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23 May 2014
What are the broader impacts of YOUR research?
As a policy fellow for GSA, I spend a lot of time helping support funding for basic scientific research. When we write letters of support to Congress for sustained or increased funding, it’s really important not only to point out the value of basic research in general, but to demonstrate why it’s a good investment.
1 March 2014
“Is the volcano erupting yet?” (A quick Pompeii review)
So, you may have seen me mention on Twitter that I was planning on seeing Pompeii this week – and I did, properly fortified with some nice cider at a nearby pub beforehand. I’m not going to give you the full rundown of the science and history of the eruption, because David Bressan is already working on a series of excellent posts about that. Instead, I’m going to treat this as a quick-and-snarky guide to whether you want the movie to feature at your next “bad geology movie night”.
20 February 2014
Volcanic lightning in the lab and in the ‘wild’
Volcanic lightning is one of the few things that could make an eruption even more spectacular. Doubtless you’ve seen the recent photos of this phenomenon from the eruption of Mount Kelud in Indonesia – lighting up a huge ash plume at night – or from any number of eruptions in the past few years, from Puyehue-Cordón Caulle in Chile in 2011 to Sakurijima in Japan in 2013 to Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland in 2010. …
3 February 2014
Benchmarking Time: Nome, Alaska
Evelyn was good enough to remind me that I should get back to showing off other people’s submissions for my benchmark series, and the recent talk of Alaska being warmer in past days than the East Coast reinforced the gentle poking. A few years back, Evelyn and her husband Jackie spent several months working in Nome, Alaska for a marine mining gold exploration company. She’s got a great series of wonderfully kitschy photos from her trip, but she was kind enough to save a few of an Army Corps of Engineers survey mark they found on one of their local hikes.
24 January 2014
We’ve got to nominate!
Or, why I’m embarrassed that I’ve never submitted (or supported) a nomination for the AGU Honors Program – and why I’m going to make an effort to change that.
13 December 2013
AGU Fall Meeting 2013: Thursday
Today was finally a chance to slow down and listen to people talk (instead off talking nonstop myself, which has of course resulted in the traditional mid-week AGU sore throat). In the morning I attended a public affairs session about the intersection of science and policy, something that I spend much of my time thinking about nowadays.
9 December 2013
AGU Fall Meeting 2013: Monday
I’m going to try out a new approach this year, and see if I can do some ‘liveblogging’ as I attend events rather than waiting until the end of the day to do a summary. I expect, in the nature of all confererncee blogging, thatI will end up getting worse and worse at updating as the day goes on, but it’s worth an attempt!
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10 August 2013
Fiddling on a crater: Panther Mountain, New York
In my spare time, I play violin – orchestra, rock band, and after this past week, fiddle. I just returned from a whirlwind week at a resort in the Catskills that I spent learning how to fiddle from none other than Gaelic Storm, and on top of the fantastic time we had and wonderful people I met, the scenery wasn’t so bad either. In fact, I spent a good bit of time geeking out about the fact that the resort sits on the edge of the Panther Mountain Impact Structure.
26 July 2013
Streamflow and storms at Glen Falls
In between bouts of hottish weather (I don’t count it as hot unless it’s well into the nineties and the humidity is fairly high) and the occasional cool day like today, we’ve been having some fairly spectacular thunderstorms in Buffalo. That’s no unusual thing in the summertime, but after teaching a chunk of an intro course about streamflow and what happens after it rains, I’ve started paying more attention to water features in my area.
5 June 2013
Benchmarking Time: Kilauea Caldera and Kilauea Iki, Hawaii
Buffalo is actually a lovely place to be in the summer even though it’s feeling very summerlike right now. But I wouldn’t pass up another chance to revisit the Big Island, because it’s a fantastic place to be at any time of the year. One of my favorite parts of the island, aside from the malasada shops, is Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. (Bet you couldn’t see that one coming!) I’ve been lucky enough to go there three times – once with William & Mary’s regional geology course, once with UH Hilo’s volcanology field course, and once with my parents for vacation. I loved showing my parents the park, since I’d been there with the William & Mary crowd the year before, and because I was finally getting a chance to show them what a volcano is really like.
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.