Solomon Islands earthquake sheds light on enhanced tsunami risk

University Park, Pa. -- The 2007 Solomon Island earthquake may point to previously unknown increased earthquake and tsunami risks because of the unusual tectonic plate geography and the sudden change in direction of the earthquake, according to geoscientists.

On April 1, 2007, a tsunami-generating earthquake of magnitude 8.1 occurred East of Papua New Guinea off the coast of the Solomon Islands. The subsequent tsunami killed about 52 people, destroyed much property and was larger than expected.

"This area has some of the fastest moving plates on Earth," said Kevin P. Furlong, professor of geoscience, Penn State. "It also has some of the youngest oceanic crust subducting anywhere."

Subduction occurs when one tectonic plate moves beneath another plate. In this area, there are actually three plates involved, two of them subducting beneath the third while sliding past each other. The Australia Plate and the Solomon Sea/Woodlark Basin Plate are both moving beneath the Pacific Plate.

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Penn State Welcomes Fort Valley State University

Tanya Furman Wins National Award

On November 16, 2005, the White House announced the recipients of the 2005 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM)--a program supported and administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Each award includes a $10,000 grant for continued mentoring work. One recipient was Tanya Furman, professor of geosciences.

Tanya has worked to identify best practices for organizations wishing to develop mentoring programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). She has developed an innovative series of programs that promise a substantial effect on increasing underrepresented students considering STEM-based career opportunities, and has built collaborative relationships at other academic institutions that now use her programs. [MORE]

Wilf Awarded Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation recently named 16 new promising scientific researchers as 2005 recipients of Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering. Among this elite group of researchers was Peter Wilf, Assistant Professor of Geosciences and John T. Ryan, Jr. Faculty Fellow. Dr. Wilf will receive an unrestricted research grant for his studies of plant and insect evolution from the fossil record. [MORE]

Volcanoes' inner workings disclosed when the earth moved

While volcanologists can see the dome of the Soufriere Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat grow and collapse, it takes instrumentation to delve beneath the surface. Now, Penn State geologists, using tiltmeter measurements, have investigated a shallow area under the dome and what they found was not quite what they expected.

"The Soufriere Hills volcano has been building a lava dome, collapsing and rebuilding a dome since 1995, when it first erupted," said Christina Widiwijayanti, postdoctoral researcher in geosciences, working with Barry Voight, professor of geosciences. "We are working with data collected from tiltmeters in 1997 to try to understand the volcano's behavior and what is happening inside." [MORE]

Fossil Patagonian plants show high insect feeding diversity 52 million years ago

South America has the most biodiversity of any major region today and according to an international team of researchers, that biodiversity began at least 52 million years ago.

"What defines terrestrial ecology is plant insect interactions," says Peter Wilf, assistant professor of geosciences and the John T. Ryan Jr. Faculty Fellow. "But there is very little information about the history of insects eating plants in South America, despite the tremendous number of plant and animal species there today. This study provides the first window to the past on the South American continent's ancient diversity and abundance of insects on plants 52 million years ago. This ancient biodiversity is a legacy that will help us understand today's South American diversity." [MORE]

New research results published in Science by Professor Charles Ammon yield important clues on the dynamics of the Great Sumatran Earthquake of December 26th, 2004

The earthquake that generated the Sumatran-Andaman Islands tsunami caused massive devastation, but exactly what happened beneath the ocean is the focus of modeling activities by an international team of geoscientists. "The earthquake rupture ran a distance equivalent to the distance from Jacksonville, Fla. to Boston, Mass.," says Charles J. Ammon, associate professor of geosciences at Penn State. [MORE]

The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets

Faculty members Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Richard Alley, and David Pollard are participants in a Science and Technology Center whose mission is to research polar ice and its effect on global climate change. This center was selected to receive $19 million from the National Science Foundation’s Science and Technology Program. NSF will also support field programs to collect data on ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic.

The Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets — or CReSIS — is a multidisciplinary, multi-institution research center led by the University of Kansas, with Penn State, Elizabeth City (N.C.) State University, Haskell Indian Nations University, Ohio State University and the University of Maine as core partners. Sridhar Anandakrishnan of the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Institute is the Associate Director for Science of the center. Evan Pugh Professor Richard Alley and Research Prof. David Pollard are also members of the center.

Researchers believe sea level rise associated with melting of polar ice sheets could affect more than 100 million people and decimate coastal areas — some of the most expensive property in the world. Using a multidisciplinary approach, CReSIS will work to create new technologies for studying polar ice and new means of interpreting the data. The effort will center on remote sensing and integrate expertise in electrical engineering, information technology, aerospace engineering, glaciology, and geophysics.

