Geologist completes Arctic research
A Morehead State University geologist has returned from a research 
expedition into the high Arctic where he and his team studied ancient meteor impact debris.
Charles E. Mason, associate professor of geology, journeyed to the Haughton Crater Research Camp, located on Devon Island in the new territory of Nunavat in Canada. The crater is slightly more than 75 degrees north – 10 degrees above the Arctic Circle.
Mason was working through a grant he received from the NASA Haughton-Mars Project and the Kentucky Space Grant consortium. The Haughton-Mars Project, funded primarily by NASA, is a global research consortium made up of experts from several disciplines. The project participants conduct field research on Devon Island’s Mars-like terrain to better understand Mars and to create and test new technologies for future manned missions to the moon and Mars.
Mason wrote the grant with Megan Ennis, a West Liberty geology and astrophysics senior. Ennis was unable to accompany Mason to the Arctic because she was selected for a prestigious summer internship with the Smithsonian Institute. Wesley Smith, a Prestonsburg senior geology major, was chosen as her replacement in the field.
“The focus of our research was to examine small clasts found in the melt breccia and large ejecta blocks for fossilized teeth from a small vertebrate,” Mason said. The clasts, or pieces of rocks, and ejecta blocks, as well as the crater itself were formed from the impact of a large meteor which struck Earth about 39 million years ago, he explained.
“These teeth, if present, can be used to determine the 
temperatures the containing rock reached and the relative age of the rock,” he continued. They had to dissolve the rock samples in acid to extract the teeth, or conodonts, and then examine them under a microscope
While at the camp, Mason and the team visited Charlie Mason’s Rock, a large ejecta block found within the Haughton Crater, which was named after him in honor of his scientific achievements. They also posted a large Morehead State banner, which will remain at the camp along with others representing such entities as NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Smith said his Arctic research was “a totally different experience from the classroom. I worked with people from all across the world, so there was a lot of diversity there, which made it pretty amazing.
“I learned so much up there. In the classroom you learn individual concepts, but when you get out there in the field and have to use all that, it makes you realize you are going to have to use everything you’re learning.”
Smith aspires to work as a geologist in the oil and gas industry. “This experience made me realize that there are many opportunities out there in geology,” he said. “It opened my eyes to research, and it’s really interesting.”
He said the hardest thing to get used to was the 24 hours of 
constant daylight.
“When I left Kentucky, it was scorching in the 90s, and when I got there it was about 40 degrees. But I had a wonderful time and I would go again. It was an eye-opening experience.”
During the research trip, the Mason team worked with Dr. Pascal Lee and met Chris Hadfield. A Canadian astronaut, Hadfield has been on two United States space shuttle missions and is planning a third. He was visiting the Haughton-Mars Project site to see how it could be used for training of future astronauts going to the moon and Mars.
Dr. Lee is the scientist who single-handedly developed the Haughton-Mars Project, based on his research as a doctoral student at Cornell University. He is now the project lead at Haughton-Mars, which this summer observed its 10th anniversary.
Mason holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and biology from MSU, and a master’s degree in paleontology from George Washington University. He also has completed course work toward the Ph.D. degree in geology at the University of Kentucky and is ABD.
He is a corresponding member of the International Subcommission on Carboniferous Stratigraphy, and is a member of the American Institute of Professional Geologists, the Paleontological Society, the Kentucky Academy of Science, the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists, the Kentucky Section of the American Institute of Professional Geologists and the Kentucky Paleontological Society.
Mason was recognized as Morehead State’s Outstanding Faculty/Staff Fundraiser in 2005, and Distinguished Researcher in 2003. He has published articles and/or abstracts in numerous publications, including the Journal of Paleontology, the Newsletter on Carboniferous Stratigraphy, the Journal of the Kentucky Academy of Science and the proceedings of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists Memoir.
Additional information about the research is available by calling Mason at (606) 783-2166.
Posted: 10-5-06
