Volcano monitoring from a distance

In the past few weeks, there has been an eruption that keeps littering my inbox with emails: Bogoslof Volcano, on a tiny island of roughly 1 by 2 km out in the Bering Sea, west of the Alaska Peninsula.

View from a helicopter onto Bogoslof Island. Photo: Dan Leary, Maritime Helicopters

Despite the fact that it's effectively in the middle of nowhere (the nearest town is roughly 100 km away), Bogoslof is an interesting one. Being up in the Aleutian Chain, it sits along a very important corridor for international air traffic. If you remember the chaos all over Europe after the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, it's hardly surprising that monitoring volcanoes even in parts of the world as remote as Alaska is an important task. But how do you monitor a volcano that sits on an uninhabited, far away island?

An obvious answer would be to put a bunch of instruments onto the island. However, the island is so small, so far away from any population, in such a harsh environment, that the Alaska Volcano Observatory has to focus its limited resources elsewhere. In addition, the last eruption previous to this one had occurred in 1992, and it's been at least 40 years since the last eruption before that, so unsurprisingly the volcano was relatively low on the monitoring priority list.

This changed on 20th December 2016, when several pilots in the area reported an ash cloud that had risen up to over 10 km above sea level. Because there is so much air traffic going through the region, reports like that are an important part of monitoring volcanic activity in remote areas. Whereas the eruption had stopped within an hour or two, activity at the Alaska Volcano Observatory certainly wouldn't have.

Data had to be analysed, statements had to be published and scientists were looking for signs of any unrest that may have preceded the eruption. Indeed, looking back through the data, the volcanologists realised that Bogoslof had been showing signs of activity throughout the month of December, and the first explosion may have occurred as early as 16th December. So what kind of data can volcanologists use to monitor Bogoslof?

Even though there are no seismometers on the island itself, nearby Okmok and Makushin volcanoes have extensive monitoring networks. Because seismometers are very sensitive instruments, and volcanic eruptions make the ground shake with waves that can travel a long way, it is actually possible to look at seismic signals from Bogoslof on other islands.

Similarly, microphones recording "infrasound" (i.e. sound at frequencies much lower than the range we can detect with our ears) can detect pressure signals coming from far away, and volcanic eruptions often produce distinct infrasound.

Satellite image show the ash cloud at Bogoslof Volcano on 18th January 2017. Image: NASA Earth Observatory/Jeff Schmaltz

Satellites are also quite useful. A volcanic ash cloud can often be detected from space. Some satellites capture light of many different wavelengths, others can detect different types of gases in the atmosphere, some of which can be traced back to volcanoes. Visual observations by pilots, local residents or fishermen help to complement the picture we get from satellites.

Last but not least, volcanic lightning (i.e., lightning strikes in or around the ash cloud coming up in an eruption) has been an increasingly valuable tool to detect volcanic eruptions over the last few years. Volcanic lightning is still not fully understood and subject to active study by volcanologists around the world, but even without a complete understanding of the exact mechanism it is a spectacular sight and can be used for eruption detection. You can watch lightning happen all around the world through the World Wide Lightning Location Network if you're interested, almost in real time.

Spectacular eruption with volcanic lightning at Mt. Etna, Italy. Photo: Karl-Ludwig Poggemann

At the time of writing this post, Bogoslof continues to have explosions every few hours to days, and scientists are analysing these eruptions through all the different types of data mentioned above, even though there are no instrument directly on the volcano. Pretty amazing, isn't it?

Learning from Darwin - the naturalist approach

An 1871 caricature following publication of Darwin's The Descent of Man. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was one of the most famous naturalists, whose scientific studies included geology, botany, palaeontology, human evolution and more. Image: Public Domain.

I've recently been branching out in terms of topics to write about. I contributed to the Science Borealis blog with two posts: one on rivers and their interaction with the environment, and one reviewing a podcast by CBC on earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest. Whereas earthquake science has always been close to my heart, rivers were not something I used to spend lots of time thinking about. Yet, it has been a very rewarding experience that allowed me to think scientifically about a new topic. It also made me wonder whether as scientists we should be more aware of the old school way of doing science. There was a time when scientists weren't seismologists, or volcanologists, or evolutionary biologists, but really "naturalists", who studied many different things a once, often leading to a less detailed but more complete picture of the world.

