Seismos: GeoLab Opening ... Now for the rest of the story

Thank you for coming to the GeoLab opening on such a fine spring day. I am Christopher Liner associate dean of academic affairs in the Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences, formerly professor and department chair in the Department of Geosciences, and holder of the Maurice F. Storm Chair. To start today's event, I invite Dean Kathy Sloan to say a few words. [Dean Sloan welcomed the crowd and made the connection between GeoLab's scope of 'Science, Art and Society' and the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences]

Thank you Dean Sloan. Let me start by recognizing several members of the University of Arkansas leadership team that we are lucky enough to have in attendance today. Chancellor Charles Robinson, Provost Terry Martin, Vice Chancellor of Advancement Scott Vary, Sr Vice Provost Jim Gigantic, Fulbright Dean Kathy Sloan , Honors Dean Lynda Coon, Engineering Dean Kim Needy, and my wonderful colleagues: Fulbright Associate Deans David McNabb, Shauna Morimoto, Stephanie Shultz, and Lia Uribe.

We further recognize that GeoLab involved many branches of UA, including Facilities Management (Todd Ferguson, Jay Honeycutt, Kristen Knight), and the UA farm who gave us courtesy space to stage GeoLab samples (Vaughn Skinner). Outside of UA, we gratefully recognize Justin McQuiston who transported samples from around the state to the UA farm, as well as Kevin Langston of Flintco (general contractor).

We stand in the courtyard of Gearhart Hall which houses two colleges — the Honors College in the south wing, and the Graduate School and international Education in the north wing - as well as the department of Geosciences in the central wing. Please join me in recognizing department chair Jason Tullis, vice chair John Shaw, and all of the geoscience faculty who could join us today. Further is it a delight to call out the tireless support for all aspect of GeoLab from geosciences staff administrator Richard Del Soto.

Earlier today in this building the department of Geosciences External Advisory Board held a meeting. This group, now approaching its 20th year, was instrumental in establishing the Maurice F. Storm Endowed Chair in Petroleum Geology (which I am honored to hold) and the highly successful PhD program. Please join me in recognizing Maurice Storm and all board members who are present today.

Remarks from Shane Matson, Chair of Geosciences External Advisory Board:

In 1873 the university offered the first courses in the science of geology. In the 151 years that have followed the faculty, students and alumni of the department of geosciences have collectively worked to unravel the geological history of this place.

With the framework skills and understanding of natural processes learned on this campus, University of Arkansas geoscientists continue to make discoveries that benefit the citizens of Arkansas and secured an energy future for the United States for generations to come.

As an alumni of this department it is an honor to be a part of GeoLab, a public facing art installation that tells some of the incredible geological history of this great state.

I am confident geolab will be enjoyed for years to come and it is my hope that those who find inspiration in this place will take that spark of wonder and go on to continue the long history of discovery thinking.

The GeoLab origin story begins in the fall of 2020 with a small group at the home of Mac McGilvery, UA geology alumnus and adjunct professor. From that meeting came an idea to promote some kind of rock display on campus. Later that fall, I pitched the idea to then Fulbright Dean Todd Shields who was an early, enthusiastic supporter of the concept. By spring 2021, there were encouraging meetings with Shields and representatives of Facilities Management. Meanwhile I had begun tagging every quarry/mine site in Arkansas using GoogleEarth then correlating each to the state geologic map, making plans for a summer trip to approach quarry owners. Until May 2021, GeoLab was a modest concept of small rock samples on pedestals scattered among shrubs in the upper Gearhart courtyard. Then in May 2021, Dean Lynda Coon joined discussions along with her design team that had conceived the Curvahedra sculpture you see today. So the two projects -- GeoLab and Curvahedra – joined, and I invite Carl Smith to say a few words on that connection.

Remarks by Carl Smith, Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design:

When I consider what GeoLab is all about, I think about its name: Geo, from the Greek γαια, or Gaia, and the idea of the laboratory as place of testing and ideas. Gaia is the ancestral mother and the personification of the nurturing Earth. On this campus we nurture and support, and GeoLab will be a microcosm of this, inculcating and encouraging curiosity and understanding. The piece will work as literal laboratory in allowing students to observe the physical nature of the geology but also, in a less literal sense, it can also serve to support conversations and dialogue, and the exchange of ideas and perspectives. It will allow users to observe each other: to people watch and see our differences and — more importantly — the similarities and characteristics that bind our community. As a piece of art, then, GeoLab is a step forward for the campus. It is not something to simply be admired, it is a place to be occupied. And here we must make the distinction between place and space. As a place, GeoLab will be a physical location claimed by human emotions and associations. As the journalist James Howard Kunstler reminds us, our shared public realm not only helps shape how we behave, but it also represents who and what we are as a community. I believe that GeoLab represents the best of who we are as a campus: intellectually curious, creative, and authentically collaborative.

