research

January 9, 2017

Boom! Boom! Explosions!

Mission: See a Real Volcanic Eruption

Country: Vanuatu

Island: Tanna

Volcano: Yasur

Last August, I was presented with a can’t-miss opportunity. My officemate, Ben, who shares a supervisor with me, has an awesome PhD project working in Vanuatu. As the main part of his project, he planned to live at the base of the volcano, collecting a whole series of measurements, for three months. This includes stuff like seismic (earthquake) data, thermal (infrared) images of eruptions, gas measurements, and physical observations. For details on the project, watch the video above.

As you might expect, a project with this many facets is too big for one person to do alone. Ben (along with his supervisors) planned the project and held the responsibility of keeping things up and running the whole time, but he needed some help setting things up at the beginning and doing the work all along. To do this, my supervisor sent several of us in the department out to help over the course of the trip. I was offered the chance to go at the very start and help things set up.

Did I mention Yasur is basically the most consistently active volcano in the world? It’s been erupting more or less constantly for over 1000 years. As a volcanologist who’d never seen a live eruption before, do you think I could pass that up? Not a chance!

We spent the first couple of days in Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital on the island of Efate (Vanuatu is made up of around 80 islands). It has about 40,000 people, and, while maybe not as “modern” as you’d get in New Zealand, it’s as urban as you’re going to get in Vanuatu (and many things we had access to there would’ve been the height of luxury during the fieldwork). We had to sort the logistics of getting all of Ben’s scientific equipment from there over to Tanna, one of the outer islands where Yasur volcano is located. Luckily, in between running back and forth between shipping agencies, we also had a bit of time to explore.

Bislama is pretty awesome. Read it out loud. You understand it, don’t you?
Tropical flowers.
A little bit of luxury to make up for hard times to come.
The harbor in Port Vila
Important shipping logistics to take care of.
The best water in Vanuatu. See, makes sense!
The market, apparently open 24/7.
Stuff and stuff and stuff and more stuff.
View of Port Vila centre from across the harbor.
The national museum.
Sandroing, a type of kustom art. We got lots of demonstrations from a friendly museum volunteer.

I also got my first taste of Bislama, the local language. Vanuatu has over 100 different indigenous languages, the most per capita of any country in the world. There’s a decent amount of English and French spoken (they are both official languages along with Bislama) in addition to the indigenous ones, but Bislama is the one that brings everyone together. It’s a creole of French and English, with a bit of grammar and vocabulary from each. While confusing at first, it actually makes a lot of sense when you read the sentences out loud, and it’s a lot of fun to try to understand.

From Vila, we took a little Twin Otter plane (you could look right into the cockpit) over to Tanna to start our real work.

“Please look after the plane, it belongs to you all. If someone breaks something on the plan they will answer to God.”
Watching the pilots in action.
Compare the English and the Bislama, it’s fun!
First views of Tanna.
Ben disembarking out little plane.
Map of Tanna island.

The volcano is in the southeastern part of the island, so we took a slow pickup truck ride over there from the airport (on the west coast near Lenakel, the largest town on the island…which is so small I can’t even find a population estimate on the internet). To get a good start, we quickly headed up the volcano that evening to get a first view of the fireworks…unfortunately, it took a bit to figure out how to take good pictures of the explosions, so you’ll just have to be patient (or scroll down if you can’t wait!). In the meantime we settled into our lodging at Jungle Oasis Bungalows.

It’s a nice place, but pretty basic. Don’t come out here expecting modern amenities. No hot water, electricity on generator power for just a few hours every evening, pretty simple food, lots of pretty large insects. For a week and a half, it made the fieldwork that much more involved, and even a bit fun. For three months? Let’s just say I’m not jealous of Ben on that front. Still, it was great to have real beds and a (mostly) stable roof over our heads, and Kelson, the owner, is super ambitious and entrepreneurial, so improvements are constantly being made–he apparently built a restaurant in the couple months after I left, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find things completely different if I ever go out there again!

Sitting around the kitchen table in our living room, also where we did most of our evening work.
The equipment room–storage, charging station, etc.
The assistant’s room, where I stayed.
Our house from the outside, complete with volcanoboards!
The regional flag for the area we were staying in, personally designed by Kelson, owner of Jungle Oasis and self-styled regional tourism manager.
Critters!
The most adorable and tiniest cat ever, our pet during our stay. The locals weren’t interested in naming it…hence, meet Microkitty. That’s what happens when you give too much power to geologists.
It’s just so fucking adorable! 🙂
The amazing treehouse! We didn’t stay here, but we were allowed to come out here to hang out and watch the volcano at night.

But you want science and volcanoes, don’t you? So did we! We started right into it the next day, hiking all around the volcano to set up some equipment and scope out sites for other bits.

Setting out across the ash plain. And there’s Yasur in the background.
Setting up the FLYSPEC sensor to measure gas particles in the air. Everything is stored in these plastic briefcases to protect it from the constant rain of volcanic ash and lapilli (the name for slightly bigger pieces of ash).
Examples of ash and lapilli that fall from the volcano every day. Ash is basically just lava that explodes into tiny bits coming out of the volcano and rains down wherever the wind is blowing.
Looking at lake sediments that show thousands of years of volcanic history.
Oh. Yeah.
More work in the ancient drained lake.
Scoping out locations for seismic sensors.
Back and forth and all around.
Just one example of the infinite number of “bombs” or “ballistics” that are chucked out of the volcano every day. This one is pretty small!

And then we got to the top and got to see the fun explosions! Yaaaaay!

