Hello to anyone who may stumble across this post! You may remember me from such volcanoes as Mauna Loa or Kilauea. Well, I’m happy to report that I’m back and ready for a whole new adventure into the (heretofore) unknown.
Since I last posted, I managed to successfully finish my thesis, an absolutely riveting piece of research entitled Lava Flow Morphologies and Structural Features Along the Axis of the South Rift Zone of Loihi Seamount, Hawai`i. Say that five times fast. In all seriousness, it was a very interesting project and I couldn’t have done it without the help and guidance of Dr. Mark Kurz and Dr. Dan Fornari of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. I also received critical assistance from Dr. Kim Bishop and Dr. Pedro Ramirez of California State University, Los Angeles, and timely and essential help from Luis Carlos Pelaez and Greg Kurras. Thanks so much to all of you! As a result of our combined efforts, I am now officially the holder of a Master of Science in Geology. As a super nifty side note, my degree was signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. California is indeed awesome.
So, what does a volcanologist-errant do after the glory of the thesis is behind her? Well, if she has a brilliant scientist friend, she’ll be offered a spot on a research expedition to Peru. Since I’m friends with the inimitable Dr. Joe Licciardi of the University of New Hampshire, that very situation is coming to pass! Joe received funding from National Geographic for his work on Peruvian glacier fluctuations and their relationship to the European Little Ice Age, and then was kind enough to invite me along to help collect samples this time around.
That means that tomorrow morning at 7:45, I’ll be boarding a TACA airlines flight to Cusco, Peru.
My travel time is about 21 hours, and I’ll be spending a night in Lima before I arrive. Joe is getting there a few hours after I do, and then we’re spending a few days in Cusco before we head into the Cordillera Vilcabamba for nearly two weeks of sampling!
I’ll be updating this when I’m in Cusco before the expedition starts, and then again after I return. We’ll hopefully even have time to squeeze in a visit to Machu Picchu!
To summarize, I know this isn’t volcano work, but I think that the same kind of people who were interested in my previous doings may find this latest batch of geology work enjoyable. Here’s to another great summer, and I’ll leave you with a sample of where we’ll be camping from one of Joe’s previous trips. The tents in there are for scale, of course!
Photo by Joe Licciardi
So awesome!!!! I can’t get the song from Emperor’s New Groove outta my head though… “Cuscooooooooooo, what’s his name, Cuscoooooo”… I hope you took your camera along (I wouldn’t expect anything less of you
) so we can see photographic evidence of this trip =)