: BUCKLEY, Trevor R., BAILEY, Christopher, and CARBAUGH, Joyce E., Department of Geology, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187, trbuck@wm.edu

JoBeth and Trevor did a very nice job on their posters, and they were busy talking with people for the whole authors-are-present hour (which was, unfortunately, scheduled for lunchtime). Here they are discussing the finer points of one of their maps:

(Obviously, JoBeth isn't convinced of whatever Trevor is telling her.)

We even found a little time for some geocaching, although I will recommend that it not be done in dress shoes and nice slacks. And, by the end of the trip, my undergrad advisor and I decided that we're definitely taking one more trip out to Fish Lake (the subject of all the research we presented at this meeting). While I'm excited to be going back, I'm hoping I won't be too burned out by that point, seeing as I'm going to the Toronto AGU at the end of this month, and then to Italy. (The Italy trip will be good practice for identifying those pyroclastic deposits, though!)