In the Company of Volcanoes

- Dr. Janine Krippner and Dr. Alison Graettinger Conferences mean many things. We get to see our co-blogger in person, go on field trips where we learn about new volcanoes from the people who have studied them, attend workshops and panels, make new friends, and race from talk to poster sessions to take in as much volcano science as we can. The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI) 2017 conference is being held in Portland Oregon this August. The theme is 'Fostering Integrative Studies of Volcanism'. The conference will be attended by more than 1,000 volcanologists from around the world and many will be sharing their experience on Twitter using the hashtag #IAVCEI2017 . This year we are both going on field trips and presenting some of our recent research at this conference so there will be a lot of conference to share. Janine will be presenting her work on the Shiveluch dome collapse events and block-and-ash flow (BAF...

-Alison  No, really! I’ve walked in the same places that the Apollo astronauts honed their geology skills here on Earth. Actually, many a geologist has trained in locations that were used for Apollo training for the precise reason that they are great places to learn geology. Apollo training locations include a fair number of volcanoes, a few impact craters, and other barren rocky landscapes. The point of training, after all, was to prepare them to describe the rocky and otherworldly surface of the moon, and the moon is covered in lava and lots of big impact craters.  Volcanic moon rock at the Chabot Space Center in Oakland California. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.   I encourage geologists and outdoor enthusiasts alike to check out this list of training locations and see how many places you have been that was used to prepare the Apollo astronauts for the moon. I was pleased to note how many places I have visited. In fact, many of the training lo...