Pre-season maintenance at the recharge pond

In preparation for the rainy winter season, Nick Oldum and I visited the ground water recharge research pond near Monterey, CA during mid-December.   Learn more about this ongoing research project here. 

It was beautiful weather for setting up an electrical resistivity line!

Most of our efforts were focused on  replacing the electrodes in the same position as last year using survey tools.

Biogeophysics Research in Caribou Bog, Maine

These are some photos from field work in Caribou Bog (Orono, Maine, USA) where we are working on an NSF-funded project led by Dr. Lee Slater, Dr. Karina Schafer and Dr. Xavier Comas to investigate the role of peatlands in the global carbon cycle. This project combines geophysical measurements of the organic soil with gas flux measurements of methane to the atmosphere.

Here, new PhD student Zhongjie "Jay" Yu checks up on the automated gas sampling system.

Two undergraduate researchers Wagner and Paul make ground-penetrating radar measurements inside a tent constructed to allow instrument operation even in pouring rain.

A view of one of the pools in Caribou Bog with a gas flux chamber in the center of the shot.

Here Zhongjie and Neil Terry (also a new PhD student) make borehole ground-penetrating radar measurements.

High school students introduced to environmental geophysics

This month, I've been working with high school students in a summer geoscience institute here at Rutgers University. The course covers a variety of topics from rocks and minerals to pollution to energy and jobs. On several days during the course, we had the opportunity to use environmental geophysics instruments to expose the students to this exciting geoscience subdiscipline.

Seismic data acquisition is always a big hit! Students enjoy pounding the ground with a hammer acting as a seismic source for our SmartSeis instrument.

Here we investigate acoustic wave propagation and explore seismic refraction and reflection concepts. Students have the opportunity to examine simple seismic records and learn about how material velocity is important to interpretation.

On a field trip to Harriman State Park, NY, students used a magnetometer to explore for anomalies below a parking lot.

Here, Kisa Mwakanyamale (center, gray shirt) explains ground-penetrating radar data interpretation. In this "geophysical piñata" exercise, students hunted for buried candy using a Malå 500 MHz instrument.