Leslie Mikesell, PhD (mikese10@msu.edu ):
 |
Leslie is conducting the
stratigraphic evaluation of the upper Livermore Formation at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory. This project has caused Leslie to
spend significant time each summer in California (rough duty, huh...),
where she and several undergraduate assistants have described core,
collected samples from the surrounding area, and generally had a good
time. Her work will form the foundation for site-wide
hydrostratigraphic studies. Thus far, she and her team of core
crunchers have described over 7 kilometers of core...and they're still
going! Stay tuned for some interesting results that combines the sequence stratigraphic concepts developed by Gary with stratigraphic complexities caused by tectonically forced stream captures. Very cool stuff!!!! Leslie plans to teach at the college level upon completion of her degree. |
Sarah Martell, MS (martells@msu.edu ):
 |
Sarah is spending her time
characterizing the vadose zone in one of the source areas at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (Landing Mat East site). She spent
4 weeks during the summer of 2003 describing core and collecting data
at the site, and is modeling a pneumatic test
conducted at this site during April of 2003. This is one of the
few, if not the only, assessment of pneumatic tests in
heterogeneity...a daunting and complex but extremely interesting
task! Sarah is near completion of her work and will finish
soon...she got a job, though. We look forward to completion of
the thesis and with any luck, we'll be ready to publish some
of her results soon...the influence of heterogeneity on this test is
pretty significant according to our models. |
Past Graduate Students:
Susanne Biteman, MS:
 |
Susie completed her Masters
degree the summer of 2002. Her thesis, titled "Improving
the Characterizations of Aquifer Heterogeneity and
Tracer Test Simulations by Incorporating Geologic Information at a
Glacial
Outwash in Biteman, S., Hyndman, D.W.,
Phanikumar, M.S., and Weissmann, G.S., in
press, Integration of
sedimentologic and hydrologic properties for improved transport
simulations: detailed characterization
of a glacial outwash aquifer at the Schoolcraft Susie currently works as a hydrogeologist for Malcom Pirnie in Michigan. |
Robert
Trahan, MS:
 |
Rob completed his thesis,
titled "Evaluating
Geologically-Constrained Models with Pumping Tests in a Heterogeneous
Alluvial Aquifer, Helipad Site at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, California", in August, 2003. This work is
awesome! It shows the influence of heterogeneity (channel forms,
paleosols, etc) on observed pumping test results. In this work,
Rob described core from the Helipad Site, correlated the subsurface
stratigraphy, modeled the facies using transition probability
geostatistics, and simulated the transient groundwater flow during the
pumping test. Rob's chapter 3 will become a manuscript for
submission to Water Resources Research. We also expect to submit
some of this work to Ground Water and to the Journal of Geoscience
Education. |
George Bennett, MS:
 |
George completed his thesis,
titled Estimating the Nature and Distribution of Shallow Subsurface
Paleosols on Fluvial Fans in the San Joaquin Valley, California,, in
October, 2003. He and his assistant, Sarah
Norris, spent 6 weeks during the summer of 2002 running around the
Kings River alluvial fan and alluvial fans near Modesto, California,
with Ground Penetrating Radar equipment strapped to the back of his
car. Imagine driving around the Central Valley at 2-3 miles per
hour in 100+ degree heat. No air conditioning, not only because
the car didn't have any, but also because you'd overheat driving at
that speed. But, his data are cool and results exciting!
George was able to image the uppermost paleosol (where it exists) on
these alluvial fans, proving that these are indeed laterally continuous
surfaces and that we can identify erosional breaks in the paleosols
(important for hydrogeologic interpretations). This work is published in the GSA Bulletin. George also worked as an intern at the US Geological Survey office in Sacramento during the rest of the summer of 2002. He was hired by the USGS in Sacramento and currently works and resides in California. |
Amy Lansdale, MS:
 |
Amy just completed her thesis
in December 2005...yippee!!! Her thesis was titled "Influence of
a Coarse-Grained Incised-Velley Fill on Groundwater Flow in Fluvial Fan
Deposits, Stanislaus County, Modesto, California, USA." In her
work, she modeled the influence of these coarse-grained deposits
on groundwater flow and solute transport (see the description under
research). It's Awesome! work!!! We look forward to
publishing this work soon. Amy is currently working for Environ International in the Washington DC area. |
Ginny Rust, MS:
 |
Ginny joined our group in Fall, 2004. She completed her MS project in 2006, focusing on modeling hydrostratigraphic character of a site at LLNL, with the ultimate goal being development an approach to select reasonable aquifer realizations from a set of equally-probable aquifer realizations (developed using transition probablility geostatistics). The results of this project are both incredible and scarry. Even with stratigraphic models showing dramatically different geometries, she was able to reasonably match pumping test results...she did need to model heterogeneity to do this, however. We expect to publish this work soon. She also conducted work using lidar and ground penetrating radar, attempting to develop an outcrop-based approach to GPR tomography for heterogeneity characterization. We have a manuscript submitted on the results of this work. |
Nicholas Engdahl, MS:
Nick received his MS from UNM in 2009. His work focused on using ground penetrating radar at a 5x16 meter site along the Rio Grande to characterize (1) the shallow subsurface heterogeneity and facies distributions and (2) use this characterization to develop an understanding about anamolous transport (non-Fickian transport) from this scale of heterogeneity. He has three first authored papers from this work!!!!! He found that the facies did contribute to non-Fickian transport, and that parameters that describe this non-Fickian flow display anisotropy due to the facies geometries. On to new things now, he is working on a PhD at UC Davis with Graham Fogg. |
Undergraduate Students:
Here are some of the undergraduate students that have been
involved through the years on these and other projects.
MSU
Students:
| Karen Strickling, LLNL
Project, 2005-present. |
Luke Zoet, LLNL Project, 2004-2005 | Aimee Kneisel, LLNL Project, 2004-2005 | |||
| Sara Auer, LLNL Project, 2003-2004 | Kent Dankenbring, LLNL and San Joaquin Basin Projects, 2003-2004 | Jill Schlanser, LLNL Project, 2002-2003 | |||
| Beth Apple, LLNL project, summer 2002 | Jenny McCrary, LLNL Project, 2002 | Pat Ray, LLNL Project, 2002 | |||
| Michelle Vit, Schoolcraft Project, 2001-2 | Desiree Valdevia, San Joaquin Basin Project, 2001 | George Bennett, San Joaquin Basin Project, 2001 | |||
| Erin Norris, San Joaquin and Montana Fans Projects, 2000-01 |