Truckloads of paper records are coming home to the IGWS building this spring, funded by a federal data preservation grant and accelerated by a move-out deadline from IU.

The IGWS learned in February that the building across campus where it had been temporarily storing maps, well logs, field notebooks, and at least 80 years' worth of other assorted data pieces had to be vacated by spring break--a deadline which was later extended by two weeks. Staff had been cataloging and systematically moving these records since receiving a $342,491 grant from the USGS National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program last February. Still, at the beginning of this year, the storage location still held thousands of records.

See photos: Above, storage space in April 2022; below, storage space in April 2024.

In March and early April, staff from several IGWS departments spent several days at the storage site, loading everything left onto pallet jacks and into trucks to come back to the Survey. Full, yet-to-be-cataloged filing cabinets now line the basement walls; multiple tables are piled at least a foot high with maps; moving boxes are filled with rolled-up mylar and other parts of publications; and another storage room in the basement is ringed with shelves of miscellaneous boxes. In addition to maps and other paper records, they've found slides, bunches of negatives, prints, film still in rolls, floppy disks, some geologic specimens, and a wide selection of coffee cups--with more surprises yet to come.

"We found a lot of cool things. We found a lot of things we hope will be useful. And we found a lot of things that could have been thrown away a long time ago," said Archivist and Collections Manager Jenna Lanman.

The data preservation grant plan involves three parts, two related to the paper records being moved: inventorying, georeferencing, and cataloging decades worth of geologists' field notebooks and maps, and doing the same for gamma logs, prioritizing records from areas of the state that IGWS geologists are mapping now. The third part involves measuring, photographing, and cataloging the more than 2,000 rock and mineral specimens in the IGWS Education Collection and entering photographs and data about them into searchable, digital archives.

The point of all three projects is to bring older geologic data and specimens out of miscellaneous boxes and filing cabinets so that current researchers and students can rediscover those resources.

Updates on each project will be shared in a new series, "Piles to Archive," in E-Geo News issues this year.

It's almost Eclipse Day! Are you tired of hearing about it yet? Well, hang on; we have just three more things to tell you (for now):

• The IGWS will livestream the April 8 solar eclipse from a temporary weather station behind the IU Geology Building. Visit the IGWS eclipse page at https://igws.indiana.edu/eclipse on Monday to see the feed; it also will be archived for later viewing. If you're at IU Bloomington on Eclipse Day, visit the IGWS table at the IU Arboretum to see the live image and data.

• Live data of solar radiation and temperature readings from three of the IGWS's climate stations--in Bloomington, Jasper, and Lake Station (symbolized in figure at right)--are now showing on the eclipse website. Bloomington falls near the center path of totality (duration 4 min., 4 sec.), Jasper is just inside the edge of totality (duration 2 min., 49 sec.), and Lake Station is not in it, so, during the eclipse, data patterns for both variables at those three locations are expected to be different but along a similar curve, depending on cloud cover.

• It's not too late to participate in the IGWS's citizen science opportunity. Between now and April 10, anyone with a cellphone is invited to download a free lux meter app from an Android or Apple store, point the phone outside at any time of the day, and submit that data to the IGWS. IGWS scientists are collecting light measurements over the weeks surrounding the eclipse to study how this extraterrestrial event affects water balance in Indiana. To submit your lux meter data and to see recent light measurements others have collected throughout the state, visit the IGWS citizen science page at this link if you're on a mobile device, or see the data map and the survey at this link if you're on a desktop.

The IGWS has been receiving attention lately for its research into carbon capture and storage: the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from industry emissions and the storage, or sequestration, of CO2 in deep underground geologic formations. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, IGWS researchers are working on grant projects with colleagues from other states to evaluate locations in Indiana and the Midwest where carbon storage in geologic formations could be successful.

Read an overview of the IGWS's CO2 work here, in a story published by IU Today and picked up by IU Research and the IU Environmental Resilience Institute.

Carbon capture and storage is also the subject of the IGWS's newest Indiana Statehouse panels, hanging through the end of May (see below).

• Gov. Eric Holcomb signed House Bill 1026 on March 11. The enrolled act modifies the IGWS advisory council, clarifying board member per diem and terms and adding a chair and vice chair.