On the one hand, we need specialists. It takes time and effort to research the tiniest detail that could push humanity forward. As small as some advances in science seem, it takes years to build the detailed background knowledge to get to that point of understanding.

On the other hand, science couldn't survive without generalists. Inevitably, if time is spent digging deeper and deeper into a particular subject, it becomes more difficult to keep an eye on other branches of our field of study, discipline, or science in general. Without somebody to tie together the big picture, it is easy to get lost in the details of a small subfield of science. Without looking into other disciplines, we may be wasting time by reinventing something that has already been successfully applied in a different context.

In a way, specialists are the pieces and generalists the glue, that holds everything together. As an individual, striking a balance between the two can be tricky. Is the specialist vs. generalist a career decision that needs to be made early on and cannot be reversed? Is this a black or white decision, or can there be a grey area where we place ourselves somewhere along a continuous spectrum between two extremes? How do we interact with each other along this spectrum, and do we need to consider this when assembling scientific projects and teams? Are certain personalities more drawn towards or suited for one or the other?  And last but not least, at times of "publish or perish", can we sustain being generalists without sacrificing our careers, when it may be much easier to publish continuously by becoming an expert in a small discipline and continue building research in the same direction? I would love to hear your thoughts, as comments, or messages, or in whichever way.

Defending my PhD

As promised in the last post, here comes an account of what inevitably follows after 4-5 years of working as a PhD student: The defense! In a Canadian defense the student gets to present the main results from their thesis, the examination committee can ask questions about thesis and the research, and everything is witnessed by anybody who would like to be there. The audience can even ask questions, too! So let's see how mine went:

In Germany, colleagues traditionally make a doctoral hat ("Doktorhut") and decorate it with lots of items that reflect the person, or the research, in some way or another. James got everyone in my office to pitch and make one - don't I look cool?! ;) © James Hickey

After submitting my thesis at the end of April, I scheduled my defense for early July. The time frame was dictated partly by the university in order to give the external examiner enough time to work through the thesis, and partly by time constraints of my supervisor and committee members. I spent most of the time in between relaxing and regaining some of my mojo, which had - not surprisingly - gotten lost a bit during the last frantic weeks of writing. 

Around two weeks before the defense my German-ness kicked in, and I decided it was time to start my preparations. I started out by re-reading my thesis - it's impressive how much stuff you can forget, even if it's your own work, in just a matter of a few weeks! 

The next step was to prepare my presentation. My aim was that the talk itself should be interesting to somebody who doesn't know anything about what I did for my PhD, so I included some background slides that would explain to my mum or my grandma what the basic terms and concepts are. I then spent most of the presentation showing some results from the last chapter of my thesis. That part hadn't gotten as much attention in previous talks, simply because it was the newest addition to my research. This also meant that I was still excited to talk about it - something that wasn't necessarily the case with the previous chapters. It's not that they aren't interesting, it's just a bit tiring to keep talking about the same thing over and over again, and I wanted to make sure that the presentation was exciting to the audience, which is easiest if I - the presenter - was excited about it myself.

I did two practice presentations in front of an audience, one in the actual room where my defense was going to be held. It was nice to get a feel for what the room was going to look and feel like on the day, and to be aware of any peculiarities of the setting (for example, which light switches turn on/off which lights, the fact that the projector cuts of a tiny slice of the left-hand side of the slides, ...). I felt two practice rounds were just about right, anything less than that and I might have not been comfortable with the presentation, anything more and it might have sounded too rehearsed on the day.

The last part of my preparations was supposed to include thinking of questions that people might ask me after the talk, refreshing some of the background knowledge that went into my research, and brushing up on some basic concepts that I may have forgotten about since I applied them for my work. It turned out my motivation for this kind of preparation was fairly low, and with various other things going on there wasn't actually that much time anyways.

