Time: 11:30 am Buffet, Noon Speaker Presentation

RSVP online by Thursday, September 5th at Midnight

Cost: $30 with RSVP, $35 with no RSVP, student members eat free with RSVP (Student Members please directly email the FWGS Secretary to RSVP).

Reminder: FWGS is charged for all RSVP's, so if you RSVP and do not attend you will be contacted concerning payment.

Speaker: Professor B. Charlotte Schreiber , Department of Earth and Space Sciences , University of Washington

Title: Rapid Evaporite Deposition In The Permian Basin

Abstract: On Earth the deposition of evaporites apparently takes place under periods and in places of extreme aridity such that the preservation of those deposits is good and they appear to have few marked truncations. In particular, many soluble salts are relatively hygroscopic and their preservation actually represents the final deposit from any batch of evaporating water under extremely arid conditions. If any such precipitates were developed under periods of somewhat slower deposition they probably would have become truncated or even largely destroyed during subsequent periods of elevated humidity and/or added water inflow. Based on studies of these Permian deposits it is most likely that the salts were deposited very rapidly and that burial with the rare erosion surfaces actually mark the certainty of preservation in a sedimentary sequence. There are a few points in the Earth’s history where worldwide evaporite formation was common, the Neoproterozoic, late Silurian and Permian being the most memorable, and the depositional features of these evaporite deposits are beautifully preserved here in the Permian Basin and their sedimentary features are typical on a worldwide basis.

Bio: B. Charlotte Schreiber is currently a professor at the University of Washington Department of Earth and Space Sciences. Charlotte earned a BA Geology from Washington University, Missouri, a MS Sedimentology and Micropaleontology from Rutgers University, New Jersey, and a PhD Geology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. Her NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship was at Imperial College, London.