• Holcomb signed House Bill 1138 on March 12. The enrolled act specifies that continuing education is required for the renewal of a professional geologist license after June 30, 2025. Rules for continuing education are working their way through the state approval process.

ABOVE: IGWS Research Geologists Henry Loope (left) and Jose Luis Antinao (not pictured) met with Henry Gray (right) and Russell Boulding (center) at the IGWS last month to discuss the in-progress map, "Quaternary Geology of the Bloomington 30- x 60-minute Quadrangle, Indiana." The new map, which will be published in the Indiana Journal of Earth Sciences later this year, is partially based on Gray et. al's 1979 "Geologic Map of the 1x2-degree Indianapolis Quadrangle, Indiana and Illinois, Showing Bedrock and Unconsolidated Deposits." Gray, a celebrated Indiana stratigrapher, turned 102 on March 18. He retired from the IGWS in 1987 but has served as an active volunteer research affiliate ever since. Gray and Boulding, Gray's son-in-law, will be co-authors on the new Bloomington map along with IGWS Research Affiliate Peter Jacobs. | Kristen Wilkins, IGWS

Tracy Branam has never met a research project he didn't like. His motto is, "Life's too short not to enjoy what you're doing."

Well, there was that stint in the late '70s/early '80s when he worked in a windowless lab in Indianapolis doing analytic chemistry for a clinical diagnostic company. He didn't like that on account of the windowless part, and the blood. But since joining the staff of the IGWS at Indiana University, his alma mater, in Bloomington, his hometown, "just about anything I've worked on has been fun," he said. "I've not had a boring project, whether it's mine reclamation, coal ash studies, groundwater, springs--they've all been really enjoyable, and mainly because I work with people who are also really good at making the project overall turn out very well."

Branam was first hired at the IGWS as a part-time hourly in February 1988 because the Survey was lacking in geochemists. He had been working in IU's geology department in a research assistantship, but funding was running out there. The timing was perfect at the Survey, as a lot of mine reclamation work was flowing in. He soon noticed problems with the methodology of the work he was being asked to do, and instead developed other methods to get more accurate results. His reputation for troubleshooting landed him a full-time IGWS position later in the year.

He kept busy primarily with mine reclamation projects until around 2011, when the IGWS director at the time began cutting staff due to budget cuts. The geochemistry lab was dismantled and the entire geochemistry division was laid off, except for Branam because his name was on so many grants. For the next several years, he was charged with outsourcing all the lab testing that the IGWS could no longer run on its own.

In 2015, Branam returned to the staff after an extended illness and found a new IGWS director at the helm--a longtime friend and coworker, Dr. Todd Thompson--and a new research direction studying the geochemistry of groundwater and springs. "And that has been my focus ever since," he said. Previously, "I'd started getting concerned when people started saying I was an acid mine drainage expert. That's not what I wanted to be known for. I wanted to branch out into other things."

Between 2019 and 2021, the IGWS/Geology Building underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation funded by IU, which included three revamped IGWS lab spaces, one a water geochemistry lab. In 2022, state statute formally established a Center for Water within the structure of the IGWS, and new two full-time, water-focused staff members--one with a geochemistry background--have been brought on in the past 18 months. Lately, the water team has been working with private and public landowners to regularly monitor the quality of perennial springs on their properties, and has been working to expand the number of deep monitoring wells that keep track of groundwater levels around the state.

"I've been trying to build a team of people, because I always liked the team aspect," Branam said. He also enjoys working with graduate students, at least 50 throughout his career. "It makes me feel like there's still people out there who care about environmental science," he said.

Though he is an accomplished scientist--he was named an Indiana Academy of Science Fellow in 2009--Branam is also known as something else: a jokester. For a good laugh, ask him about the time he ransomed Mr. Potato Head and won an award for it.

"People rarely pick on me before I pick on them first," he said. "And I can't help it. I just love to see people smile. Some people, they just get so serious that you have to do something to get them to smile."

• Approximately 700 people visited the IGWS Learning Lab in a three-hour span for the first annual Dino Day. (See photo at right.) The event included dinosaur-themed activities in the interactive learning space indoors and several "dinosaur egg" hunts outside on the Geology Building lawn.