Thank you Carl. Special thanks of course to the design team: Sean Luther and Jay Young (DCI Landscape Architects) and Jenny Burbidge (Prism Design Studio), with support from Carl Smith and myself.

In July 2021, I undertook a 1,000-mile solo quest to meet quarry and mine operators across Arkansas. Sort of a geological traveling salesman making cold calls with no product to sell. Death of a Salesman comes to mind. But I must say the outpouring of support and enthusiasm for GeoLab and the University of Arkansas across this state was remarkable. To give only one example, my first stop was Carroll County Stone where I met longtime production supervisor Michael Boardman, a busy man who time to listen and give me a long tour of the quarry. Thanks to Michael and Carroll County Stone, we have GeoLab samples 21 and 26. Further, Michael told me he would soon be sending his fourth son to get a college degree at the university of Arkansas. Michael and that fourth son are with us today. I would ask them and all sample donors to please step forward and be recognized. Of course we recognize that our sample donors are working people across the state who may not be able to be with us here today. During that first summer, I was also able to develop all of GeoLab’s rock sample donation agreements (many just a handshake), and even secure a legal contract with the Arkansas Geological Survey to place three samples on permanent loan [GeoLab 1, 3, 24].

As the design team and sample donors lined up, the GEOS External Advisory Board was briefed, and funding goals established. We do not want to reduce this great day to the crudity of cash, but a project this scale takes significant funding. I invite Mac McGilvery to say a few words on behalf of the GeoLab financial donors

Remarks from Mac McGilvery, UA geology alumnus, adjunct professor, ConocoPhillips retired:

Thanks so much Chris. I would like to add my note of appreciation to the owners and personnel at the quarries that donated these samples to make this project a reality. I must say we were like kids in a candy store trying to select just the right samples!! The GeoLab is an outstanding destination for visitors to campus but it truly serves as teaching collection for our students and faculty.
I would like to make a few comments regarding the group of donors that made this possible. Many of these individuals received their Bachelors &/or Masters through this department dating back to the 70’s. We have gone on to successful careers launched by this education. It is a pleasure for us to return to campus in a number of capacities be it as Advisory Board members, adjunct faculty, or simply active alumni. This is our way of giving back for the great education and life lessons we learned from past faculty such as Walt Manger, Doy Zachry, Kern Jackson, Harold MacDonald and more.
We currently have a stellar group of faculty doing an incredible array of teaching and research. As someone who has returned after more than 40 years, I’m amazed at the array of teaching and research that is going on in this department that includes geology, geography, and spatial technology. This is truly leading-edge work. I’m sure our alumni will continue to support the department and university and we look forward seeing our future alumni continue that tradition of support.

Thank you Mac. Through summer and fall 2022, Mac McGilvery, Robert Liner (my brother, UA a geology alum, Stephens Production Co. retired) set off to select individual rock samples with documented reasons for their selection. Mac and Robert will be receiving a gift of appreciation by separate ceremony for their essential role in traveling the state with me to select GeoLab samples. By late fall of 2022, all GeoLab samples were identified and transported to the UA farm staging area. In every case, the rock donor supplied heavy equipment to load the samples and UA farm staff supplied same for offloading. This part of the GeoLab project, inception to staging, was completely paid for by funds from the Maurice F. Storm Endowed Chair.

The scope of GeoLab is Science, Art and Society. Carl has already spoken about some aspects of Art. The science component can be considered most basically as supporting thousands of geology and earth science lab students in Gearhart Hall each year. As the university has grown, the number of lab students has long surpassed the level that could undertake field trips like my contemporaries did in the 1970s. Rather, each student has a rock bag of small samples to study, augmented with a few larger hand samples in classroom collections. GeoLab brings large representative samples of the surface geology of Arkansas to our campus and our students. But GeoLab is so much more. The northeast corner of GeoLab [sample 1], represents the world we know today; the contents in their configurations, familiar climate and sea level, flora and fauna as we know it. But progressing west across GeoLab we pass the time of the great asteroid impact, the age of the dinosaurs, passing further to emergence of seed plants and large forests, then still farther back to the oldest sample [26] on the west end of GeoLab nearly 500 million years old. That world is something vastly different from our own: atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels 10 times higher, temperatures dozens of degrees higher, cyclonic storms driven to unimaginable strength by an Earth spinning to a 12-hour day, monstrous tides driven by the moon far closer to the earth, continents unfamiliar and rearranged, and global sea level 600 ft higher than today. To put the last point in perspective, if sea level were 600 ft higher today, Dallas would be under water – 200 ft of water.

