Day: September 29, 2021

Heiken, Grant

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After completing his Ph.D. at the University of California in Santa Barbara in 1972, Grant Heiken (heiken@whidbey.com) worked for NASA’s Apollo Program as a geology instructor and as a researcher on lunar surface processes. In 1975, he and his wife moved to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico, where he worked on geothermal exploration and development, volcanic hazard analysis, the uses of volcanic rocks, basic research on explosive volcanism, continental scientific drilling, and integrated urban science. He has co-written or edited 11 books. He retired in 2003 and moved to Freeland on Whidbey Island, Washington, with his wife Jody, who is a scientific editor. Grant volunteers for several service organizations, is on the board of the Whidbey-Camano Land Trust and is on the Island County water-resources advisory committee.

Grant’s March 2014 talk was based on his 2005 book “The Seven Hills of Rome—A Geological Tour of the Eternal City” (G. Heiken, R. Funiciello, R., and D. De Rita, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 288 p). (Updated 2021)

 

Greene, Gary

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Dr. H. Gary Greene is a marine geologist who has studied the geology of the west coast US margin from Alaska to Baja, California for the past 35 years. He received a Bachelor of Science degree (Geology/Paleontology) from Long Beach State University in 1966, a Master of Science Degree (Geology/Geophysics) from San Jose State University/Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in 1969, and a Ph.D. Degree (Geology/Marine Geology) from Stanford University in 1977. His doctoral thesis was on the geology of the Monterey Bay region and since then he has explored the offshore areas of California, Oregon, Alaska, San Juan Islands of Washington, and the Gulf of California. Gary retired from the United States Geological Survey after more than 28 years of service in 1994 when he took up the directorship of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

Presently, he is professor of Marine Geology and heads the Center for Habitat Studies, which he founded in 1994. Gary is also a part-time senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. He is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and a member of Sigma Xi, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, American Geophysical Union, and is a registered geologist with the States of California and Washington. He is also president of the Monterey Bay Geological Society and a Director of the Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources.

Through the years Gary has traveled the world while in pursuit of answers to critical scientific questions. He has been Chief Scientist or Co-Chief Scientist on over 80 oceanographic cruises including the National Science Foundation Ocean Drilling Program. His expertise lies in the study of active plate margins, both transform margins like California and New Zealand and subducting margins such as along South America and the Aleutian Islands. He spent over 10 years investigating the island-arc regions of the South Pacific.

He has authored or co-authored over 250 scientific papers, maps and books. Presently, Gary’s research involves the characterization of marine benthic habitats and the study of underwater landslides. Much of his time is now spent in working to standardize the way the scientific community describes and maps marine benthic habitats.

Gary spoke to an overflow crowd of the QGS in Nov. 2015 on the “Ecology of the Salish Sea.”  Updated Oct. 2021.

Polenz, Michael

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Michael Polenz joined WGS in 2000 and has mostly produced 1:24,000-scale geologic maps in western Washington. He has also worked on landslide inventories, landslide hazard zonation maps, Columbia Basin basalt flow stratigraphy, fault trench investigations, documentation of earthquake effects, and engineering geologic well logs. Prior to joining WGS, Michael got kicked out of his native Germany for not sufficiently appreciating soccer and beer. He then worked as an engineering geologist and environmental consultant in northern and central California. Michael’s thesis work centered on tectonic geomorphology and sediment weathering at the Crescent City Coastal Plain, California.

In Aug. 2014 Michael and several DNR colleagues led a field trip to review the geology of the Center to Quilcene area of Jefferson Co.  (Updated Oct. 2021)