In the Company of Volcanoes

-Alison Volcanoes in Space! Sounds awesome right? Volcanic activity is one of the major forces that shape the surfaces of planetary bodies, along with meteorite impacts, tectonics (deformation of the planets crust) and action by an atmosphere (wind, water etc). Aren’t there lots of volcanoes on Earth that we need to understand? Why yes, there are, and studying volcanoes on other planets helps us understand Earth volcanoes. One of the reasons I love studying things not on Earth is that they help us question our own basic understanding and assumptions about how things work on Earth. Science is a process, our understanding comes from constantly asking questions and seeking new sources of evidence and ways to test our ideas. The first step to understanding natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions, is we first have to make a few observations and come up with a really simple model of what is happening. That lava flow came out of the ground, therefore lava comes from undergrou...

-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...