Congratulations to (now former) SSR graduate student Michala Puckett on successfully defending her thesis in May 2024 and officially graduating from the program and obtaining her M.S. degree! Michala, originally from Mooresville, North Carolina and a graduate of Appalachian State University, joined the SSR group in August 2022 and worked on a project as part of the Chile Slope Systems research program for her master’s thesis.

Michala’s thesis, titled Variability of sedimentary texture in deep-marine channel sandstones: Insights from petrographic characterization of Cretaceous Tres Pasos Formation, Chile, leveraged spectacular outcrops of submarine channel deposits we’ve studied for many years in the Upper Cretaceous Tres Pasos Formation in the Magallanes Basin. Multiple Ph.D. and M.S. projects from over the years provided the stratigraphic and architectural context for Michala’s work, which focused on micro-scale texture (specifically grain size and sorting).

Michala analyzed 57 samples of the medium- to thick-bedded structureless sandstone facies that is dominant in the channel-fill deposits. The samples were organized into transects of several well-documented channel-fill exposures with the idea to investigate trends and patterns in grain size and sorting that aren’t quantifiable through field observation alone. The results are intriguing and we are designing a follow-up study to characterize the composition of these sandstones in more detail.

It was such a pleasure having Michala in the group and we will miss seeing her in the lab. A master’s degree goes so fast! Michala has already landed a job in the environmental consulting industry in North Carolina. Congratulations Michala!