So finally, the big day was here! Of course I was super nervous, and showed up half an hour early just to get my bearings, set up my laptop for the presentation, and have some time to breathe. My supervisor, committee, and audience started to dribble in, and the 30 minutes build-up felt like half an eternity. The actual defense, in contrast, went surprisingly quickly. My talk went well and I managed to stay within the allotted time frame. The three rounds of questions that followed (one from the committee, one from the audience, and another one from the committee) were all about parts of my research that I could easily answer - after all I had done the work and thought about everything that went into the thesis for years! That also meant that it wasn't a huge deal that I hadn't been able to "study" or revise much beforehand. After a couple of hours that felt like much less than that, the whole thing was over. The committee sent everyone for a closed discussion, and after only a short while brought me back in to say that I had passed with only minor revisions - yay!

The rest of the day was dominated by lots of cheers, toasts, drinking, eating, and celebrating. My supervisor had put out an invite to everyone in our research group and some other friends to gather at his house for a party, and needless to say after all that I collapsed into bed and slept for a loooong time!

In retrospect, I think my preparations (or lack thereof) worked out quite well. Lots of people said to me beforehand, "Enjoy the process, this day is all about you", but that's much easier said than done. I did find that nobody really wanted to trip me up, and most questions I got reflected that, so the only "prep" that was really needed was to be confident about what I did, and to be open to some potential different approaches or to new perspectives on my research. 

Last but not least, I woke up the next morning, not really feeling any different. With all this build-up over the years, the ups and downs of the research and grad student life, the stress of writing up the thesis, and the tension before the big day, it's almost an expectation that things should be new, and different, somehow, when you're through. And yet - there was nothing! It still hasn't fully sunk in yet, despite having submitted my corrections and officially having finished my programme in the meantime. I do, however, now appreciate much more why people want to use those two letters in front of their name. It's not to say that a PhD, or being a Dr., means you're better than anyone else. It simply means that you've gone through a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears (almost literally) to get to this point, and it feels nice when people acknowledge that. And after all, Dr. K sounds pretty awesome, don't you think? :)

The way through my PhD, and how I managed to get to my defense

That moment that I've been working towards for so long, it's finally here! Just over 2 weeks ago, I successfully defended my PhD thesis. I'm only a few minor corrections away from officially being a Dr. - yay! But let's go back and see how I got here. I'll follow up and tell you about the actual defense in the next post, so stay tuned!

After a bunch of applications and preparation, I started my PhD at UBC in Vancouver in September 2011. The anticipated time to do a PhD at UBC is 4 years, but most people that I know have taken a bit more than that, usually 4.5-5 years. Taking into account my 4-months leave last summer, I managed to fall pretty much exactly into that time frame. 

The first couple of years were quite "slow", meaning that I didn't make tons of research progress. This is quite normal, it took some time to get my bearings in a new city and at a new university, I took some classes, my supervisor was on sabbatical for a year, and we spend some time trying to figure out what exactly I would work on. 

Once we had the details of the project narrowed down, I took my "candidacy exam". The main step was to write a proposal for my work, and then have a "mini-defense" in front of my supervisory committee. This exam exists so they can determine whether I would advance from PhD student to PhD candidate - a first stamp of approval that says, "Yes, we think she will be capable of doing the work and successful in her PhD". Around this time, my supervisor and I agreed that I should have at least three publications in order to finish my degree.

The pace picked up a bit in my third year, when we spent quite some time writing my first publication. It was a slower process than I expected, partly because I had only written a publication with my Master's supervisor, and my PhD supervisor and I needed to work out how to align our writing styles, our ways of thinking, etc. It was really good to do this waaaay before I was due to write my actual thesis, I imagine the thesis would have been quite a big effort otherwise.

In my fourth year, I thought I had a plan and was on schedule to finish by summer 2016 without a huge rush. Of course, the way these things go, the plan fell through and I went on leave for an internship, knowing that I would only have two semesters left when getting back to UBC, and still having to do a TON of research, and write up two publications about said research. 

