Summer of shale, 2017

This summer five researchers joined the Historical Geobiology Lab for a group project on the comparative geochemistry of natural gas targets throughout North America. Chiza Mwinde (Smith College) worked on the Montney Formation in British Columbia, Bella Bussian (Colorado College) worked on the Horn River Group and Exshaw/Patry in the Liard Basin of Yukon, Austin Patch (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) worked on the Marcellus Shale from West Virginia, Kang Junyao (Peking University) worked on the Wolfcamp/Leonard from Texas, and new research assistant Sabrina Tecklenburg worked on the Haynesville Shale from Louisiana. Graduate student Sam Ritzer led the project, and did an outstanding job both coordinating the logistics of laboratory work (sometimes a little hectic with so many people in lab!) and teaching about sedimentary geochemistry. Look for the students' abstracts and Sam Ritzer's comparative synthesis at the upcoming Geological Society of America meeting in Seattle!