News

The lake has grown and shrunk many times over the past 20,000 years. When it grows, it leaves behind a “bathtub ring” of residue around its edge: pebbles smoothed by wave action, carbonate tufas, the remnants of the things that lived at the shore. There are at least three distinct bathtub rings (each of which… read more

A rapid technical response to the damaging earthquakes in Malawi produces both humanitarian and scientific benefits, and we hoped that both scientific and international assistance agencies would support our effort. Our seismic field effort serves two purposes: (1) to provide badly needed seismic equipment and technical training to the Malawi Geological Survey department (MGSD); and… read more

Jay and Barbara took off this morning in a rugged-looking truck while Mike and I followed in a Honda CR-V that looks more appropriate for Route 9W than Patagonia’s gravel roads. We’re hopeful that nothing terrible will go wrong. Wish us luck! I was totally entranced by the geomorphology of this place: I must have… read more

For most of our drive, I stare out the window and ask Mike questions: “Is that a glacial moraine?” and “How tall were the Andes originally?” and “Why are those sediments white?” He can respond to a stunning number of these questions. I love being around field geologists; the way they make sense out of… read more

I’ve been to Stewart Island, off the southern tip of New Zealand, but I’m pretty sure this is the furthest south I’ve been. Cool! We’re here in Rio Gallegos. We’ve just rendezvoused with Dr. Jay Quade, a geologist from the University of Arizona, and his wife Barbara. We’ve got two cars, a bunch of boxes… read more

This week U.S. and Haitian scientists will start a 20-day research cruise off Haiti to address urgent questions about the workings of the great Jan. 12 earthquake, and the possibility of continuing threats. They hope to gather sonar images, sediments and other evidence from the seafloor that might reveal hidden structures, how they have moved,… read more

We arrived in Argentina after a night in the air—maybe the first time I’ve ever gotten a (nearly) decent night’s sleep on a plane. We took a taxi across the city. It’s hot and flat, and our taxi driver explains that they’ve had torrential rains for several weeks; all the lowlands alongside the highway are… read more

A few days ago we reached our main study area in the eastern Amundsen Sea. Here we are using sonar to map the contours of the seafloor in great detail. During the last glaciation the Antarctic ice sheet was much larger and covered most of the continental shelf, an underwater extension of the continent that… read more

Natalie Boelman is an ecologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who studies the effects of climate change on organisms throughout the food chain. She first visited the Alaskan Arctic in 2001, and will return to the North Slope this spring and summer to continue a wildfire-mapping project and to set up a field study that will… read more

Going to Antarctica involves a whole lot of paperwork. Before I left, I filled out an extensive medical history, was tested for every disease imaginable, gave my pants size, shoe size, hat size, until I had only one form remaining. That was the waiver acknowledging that working in Antarctica is inherently dangerous and that by… read more

Where we work and how we get there depends on the sea ice. The Oden is a powerful icebreaker but it is often faster and more fuel-efficient to go around heavy sea ice then to chop our way through. If the sea ice is several feet thick, we often choose to detour. We actually consult… read more