BOOOM!
All those black specks are blobs of lava!
Ben testing out the thermal camera.
Now THAT is a bomb. Shows what Yasur is capable of at its most active.

We took advantage of the presence of Shane and Jen, Ben’s supervisors at University of Auckland, to set up all our equipment over the next few days. That involved a trip to grab all our gear that had come over on a ferry and trekking more around the volcano to get the best spots for everything. It also involved a shovel, lots and lots of duct tape, some ants, and a lot of witty scientific banter.

Lenakel town centre. Huge, eh?
Getting our stuff from the ferry.
Our outdoor work station loaded up with all our shipped gear.
Helping calibrate the FLYSPECs.
Just a friendly pet chicken.
I love the ridge running down the side of Yasur. And we got to drive past it almost every day.
Sometimes we hitched a ride across the ash plain. But other times we had to do it on foot.
Installing a seismic station. We had a few at several different locations so we could compare the data from each.
Proud of our solar-powered seismic installation.

As a reward for our hard work, we decided to go watch the fireworks again. This time I had my shit together so I could provide you with pretty pictures!

The local ni-Vanuatu did some kustom dances for us.
Watching the sunset from the crater rim.
As it gets darker, you can start to see the orange glow of the bombs.
See all the tourists? That’s one of the reasons learning about the hazards at Yasur is so important.
Not all fun, we also set up a weather station.
Tourists watching the eruptions.
And when it gets really dark, that’s when things get spectacular.

We also had to set up the thermal cameras. Since these see infrared light, they can see the eruption’s heat signal even if it is too cloudy or ashy to see with a normal camera or a human eye. It was pretty crazy working right on the volcano’s edge with the eruptions going on. Someone definitely always had an eye on the ballistics and the plume for safety!

Setting up all the angles just right to face down into the different erupting vents.
With the plume looming behind us the whole time…
The cameras are actually pretty small and fragile, they go inside the giant metal casings to protect them from the elements.
Taking advantage of solar power to keep the cameras running constantly.
Pretty ominous. Ben never did learn to control the eruptions with his magic staff.

Another important part of our job was the gas measurements. To do this, we have to travel back and forth underneath the ash plume to measure how much of certain volcanic gases are in it. On lucky days I got to sit on the back of Kelson’s pickup truck and drive back and forth quickly multiple times to get measurements while Ben operated it from inside. On not so lucky days, we had to walk back and forth across the ash plain on foot, one of us holding the computer while the other held the FLYSPEC.

Sitting in the gunner’s position, firing the FLYSPEC’s eye up into the sky.
Not so lucky today, so we’re preparing to walk instead.
Made it all the way to the far end of our walk, now we just need to trek all the way back home, measuring along the way.
Analysing the measurements live as they come in.

After Shane and Jen left, it was just Ben and me for the next week. We continued all of our measurements and observations daily. As exciting as it was, it was also routine. Every morning, climb the volcano, sit and observe for two hours while taking notes, check the thermal cameras. Then head back down, out to the ash plain to do gas measurements and collect ash samples. It was really cool to see the volcano change in behavior over the course of the week, sometimes explosive, sometimes more ashy.

Checking up on the thermal camera computers, and offloading the data. Round the clock operation takes up a lot of digital space!
Very serious about our daily observations.
Me and my best friend.
Ashy plume.
On days where it was super gassy we had masks to wear for safety.

…but now you’ve been patient, waiting for the pretty pictures. So here they are.

The skylight on the left grew during my time there.
It never had a full eruption like the one to the right, but gas flare would come out of it, which was cool.
Taking long exposure photos from up in the treehouse was super fun.
It was incredible to be able to see the ballistics flying up and out of the crater from so far away.
And the glow on the clouds produced by the volcano was pretty insane (though to be honest it didn’t look nearly as bright in person as it appears here)

We didn’t go up to the summit every night, but definitely did a few more times, because it was just too good opportunity to miss.

Mesmerizing, you could just watch it endlessly.
Sooo pretty…
The bright, gassy glow of the skylight.

Finally, at the end of the last night, I found the perfect location for a photo. The activity had died down quite a bit, so I had to be patient, but eventually it paid off.

Too dark…
Pretty, but not nearly explody enough…
Nailed it! 🙂

And with that, my two weeks of service were done! I left Ben to stick it out for another 10. Luckily he had some great helpers take my place.

Another fun part of the trip was making the movie at the beginning of this post. I spent a lot of the trip filming everything I thought might be interesting (and probably annoying the crap out of everybody else). Then, toward the end of my stay, I made Ben sit for some formal interviews that turned into the narration of the video. Editing it all together at the end was a good excuse to continue watching explosions for some time even after I’d returned!

Note: All photos with me in them were taken by Ben, all photos with me not in them were taken by me.

 

October 23, 2016

It’s been long as, let’s catch up!

Well I’ve been pretty slack with this blog thing lately… There’s no way I’ll do justice to most of the stuff that’s been going on, so how about we just do a quick, mostly photo-based run through of some cool NZ places I’ve been in the last several months?

Rangitoto: Auckland’s youngest volcano

It’s sitting out there in Auckland harbor…Auckland’s most recently erupted volcano (~600 years ago), looking pretty and green and just a bit intimidating. Could it erupt again? Not likely (as part of a volcanic field, it’s classified as monogenetic–that is, it’s one shot only by definition), but that’s actually a pretty intense academic debate that I’ll leave alone here. Lucky for me I just got to have a nice ferry ride over, a short climb to the top, and a walk through some cool lava tubes.

