Geology instructor well traveled

JANUARY 31, 2014 BY DEZIRAE BURNETT, ASSISTANT EDITOR

Dr. Paul C. Buchanan is anything but your ordinary geology instructor. From studying rocks, to working
for NASA, from East Texas to Germany it seems like KCs 2014 Piper Professor nominee and Beeson
Award winner, has had his share of adventures.
During each academic year, the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation honors 15 Texas professors for their
dedication to education and for their outstanding scientific, academic, and scholarly achievements. Each
of the 15 honored instructors will receive Piper Professor of 2014 certificates, a gold commemorative
pin, and $2,500. Buchanan will also be honored by KC with a $700 award as part of the Hamilton F. and
Kathryn G. Beeson Teaching Award, along with a matching amount for his department.
Im really honored to be the nominee for the Piper Professor nomination, because I was selected from
such an outstanding group of educators, Buchanan said.
A native of Tyler, where his family was one of the first to plant roses for which the town is now known
Buchanans father was a geologist. Naturally, his childhood was full of rocks, soil and geology-related
field trips. However, when he began classes at the University of Texas at Austin, Buchanan decided to
pursue a degree in chemistry, which he studied for the first two years of his college career. When he
began looking at classes he needed to finish his degree, Buchanan found that none of the classes he
would be taking held any interest for him; so for fun he enrolled in a geology class.
Of course, I had been going on field trips since I was little, and I knew all this stuff, and so I loved it, and
I ended up changing my major, Buchanan said. Now I am actually a geochemist. I do a combination of
the two.
Once he graduated from UT with a bachelors of science in geology, Buchanan continued to further his
education at the Colorado School of Mines where he received his masters degree in geophysics.
From the Colorado School of Mines, Buchanan began working for ARCO Oil and Gas Company. With the
company he served as the senior geophysicist primarily working on oil and gas exploration.
I did topography [there] and mostly interpreting geophysical data, but we made maps. It was mostly
maps, Buchanan said. I actually enjoyed it. I learned a lot. I learned a lot of basic geology and
geophysics.
During his time there, Buchanan decided to return to school for his doctorate at the University of
Houston, and eventually left his job with ARCO. While taking his first few classes at U of H, just to get
back into the swing of things, he met a big, larger than life character by the name of Elbert King. King,
who had been the first lunar curator after NASAs first manned mission to the moon, took Buchanan
under his wing.

About a year later, his friend came and was chairman of our department, Buchanan said, and so they
really mentored me.
Their guidance played an important role in his doctoral degree, according to Buchanan. When he first
began studying for his Ph.D., his research topic was volcanoes. With Kings guidance, along with
guidance from the department chairman, Buchanans research shifted from volcanoes on Earth, to
asteroidean volcanoes, primarily on the asteroid Vesta, for which he eventually earned his doctorate
degree in planetary geology.
By the time he received his Ph.D. in 1995, Buchanan was older than most post-grads and therefore not
really at the age that anyone would hire him for an entry-level position at a university.
I had all these contacts around the world, because I had worked with a lot of people while I was doing
my Ph.D., said Buchanan. So I started asking them [about jobs] and one of them said we have this
program in South Africa, why dont you come visit for a year, year-and-a-half, so I applied and I was
there within a couple of months.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, Buchanan worked as a post-doctoral researcher for the Department of
Geology at the University of Witwatersrand. His research in South Africa led him to start a major
geological project in the African Bushveld Complex.
[The complex] has something like 80 percent of the worlds platinum I think. Its really the biggest
mineral deposit in the world, Buchanan said. I developed this big research project on part of it that
nobody had really worked with much to find out kind of why its there, why it formed there.
His research in Africa continued until 1997, when he took a job with the Institute of Geochemistry at the
University of Vienna, in Austria. There, he continued to serve as a post-doctoral research, like he did in
Africa, as well as serving as a guest lecturer for the University. He moved from Vienna in 1998.
Buchanan returned to the states, to work on the National Research Council for the Johnson Space
Center, until 2000, at which time he moved back to South Africa to continue his work at the University
of Witwatersrand.
At the end of his second stint in Africa, Buchanan was at a conference in Rome, when he ran into the
grandfather of planetary science, a Japanese man who had been the friend of his adviser for his Ph.D.
The man asked him if he was interested in moving to Japan and in 2002, Buchanan began working for
the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan, as the guest of the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science, an organization that is equivalent to the National Science Foundation.
Buchanan also worked extensively with the Natural Science Museum collection of meteorites in London
after becoming friends with the museums curator, who asked Buchanan to serve as a post-doctoral
researcher there.

After his father passed away, Buchanan moved back to his hometown to care for his mother. Once back
in East Texas, he decided that it was time to settle down. He enrolled in the teaching certification
program at UT Tyler. He completed the program in 2007 after student teaching for high school and
middle school science and math classes. About two weeks after completion, the science department
position at KC opened up and he has been working here since.
Buchanan said he believes that KC provides an interesting opportunity to interact closely with his
students. Whereas at other colleges that he has worked, the relationship between student and teacher
has been more distant, Buchanan enjoys being able to introduce geology to students who are planning
their futures, in a more personal approach.
His responsibilities at the college include creating the geology curriculum, coordinating the geology unit
and serving as one of the two Phi Theta Kappa faculty advisers.
At this time, Buchanan isnt looking to retire. In fact, he says that he really hasnt given the idea much
thought.
I love KC! Im planning to stay here for the rest of my career, he said.