 Joanne Bourgeois |
2015 Laurence L. Sloss Award
Presented to Joanne Bourgeois
Citation by Charlotte Schreiber, Brian Atwater, and Lonnie Leithold
Dr. Joanne (Jody) Bourgeois of the University of Washington (UW)-Seattle is honored with the Sloss Award in recognition of her pioneering work on storm and tsunami deposits, her dedicated educational and scientific leadership, and her generous service to GSA and the profession.
Bourgeois advanced the study of storm deposits through analysis of Cretaceous to Neogene shoreface and continental-shelf facies. Beginning in the late 1970s, while unraveling a complex tectonostratigraphic terrane in southwestern Oregon, she studied a thick, transgressive sandstone succession displaying hummocky stratification. She and her Ph.D. advisor Bob Dott subsequently published on the variability of hummocky stratification, and Bourgeois’ students have continued to add to understanding of the processes recorded by gravelly to muddy, shallow-marine facies. She has also supervised graduate students working in both marine and non-marine, Jura-Cretaceous to Paleogene sequences.
Bourgeois’s tsunami research began with a landmark 1988 paper in Science, where she and coworkers for the first time quantified the conditions under which a K-T-boundary deposit (in Texas) formed, requiring a wave significantly larger than storms could produce. Soon thereafter the Chicxulub impact site was identified nearby, partly with clues from such coarse-grained deposits. Recently, in a paper published in Geology, Bourgeois and collaborator Robert Weiss also applied quantitative reasoning to debunk the use of Holocene parabolic dunes as evidence for (impact-generated) tsunamis.
Through her own and her students’ research, as well as by organization of seminal workshops, Bourgeois has nurtured the worldwide growth of tsunami sedimentology and its applications. Her research group has documented effects of several recent tsunamis and has extended that work into the geological record of the Pacific Northwest and the Russian Far East. Her invited chapter in The Sea, Volume 15, Tsunamis, was the first comprehensive review of tsunami geology, a review illustrating Bourgeois' scholarship and also her commitment to geology’s historical roots.
In her 35 years on the UW faculty, most of it as the only woman in the department, Bourgeois has built a strong record of mentorship, driven by her commitments to education, to scientific integrity, and to fostering the next generation of sedimentary geologists. She introduced two process-oriented courses, “Depositional Environments” and a popular graduate seminar, “Interpretation of Sedimentary Structures” with a field trip to southwest Oregon. In these courses Bourgeois emphasizes the physical and paleoecological understanding of sedimentary rocks, with quantification of sediment transport when possible. Her students describe her as a supportive, generous mentor, and an infectiously enthusiastic, acutely observant field sedimentologist. Bourgeois shares some of the finest qualities of Larry Sloss, including not taking herself too seriously but at the same time relentlessly asking incisive, demanding questions of everyone’s science, including her own.
2015 Laurence L. Sloss Award — Response by Joanne Bourgeois
I am highly honored to receive the Lawrence L. Sloss Award from the Sedimentary Geology Division of GSA. Thank you so much to my nominators Charlotte Schreiber and Brian Atwater, my citationist Lonnie Leithold, and those who supported my nomination.
I am passionate about sedimentary rocks and particularly sedimentary structures, and have always loved to share that passion with students and colleagues, particularly in the field! While I think the most important qualities of a sedimentary geologist are keen observation coupled with critical thinking, I also treasure my curiosity, my enthusiasm, and my playfulness, and I’m always happy to pass those on.
Since an early age, I pictured myself as a teacher, imagining myself in my schoolteacher’s shoes each year until I reached Barnard College--the women’s undergraduate division of Columbia University--where the professors were brilliant; I had never met a college professor. My goal was teaching earth-science, and I graduated with a teaching certificate, but instead took the head-lab-instructor position at Barnard, earlier held by Charlotte Schreiber, for whom I had worked. Other early mentors included vertebrate paleontologist Connie Gawne, whom I assisted in the New Mexico field, and structural geologist Ina B. Alterman, my first TA, who assiduously marked up my field-trip reports.
My path to sedimentology started with classes, field trips and interactions with mentor John E. Sanders (1926-1999). We both arrived at Barnard in autumn 1968. I walked into his office to declare geology as a major, spurred by interest and enthusiasm I had gained only that summer in an NSF-sponsored program for high-school students, where a pied piper of geology, Mr. Leavitt, inspired me to conduct my own field project on a glacial deposit.
Shortly after my Barnard graduation, John Sanders recommended me to Rhodes W. Fairbridge (1914-2006) to co-edit the Encyclopedia of Sedimentology, which I worked on from 1974 to 1978. Could there have been a better way to gain encyclopedic knowledge of sedimentology and at the same time network with many of the world’s leading sedimentologists? And there I honed my editorial skills, which my students will say are formidable--but then they have carried on the tradition.
As a Barnard instructor, I could enroll in Columbia’s graduate courses, including Sanders’ process-oriented sedimentology, Schweickert’s tectonics-oriented stratigraphy, and Heezen’s submarine geology. I became more and more excited about sedimentology and stratigraphy. When I was turned down to teach Historical Geology during John Sanders’ sabbatical because I didn’t have a Ph.D., but then a (male) grad student from Columbia with no more credentials than I ended up in the position, I decided I’d better to get my Ph.D. so that wouldn’t happen again!
I was sure I wanted to do graduate work with sedimentologist, historian and humanist Bob Dott at the University of Wisconsin; I cannot overstate his role as a mentor. While my graduate years had some bumps, including my first clinical depression, the training, guidance and community I experienced there matured me as an academic. In addition to the superb cohort of soft-rock graduate students who became for me a strong network in academia, government and industry, I would like to acknowledge professors Lloyd Pray and Charlie Byers. A summer internship at Exxon’s lab working with Peter Vail’s group opened my eyes to seismic and sequence stratigraphy.
In September, 1980, I went straight from dissertation defense to teaching stratigraphy at the University of Washington, in the “Harry Wheeler” position. I have been privileged with outstanding students, from undergrads to Ph.D.’s, and if I may claim any reason to deserve this award, it would be for some small credit in their accomplishments. I wish I could tell you more about them, but given space constraints, I want at least to name those for whom I was a graduate advisor: Beth Martin Arcos, Bret Buskirk, Kathy Campbell, Anneliese Eipert, Jim Evans, Barry Gager, John Garver, Julie Hauptman, Bretwood “Hig” Higman, Sam Johnson, SeanPaul LaSelle, Lonnie Leithold, Bre MacInnes, Beth Mahrt, Mike McGroder, David Mohrig, Andy Moore, Mary Ann Reinhart, Andy Ritchie, Chuck Thibault, Rob Thomas, David Topping, Jim Trexler. I am blessed to have such a wonderful academic family.