11 August 2011
What I did this summer:
Posted by Jessica Ball
Went to work at a not-so-super-secret government lab:
Got in touch with my inner river rat:
The Rio Grande "Racetrack" below Taos
Did a little caving:
Interior of the Soda Dam near Jemez Springs, NM
Experienced a natural disaster (not good for my particular natural hazard research, by the way):
Smoke from the Las Conchas Fire rising over Los Alamos
Fire in the Jemez Mountains
Explored some ruins:
A kiva at Pecos National Historic Monument
Split a few rocks:
The mine works at the Harding Pegmatite Mine
Drove through a volcano:
Valle Grande in the Valles Caldera (with scorch marks on the grass from wildfire)
This sign has become a little superfluous.
Drove up a volcano:
Capulin Volcano near Raton, NM
View from the top of Capulin, looking out over the Raton-Clayton volcanic field
Put 5,000 miles on the car:
On the way to Colorado Springs
Took in some scenery:
Tall...
And came across a W&M alum a bit west of where he’s usually seen:
Watching over the Museum of Westward Expansion in St. Louis
...and on the campus of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.