Researchers will look for several variables such as surface melt rates, ice thickness and internal layering, ice velocities, and ice basal characteristics (temperature, wetness and bed properties, for example). A key innovation of the center will be the ability to design field campaigns to collect a full suite of geophysical and glaciological measurements, guided by satellite measurements and ice-sheet modeling, he said.

The long-term goals of the center are to provide predictions of the future mass balance of the polar ice sheets under a range of possible climate conditions and to increase the number of students and professionals who are contributing to polar research. Center researchers will analyze the data and develop models to further understanding of ice-sheet change among the broader research community, as well as policy makers and the general public. The center will develop programs to take the information to students at all educational levels.

Catching the Melting Bug

I’m dressed for the deep freeze of January in central Pennsylvania when I enter the glass-making lab. But Amy Barnes, a graduate student in the materials science department, has already fired up the "Rapid Temp Furnace" and it’s just a couple of ticks shy of 1200 degrees Celsius, our melting temperature for the day. Heat radiates from the furnace. I shed my winter layers quickly.

1200 degrees Celsius is as hot as lava—the kind that emerges deep from the Earth in places like Hawaii and Iceland to form glassy obsidian, porous scoria, and dense black basalt. Making glass is sort of like making volcanic rock: It’s the same process of superheating following by supercooling.[MORE]

Saving the World, or at least her part of it

When Sara was in her first year as a student at Penn State's Altoona campus, she took a course that really made her stop and think. And she came to the conclusion that she didn't want to stay in her major any longer. Funny how things that sound good in theory don't work out very well in practice. [MORE]

Pennsylvania Floods and the People who get Flooded

Andrew Jones comments:

When I decided to investigate the reasons why people choose to locate their homes in flood hazard areas, I was not prepared for the multitude and complexity of the issues involved in this pressing dilemma. Cultural ties, societal customs, political aims, geographic location, and basic human emotions are all factors that have added fuel to the fire of this seemingly unending conflict between man and nature over the years.[MORE]

Morning Man

Tom Foster thinks he is a shy young man, but when you see him charging around on the raquetball court and the hockey rink, you begin to think you know better. And when you find out he taught scores of underclassmen every week as a teaching assistant for an introductory meteorology course, you know you know better. Tom came to Penn State to be a TV weather forecaster, and got to be one of a select few on-air student forecasters for Penn State Public Broadcasting's Weather World.

But with graduation just around the corner, he isn't planning on pursuing a career in broadcasting. [MORE]

Detecting 'quakes in Antarctica

The science building at McMurdo Station where Don Voigt works stands on stilts so that snow can blow underneath it. The labs inside shake and rattle in the wind, making it difficult for Voigt, a Penn State geologist, to calibrate the intricate equipment that he will use in the field.

Down the hall, heavy freezer doors lead outside where the temperature on a summer day usually reaches five degrees Fahrenheit. A warm day of 32 degrees inspires researchers to dance across the snow in t-shirts and shorts. [MORE]

Probing beneath the surface

Krista Saladino’s introduction to field work was hardly glamorous. "We camped for two nights. The first night we had to set up our tents in the rain," she says grinning. She loved it.

Saladino, a junior studying geosciences, and graduate student Mike Moreland traveled to the Finger Lakes region in summer 2001 to study the health of two lakes in the area. They paddled through water in a bright yellow raft, using a cylindrical probe to measure water temperature, conductivity, salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, and depth. [MORE]

Digging in the desert

Geosciences student Garth Llewellyn once spent three weeks in Egypt digging for water in the sand -- a seemingly futile task. "The locals say that it last rained for 15 minutes...two years ago," he says.

However, flooding is a problem for Elizabeth Walters, a Penn State art historian who is leading the excavation of Hierakonpolis -- one of the most important archaeological sites for understanding the foundations of ancient Egyptian society. Water runoff from the irrigation of nearby sugar cane fields is preventing Walters and her team from uncovering deeply buried temple ruins. [MORE]

Digging in the Lake-bottom Mud

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, geosciences graduate student Courtney Turich may have always wanted to be a research scientist, but you wouldn't know it from her undergraduate studies. She got her Bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts.

Life has its interesting turns, and Courtney got interested in the history of the Earth's climate and all the plants and animals that have flourished in eastern North America since the last Ice Age. And that is what got her diving to the bottom of a lake near Troy, PA to extract samples of the mud that has been building up there for the last several thousand years. [MORE]

From Bubble Sheets to Online Portfolios

Semih Eser appears to be a calm, soft-spoken man. But beneath his placid exterior there is a very focused, driven man. For some reason, he cannot take the easy way when it doesn't go where he wants to go. [MORE]