Resources

The James L. Carter Scholarship is awarded to graduate and undergraduate students pursuing degrees in the geosciences. To make a gift to the scholarship fund you may visit the “Make a Gift” page and select the Dr. James L. Carter Scholarship fund from the drop-down box. If you any have questions, please email Dane Richardson or call 972-883-6407.

Throughout his career as a geoscientist, Carter studied everything from the Earth’s upper crust to environmental geochemistry to paleontology. He helped train Apollo astronauts in field geology, analyzed lunar samples and created simulated moon dirt for NASA to test equipment. He also made a name for himself when he discovered and helped excavate the articulated neck of an Alamosaurus in Big Bend National Park. One of the largest dinosaur fossils ever found in Texas, the skeleton is on display at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

“Dr. James Carter was truly an original, and I count myself fortunate for having met this amazing man — maker of moon dirt, designer of rock gardens, discoverer of dinosaur bones and the sleuth who found UT Dallas’ lost time capsule,” said President Richard Benson, who holds the Eugene McDermott Distinguished University Chair of Leadership. “For the last 55 years, UT Dallas has shared in his joyful passion for scientific inquiry and his love of teaching. Even after he retired, he continued to contribute in so many ways to The University of Texas at Dallas. We will miss him dearly.”

Carter joined the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest (GRCSW) — the precursor institution to UT Dallas — as a postdoctoral researcher in 1964.

“It was an extremely exciting place to be,” Carter said about the early days on campus in a 2009 interview. “There was no project too large or too small that people wouldn’t tackle, no matter how difficult it was. It was a can-do attitude. It was amazing. It was the ’60s, and we were going to the moon.”

Carter remained with the GRCSW when it became UT Dallas in 1969 and retired in 2008 after 43 years of teaching and research. His research interests involve five areas:

• Lunar and extraterrestrial resources.
• Upper mantle and lower crustal studies of the earth.
• Geochemical exploration and ore deposits.
• Environmental geochemistry.
• And K-T boundary and Late Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs.

Contribute to the James L. Carter Scholarship Fund.

The Dallas Gem and Mineral Society Endowed Scholarship Fund was established in 1989 with a gift from the Dallas Gem and Mineral Society Inc. The Dallas Gem and Mineral Society was established in 1956 with 51 charter members. Its first rock show was in May 1958. Among the exhibits was the “Star of Arkansas” and other diamond collections; 200 hand-ground spheres; a 147-piece carved dinner set made from Death Valley matched onyx; a 155-pound meteorite from Brewster County; and 30 bowls, hand-carved from jade, amethyst, agate, petrified wood and other minerals.

Today, the Dallas Gem and Mineral Society still carries on the tradition of its founders. Its purpose and goals have remained the same: promoting knowledge and interest not only in rocks, minerals, fossils, lapidary art, metal-working, geology and related earth sciences, but also promoting fellowship and support to everyone who has an interest in these fields.

For more information on the Dallas Gem and Mineral Society, or to find the dates for their next monthly meeting or annual show, visit their website.

The Hales Fellowship is awarded annually to doctoral student(s) in geophysics. It includes a travel allowance of up to $2,000 per year to allow the student(s) to attend scientific meetings in geophysics/geology each year to interact with professional scientists and to learn the latest research results in his or her specialty. The Department Head and Scholarship Committee review applicants to identify those with the greatest potential for success in geophysics.

Dr. Anton Hales was a leading seismologist, author of many works, and recipient of many scientific awards and honors. He established the geosciences division at the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest, UTD’s predecessor institution. When The University of Texas at Dallas was created, Dr. Hales served as acting vice president for academic affairs, helping mold the university’s academic character. He left UTD for five years beginning in 1973 to serve as director of the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Dr. Hales, 95, died Dec. 11, 2006, in New South Wales, Australia.

Established in 2006, offers a minimum of $1,000 to full- or part-time graduate or undergraduate students in good standing with preference given to those in financial need.

Victor Eduard Oppenheim was a geologist, engineer, anthropologist, archeologist, ethnologist, linguist, author and poet. He was born in Latvia in 1906 and died in Dallas, Texas, in December 2005. He spent many of his early years traveling with his father, a civil mining engineer, on work assignments in the Far East, mainly Manchuria, China, Tibet, Korea and Japan. While on assignment in Manchuria in 1921, his father was slain by bandits.

Returning to Europe with his French mother after his father’s death, Victor finished his undergraduate studies in Latvia in 1923. He received his license of science in engineering at the University of Caen Normandy in France in 1927. From 1929 to the late-1940s, Victor searched for oil and mineral wealth in most of the South American countries. In the process he made a geologic map of each country, often the first of that country, by foot, in dugout, on raft, on horseback or astride a mule. His composite map of South America was published in 1944, making him the only 20th-century geologist to have single-handedly mapped an entire continent, completing the first geological map of South America since its discovery 450 years earlier.

His studies led him to the conclusion that petroleum would not be found in Permo-Carboniferous age Gondwana rocks and thus steered petroleum exploration in Brazil to Tertiary age and Mesozoic age sedimentary rocks. In Columbia he discovered the El Cerrejon coal deposit with over 40 billion tons of reserves. He also discovered oil seeps at the foot of the Cordillera Oriental west of the Llanos in eastern Colombia, which led to concessions and discovery of the major Cusiana Oil and Gas Field.

Victor was the first person to geologically explore many areas of South America. He traveled the entire length of the Amazon River to its headwaters, and explored many of its major tributaries. He also discovered and named a mountain range – Sierra de Cutucu – in Ecuador. He climbed to the top of most of the major mountains in South America, and studied many of its volcanoes. In South America, Victor is recognized as the “Father of South American Geology.” Victor left South America for the United Stated in 1949 and, before retirement at the age of 92, turned his attention to the economic geology of North America, Central America and Africa.