We have touched on Science and Art aspects of GeoLab, what about Society? That too is here in abundance. Some of you may know that Arkansas was the largest aluminum-producing state during World War II. The next time you watch a D-Day landing movie, that is Arkansas aluminum in the allied ships and planes. Groundwater flows through some of the GeoLab rocks [21], oil and gas are produced from others [8,9,10,11], critical minerals for batteries and electronics are here [20], as well as gypsum [7] for the wallboard in our houses and offices, and many GeoLab rocks are used for building stone due to their beauty [12] or durability [4,5]. But there were people here before us, GeoLab touches the indigenous people who sheltered in bluffs or caves [17,18] or helped them survive by forming tools and weapons [15,16]. Across all the ages we note that agriculture in this state is based on soil weathered out of rocks represented by GeoLab.

So we see that GeoLab as an educational tool spans many of the great issues of our times – climate, energy, food, water, biodiversity, extinction, life.

Now I would ask us to form up for the formal ribbon cutting, in photo will be chancellor, provost , deans, Liner, Smith, Tullis, Matson, Burbidge, and Storm.

On the main sign you will find the following: GeoLab is dedicated to the Geology and Geography of Arkansas and the intersection of Science, Art and Society. This installation stands as a tribute to the tireless efforts of those who push the boundaries of human creativity and imagination. GeoLab invites us to step outside and marvel at the natural world and reminds us that there is always more to discover, learn, and create. May this place inspire generations to come.

Thank you everyone. If you received a GeoLab business card, the QR code will take you to the GeoLab web site designed by Geosciences Assistant Professor Brad Peter. Please join me in thanking him.

To close today’s ceremony, I welcome Dean Lynda Coon to offer the last words. Afterward you are all welcome to mingle among the rocks of GeoLab and retire to the Gearhart Hall Graduate Lounge for refreshments and snacks. Thank you all for being here today. [Attendance about 75]. Dean Coon...

Remarks from Lynda Coon, Dean of the Honors College:

From my office, I've had the privilege of witnessing the fascinating transformation of Gearhart Courtyard, a once humble greenspace that has now blossomed into a captivating hub of knowledge and exploration.
Visitors pause on the steps and ogle the lab on campus tours.
Children from the Jean Tyson Center climb the rocks like mountains.
Students perch on the wedge and other flat rocks to study.
What truly captivates me about this display is its interactive nature. It's not just a static collection of rocks, but an invitation for people to step forward, to touch, to learn through direct contact.
As I sat down with Chris to learn more about the samples, I realized there’s much more than the aesthetic or physical interaction. Each rock has a story of how the world has engaged with it. They’ve been erupted from volcanoes, walked over by dinosaurs, mined out of the ground, and now they’ve been displayed through collaboration with geosciences and architecture.
The layers of their story reflect how our students and community will interact with the space.
For example, Chris told me the mineral Nepheline (seen in samples 4 and 5) doesn’t cause silicosis, a lung disease that devastates miners and construction workers. As a historian, the name sparked my curiosity.
Nepheline comes from the Greek word nephele, which means “cloud,” named for Nepheline’s reaction to acid. Just as I can both learn the benefits of using a silica-undersaturated rock and their connection to our past, the way our students will engage with the lab is inherently interdisciplinary. They will view these rocks through the lens of their honors research, areas of study and personal experience.
The rocks will talk to us; as I’ve found, they have much to share. Like our Curvahedra, the Geolab is art created with intellectual curiosity, and in honors, we like to be perplexed.

Link to GeoLab signs and sample markers

The opening ceremony begins

Opening remarks by Kathy Sloan

Landscape Architecture professor Carl Smith

GeoLab rock donors Michael Boardman (L) and Brock Langford (R)

Ribbon cutting (L-to-R) Kathy Sloan, Carl Smith, Jenny burbidge, Terry artin, Chris Liner, Chales Robinson, Scott Varady, Lynda Coon, Maurice Storm, Shane Matson, Jason Tulli