Hammertime: THOR’s Cores
text by Linda Welzenbach and Becky Minzoni; images by Linda Welzenbach “Where’s the mud, people?” asks marine technician Joee Patterson from the doorway of the E-lab the morning of 6 March. If all goes to plan, THOR’s Hammer would deliver 8 cores of mud from the deep sea in front of Thwaites over the next […]
THWAITES Glacier: There and gone
On the afternoon of the 21st, The Palmer began its 13-knot transit from Rothera to Thwaites Glacier. All our fingers were crossed that the ice would not prevent the Palmer from getting close to the ice shelf. The captain maintained that weather and ice conditions would determine just how close we would get to the […]
Life on the Research Icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer
By Peter Sheehan and Linda Welzenbach The Nathaniel B Palmer is, without a doubt, one of most amazing places I can say I call home. It is taking us places that even those of us who are “Old Antarctic Explorers” have never seen. The Palmer can manage Southern Ocean tempests, dodge amazing icebergs, glide […]
THWAITEing….At Rothera Station
text and images by Linda Welzenbach On the 15th of February, the Palmer had to make an emergency transit to the closest base for a medical evacuation. Although EMT trained ASC staff can work remotely with doctors to solve many issues, some ailments require higher order facilities and care. So off to the British […]
Island Days (Part II) – TARSAN Partners with the Natives: Seals!
text and images by Linda Welzenbach Science advances in many ways, with enhancements in methods and instruments that improve the quality of the data we collect and enable the exploration of new frontiers. Yet despite all we know about our ocean, it arguably remains one of Earth’s greatest remaining frontiers. Add in icebergs, sea ice, […]
Island Days (Part 1)- Geologic and Historical Constraints (GHC) on Glacial Advance and Retreat
text and images by Victoria Fitzgerald As I face the glossy orange wall of the Louisiana born ship, the Nathaniel B. Palmer, I prepare to step off the deck and take my first step down the iced over rope ladder. I am getting off the ship to provide technical assistance and optically stimulated luminescence […]
The “Iceberg” Correction
text and images by Linda Welzenbach Since leaving the Chilean coastline, the THOR team has been exploring the sea floor… with sound. Similar to the way that sea mammals communicate with each other over long distances and submarines avoid obstacles, scientists use sound to “see” the bed surface and ultimately map the ocean bottom. […]
The J-Team
text and images by Linda Welzenbach All field-based science conducted on board and beyond the Nathaniel B. Palmer would not be possible without the support of the Marine technicians. They are in charge of on-board deck operations, ship to shore operations, and the safe deployment and recovery of scientists, scientific tools and equipment. Within a day after leaving Punta […]
NBP’s Current Path Approaches the Second of Two Low Pressure Systems
text and images by Linda Welzenbach Waves approaching 15 feet are regularly inundating both the lower and the main deck (where our berth is located). Viewing the maelstrom from the large windows of the aft winch control room where I’m sitting, I can forget the sea sickness for a bit as I watch the incredible power and beauty of the […]
First Things First
text and images by Linda Welzenbach After 24 hours of travel from Houston, Texas to Punta Arenas, Chile, I arrived exhausted yet excited (and perhaps just a wee bit anxious of the unknown) to be part of something very unique. My name is Linda Welzenbach and my role on this expedition is to share the […]
Sea Ice at Thwaites Glacier
Like all good explorers who are preparing for the unknown, I went looking for information about what to expect in the place where we will spend the better part of two months. Thanks to Rob Larter who had tweeted information about the sea ice in December, I found Sentinel-1 SAR imagery imagery that shows the […]
THOR 2019 Cruise News- THOR team gets ready to set sail for Antarctica
In just a little less than one week, the THOR (Thwaites Glacier Offshore Research) science team members (including EEPS science writer Linda Welzenbach) will embark on a two month cruise to the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica. The mission: collect sediment cores from the seafloor beyond Thwaites Glacier that record its past behavior. They will also collect […]
Advocates For Science
From a steadily growing interest by the scientific community along with increased demand by educators and policy makers, science communication has become the need of the hour. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) launched the Voices for Science Program to help the geoscience community meet those needs. The program aims to help train scientists from all stages […]
Reach for the Stars STEM Festival 2018
The twelfth annual ‘Reach for the Stars Stem Festival‘ , co-sponsored by the Ride Family Foundation and Rice Space Institute, was held at Rice University on Saturday, April 21st. It was a spectacular success. This festival, which targets middle school girls, includes a street fair, an inspiring talk by a woman astronaut, and roughly thirty […]
ESCI 321 &322 Field Trip: Tales of Mud Volcanoes, Evaporite Deposits and Lava Tubes.