View of Auckland skyline from the ferry
Pretty nice view from the top of Rangitoto
The crater isn’t all that volcano-y looking
Exploring a lava tube easily thanks to light through the collapsed ceiling
Beautiful harbor we passed by on our walk back around to the dock
And the volcano itself, of course!

More Taranaki Fieldwork and the coldest night of my life

Did a few more fieldwork trips to Taranaki for a bit more sample collection back before winter began. Mostly little of note, but on my last trip of the season, I camped overnight on the way from Auckland to Wellington with the hope of collecting a few last samples. Let’s just say I slightly underestimated how cold it would get at night and ended up so cold that by 3am I couldn’t sleep anymore and had to sit in the car. Oops. Unbelievably clear and beautiful night sky, though, and I did get my samples, so not so terrible in the end!

Always good to see my friend.
Working in the river channels as usual.
Still looks great even without snow on top!
Got to feed birds at the sanctuary I sometimes stop at on my drive down 🙂
A bit of snow should’ve tipped me off that things would be a bit colder…
Pretty in the dark, but sooooo cold. Next time with a camera that can show the stars!

Also messed around with some time lapses during the sunset. So you can see what it looks like for the sun to set in Taranaki on a clear day!

I continued down to Wellington afterwards to experiment on the samples I’d just collected–here’s what it looks like from my lab at the University of Victoria perched high up on the hill above the city centre.

A bit of Auckland regional geology

A few field trips, some uni-related, others just for fun to check out some cool regional parks with some cool rocks.

Awesomely gruesome caution sign at a north Auckland winery.
Alternating rock layers at Hatfield’s Beach on the coast north of Auckland
Cool to see how the more resistant layers stick out beyond the more easily eroded ones
Sweet staircase built into the cliff
Overseeing undergraduate students doing a mapping project at Matheson Bay (north of Auckland)
Carefully evaluating each outcrop
Cliffs and beaches along Auckland’s west coast near Piha

Tongariro Fieldwork

I never pass up a chance to help out a fellow PhD student with fieldwork, which meant I took a couple trips down to Tongariro National Park to help out Mia, one of the other PhD students in the department who is researching the last several thousand years of tephra deposits from Tongariro volcano. We did a lot of driving around–it’s important to learn what deposits from each of the volcano’s eruptions look like (many of them have distinctive characteristics) and then identify those deposits in as many locations as possible.

Each outcrop often contains thousands of years of volcanic record
Sometimes you have to climb a bit to get to the good stuff
Each layer represents a different eruptive event
Benefits of fieldwork in an active geothermal area–hot pools at the end of the day!
We’re not above wearing hi-vis vests to keep safe when the outcrops are on the side of the Desert Road
Tephra Paradise! Surrounded by Tongariro history on all sides!
Traversing the barren landscape.
Jumping photos are pretty hard. (That’s Tongariro in the background.)

Here’s an example of what we do when we investigate an outcrop–mostly walk around pointing at stuff, discuss things, take notes (in superspeed!).

Coromandel

I’ve been lucky enough to have a few friends come visit me in NZ already. And when they do, of course I take them to see something geological! Recently my friend Katherine stopped by Auckland during her trip to NZ from the US. We took a trip out to the Coromandel Peninsula to see Cathedral Cove. It’s a pretty sweet collection of arches and sea stacks formed from millions of years-old ignimbrite deposits (volcanic deposits resulting from huge pumice-filled eruptions).

Tunnel eroded through the rock formation
Sea stack of ignimbrite–was once attached to the cliffs along the coast but since eroded until it was seperate
Peaceful beach
Looking out to the sea stacks from inside the cave
Another awesome formation with cool sand features from water flowing over the beach
Hot Water Beach–a geothermal area where you can dig your own hot pool in the sand!

Vanuatu…just a peek!

I mentioned not passing up a chance to help with fieldwork…that goes double when I get offered a chance to travel to do it! My officemate, Ben, is living in Vanuatu for three months monitoring Yasur, one of the world’s most active volcanoes. In September I got to go help him…and to see my first eruptions. That’s a YUUUGE moment for a volcanologist! I’ll try to do a whole post on that later, I certainly have enough photos!

Yasur volcano in all its glory, as seen from a dried-up lake bed nearby
Ash cloud (and volcanic bombs) from the constant eruptions (nearly 1 per minute)
The eruptions were even more spectacular at night
And you can see them even a ways off from the volcano!
June 1, 2016

This Is How We Do It

A quick follow up to yesterday’s post — I made a fun video of our fieldwork trip so you can see exactly what we’re up to, and set it to a jaunty tune. Enjoy!

I’m really enjoying trying to tell stories about science through film, and I hope I can do a lot more of it in the future. I’m actually currently taking a course the the organization called SciFund on how to make good science youtube videos, so hopefully there will be more where this came from!

May 31, 2016

Science, dammit!

Buckle up for some geology! Now that you’ve seen what it takes to get to the top of a 2518m high volcano, let’s see what happens when you do it a second time. Only with shitloads of stuff strapped to your back and actual things to accomplish once you get to the top.

As I mentioned, one of the best places to find recent material from Taranaki’s last eruptions is way up at the top. Looking at Taranaki’s most recent lava flows can help us in lots of ways. We can compare it to material we find lower on the volcano. We can look at fresher and more weathered material. We can look at different parts of the lava dome to see if the lava cooled at different rates in different places and try to learn what ways it affects the lava’s properties.

But the simplest thing we can try to do with those hot hot lava rocks (that are now cold) is try to figure out how old they are. If we decide that the lava dome at the top of Mt. Taranaki’s collapse was probably the last thing to happen there, then if we figure out how old those rocks are, we can probably tell when the volcano last erupted.