• The IGWS's second annual (and sold out) Master Naturalist class, organized by Education and Outreach Coordinator Polly Sturgeon, started on March 19 and continues for 11 weeks each Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. IGWS employees Dr. Henry Loope, Sturgeon, and Dr. Todd Thompson are helping to teach sessions along with several volunteers from other professions. This is Thompson's 21st year teaching a class with Sturgeon or IGWS Volunteer Affiliate Dr. Brian Keith on "Sedimentary Rocks, Fossils, and Paleogeography of Indiana."

• Sturgeon and Editor Sara Clifford talked to new faculty, students, and others interested in geology and the work of the IGWS at the IU Research Spring Resource Fair on campus.

• Research Scientist Ginger Davis spoke to about 60 people at a well drillers' continuing education event in Avon in February, discussing water characteristics in Indiana aquifers.

• Davis and Research Scientist Valerie Beckham-Feller participated in the Monroe County Community School Corporation GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science) event on March 23. (See photo at right.)

• Thompson attended a meeting of Midwest state geologists in Rolla, Mo., which included representatives from Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Indiana. The meeting focused on collaborations across the mid-continent pertaining to hazards, critical minerals, and geological mapping.

• IGWS Research Scientist Victoria Leffel spoke at the 139th annual meeting of the Indiana Academy of Sciences. Her presentation was titled "Understanding the Impact of Karst on Indiana Roadway Infrastructure: A case study analysis."

• Assistant Director for Information Services Matt Johnson and Research Scientist Don Tripp will speak at the Southwest Indiana GIS User Group meeting April 10 in Vincennes. They will give an overview of the IGWS's recently published map products and ask for input about possible geologic research needs in the area.

• New field trip options have been posted to the IGWS website. See the options, organized by age group, at this link.

• WORK WITH US: The IGWS is seeking to hire two geologists with expertise in the energy-rock-water continuum, as well as a part-time data entry specialist. Read the job postings and apply at this link.

• Nicholas Angelos started as a GIS analyst at the IGWS on Feb. 6. Originally from Fort Wayne, he is a 2023 graduate of IU Bloomington with a bachelor's degree in geography and a concentration in geographic information systems and remote sensing, as well as a minor in mathematics. During the online-classes phase of 2020, he was an undergraduate instructor in a finite math class; he also cooked, delivered, and organized volunteers at the Community Kitchen of Monroe County while finishing his degree. He wanted to work for the IGWS because the job fit his area of knowledge, and "being able to work with geologists and hydrologists doing field work was a direct continuation of what I already had an interest in: earth sciences." So far, he has been digitizing data from older annotated maps for the IGWS's data preservation grant; converting citizen-submitted data into an interactive map for the IGWS eclipse website; and helping to identify naturally caused landslides on public forest properties.

• Rachel Culver rejoined the IGWS staff, this time as a full-time research geologist, on March 18. Culver was a Potter Intern during the summer of 2023, aiding staff with the study of carbon sequestration by finding data in well logs, and helping to update the Petroleum Data Management System (PDMS). As a full-timer, she is again searching through older geologic data to better characterize the subsurface in areas where the IGWS has research projects in progress. CO2 sequestration was a topic she had been learning about on her own for several years, as she is from the Lafayette area, where such projects have been proposed. "I'm really excited that I'm able to work on carbon sequestration projects especially because it's a close-to-home situation, and I've had family and friends ask me (about the science)," she said. "I try to explain it in a way that a person with a non-science background can understand." She earned a bachelor's degree in geology and geophysics with a minor in soil science from Purdue University in 2023.

The semiannual IGWS Plant Event will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, May 6, in Room 2022 of the IGWS/Geology Building. Landscaping plants, including irises, canna lilies, ostrich ferns, black-eyed Susans, wild geraniums, and beardtongues, as well as some house plants, will be available.

Donations generated from the event will support the IGWS Graduate Research Scholarship Fund.

Anyone wishing to donate plants or cuttings should label them and bring them to Room 2022 between 2 and 3 p.m. Friday, May 3, or between 8 and 9 a.m. the day of the sale.