This blog describes the 5-day field trip for the Fall 2017 ESCI 321 and 322 classes to Southern California from October 6 and 10, 2017. The trip was led by professors Cin-Ty Lee and Rajdeep Dasgupta, and reported by undergraduate students Kendra Baldwin, Kyle Bartsch, Simon Chan, Aitash Deepak, Jennifer Kroeger, Jason Mendez, Jared […]
AAPG-RICE CANADIAN ROCKIES FIELD TRIP 2016
The AAPG Canada Region welcomed Rice AAPG Student Chapter for a four day guided transect through the Canadian Rockies. This trip was supported in part by funds provided by SHELL. Trip Leaders: Dr. Clinton Tippett (Geoscience Leader), Dr. Kevin Root (Geoscience Leader) and Dr. Malcolm Ross (SHELL – Rice University) Assistant trip leaders: Lacey Pyle […]
Rice University scientists propose that life in the solar system could have been very different
The Solar System of Forking Paths: Bifurcations in Planetary Evolution and the Search for Life-Bearing Planets in Our Galaxy Lenardic A., Crowley J.W., Jellinek A.M., and Weller M.. Astrobiology. June 2016, 16(7): 551-559. doi:10.1089/ast.2015.1378. —From Rice News… Rice University scientists propose that life in the solar system could have been very different If conditions had […]
AAPG Annual Convention & Exhibition, Calgary (2016)
Students, staff, professors, and alumni from Rice University, Department of Earth Science attended the AAPG, Annual Convention & Exhibition, Calgary 2016 from June 20th – June 23rd. Faculty – André W. Droxler Adjunct – Vitor Abreu, Paul M. (Mitch) Harris, Stephanie Shipp Alumni – Vitor Abreu, Martha Lou Broussard, Gary Couples, Gulce Dinc, Hunter Lockhart, Bob Milam, Jack Neal, Stephanie Shipp, Joan Spaw, Richard Spaw, Nana Xu, […]
ESCI 546 Basin Analysis: Field Trip to Ireland
Overview ESCI 546 “Advance Topic in Basin Sedimentology and Stratigraphy ” participated in a field trip to County Clare, western Ireland, from May 2nd to May 12th, 2016. The class visited sea-cliff exposures of rocks found in the Western Irish Namurian Basin (WINB), which were deposited during the Upper Carboniferous (326 Ma – 317 Ma). The […]
A Graduating Senior’s Geologic Retrospective
I am Adeene Denton, a senior in this Earth Science department, and that means I’m graduating in a very short time because Rice has decided that I am worthy even if I still feel like I have so, so much to learn. I want to thank the department and look back on what it did […]
Earth Structure and Deformation: Field Trip 2016
It was a nice and sunny Saturday when we started our journey on I-10 going west of Houston. We crossed Pleistocene and thin Pliocene rocks until we were near the Little Low Miocene Hills of Columbus, a very small strip. Finally, we arrived at our first stop where lower Cretaceous rocks onlap onto basement rocks. […]
ESCI 322 Field Trip: Mysterious Visitors from the Deep
This blog describes the 3-day field trip that the Fall 2015 ESCI 322 class took to northern California with Professors Cin-Ty Lee & Rajdeep Dasgupta and TA Laura Carter, as told by the undergraduate students: Sofia Avendano, Anthony Foster, Alexandra Homes, Garrett Lynch, Oliver Lucier, Ian Mellor-Crummey, Leila Wahab, Shannon Wang, and Sam Zapp. Day 1: […]
PetroChallenge 2015
Some Rice Earth Science students participated in PetroChallenge, an event sponsored by Schlumberger’s NExT. It is a two day, simulation-based, exploration and production-themed game where you are partnered with people from other backgrounds. There were a lot of Rice Earth Science PSM students. On the regular-track thesis program side, it was just me and my office […]
12th Annual Women’s Energy Network YWE Event
As two other undergrads and four grad students, we helped out at the Women’s Energy Network’s (WEN) 12th annual Young Women Energized (YWE) event. A lot of acronyms… We set up a small booth and then later broke into small discussion panels to talk to some Houston high school girls about getting a degree in […]
Cascades Field Trip: A Volcanic Blast!