(The reason we don’t know this already is because the last eruption was before European settlement of the area. From this we know it must be older than at least the mid-1800s. Maori people were there at this time, for sure, but as far as I know there aren’t any datable written records or stories tied to an eruption.)

Our goal for this trip was to collect samples that I could try to date using paleomagnetic methods in the lab in Wellington. On my trips lower down you may remember me collecting rock samples that I would drill holes in in the lab later. But this time we decided to go full on and collect our cores in the field in order to be as accurate as possible.

Hiking in the night before, just like the first time.
The lonely mountain in twilight.
Sunrise the next morning.
Suit up!

This was a bigger job, though, so it required a bigger team. A both of my Auckland-based supervisors, Shane and Mike, and a couple fellow students from Auckland, Edgar and Jie, came with me, along with my friend Elisa, our Wellington-based paleomag expert.

For starters, the trip was longer than the first time. We’d be climbing two consecutive days, meaning we had to carry a whole bunch of food in addition to our gear (and possibly some lovely boxes of wine–we do our geology in style!). Oh, yeah…the gear. Hammer, chisel, chainsaw-sized drill and all its accessories, and more. Heck of a lot more than I had on my fun first climb.

We made our camp at the same awesome Tahurangi Lodge that I stayed at last time. It was definitely nice to have a little comfort at the end of the day.

From there, our first job was to hike to the top. Now, doing paleomag drilling is simple enough when your outcrops are by the roadside. Stop somewhere and fill up your water tanks, pull up on the side of the road, do your thing, go home. If you run out of water, just fill up again and get back to work.

We meet again, evil scree field.
Yep, that’s how I was feeling at that particular moment.
Poorly framed and not well centered, just like my thoughts by the time I reached top.

 

In our case, however, we had to get all that same stuff to the top of the of the volcano to get to our sample sites, and there was nowhere to get more water once we were up there (we gave some thought to melting snow, but couldn’t come up with an efficient enough solution). That meant splitting up about 45 liters of water, a couple liters of fuel, and all the drill stuff between everyone for the trip up. It was probably the most difficult fieldwork I’ve ever done — steep enough as is, but even harder when weighed down by a super full pack.

But we did make it! Hooray! Once we were up there, we moseyed around to the western side of the summit to see the collapsed crater. That’s where the volcano’s most recent lava dome grew, then collapsed, leaving a giant horseshoe-shaped amphitheater behind. This was probably sometime in the 1800s, but we don’t yet know for sure.

In order to compare different parts of the dome and learn as much as we can about Taranaki’s most recent activity, we needed samples from lots of different parts of the dome, which meant climbing all around the collapse amphitheater and around the snow fields to pick out a few different sites to core.

One look into the crater before we head around the side.
The collapse amphitheater on the northwestern side.
Still lots of snow to slide on. Wheee!
Getting to work.
Drilling at the top of the snowfield.
Pretty holes.

Once we’d taken a good look, we picked some sample locations on different parts spread around the area and got to work drilling our cores. Drilling and orienting is a team effort. For the most efficient work, it takes two to drill–one to do the actual drilling and one to man the pump bottle to keep water running through the drill so it operates well. Then it takes another one or two to take accurate measurements and write careful on the cores and collect them to take home — that way the drillers can already move on to the next site. ***drilling note at end***

Looking around for more sample sites.
Are we going uphill or downhill here? Almost hard to tell!
I think this is definitely a stroke penalty for whoever hit it.
Where to next?
Contouring around the volcano was pretty tricky at times.
Looking down towards The Turtle.
Not a bad backdrop for some drilling!

In order to learn more about the formation of the lava dome, we made sure to take samples from both the outside carapace of the dome that had cooled and remained in place as well as the fresh material that is newly exposed where the side of the dome collapsed. That way we can try to look for differences between the two types: Did one cool faster? Do they contain the same minerals? Are the mineral crystals different sizes? Did they record the same paleomagnetic field?

As you saw in the picture above, we usually drill about 8-12 small holes per site, and on the first day we were able to do five sites. Not bad for a day’s work! And we felt pretty good about having carried all that water since we used almost all of it. Imagine how upset we would have been if we’d worked so hard to get up there and then quit early because we ran out!

On the way down we were treated to some pretty awesome views or the surrounding area. The perfect circle of the edge of the park still impresses me. Combined with the shadow Taranaki casts in the evenings, it’s a pretty unusual sight.

It’s a long way down. But a lot faster than the way up!
Not too many places where you can get a picture like this!

Back at the lodge were were able to have some delicious soup packets, tea, dinner, and wine, and rest up for day two.

So did I complain about the first day being the hardest fieldwork I’d ever done? I was being a wuss. Day two was the hardest fieldwork I’ve ever done. Carrying all the same stuff up the volcano a second straight day was seriously hard work and at times frustrating (especially when constantly sliding backwards trying to climb the scree field) — early on I was genuinely concerned I might not make it! But after some tough times in the early going, we actually all made it to the top faster than we did on the first day.

The whole team having a snack at the top while the wait for me to finally catch up.
A bit cloudier than the day before.
Bunny-shaped cloud!
“I sure hope somebody knows where we’re going!”
We found a good outcrop! Now everybody look for the perfect spot to take our samples!

