Patrick Spencer, Professor of Geology

Patrick Spencer was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. He received his Bachelor's degree in Geology from the University of Washington in 1973, spent the years between 1973 and 1978 working for Hart-Crowser and Associates, Inc., a Seattle-based consulting engineering firm. Pat received his M.S. degree from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington in 1980, and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1984. Since coming to Whitman College in 1984, Pat has been studying late Pleistocene sedimentology, stratigraphy, and paleontology in the southeastern Washington region. The results of those studies, conducted in conjunction with undergraduate geology majors, have been published as abstracts by the Geological Society of America, and as short papers in regional journals. Pat's hobbies include fly fishing and tying, and bonsai. He is married to Kathy Ketcham (an author) and has three children.

 

Send Pat e-mail (spencerp@whitman.edu).

Selected Publications:

Spencer, Patrick K. and Charles A. Ross, 1997:  Black Prince Limestone and its Foraminifers, Upper Mississippian-Lower      Pennsylvanian, S.E. Arizona and S.W. New Mexico IN C.A. Ross, J.R.P. Ross and P.L. Brenckle (eds.), Late Paleozoic      Foraminifera; their biostratigraphy, evolution, and paleoecology, and the Mid-Carboniferous boundary, Cushman Foundation for      Foraminiferal Research, Special Publication 36.

Spencer, Patrick Kevin, 1997:  The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses in Undergraduate Education with an Example of its      Application and Misapplication, Doug Sherman (ed.), in Geology 98/99, First Edition, McGraw Hill, Dubuque, Iowa.

Spencer, Patrick Kevin, 1997:  The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses in Earth Science Education with an Example of its      Application and Misapplication.  Journal of Geoscience Education, V. 45, p. 123.

Spencer, Patrick K. and Robert J. Carson, 1995:  The Enterprise Gravel:  The ancestral Wallowa River and neotectonism in      northeastern Oregon.  Northwest Science, vol. 69, no. 1, p. 60-71.

Spencer, Patrick K., 1993:  The "coprolites" that aren't:  the straight poop on specimens from the Miocene of southwestern      Washington State.  ICHNOS, v. 2, p. 1-6.

Spencer, Patrick K., 1989:  A small mammal fauna from the Touchet Beds of Walla Walla County, Washington:  Support for the      multiple flood hypothesis.  Northwest Science, v. 63, no. 4, p. 167-174.

Rensberger, John M., Anthony Barnosky, and Patrick Spencer, 1984:  Geology and Paleontology of a Pleistocene to Holocene      Loess Succession, Benton County, Washington.  Eastern Washington University Reports in Archaeology and History, report      100-39, 105p.

Spencer, P.K., 1983b: Depositional environment of some Eocene strata near Quilcene, Washington, based on trace, micro, and      macro fossils and lithologic associations in D.K. and R.J. Steel, eds., SEPM Symposium, Sacramento, California. p. 233-239.

Spencer, P.K., 1983a: Age and paleoecology of marine siltstones exposed on the Bolton Peninsula near Quilcene, Jefferson      County, Washington in Cenozoic Marine Sedimentation, Pacific Margin, USA.  Larue, D.K. and R.J. Steel, eds.,  SEPM      Symposium, Sacramento, California. p. 197-203.