I've been thinking a lot this week about UCSB Masters graduate Kris Broderick, who died suddenly and unexpectedly on January 11. I just found out about it a few days ago. I was one of his science advisors for his thesis (I am not faculty so he had a different faculty advisor, Bruce Luyendyk). His thesis was using paper copies of seismic reflection data and wells in Santa Monica Bay to study the Santa Monica-Dume and related faults, The San Pedro Basin fault, as well as the northern Palos Verdes anticlinorium and the faults beneath it. Unfortunately for Kris, this work was done before the USGS put digital industry data online, and before we had access to an industry 3D interpretation software. So, the work was slower and more tedious than it is now, and I was not as good an advisor as I think I am now. Kris and I worked together more as colleagues than as advisor-student, and together we interpreted the paper seismic with color pencils, hand contoured faults and rock layers on paper base maps, then digitized these maps. Marc Kamerling was also part of our group before he left for industry. The faults are now part of the Southern California Earthquake Center Community Fault Model. Kris is co-author on my paper in Journal of Geophysical Research. He is third author on my manuscript that I have been having so much trouble with on Palos Verdes (and will remain 3rd author). I will have to send these papers to his parents. I don't know if he would have read the latest version, but he may have seen that I finally got the writing right a couple of weeks ago, and that it would be resubmitted.

In about 2004, he got a job with Exxon Mobil, and was last senior petroleum Geologist. He finished his Masters thesis in 2006. I heard him play in a band in 2004 before he left Santa Barbara, and he was an excellent musician. He was also a really nice guy, as also stated by various posts online by his friends and Exxon Mobil work colleagues.

The obituary is below.

Christopher "Chris" Sorlien

[Obituary provided by Kevin B. Comeau Funeral Home.]

Kristin "Kris" Gilbert Broderick, 37, of Haverhill, died Wednesday, January 11, 2012.

Born in Benson, Arizona, he was the son of Philip D. and Sandra J. (Long) Broderick. He was a Graduate of Haverhill High School, Class of 1992, and attended Emerson College. He then earned his Bachelors Degree at Salem State College and his Masters Degree in Geology, at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A gifted athlete, Kris enjoyed all sports but excelled in basketball. He was a talented musician playing guitar in many bands. He traveled the world for work and pleasure, as he recently returned from a three year stay in Angola. He was employed as a Geologist for the Exxon-Mobil Corporation in Houston, Texas, for the past seven years.

The husband of the late, Martha McDermott, he leaves a son, Clayton Edward Broderick, his parents, Philip and Sandra (Long) Broderick, of Haverhill, a brother, Brian Broderick, of Park City, UT, a sister, Morgan and her husband, Geoff Saunooke, of Meridian, Idaho, grandparents, Dorothy long, of Haverhill, and Ernest and Lillian Reynolds, of Plaistow, aunts and uncles, Pamela and Spencer Kimball, Christie Broderick, Carolyn and Charles Elliott, Steven Long, David and Janet Long, Judith Long, Kenneth Long, Linda Ferguson, Laurie long, mark and Megan Reynolds, and many cousins and friends who will dearly miss him.

ARRANGEMENTS: Friends and family are respectfully invited to attend a period of visitation on Sunday, January 15, from 1 until 5 p.m. at the Kevin B. Comeau Funeral Home, 486 Main St. (Rte 125) Haverhill. Private funeral services and burial will be held at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Clayton E. Broderick College Fund C/O Sovereign Bank, 340 Main St. Haverhill, MA 01830. www.comeaufuneral.com.