The weather wasn’t nearly as good the second day, it was quite a bit chillier, and visibility was pretty low. Luckily my supervisor had a good idea where we were going. We did another four sites — some were more parts of the lava dome, but we also sampled The Turtle, an interesting feature a little ways down from the top that is very visible when looking at Mt. Taranaki from the west. Despite some tough conditions and a bit of slipping and sliding, we stayed focused, worked hard, and got everything we needed so that all our sarcastic comments about having to come up a third straight day could just remain jokes.

Working our way down through the fog.
Going down is also way easier because you’re 10L of water lighter!
My gloves were good-as-new two days ago! All the scree-grabbing-and-sliding will do that.

After staying another night in the lodge, we were able to head home with all the samples we needed to do a good investigation, and also comfortable in the knowledge that if we ever need to come back and get more samples, we’ll know exactly what to do. I’ve already gotten my teeth into testing the samples from this trip in the paleomagnetism lab down in Wellington, and though we don’t have any conclusive results yet, we’re well on our way to learning a lot more about the lonely volcano.

***Note on drilling: Mt. Taranaki is a beautiful and culturally important mountain. As such, we make our best effort to be as non-disruptive and non-destructive as possible when doing fieldwork. But sometimes the only way to do the science is to take the samples, as in this case. Before we even planned the drilling, we consulted with the NZ Department of Conservation and local iwi to get all proper permissions for the work and to make sure we did it in a way where all parties involved could be happy. When actually on the mountain, we always made an effort to drill our cores in places far off the beaten path where they won’t bother anyone, and often in areas where weathering and further collapse will likely remove them altogether over time.***

December 25, 2015

Just Me and the Big Dude

Toward the beginning of my PhD I won a scholarship from an organization that gives grants to students doing research in the Taranaki region, and as part of the bargain I agreed to come down to New Plymouth in early December to give a public lecture at the Puke Ariki, the city’s big cultural and natural history museum. I decided that while I was down there already I’d take the opportunity to do one last batch of fieldwork before the end of the year.

My co-supervisor at Victoria University of Wellington drove up and met me in Oakura (a small town in the northwest part of the peninsula), and we planned a couple days of exploring and sample collection.

IMG_2396.JPG

Protip: When possible, do fieldwork with your supervisor(s). They tend to pay for cushier lodging and tastier food than when you do it yourself. 😉

I’ve already told you about looking for stratigraphic sections and learning to tell apart the different types of deposits that I look at during my fieldwork. And about mapping those deposits in different places. Naturally, the next step is to actually take samples of those different deposits to take back to the lab for testing.

I had already done a good bit of sample collection on the last trip (the one forever lost to the annals of my dead hard drive), but there was plenty more to do in the same (and new) places, so off we went back into the park, up the Puniho track, and into Maero Stream.

We started by climbing up toward the “type section” I’ve already told you about, but this time we decided to push on a bit farther and see what lays higher up the stream. The first thing we noticed on the way up was a really red outcrop, different from anything we’d seen so far. Farther on up we also found a potential good spot to get into and out of the riverbed, which might be good to know about for future trips. It would be very convenient to be able to follow the easy track much further along rather than having to climb up the rocky stream bed.

It’s so red! We’d get a better look on the way back down.
The view towards the sea from way upstream.
Always looking at those catchment walls.
A possible stream entrance? I sure hope so!
More redness with people for scale!
Hard at work…

We stopped at the red unit again on the way down to take some samples. What does that mean, exactly? Well, basically, there’s a few different types.

  1. Matrix and clast samples: Basically, I just scoop a bunch of stuff that I think is well representative of the outcrop into a sandwich baggie. The matrix is the sandy stuff in between the clasts (the pebble to boulder rocks contained in the matrix).
  2. Oriented core: We use a drill (I’ll show more later) to take a little cylinder, roughly the diameter of a quarter (NZ/Euro 50c coin) and around 4-8 cm (2-4 in) deep.
  3. Oriented hand sample: When we can’t drill a hole in the field, instead we just take the rock home instead so we can drill a hole in it back in the lab.
  4. Charcoal: For radiocarbon dating you need stuff with lots of carbon. One thing with lots of carbon are burnt bits of trees, leaves, and twigs.
Orienting those hand samples!
On the side of the road!
On a cliff!

So notice I used the word “oriented” a few times in the sample names. That’s because for paleomagnetism direction is everything. Later in the lab we’ll be trying to figure out the direction of earth’s ancient magnetic field. But to do that, we need a reference point for the direction of the rock when it was deposited. So we spend a lot of time recording with compasses and marking the rocks with sharpies so we’ll be able to test accurately later on.

Weird sedimentary structures that look kind of like columnar basalts, but are made of sand and just the size of a sharpie
Did I mention sharpies have a secondary purpose of being good for showing scale? 😀
Sampling on rocks…
…and with a box!
Best volcano view of the day.

Another question you may have is “what if you don’t find any big enough rocks to take as oriented hand samples?” It’s a good question, and this time out we got to test another sampling method, where we hammered a little plastic box into the fine grained material and took an orientation of it (see picture above) in order to get a sample. It will be interesting to see if it works. We also found some little charcoal bits for the first time, which should be helpful.

After some pretty lousy weather on the first day, we got much better conditions on day two. Here, we found some good outcrops right along the road to ample, which meant we could test out our drill. Vroom vroom!

Not too impressive, but it could contain pretty interesting information!
See, right by the road. No hiking, no climbing, pice of cake!
Always looking at the outcrops up close.
Here’s the drill! It’s a reconfigured chainsaw.
A core post-drilling
Holes with the cores removed.
Beautiful day…but no volcano yet.