Those last two semesters, the end of my fourth and beginning of my fifth year were a crazy, crazy time. I spent most of my waking hours trying to get the research done as soon as possible, and at least have my second paper accepted, if not published by the time my thesis needed to be submitted. In addition, I had chosen to move to the UK more or less permanently during that time, so I also had to organize my move and all sorts of logistical issues. 

That second paper took its sweet time, but was finally accepted just a couple of weeks before my thesis was due. Because the revisions for this publication had taken so long, there wasn't much time for paper number 3. Within about three weeks in early-mid April of this year, I churned out my last publication, and managed to get it into a submittable state just in time. We submitted the thesis and the paper a day ahead of schedule, set a date for my defense, took care of all the logistics, and the following weeks were amazingly free of worries and work. 

I'll talk more about the actual defense next time, but for now I want to finish with four take-home points, that will hopefully help you, as a PhD or other graduate student, to focus on what's important and stay on schedule. If you're not in grad school and have no intention of every going down that route, then maybe at least with this post you will have gotten a glimpse into my life for the last few months and years, and forgive me for neglecting my blog or friends for a while here and there.

So here's the gist:

1. Don't worry, if things seem to be progressing quite slowly in the beginning (or almost up to the end). Most people I know did almost all of their really productive work in their last year.
2. Have clear goals set from the start, and make sure you're on the same page as your supervisor (having 3 publications was the goal in my case). That way it's easy for you to check in on the way and decide when to call it a day.
3. Have a plan, but be prepared for things to go wrong - because they will. Inevitably.
4. Try to publish as much as you can on the way, if your university allows it, and use those publications in your thesis. That way you'll have parts of your thesis written way before you're actually thinking about sitting down to write that dissertation.

This last item turned out to be quite important for my defense, as we will see next time...

Science journalism - Or how I met Jonathan Amos

Last week, I was in Vienna for the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Every year, more than 10,000 geoscientists come together in this beautiful city on the banks of the Danube and discuss their latest research results. Along with the scientists, educators, teachers, and policy makers, journalists join the party and report some of the most interesting, surprising, or groundbreaking scientific findings. For the first time, EGU launched a student reporter programme this year. There were five of us students who got to report on aspects of the meeting for some of the EGU division blogs (check out my posts for the EGU Cryosphere Blog here). One of the perks of our reporter status was that we got access to the press office, where I had the chance to have a chat with Jonathan Amos, science correspondent for the BBC.

Jonathan - originally from Bristol, my new home - has been working for the BBC since the mid 90s, but as it turns out he also has a background in science. Originally trained in sociology, he decided to take distance courses at the Open University to learn more about different scientific disciplines after having started working as a reporter. His continuous interest in science is very evident in his reporting, and among other he has been awarded with the prestigious Sir Arthur Clarke Award.

Jonathan's profile on the BBC homepage. I had no idea that he is from Bristol!

As someone who has acquired most of her science communication experience in North America, I was curious about Jonathan's opinion on differences in terms of science journalism on different sides of the Atlantic. Initially, his answer was that he can't think of any fundamental differences. However, when we kept talking about the issue he mentioned that from his view it seems like many science events in North America (such as the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco) do not get covered by the big US television networks. I never noticed that! This issue would probably be relatively easy to fix, and might help with some of polarization the US population is experiencing in terms of whether or not scientific facts are understood and accepted by the general public. 

Related to improving the way scientists communicate with the public, Jonathan made an interesting comment. As a scientist I sometimes read articles in the newspaper and get a bit dissatisfied with the use of some scientific terms. Viewed from a journalistic perspective, however, sometimes scientific accuracy might be less important than using a term that gets the concept across to a reader, in a way where they can relate to the idea with something they are familiar with. Jonathan's example was the term "regolith", which is used to describe the outermost layer of the moon. Even though there is definitely no soil in the scientific definition on the moon, using the term "soil" when we talk about regolith helps to convey the idea that regolith is often quite lose and broken up. I have to agree that using slightly inaccurate analogies might sometimes be good to convey a message. However, many misconceptions about scientific facts come from the use of such analogies. For example, during my outreach visits to schools I've encountered more than one teacher who believe the Earth's mantle is molten. The mantle does "flow" over time periods of many thousands or even millions of years, but there is only a very small amount of actual melt. If teachers have misconceptions about science, these will be passed on to our children, so if science concepts are simplified too much we risk misunderstanding. In the case of "regolith" and other specific terms I think the best option might be to use the term, but explain it properly when it's used the first time. What do you think?