Victor was interested in more than just economic geology. He discovered important fossils and artifacts, melding his interests in the history of the Earth, life and people. He wrote articles on the ethnography of the indigenous people of the remote and geologically unknown eastern and southeastern areas of Peru. Fluent in eight languages and conversant in three Indian dialects, he published 131 scientific papers and articles in four languages. His 1968 book in English, Explorations East of the High Andes, recounts some of his adventures, but it is particularly notable in its empathy and understanding of the people of South America.

Victor was a member of many professional societies, a certified geologist/engineer in eight countries, chief geologist of Peru, and the recipient of numerous awards. He seemed most proud of his affiliation with the Explorers Club headquartered in New York and of receiving the 1991 Outstanding Geologist Award from the American Institute of Professional Geologists.

This fund was established by a gift from Mrs. John G. Scales in 1992. The geosciences department also received a collection of fossils, minerals, seashells and related natural history items from Scale’s estate in 1992 to be used for teaching purposes in the department. Dr. Scales also bequeathed a collection of antique knives and guns that was sold with the proceeds going to the endowment for scholarship. These funds provide support for deserving undergraduate and graduate students majoring in the geosciences.

Dr. Scales was born in 1908 in Van Alstyne, Texas, and was raised in Oak Cliff until the age of 8, when he moved with his family to Alabama. After returning to Texas during his high school years, he received his bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Austin and his medical degree from Baylor University. He was called into service from the Army Reserve, and served in the U.S. Army for two years before transferring into the Air Force. He served five years in the Army and Air Force.

Dr. Scales then began his medical practice in 1945 and entered the ministry in 1963. He served both professions until retiring from medicine in 1969 and from the ministry in 1975. He then began to build up his collection of rocks and artifacts, along with guns, knives and swords of historic note. Dr. Scales survived bouts with cancer in 1984 and 1987 before suffering a stroke in 1990 that led to his death in May 1991.

The fund was set up in 2002 after Dr. Kristian Soegaard’s death in a hiking accident in Norway and endowed in 2005. This scholarship provides for undergraduate or graduate students’ tuition, fees, books and/or expenses related to field trips that enhance student learning and research.

Dr. Soegaard was an inspiring teacher and researcher in the geosciences department at The University of Texas at Dallas for 15 years. He was a superb teacher, both in the classroom and in the field. His research interests ranged from the oldest rocks on Earth to relatively young mountain building events in Mexico. His breadth of knowledge and willingness to share it made him an outstanding advisor and colleague.

In 1998, he moved to Norsk Hydro’s Research Center in Bergen, Norway, where he was a senior geologist working with exploration and reservoir issues until his death. There he continued his role as teacher and mentor while working as a senior geologist. At Norsk Hydro he developed great skills in reservoir modeling and did an outstanding job developing reservoir models for increased oil recovery in the Oseberg field area. In his last year, Dr. Soegaard worked on developing geological applications in the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). He was a key person in developing a new method to utilize field geological data in combination with reservoir models to improve work practices and routines. This work was almost done when he died.

He loved the outdoors and was a vigorous advocate for protecting the environment. While at UTD he supervised 20 graduate students and was a pivotal part of the undergraduate curriculum. Dr. Soegaard died in 2002 in a hiking accident along a mountain trail in Norway. His strong interest in the natural world was reflected in his choice of extracurricular activities, such as bird watching, skiing, and hiking. Dr. Soegaard’s greatest passion was the mountains.

This fund was established in 1980 after the death of Dr. James B. Urban, and was endowed in 1983. These funds provide scholarship support for deserving undergraduate and graduate students majoring in geosciences. Preference is given to students studying paleontology.

Dr. Urban was killed in an airplane crash along with his wife and son on Oct. 17, 1980, in Buffalo, Wyoming. Dr. Urban was an adjunct associate professor of geosciences at UTD at the time of his death. After leaving the geosciences faculty in January 1980 to operate his own oil-drilling business, he was appointed adjunct professor and supervised the work of three graduate students. Dr. Urban also was a consultant to several major oil companies at the time of his death.

During his tenure at UTD, Dr. Urban was the first head of the science education program, building it into a department that provided quality instruction to local teachers seeking a master’s degree in science education; chairman of the geosciences graduate program; and acting head of the Institute for Geological Sciences. Professor Urban joined the faculty of UTD’s predecessor, the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, in 1967, and had been a faculty member throughout the University’s history. His specialty was palynology – the study of pollen and spores.

This fund was established in 1993 through a bequest of the Mary Sue Wilhelm Estate to establish the Dr. Oscar Wilhelm Memorial Student Research Fund. It is for the sole use of graduate students in the geosciences program at UTD and shall assist these students through loans or grants to offset travel expenses, field trip expenses, mapping, and expenses incident to the drafting, preparation, reporting, and delivering of theses and dissertations and other research papers not covered by tuition that enhance student learning and research.

This endowment was funded in memory of Mrs. Mary Sue Wilhelm’s husband, Dr. Oscar Wilhelm. Dr. Wilhelm retired from Shell Oil Company in 1962 after 40 years of service with the Royal Dutch Shell Group. In May 1975, he was made an honorary member of the Dallas Geological Society in recognition of his 53 years of service as a petroleum geologist. Dr. Wilhelm contributed in a major way to the science of petroleum geology, not merely through his ability and interest in the areas in which he worked, but also in his willingness to pass on his knowledge to those who were fortunate enough to be associated with him.

In addition to cash and securities, UTD received numerous maps, books, and other printed materials from the Wilhelm estate for the geosciences program.