We only tested a couple times, but we drilled two useful cores. Funny thing was, the drill was tough to get started…but then once it got going we couldn’t get it to shut off! A Hanukkah miracle! Eventually we just had to remove all the fuel and let it run itself down.

After finishing fieldwork on the second day, my supervisor took off for home, and I went to do the actual purpose of my trip–the talk at the museum. Basically, I got to do my proposal defense, but slightly longer and for a broader audience. It was quite fun, a good chance to get to talk to people in the area and get their perspectives on the volcano. And of course a great chance to screen Geology: The Movie (provided here for your education and entertainment just in case you haven’t seen it or want to watch again).

When I finished with that, it was time to celebrate. Fancy dinner? Chill on the beach? Nah, how about we climb a volcano instead?

I took a drive around the northeast side of the volcano to a place where you can actually drive a decent ways into the park to the North Egmont Visitor Centre. As I got closer I willed the small bits of clouds that remained in the sky to drift away. “Show yourself, you majestic fucker!” And show himself he did.

Clouds are almost gone…
And now I’m level with them!
There ya go!
More views to the east.
Following the summit trail.
I love it!

From the visitor centre I started off on the summit track. While my field area is on the western side of the volcano, this is probably the easiest route to the top, and I imagine this is the way we go when we get around to doing fieldwork at the summit. For this trip, I wasn’t intending to go all the way up and back, that takes a full day. I just wanted some quality time with just me and Taranaki and to see how far I could get in an hour or so.

Some pretty big cliffs.
But think about it, to climb the mountain you have to start by getting up there!
Where I came from and where I’m going…
Nice place for a snack.
And views pretty far out.
The final climb up to the base of the cone that I chose not to make.
Me and the big guy.
Some visitor info back at the trailhead.

The track (as far as I took it) is well paved and easy to follow–that’s not to say it isn’t quite steep and strenuous all the same. And that’s the easy part! I got pretty high up, almost to the bottom of the volcano itself, but it’s quite the climb to get to the top. Still a bit too much snow to do it at the moment, as well, but hopefully I’ll get back there in January or February when things are clearer.

Looking from the North, past Pouakai, towards Big T
Not exactly a sunset (that’s to right of where I’m looking here), but still pretty neat.

That just left me with a little more fieldwork to do on the final day before driving home, as well as one important pit stop on the way home.

One last outcrop!
Car key for scale.
Picked up some good stuff from Mike’s, an awesome brewery in Urenui, on Rt. 3 back towards Auckland.

With that, I’m done with fieldwork for the year. After wrapping things up at the office, I’m off on a holiday visit from my parents and a whirlwind tour around both the North and South Islands.

Have a good end of the year everyone, see you in 2016!

October 26, 2015

Meet Tyrannakai, King of the Volcanoes

Fieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldworkfieldwork! Woot woot!

If you remember back when I started this thing, I promised a healthy dose of science and geology to go with the pretty pictures. Unfortunately, except for one trip report in June, I haven’t been able to follow through on that promise particularly well. But that ends today! Inform the men and women, it’s geologizin’ time! Prepare to be scienced! If you have a weak constitution or an un-curious mind, please leave now, because wimmity-wam-wam-wazzle hallelujah it is fieldwork season, and all is well with world!

Assembling the G-Team (G is for geology)

Finally presented with several consecutive days of good weather forecast, I planned a three-day field trip and asked along lots of geology and non-geology friends to be field assistants. Many jumped at the chance to do a little tramping and I ended up with a crack international team of doctors (the geology kind), engineers, PhD students, and more! Overqualified for a preliminary light field trip? Probably. Overqualified for having fun? Not a chance!

The goal for this trip was to scope out the area that where I’ll be doing most of my field work, get an eye for telling the difference between different types of volcanic deposits, and pick some good spots to come back and sample another time. After driving down, we spent the rest of the first day looking for some huge debris avalanche deposits along the coast (a side project). It took a bunch of tries driving up and down some little roads, but eventually we found what we were looking for.

We were looking for the Maitahi deposit, a huge collapse avalanche from Pouakai, one of the extinct volcanoes to the NW of Taranaki
This isn’t it, just the view of the coast at one of our failed attempts

For both nights of the trip, we camped in a small clearing right at the edge of the national park. As long as the weather is good, that’s definitely going to be a great cost-saving measure going forward. Camping right next to cars is easy since you don’t have to carry stuff far before you set it up, and cooking and sharing an evening with friends outside only makes the trip even more enjoyable.

IMG_2087

Our campsite. Pretty nice view, huh? Also, can you guess where the farmland ends and Egmont National Park starts? Hint: it’s as obvious as it looks.

The Real Work Begins

The goal of the second day was to go into the park and find stratigraphic sections of the deposits I’m going to be working with in the future so I could get practice looking at them, describing them, and deciding what type of deposit they are. A stratigraphic section is basically a place where you can see lots of different layers of rocks or volcanic deposits all stacked on top of each other in one place. It’s important to study these because it’s the easiest place to learn what all the different layers look like, since in many places only some of the units will be present and it isn’t nearly as easy to tell them apart.

A few choices early on. We took the Puniho track for a couple of kilometers…
…before we eventually branched off in order to drop down into some of the stream beds where the interesting deposits are.
And by drop down, I do mean drop!
Some of the drop-ins were more conventional, but for this one we got to rappel down an awesome chain-link rope
We crossed a stream or two this way until we got to the one we were looking for.
Once we got into Maero Stream, instead of crossing over, we started hiking upstream.

