Bureau of Geology News

On September 12, 2023, around 4:01 PM local time, a magnitude 3.28 earthquake occurred near Lemitar and Escondida, NM. There are reports that the earthquake was felt in Lemitar and Socorro. The event was recorded on seismometers operated by the New Mexico Tech Seismological Observatory (NMTSO), which streams real-time data (Figure 1) to the web.

Mark Mansell, our valued friend and colleague and long-time employee of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, passed away on April 4, 2023. He was 61.

Many geoscientists and NMT and throughout the southwest will remember Rich Esser, who finished an MS degree at New Mexico Tech in 1996, and then worked in the Argon Lab at the Bureau for a number of years. He went from here to University of Utah, where he continued to collaborate with people at NMT on a range of projects.

Rich went missing from his home on Wednesday evening, and his body was found on February 3, 2023 in the mountains to the east of his house in Salt Lake City. I'm so sorry to have to share this terribly sad news with you. Rich was a dear friend to many of us. I spent many Antarctic field seasons with him, and couldn't have asked for a kinder, pleasanter, or more generous field companion. I am heartbroken that I'll never see him and talk to him again. He leaves his wife Dina, and two young sons, Solomon and Knut. A GoFundMe page has been created to help the Esser family with funeral and living expenses.

— Nelia Dunbar

Senior Field Geologist Dan Koning received the nation’s premiere geologic mapping award at the Geological Society of America’s 2022 annual meeting in Denver. The Florence Bascom Geologic Mapping Award acknowledges contributions in published, high-quality, geologic maps that led the recipient to publish significant new scientific or economic-resource discoveries and to contribute greater understanding of fundamental geologic processes and concepts.

Charles Stephen (Steve) Haase, Ph.D., of Jonesborough, TN passed away on November 15, 2022. Steve was born on September 20, 1951 in Duluth, Minnesota. His bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology were received, respectively, from Carleton College and Brown University in 1973 and 1975. After receiving a Ph.D. degree in geology at Indiana University in 1979, he continued post-doctorate studies in geochemistry at Yale University.

Steve started his professional career in 1980 at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) as a research scientist; and most of the large body of his peer-reviewed publications relates to geohydrologic investigation he initiated in the ORNL Y-12 Plant area (See: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Charles-Haase).

In 1991, Steve joined the staff of the NM Bureau of Mines & Mineral Resources, a research division of NM Tech, where he was co-leader of a multi-institutional hydrogeologic investigation in the northern Albuquerque Basin. During the next 2 years, he made a number of seminal contributions to our present understanding of the hydrogeology and hydrochemistry of that area (see references below). His geohydrologic research in New Mexico continued through the mid-1990s, when he was Director of Environmental Services at the Albuquerque office of GRAM, Inc.

A recently published paper by former Kottlowski Fellow Morgan Nasholds (now at the USGS) and bureau geologist Matt Zimmerer discusses new insight into the eruptive history of Valles caldera, New Mexico’s supervolcano.

On Friday, October 14, the New Mexico Bureau of Geology held a BBQ luncheon as part of 49^ers weekend to honor our many retirees, Because of COVID we haven't, until now, been able to gather as a group to socialize and have fun together. Coincidentally, two of our notable emeritus Bureau staff, who were able to attend, just turned 90 in October: Charles (Chuck) Chapin and John Hawley.

A new paper authored by bureau geologist Geoffrey Rawling calculates and interprets water-level changes in the Mimbres Basin over the past 40 years using the mathematical method of spatio-temporal kriging.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham proclaimed October 9-15 "Earth Science Week" in New Mexico.

In celebration at the the Bureau of Geology, our staff will present a series of radio spots on KUNM 89.9 FM at 7pm, Monday-Friday. The theme for these spots this year is: "Earth Science for a Sustainable World."