Master’s Saturday

The Master of Science (MS) degree at the Jackson School of Geosciences is considered to be the professional degree for a career in the Geosciences. This degree is the foundation for students pursuing employment in the petroleum industry, environmental and hydrogeological fields, state and federal government agencies, and other related geoscience fields. Some students also use the MS degree as preparation for pursuing a Ph.D. The Energy & Earth Resources Interdisciplinary program provides the opportunity for students to prepare themselves in management, finance, economics, law and policy leading to analytical and leadership positions in resource-related fields. The private sector and government organizations face a growing need for professionals that can plan, evaluate, and manage complex resource projects, commonly international in scope, which often include partners with a variety of professional backgrounds. As requirements for these degrees, students must present a professional talk on Master’s Saturday.

Master’s Saturday Agenda April 30, 2022

This Spring, join us for breakfast starting at 8:00am in the Holland Family Center (JGB). Dean Claudia Mora will deliver opening remarks starting at 8:40am. After all sessions, starting around noon, is a lunch. Presentation awards for 2022 Best Talk went to Gabrielle Varona (1st place) and Andrew Kleiman (2nd place) — please see below.

Session 1: JGB 2.202

Session Chair: Ethan Conrad

9:00am to 9:15am	Sarah Brooker, Stable Isotope Composition of the Archean Slave Subcontinental Lithospheric Mantle as a Tracer of Metasomatism (Jaime Barnes)
9:15am to 9:30am	Jacob Helper, Fluid-mobile element cycling (halogens, boron, lithium) and sourcing through the Costa Rican convergent margin (Jaime Barnes)
9:30am to 9:45am	Amber Taylor, Stable isotopes as a proxy for continental chemical weathering during the lead-up and aftermath of the Neoproterozoic Sturtian glaciation (John Lassiter)
9:45am to 10:00am	Daniel Campos, Exhumation of the High Tatra Mountains and Implications for the Western Carpathians (Slovakia) (Elizabeth Catlos)
10:00am to 10:15am	Emily Hinshaw, Tectono-metamorphic evolution of the Ossa and Pelion HP-LT blueschists: U-Pb zircon and apatite constraints on subduction underplating and regional paleogeographic correlations in eastern Thessaly, Greece (Daniel Stockli)
10:15am to 10:45am	Coffee Break
10:45am to 11:00am	Carolyn Bland, The Elastic and Transport Properties of Hikurangi Margin Rocks as a Function of Stress, Saturation, and the Presence of Fractures (Nicola Tisato)
11:00am to 11:15am	Claudia Banks, Dispersal and source-to-sink dynamics in active river systems of the Ecuadorian Andes and foreland basin (Brian Horton)
11:15am to 11:30am	Juan Gutiérrez, Cenozoic sedimentary response to changing subduction dynamics in the northern Andes of Colombia (Brian Horton)
11:30am to 11:45am	Joshua Malone, Provenance analysis of Paleozoic basin fill in the Falkland-Malvinas Islands: Implications for basin evolution and Gondwanan reconstructions (Brian Horton)
11:45 to 12:00pm	Russell Miller, Volcanic Facies and 15m Scale Roughness Throughout Athabasca Valles Outflow System on Mars: A Dynamic Flow Development (Sean Gulick and Cyril Grima)

Session 2: JGB 2.218

Session Chair: Mariel Nelson and Emily Bamber

9:00am to 9:15am	Janna Muhammad, Elucidating the evolution of the parrot vocal organ and links to bioacoustic traits (Julia Clarke)
9:15am to 9:30am	Logan Schmidt, Quantifying dynamic storage with borehole NMR (Daniella Rempe)
9:30am to 9:45am	Harisankar Manoj, The Sensitivity of the Congo Basin Rainforest to Climate Change (Kerry Cook)
9:45am to 10:00am	Jack McLaughlin, Evaluating Abnormalities in Daily Transpiration Patterns Across Tree Species in a Semi-Arid Climate (Ashley Matheney)
10:00am to 10:15am	Lily Beaman, Evaluating the Effects of Environmental Conditions on Biomass Water Content and Transpiration in Three Semi-Arid Tree Species (Ashley Matheney and Richard Chuchla)
10:15am to 10:45am	Coffee Break
10:45am to 11:00am	Solveig Schilling, A Modern Distribution of Foraminifera to Reconstruct Environmental Change Offshore Galveston Bay, Texas (Christopher Lowery)
11:00am to 11:15am	Nicole Gonzalez, Evidence for multiple styles of sediment gravity flows constructing a prodelta-to-shelf depositional environment: Coaledo Formation, southwest Oregon (David Mohrig)
11:15am to 11:30am	Sarah Meyer, Basin-Floor Channel Stacking and Evolution of the Brushy Canyon Formation in the Northeastern Delaware Basin (Jacob Covault)
11:30am to 11:45am	Gabrielle Varona, Paleogeographic Evolution of the Orange and Green Sands in WR 313, Deep-water Gulf of Mexico (Peter Flemings) —Presentation awarded 1st place
11:45am to 12:00pm	Katherine Jones, Modeling Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in West Texas for Renewable Energy Siting Assessments (Michael Young)

