Education

Doctor of Philsophy, Geology, Pennsylvania State University, 1959
M.S. Geology, University of Massachusetts, 1953
B.A. Geology, Cum Laude, Amherst College, 1951

Specialty: Sedimentation and Stratigraphy

Research

Professor Emeritus Donaldson's research specialties are sedimentation and stratigraphy, with particular emphasis on sedimentary basins containing coal, oil and gas resources. He and his students have conducted extensive field work in modern fluvial and marine shoreline settings of Texas and Virginia, discovering relationship between active processes and the sedimentary record. Studies in Paleozoic rocks of central Appalachians involve recognition of their ancient depositional environments and controls on their cyclicity (changes in sea level, basin subsidence or uplift, paleoclimate, and sediment supply); coal-seam changes in quantity, quality (sulfur and ash facies), and discontinuities; stratigraphic oil and gas sandstone reservoirs and their heterogeneity. This type of research requires use of geologic basin analysis lab (Geologic and Geophysical Data Analysis Lab) and specimen-oriented research laboratory. His present project is to condense and integrate the contributions of former students (particularly Boswell, Zou, Yang) and himself into a manuscript for publication on Sequence Stratigraphy of Upper Paleozoic (Upper Devonian-Upper Pennsylvanian) in Central Appalachians. Other planned manuscripts hopefully will evolve through collaboration with Shumaker, Wilson, Yang, Zou and Boswell on the control of tectonics on sedimentation during Upper Paleozoic in central Appalachians; and with Shumaker, Wilson, Donaldson (Kurt), and Zou on the Granny Creek Oil Field (DOE-funded research).

Publications

Donaldson, A.C., Boswell, R., Cavallo, l., Heim, l.R., Canich, M., 1996, Upper Devonian Elk Sandstones and Siltstones, in, Roen, J.B., and Walker, B., eds., THE ATLAS OF MAJOR APPALACHIAN GAS PLAYS; (sponsored by Gas Research Institute), West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, Morgantown, WV, p. 77-85.

Boswell, R., Heim, L.R., Wrightstone, G., Donaldson, A.C., 1996, Upper Devonian Venango Sandstones and Siltstones, in, Roen, J.B., Walker, B., eds., THE ATLAS OF MAJOR APPALACHIAN GAS PLAYS; (sponsored by GRI), West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, Morgantown, WV, p. 63-69.

Boswell, R., Thomas, B., Hussing, B., Murin, T.M., Donaldson, A.C., 1996, Upper Devonian Bradford Sandstones and Siltstones, in, Roen, J.B., Walker, B, eds., THE ATLAS OF MAJOR APPALACHIAN GAS PLAYS; (sponsored by GRI), West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, Morgantown, WV, p. 70-76.

Zou, X., and Donaldson, A.C., 1994, Stratigraphic comparison of six oil fields (WV): VA Div. Min. Res. Publ. 132, p. 26-31. Donaldson, A.C., and Eble, C., 1991, Pennsylvania coals of central and eastern United States, in Gluskoter, H. ed., Coal Geology: Geological Society of America, The Geology of North America, v. D-Economic Geology, p. 523-546.

Boswell, R., and Donaldson, A.C., 1988, Depositional architecture of the Upper Devonian Catskill Delta complex: central Appalachianbasin, U.S.A.: Second International Symposium on the Devonian System, Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, p. 65- 84.

Donaldson, A.C., Renton, J.J., and Presley, M.W., 1985, Pennsylvanian deposystems and paleoclimates of the Appalachians:  International Journal of Coal Geology, no. 5, p. 167-193.

Donaldson, A.C., and Shumaker, R.C., 1981, Late Paleozoic molasse of central Appalachians, in Sedimentation and Tectonics in Alluvial Basins, ed., Miall, A.: Geological Association of Canada, Sp. Paper 23, p. 99-124.

Affiliations

American Association of Petroleum Geologists
Geological Society of America
Society of Economic Mineralogists and Paleontologists
Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, Sigma Gamma Epsilon

Dr. Donaldson's Teaching and Instructional Page