Casey Saup has joined the Wilkins Geomicrobiology Laboratory at OSU as a Ph.D. student, via the School of Earth Sciences (SES). She’ll be working with pristine shale core, investigating what microorganisms can be cultured from such samples, and collaborating with members of the Wrighton Microbiome Laboratory. She described the photo below as ‘the most majestic geology shot I have’. Welcome Casey!

Over the weekend Reb Daly and Shikha Sharma (WVU) were in Morgantown to oversee the collection of Marcellus shale sidewall cores from the MSEEL site. The whole operation was a success, and the cores are now back at OSU being processed – imaged, washed, and ground-up for DNA & PLFA extractions, culturing, noble gas analyses, and mineralogic characterization. Some pics below….