Once we found Maero Stream, we hiked up and down a bit looking for the “type section”, which is basically the very best stratigraphic section anyone has found of a particular sequence of deposits, and therefore the best place to learn about them.

It’s important to know where you are and where you’re going! I’d premarked our destinations during preparations for the trip.
Taking down a GPS location makes it easier to find the same location on a future trip
The type section! Sort of. Look, I know it doesn’t look that exciting, but believe me it’s cool!

What I actually mean when I say “I look at rocks for a living”

Looking at a section is a multi-step process that starts with seeing what you can learn about the outcrop from a distance. How many different layers are there? How thick is each one? What can you tell about each layer on a large scale? Basically, ask as many questions as I can think of and see how many I can answer.

I’m not very good at drawing, but I do my best to make a sketch of the whole outcrop.
Scale is really important for knowing how thick different deposits are. We measured our deposit depths in Tims. I can see about 5 seperate layers in this section. Can you?

That’s followed by going up close and looking at each layer individually. How big are the biggest rocks in a layer? How small are the smallest ones? What type of rocks are they? Do the rocks get bigger or smaller as you look up or down? Are similar size rocks grouped together or is it totally random? Answering these questions may help me figure out other things about the deposit, like where it came from, how hot it was, and more.

Up close and personal with some of the deposits. Don’t forget the scale!
See how the rocks are really angular? That’s something worth noting.
And see here that all the different sizes of rocks are mixed up together? Also important.
Manu showing me what to look at.
Here’s some really really fine stuff…no bigger rock pieces to be found.

After looking at the type section, we went on to look for some “reference sections,” which are basically more good spots to see a particular formation, just not quite the best ones. That involved crossing some more streams and led, finally, to some awesome views of the big guy himself.

Just peeking out over the trees, but wait for it, there’s more…
Some more interesting deposits we saw on the way.
“Bathing” under a “waterfall”
One of the streambeds from above. Ideally, as on this day, they won’t have too much water in them while I’m there.
BOOM!

Getting to the reference section involved hiking up the Stony River (also called the Hangatahua River), the largest, wettest river in the area by a solid margin. Even on this dry day it was pretty big, and will probably be pretty hard to cross except in the driest of times, which meant I had to look at a lot of stuff from a distance.

The Stony River. There’s water, really, there is!
Taranaki photobombing a nice picture of some geologists.
There’s the reference section!
Some pretty obvious layering.
There’s all the water!
6/8s of the team.

And that was pretty much it for the day other than the hike out. Part of doing this kind of fieldwork involves being patient and being happy with what you got done for the day. While there will be some days where I take tons of samples or look at a bunch of sites really close together, there will be others like this one where you walk pretty far just to see one particular site and have to be satisfied with that as a productive day.

The goal of the next day was to check out a few spots I had marked off outside the park to look at a different unit. While the Maero Fm. we were looking at the previous day is only up to 800 years old and from the volcano’s most recent active period, this day we’d be looking at the Warea Formation, deposits from activity closer to 10,000 years ago. The idea is to look for comparisons between the two units from different time periods but in the same area–how were the conditions similar or different the last time the volcano erupted in the same location?

So we jumped in the car and gave chase. Alright, so we weren’t driving all that fast. And the things were were chasing were inanimate objects that have been there for a few thousand years and probably aren’t going anywhere. Still, it’s more fun to think of myself as a rock bounty hunter tracking down my quarry (bad geology pun alert!)?

The Warea Formation in the Stony River
See how rounded the big rocks are compared to the ones from the day before? Signs of a lahar!
Shovels are good for more than just digging.
The most steadfast of the crew that remained till the bitter end.
There sure are a lot of stones in the riverbed…wonder if it’s a coincidence…

Whereas the deposits we looked at in the park mostly showed characteristics of a hot pyroclastic flow, the things we looked at outside the park looked different, more likely being a cold, wet lahar. Except, there was more to see…

The mystery unit…whoooooooaaaaooooo!
Taranaki surrounded by clouds and cows, as it usually is
The lumpy landscape means there was a massive debris avalanche here a long time ago
But now you can drive right through it!

There was one unit that had some characteristics of both hot and cold deposits! Tricky, indeed. That’s where my paleomagnetic methods should come in handy. Later on, when we come back and sample, I should be able to do pmag lab work that will give me a better idea of what type of deposit we were looking at.

With the hard work mostly over, we decided to relax and eat our lunch at the beach. And by beach I mean more rocks. Also, we made a friend!

A lot of Taranaki beaches are pretty rocky
It’s possible he only liked us because we were eating sandwiches
But he was super friendly either way!

And there’s another field trip in the books. Can’t wait to get back with some sampling gear to start the real work!

July 7, 2015

A Mission Statement (and a Smorgasbord of Other Stuff)

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks, and will probably continue to be so, in terms of geology. A combination of factors (weather, people’s availability, etc.) mean we probably won’t do another trip for a bit, so I can talk about a mishmash of other random stuff in the meantime.

So what are you actually doing?

I’ve mentioned bits here and there so far about the work I’m doing, but I haven’t yet really explained what it is I’m doing in New Zealand, so here goes… While understanding the mechanics of how volcanoes erupt is extremely important and interesting,  and lava and explosions are super cool, the part of volcanic eruptions that interest me the most is the way in which they impact the people living nearby (and not so nearby). I want to look at how the hazards that come from volcanoes affect people and how to communicate to people the dangers they face as a result of living near an active volcano.

