Contact(s):
Andrew Greene, (604) 221-1954 greenear@hotmail.com
Susan DeBari, Western geology professor, (360) 650-3588 debari@geol.wwu.edu

BELLINGHAM –Western Washington University alumnus Andrew Greene has been selected to receive the 2004 Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award from the Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) for his research and corresponding master’s thesis on the geochemical makeup of ancient volcanic rocks.

Greene, who received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western, will receive $1,000 and an invitation to present his thesis results at the annual meeting of WAGS March 5-7 in Phoenix, Ariz.

“Andrew was such a fabulous student to work with. The quality of the work that he did could have been a Ph.D. somewhere else,” said Susan DeBari, Western geology professor and Greene’s advisor.

Greene’s research focused on the rocks exposed from the roots of previously active island arc volcanoes in a remote area of Alaska, one of only two sites worldwide where this type of exposure occurs. His research has important implications for geology because he was able to observe from the rocks how magmas crystallize and change as they make their way upwards in the earth’s crust. These processes are not observable in present-day active volcanic systems because they are inaccessible. Greene’s thesis results will become the basic foundation for future studies that interpret volcanic processes occurring deep within the earth.

He has submitted a journal article based on his thesis, co-authored with DeBari and three members of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to the Journal of Petrology, one of the highest ranked international journals in its field. Greene’s research was supported by a grant DeBari received from the National Science Foundation.

The WAGS includes more than 90 universities in the western United States and Canada. Western students have won the award four times in the past 11 years.

Greene received his master’s degree in geology in spring 2003 and is currently working on his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.