Welcome new Ph.D. student Drew Parent

I’m very happy to welcome Drew Parent to the VT Sedimentary Systems Research group. Drew is starting his Ph.D. in the department and his dissertation research will investigate the history and patterns of deep-sea sedimentation in the western North Atlantic Ocean in response to Cenozoic climate change. Drew will employ multiple methods, including: quantitative grain-size analysis of late Eocene through Oligocene cores from the Newfoundland Ridges obtained from IODP Exp 342, experimental (flume) investigation of fine-grained sediment transport (a collaboration with Dr. Kyle Strom and students from Virginia Tech Civil & Environmental Engineering), and regional seismic stratigraphic mapping of the U.S. Atlantic continental margin.

Drew is from Springfield, Massachusetts and received a Bachelor’s of Science in Geological Sciences from Salem State University in 2015. His undergrad thesis combined seismic sonar, stable isotopes, and radiocarbon dating to reconstruct the late Quaternary paleoenvironment of a glacial lake in northwest Iceland; this geophysical-geological approach fueled his interest in these types of investigations (similar to the research that will make up his Ph.D. here at Virginia Tech). Drew then went on to graduate school at Wright State University in Dayton, OH, where he finished a Master’s of Science in Earth and Environmental Sciences this past April (2017). Drew’s M.S. thesis is titled “Pre-Mt. Simon seismic sequences below west-central Indiana: local interpretation and regional significance”. This research employed regional 2-D seismic reflection and potential field data to assess the composition and deformational history of the poorly understood pre-Mt. Simon below the eastern U.S. mid-continent.

Welcome to the department and Sedimentary Systems Research group Drew! Check out Drew’s website here.