Category: News

Mark Kulie (GMES/GLRC) is attending the American Meteorological Society 38th Conference on Radar Meteorology this week (August 28 to September 1, 2017) in Chicago.

He will present a talk entitled “Seasonal Variability of Shallow Cumuliform Snowfall: A CloudSat Perspective” in the “Moving Platforms. Vehicle, Airborne, Shipborne and Spaceborne: Satellite” session. He is also co-chairing the “Cloud Studies Using Radars” conference session.

Founded in 1919, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) is the nation’s premier scientific and professional organization promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, hydrologic sciences.

Mark Kulie (GMES/EPSSI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received an $86,255 research and development grant from the NASA. The project is entitled “Snowfall in the GPM Era: Assessing GPM Snowfall and Ice Microphysical Retrievals Using Independent Spaceborne and Ground-Based Observations.” This is the first year of a potential two-year project totaling $186,255.

Chad Deering (GMES/EPSSI), is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $250,718 research and develop grant from the National Science Foundation.

The project is titled “Assessing Changes in the State of a Magma Storage System Over Caldera-Forming Eruption Cycles, a Case Study at Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand.”

This is the first year of a potential three-year project which could total $349,665.

By Sponsored Programs.

ABSTRACT

The largest volcanic eruptions are rare events but can represent a global catastrophe. Smaller eruptions may still have significant (billions of dollars) economic impacts and may affect the lives and livelihoods of large numbers of people, even in places distant from the erupting volcano (e.g., the relatively small eruption in Iceland in 2010). This project focuses on the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ) in New Zealand as a case study of a large and very active volcanic system, and will focus on developing a better understanding of how the temperature and mobility of a magma body below the surface changes before, during, and after a major eruption. This study will contribute to our understanding of the volcanoes that produce such large eruptions (for example, Yellowstone volcanic system in the US), and will provide critical context for interpretation of real-time hazard monitoring at these and other active volcanoes. In addition, the project will include research experience for a K-12 teacher and development of new standard-based physics, chemistry and mathematics curriculum that will be disseminated broadly.

Read more at NSF GeoPRISMS.

The Ontario Geological Survey, Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum teamed up to co-host the 63rd Annual Institute on Lake Superior Geology held in Wawa, Ontario May 8-12.

This professional meeting consisted of two days of technical sessions with 29 oral and 22 poster presentations. There were three geological field trips before the technical sessions and three after.

The meeting was attended by 137 geologists from the US and Canada. Academic institutions (58 members), government agencies (28 members), and mining and consulting companies (36 members) were well represented among attendees.

Margaret Hanson, museum assistant director, served as registrar for the meeting while Ted Bornhorst, museum executive director and professor, organized the meeting sessions, handled finances and decided on travel awards to students.

The Institute publishes technical volumes in hard copy for each meeting and offers them open-access online after the meeting is completed.

Bornhorst and Hanson co-edited the Institute on Lake Superior Geology, Proceedings Volume 63, Part 1: Program and Abstracts (97p.). They also compiled Part 2: Field Trip Guidebook (204p.).

The Institute is well regarded for its high quality field trips having recently won a national award from the Geoscience Information Society for the Outstanding Geologic Field Trip Guidebook Series.

The Institute initiated a new annual award for 2017, Pioneer of Lake Superior Geology, to recognize those individuals who made significant contributions to the understanding of the geology of the Lake Superior region primarily prior to the Institute’s awarding of the prestigious annual Goldich Medal in 1979.

The first Pioneer of Lake Superior Geology is Douglass Houghton (1809-1845). Bornhorst nominated Houghton for the award and wrote, along with Larry Molloy, President of the Keweenaw County Historical Society, the two-page biographical sketch published in the Proceedings Volume. As the first speaker for the technical sessions, Bornhorst provided the highlights of the important attributes that contributed to Houghton’s success.

By Ted Bornhorst, A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum.