Tag: research

The National Science Foundation (NSF) posted a news story on its website about an open-vent volcano that erupted at Fuego, near Guatemala City. It quoted Greg Waite (GMES), who is studying the volcano under an NSF CAREER award.

Ted Bornhorst, executive director of the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum and Dr. Chris Poulsen, chair of the department of Earth and environmental sciences at the University of Michigan, published an article titled: “Michigan Mineral Alliance” in the September issue of the international journal Rocks & Minerals. The article establishes a name for the legal agreement between Michigan Tech and the University of Michigan that provides for co-ownership and shared responsibility of the University of Michigan’s mineral collection. The collection is now at the museum and there is an introductory exhibit in the museum’s Thomas D. Shaffner exhibit hall.

Chad Deering (GMES) received a $77,039 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for a research and development project titled, Understanding Basaltic Volcanic Processes by Remotely Measuring the Links Between Vegetation Health and Extent, and Volcanic Gas and Thermal Emissions using HyspIRI-like VSWIR and TIR data. This is the first year of a potential two-year project totaling $212,448.

Aleksey Smirnov (GMES/EPSSI) received a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a research and development project titled, Paleointensity of the Paleoproterozoic Geomagnetic Field as Recorded by Single Silicate Crystals: Testing the “Proterozoic Dipole Low.” This is a three-year project.

GMES student Priscilla Addison received the Best Student Paper Award for “Rail Embankment Investigation Using Remote Sensing for a Permafrost Region” which she presented at the 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Cold Regions Engineering Conference: Developing and Maintaining Resilient Infrastructure, held earlier this month in Salt Lake City. The thrust of Addison’s paper was to look at remote sensing as a site investigative tool for the portion of the Hudson Bay railway embankment underlain with discontinuous permafrost in northern Manitoba, Canada. This research is jointly supported by OmniTRAX Inc. and National University Rail (NURail) Center funded by the U.S Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration (USDOT-RITA). Addison is co-advised by Associate Professor Thomas Oommen (GMES) and Assistant Professor Pasi Lautala (CEE).

The US Peace Corps’ Peace Car was on the Michigan Tech campus July 9th. An eco-friendly Smart Car, the Peace Car enables Peace Corps staff to share their mission while limiting their carbon footprint. See the photo here

The Association of Engineering Geologists (AEG) featured Lauren Schaefer, a PhD student in Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences, as its AEG Featured Scholar for June 2015.

Jason Gulley (GMES) has received a $194,940 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation for the collaborative research project: What Hydrogeochemical Processes Control Weathering in the Deep Critical Zone of Unburied Karst Landscapes. This is a two-year project.