Session 3: JGB 2.324

Session Chair: George Segee-Wright

9:00am to 9:15am	Danny Sears-Greer, Impact of High Renewable Penetration on Electricity Prices and Grid Reliability (Carey King, Darrel Tremaine)
9:15am to 9:30am	Sean Corcoran, Perceptions of Risk in Increasingly Capital-Intensive Electricity Grids: Measuring the Impacts of Accurate Cost of Capital Representation on Investment Planning for Future Energy Systems (Benjamin Leibowicz)
9:30am to 9:45am	Tomás Fuentes-Afflick, A Comparative Analysis of Conventional Internal Combustion Vehicle and Electric Buses in Austin, Texas (Michael Webber)
9:45am to 10:00am	Andrew Kleiman, The Cobalt Supply Chain and Life Cycle Assessment of Lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage Systems (Michael Young) —Presentation awarded 2nd place
10:00am to 10:15am	Bryan La Bissoniere, Evaluating strategies, opportunities, and tensions for implementing green stormwater infrastructure at the site scale (Kasey Faust)
10:15am to 10:45am	Coffee Break
10:45am to 11:00am	Sara Lagerholm, Evaluating the Potential for Residential Solar PV and Battery Systems during Extended Grid Outages in Austin, Texas (Carey King, Darrel Tremaine)
11:00am to 11:15am	Nathan Pastorek, An Analysis of Geothermal Viability in Pecos County, Permian Basin, West Texas (Kenneth Wisian, Michael Young)
11:15am to 11:30am	Alysa Suydam, Cost of desalinated groundwater using stochastic estimates of groundwater storage volumes and salinity (Bridget Scanlon)
11:30am to 11:45am	William Swales, The Future of Texas Offshore Wind: An LCOE Comparison (David Eaton)
11:45am to 12:00pm	Sarah Dodamead, Exploring the Trade-offs Between Battery Storage and Transmission for the Electrical Grid (Michael Webber)

Session 4: JGB 4.102

Session Chair: Rawan Alasad

9:00am to 9:15am	Marco Guirola, Estimating Across-Fault Leakage Rates and their Financial Implications for CCS with Application to Offshore Gulf of Mexico (Alex Bump)
9:15am to 9:30am	Zakariah Harner, Environmental Impacts of Onshoring Lithium and Lithium-ion Battery Production (Tristan Childress, Richard Chuchla)
9:30am to 9:45am	Nina Hebel, Characterization of Naturally Fractured Sandstone Reservoirs for Geothermal Heat (Stephen Laubach)
9:45am to 10:00am	Clare Kane, Disparate Exposure to Fine Particulate Air Pollution in Formerly Redlined Cities: Chicago, Dallas, and Fort Worth (Sheila Olmstead)
10:00am to 10:15am	Maddie Laidlaw, Evaluating, Risking, and Ranking Carbon Sequestration Prospects with Application to Gulf of Mexico (Alex Bump, Susan Hovorka)
10:15am to 10:45am	Coffee Break
10:45am to 11:00am	Jonathan Pantano, Teleconnections and the Gulf Coast: Examining response of Texas bay/estuary freshwater inflows to climate variability (Bridget Scanlon)
11:00am to 11:15am	Cameron deFabry, Autoencoders for Seismic Model Upscaling and Facies Identification (Mrinal Sen)
11:15am to 11:30am	Caroline McKeighan, Understanding Anthropogenic Fault Rupture in the Eagle Ford Region, south-central Texas (Peter Hennings)
11:30am to 11:45am	Ila Boley, Geologic and Financial Analysis of Microbial Carbonates in the Sapinhoa Oil Field for Hydrocarbon Production and Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (Charles Kerans, Hilary Olsen)

Master’s Thursday Agenda December 9, 2021

Watch Master’s Thursday

12:30pm to 12:45pm	Xin Liu FEASIBILITY OF PREDICTION OF PRINCIPAL STRESS FROM REFLECTION OF SEISMIC DATA (Mrinal Sen)
12:45pm to 1:00pm	Matthew Nix SHIFTS IN DEPOSITION, SEDIMENT DISPERSAL, AND PROVENANCE FOR THE LATE JURASSIC-EARLY CRETACEOUS KOOTENAY AND BLAIRMORE GROUPS: IMPLICATIONS FOR FORELAND BASIN DYNAMICS IN WESTERN CANADA (Brian Horton)