William Hoffman '07 (Baltimore, Md.) received an Emerson research grant to pursue a project in geosciences with Barbara Tewksbury, the William R. Kenan Professor of Geology. His project, titled "Reconnaisance Study of Deformation Bands in Palagonitic Tuffs in Iceland," will take him to Iceland to collect samples to be studied at Hamilton.
"Deformation bands are formed by pore space collapse and brittle fracturing in porous rocks," explained Hoffman, a geoscience major. "They are indicators of stress." Hoffman is doing preliminary research on the structures, which have been studied in the Western United States, but never before in Iceland. In mid-July, Hoffman and Tewksbury will travel to Iceland for a 10-day field study trip during which they will collect samples to bring back. Hoffman plans to study the origin of the structures to see if they were formed by tectonic stresses or ice flow and investigate how they relate to Iceland's known faults and glacial history. He plans to continue this research for his senior thesis in the upcoming academic year.
Hoffman is no stranger to field research. He discovered the deformation bands on Hamilton's field program to Iceland last summer and began looking into the structures upon his return. Hoffman also worked on a summer research project last year with Associate Professor of Geoscience Dave Bailey which brought him to the Great Basin of Central Nevada to study chert source material as a source of information about the lives of early Native Americans in the area.
The most challenging aspect of his current project, said Hoffman, is that it is unlike any kind of research done before. "I have to put little pieces of a lot of different articles together," he said, in order to gain enough background information.
At Hamilton, Hoffman is the sports broadcast director for WHCL, Hamilton's radio station, a teacher's assistant in introductory geoscience courses and plays intramural sports.
-- by Laura Trubiano '07