For my project I’m focusing on a particular volcano, Mt. Taranaki, and a particular type of hazard, lahars. As I may have mentioned at some point, lahar is the general geological term (taken from Indonesian) for a volcanic mudslide. What makes lahars different from other volcanic hazards is that they can (like lava, ash clouds, etc.) happen during an eruption, but they can also happen shortly after an eruption, or during a period in which there is no eruption at all. This is because they can be triggered by all sorts of things, from eruptions to earthquakes to snowmelt to excessive rainfall. They can travel at speeds up to 60 mph and distances over 100 mi from the volcano, so they’re obviously pretty dangerous.

What I’m doing is using a variety of methods including sedimentology, geochemistry, and paleomagnetism, to reconstruct the history of lahars on Mt. Taranaki. Basically, where did they go, when did they go there, and how often did they go to different locations? I’ll get into the methods more as I actually do them, but it always starts with going into the field. We’ll be hiking around the river catchments to find lahar deposits and then taking good notes, photos, and samples when we find them. Hopefully the result will be a better understanding of the hazards posed by the volcano, which we will then communicate to the people living in towns and farms on the flanks of Mt. Taranaki.

Planning the next trip on my homemade map

While I’m in the office, I mostly read lots academic papers that relate to my research and try to compile all the useful information from them in an organized way. I also look at maps and create plans for future fieldwork. For example, based on papers I’ve read I’ve picked out a number of sites to go look at on our next trip (whenever that is). Once we’ve taken a good look at different spots and picked the best ones, we’ll gather our equipment (hopefully in August or September) and go collect some samples to take back to the lab for various tests.

So what are you actually doing? (Non-geology edition)

In between planning more research trips and getting work done at the university, I’ve had time to get around and outside of Auckland a bit more. Whether it’s just taking a walk, playing with all the awesome cats that seem to hang out on my street (and getting to work late as a result), or checking out some of the local establishments, it’s good to see new parts of the city whenever I get the chance.

Highway that runs east along the southern shore of the harbor
The harbor. A boat.
More harbor
Even pretty random parts of Auckland can be quite nice
Ridiculously photogenic cat
I haven’t gone inside…yet.
You can see the City Centre from all over

For example, there’s a really nice French market pretty close to my house that I go to every weekend that has awesome producey type stuff and awesome Italian cheeses. And there’s a nice walk that I can take to or from work though Auckland Domain (a massive park) if I’m not in a hurry and the weather is nice.

Constant sun showers equals tons of rainbows! 🙂
The French market. It’s a bit more pleasant when the weather is nice
Lots of vegetables.
Walk home through the Domain
Jon Snow tries to sell me shoes (or cologne?) every day on my way to work

For getting out of the city, a couple weekends ago I took a trip with some friends to Muriwai beach on along the coast about an hour west of Auckland. It was a nice black sand beach to take a walk along, and there were lots of people kite surfing on some pretty rough looking waves.

Muriwai beach
Kite surfing looks fun!
Driftwood! Yeah!
The impassable “river” that marked the end of our walk

And I wouldn’t be a geologist if I didn’t spend at least a couple moments geeking out over the cool dunes and ripples and stuff.

Yay ripples!
Don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s geology for sure!
More of End-of-the-Road River

On another recent weekend, we took a trip to the beach house (called a Bach in New Zealand, see below) of a friend. It was a chance to head east of Auckland, I hadn’t gone in that direction yet. After the insanity of Houghton winter and a particularly harsh NJ winter over the last two years, I wasn’t really looking forward to skipping summer and immediately having another winter upon arriving in NZ. But if “winter’ and “beach weather” can sometimes be synonymous here, I guess I can’t complain.

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A quick lesson in NZ English. Study up, there will be a quiz later.

The Kiwi accent and vocabulary is definitely distinct. In terms of accent, out of American, British, and Australian, it’s probably closest to Australian, but very clearly different once you hear it enough. And in terms of vocabulary, it has an interesting mix of words from other types of English (siding with American over British English more often than you’d expect), and plenty of unique words on top of that. Here are a few of the ones I’ve encountered so far just for fun:

Bach – A beach house. Doesn’t have to be particularly fancy, not just for rich people.

Superette/Dairy – A corner store/convenience store.

Scroggin – Definitely my favorite new word. Kiwi for trail mix.

Four wheel drive – SUV (and a mini van is a people-mover).

Pissing down– Raining really hard.

Flash – As an adjective instead of flashy, showy, etc.

Yum – As an adjective instead of yummy, ie. “That dish is so yum!”

Several foods/cooking terms – Bell pepper = capsicum, zucchini = courgette, granola = muesli, ribeye = scotch fillet, broil (us) = grill (nz), grill (us) = barbecue (nz),  ketchup = tomato sauce (pretty much, at least), sweet potato = kumara, kiwi = kiwifruit (to distinguish from the bird and the people!), entree (us) = main (nz), appetizer (us) = entree (nz), jello (us) = jelly (nz), jelly (us) = jam (nz)

Tramping – Hiking, but sort of more serious than just day-hiking. Stuff at outdoor shops would be called tramping gear.

Keen – Enthusiastic or interested. You’d really commonly say “I’d be keen” to go somewhere/do something.

Good on ya, mate – Praise if someone says something you approve of or does something good. This is one of those stereotypical ones that are just fun to see that people really do say, like when I got to Italy and realized people actually do say Mamma mia!

And that’s the deal!

Slow times, but I’m still trying to take a trip or two somewhere when I can. In the meantime, I can work on more mundane stuff like getting an NZ driver’s license (almost done), finding a place to play tennis (and people to play with; still working on it), and watching the world cup at work instead of working (though I guess that form of procrastination is no longer available. Yay America!).