Sept 30th: Dr. Helge Gonnermann’s Volcanic, Magmatic, and Hydrothermal Processes class set off dark and early Wednesday morning from Houston to the Cascades of California, Oregon, and Washington. We ventured across this varied volcanic terrain interpreting and learning about local and regional geologic events. The Cascades are an active continental volcanic arc resulting from the […]
Mw 8.3 September 16, 2015 Illapel, Chile Earthquake
On September 16, 2015, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake occurred offshore of Illapel, Chile along the interface between the subducting Nazca and overriding South America plates. Here I’ve used seismic data recorded in North America to image the source distribution of high-frequency energy radiated during this event using a method called back-projection. The initial 60 seconds […]
Working for the Government: Nisqually Wildlife Refuge 2015
This summer, I left the warm embrace of Houston and embarked to work for the U.S.G.S. as part of a Field Intensive Summer Internship program at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Olympia, Washington. For three months, I experienced life in the northwest, and even got to try my hand at being an ecologist. The […]
Cambrian Stromatolites in Central Texas – video!
Watch Andre Droxler and his students talk about their research on Cambrian stromatolites out in Central Texas!
Rice Earth Scientists at CIDER 2015 Summer Program
Several Rice Earth Scientists (PhD students Laura Carter, Shuo Ding, Michael Farner, and Lacey Pyle, post-doc Julia Ribiero, and Professor Helge Gonnermann) have just returned from the month-long CIDER workshop hosted at UC Berkeley in California. CIDER (Cooperative Institute for Dynamic Earth Research) is a FESD-funded grant tasked with the ambitious goals of: 1) providing […]
ESCI 322 – Going Across Southern California
Students in 322 go on a geology trip across southern California led by their professor Cin-Ty Lee and graduate student Hehe Jiang. This is a mid-term field trip that the department has used to give a students a chance to apply some of their classroom knowledge to the field. When it comes to looking at […]
Earth Science ESCI 334 Field Trip
ESCI 334 is one of the Earth Science department’s capstone undergraduate courses. The field trip takes us to a location near San Ysidro, New Mexico, because of the easy access to phenomenal rock exposures, which span approximately one billion years of geological time. Students map in detail rocks that were folded and faulted during the […]
RUGS Students Visit 1 Billion-year-old Serpentinite
How do you get water back into the mantle? Serpentinites, of course! The main source of water in magmatic arcs like the Cascades comes from altered oceanic lithosphere. Interaction of the seafloor results in extensive hydration of the crust and lithospheric mantle, resulting in the conversion of olivine-rich rocks (peridotite) to a green phyllosilicate-bearing rock […]
New Micro-XRF installed – time to play!
A new micro-XRF element mapper (Horiba XGT 7000) has been installed on the third floor. This instrument excites atoms using a Rhodium x-ray source and measures the energy of the re-emitted x-rays using energy dispersive spectrometry. This instrument generates qualitative elemental maps at 50 or 100 micron spatial resolution and can handle sample sizes up to 10 […]
