Geologic mapping in the Jotunheim region in southern Norway.
Although I am a native Tennessean, I graduated from high school in Ohio after spending ~1.5 years living in central Mexico where my father was employed. My university education consists of degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1961, geology, chemistry, minor mathematics; M.S., 1962, geology, minor chemistry) and the University of Tennessee–Knoxville (Ph.D., 1965, structural geology, minor chemistry). My M.S. thesis research was on carbonate petrology and geochemistry. While a student at Vanderbilt, I was employed for two summers by the Tennessee Division of Geology and discovered an aptitude for both the mental and physical challenges of fieldwork—primarily geologic mapping and structural geology, so this led to my Ph.D. research on a large thrust system in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge. I was employed for about one year by Humble Oil and Refining Company (now ExxonMobil), then joined the faculty of Clemson University where I taught structural geology, mineralogy and optical mineralogy, petrology, engineering geology, and environmental geology (not every year) from 1966–1978. During this time I began long-term research projects in the Appalachian Blue Ridge, Inner Piedmont, and Brevard fault zone, with assistance from several outstanding Clemson undergraduates and financial support from the National Science Foundation and state geological surveys of both Carolinas and Georgia. In 1978 my family and I moved to Tallahassee, Florida, and to Florida State University, where I taught structural geology, worked with both undergraduate and graduate students, and conducted research in the Pine Mountain window in Georgia, and continued to work in the North Carolina Blue Ridge. We moved to the University of South Carolina–Columbia in 1980 and in 1986 moved to the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory as Distinguished Scientist and Professor. I ended my relationship with ORNL in 2000, and since have been associated only with UTK. Additional research projects in the western Blue Ridge, Norway, Valley and Ridge–Plateau, and others in the eastern Blue Ridge and Inner Piedmont have begun since moving to UTK.
I have had a long-term fascination with earthquakes that do not occur on plate boundaries, and had attempted to obtain funding to work on this problem for several years until 2008 when a group of geoscientists and I received funding from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to investigate the paleoseismology of the East Tennessee seismic zone.
This is the second most active in the eastern U.S. (behind New Madrid), but has had no historical earthquakes larger than ML of 4.8, yet seismicity associated with this zone is spread over much of eastern Tennessee, northwestern Georgia, and northeastern Alabama. We explored this area for several years with some success in finding some features that we felt were produced by earthquakes, but in 2012 we found a thrust fault east of Knoxville that displaced bedrock for about one meter over Quaternary river sediment.
This fault displaced some sediment-filled fractures that were since dated at XX years, so the fault had to form more recently than the sediment-filled fractures. We have since found several more faults southwest of Knoxville that displace Quaternary sediment that include a normal fault, one or more thrust faults and possible strike-slip faults. Despite the small displacements of a few meters, these faults had to have been formed by earthquakes that had a magnitude of > 6.5.
During the past several decades, I have served on numerous Geological Society of America committees, on the GSA Council (1980–1982), and as GSA Vice President (1992), President (1993), and Past President of the Society. From 1981–1988, I served with William A. Thomas as Editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin. From 1990–1996 I served on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Board on Radioactive Waste Management and on several NAS committees, as President of the American Geological Institute (1996), on a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Federal Advisory Committee on reactor safety (1993–1996), on the U.S. Geological Survey Federal Advisory Committee on the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program (1996–2007), and have served since 2009 the Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Committee (a federal advisory committee), going off in 2016. I also served as Chair of the GSA Honorary Fellows Committee during 2004 and 2005, Chair of the Geological Society of America Foundation Board of Trustees from 2005–2007 (appointed in 1999), and Co-Chair and then Chair of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists History of Petroleum Geologists Committee from 2002–2007, then rejoined this committee in 2015.