Scholarships
Norman H. Foster Memorial Scholarship for research in applied petroleum geology
The Norman H. Foster Memorial scholarship is awarded to a graduate student at an accredited college or university who can demonstrate the ability and intent to utilize various exploration techniques to locate structural and/or stratigraphic accumulations of oil and gas. Innovative research with the addition of fieldwork and/or subsurface data will be given special consideration. The scholarship was created in memory of Norm Foster who was one of RMAG’s most prestigious members, a leader in the Denver geologic community, an outstanding and successful explorer, and a highly respected member of local and national organizations.
The 2024 Norman H. Foster Memorial Scholarship was awarded to:
Matthew Musso, Ph.D. candidate, Geoscience, Colorado School of Mines
Matthew’s dissertation is titled “Understanding the Hydrodynamics of Non-Uniform, Disarticulated Crinoid Grains and Their Importance in the Mississippian Rock Record as an Indicator of Flow Conditions.” Matthew’s work is under the direction of Dr. Lesli Wood. His research aims to link crinoid grain properties with the parent flow to test if classical turbidite models are applicable to gravity-flow deposits composed of crinoidal sediment from which shape distribution and density may play an important role. Physical experiments will be performed on a modern crinoid specimen to first investigate how the organism dissociates into ossicles and pluricolumnals and observe the grain-size distribution a single organism produces. Next, experiments will be carried out to better understand the hydrodynamic aspects of these grain types, including settling velocity, entrainment threshold, and how they move as both bedload and suspended load. He will compare these results with the architecture of the crinoid-rich Fort Payne Formation, Tennessee, and the Lake Valley Formation, New Mexico. Understanding how crinoid skeletal grains respond to flow will lead to a more accurate assessment of basin fill history, hydrocarbon exploration, mineral deposits, and climate indicators.
Matthew has a B.S. in Geology from Lafayette College, Easton, PA, and a M.S. in Geology from the Colorado School of Mines.
Recent winners of the Norman H. Foster Memorial Scholarship:
2023
Patrick Sullivan, Ph.D. candidate, Geology, Colorado School of Mines
Patrick’s thesis topic is “Origin and stratigraphy of enigmatic sandstones of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway: The Late Turonian Wall Creek-Turner system, Powder River Basin, WY.” Patrick’s work is under the direction of Dr. Stephen Sonnenberg. He intends to obtain new sedimentological and geochronological data from the Wall Creek-Turner system in the Powder River Basin and integrate them with coeval units across the Rocky Mountain region to solve a number of problems. Patrick will use a diverse suite of analytical methods to help better characterize and understand the distribution of depositional environments and their geochronologic framework during the Late Turonian of the Western Interior Seaway.
Patrick has a M.S. in Geology from the Colorado School of Mines and a B.S. in Geology from Macalester College.
2022
Luis Carlos Escobar Arenas, MS student, Colorado State University
“Surface-based modeling of 3D architectural elements controlled by near wellbore modeling”