Viewing the conference, geosciences, and science communication from the perspective of a journalist was definitely a unique experience, and one that I wouldn't want to miss. From what I've seen in the press office last week things can get pretty hectic, so I appreciate that Jonathan took the time to sit down with me and answer all my questions. At the end of my interview he told me that he likes to ride his bike, so keep an eye out and maybe you'll see him whizzing past on his way to the next interview...

Want more like this? Check out Science Borealis!

Good news! The Volcano Diaries are now part of the Science Borealis network - lots of awesome blogs about all sorts of science and related topics in  Canada or by Canadian based writers. Click on the image on the right to explore the Science Borealis world.

Being a scientist - Like a girl

The stereotypical geoscientist is, of course, a geologist. And if you're imagining this geologist you might be seeing a man with a lot of facial hair who spends all day hiking around the mountains in trekking shorts and hiking boots, equipped with a compass, a rock hammer, and a hand lens. Geologists like him are maybe what Sheldon Cooper refers to as "the dirt people". I hate to break it to you: Geoscientists come in all shapes and sizes.

First and foremost, there are tons of awesome lady geos out there. Think Martha Savage, who is one of THE people to talk to about seismic anisotropy (or in other words, the fact that earthquake waves can sometimes travel faster in one direction than another, for example), and a brilliant supervisor on top of that. Think Linda Elkins-Tanton, a very inspiring planetary scientist who spent some years in business before going back to grad school and a little while later ended up as the Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington (she is now at Arizona State, also check out this blog post about her time at DTM, and yes, planetary scientists are also geos in a wider sense). Or, if you're more into popular science, this would be a good place for a shout out to my former fellow UBC student Mika McKinnon, who writes awesome geo-related content for space.io9.com. All these ladies, and so many more, are doing awesome things in the name of science - and defeating the stereotype. The campaign #LikeAGirl, which got a little attention boost this weekend after it was aired during the Superbowl, is a great example of how important the fight against these kinds of stereotypes is. And it works even better if we have examples for how to do it, if we find women we can look up to and respect for their achievements. Similar to the Like A Girl campaign, a few months ago some women in science took it upon them to promote the fact that, yes, you can be a girl of any kind (manicured or not) and do great science. Check out some of the tweets:

Fluorescent calcite (orange), willemite (green), and nails (purple/white, $OPI UV topcoat)! #science #manicuremonday pic.twitter.com/rz6Gt57v6T
— Ashley Pagnotta (@ashpags) July 28, 2014

Science means reading a lot of papers and doing a lot of highlighting. #manicuremonday #science pic.twitter.com/GRM75N0g32
— Aly Baumgartner (@kyrietree) July 7, 2014

The rainy season has begun! And many critters have returned, like this beautiful beetle! #science #ManicureMonday pic.twitter.com/Gk6T8Iu1qE
— Erin McKiernan (@emckiernan13) May 26, 2014

Some people complained that this campaign hijacked a hashtag that was maybe meant for young girls. I have to disagree. In a hijacking something is taken away. Showing how you can have hands #LikeAGirl and be an amazing scientist at the same time is hardly taking something away. Quite the opposite, I think it's a great add on.

Being a girl in science is a blessing and a curse. Depending on the field you may be surrounded by the older men, who may or may not think that you are where you belong. In one of my undergrad classes there were 6 of us - 4 guys and 2 girls. We had to take turns in walking through our homework assignments at the blackboard in front of the professor and the rest of the class. When the guys had their turns we all listened to what they had to say and worked on the problem of the assignment. When the other girl or I had our turns we had to write out our solution while the prof was sitting down and making comments along the lines of "Pfff, girls, they don't belong in science, not a clue what they're doing". In the end, our final grade was down to written work, and he had no choice but to give me the top grade in the class alongside one of the guys. When we came to pick up our exams and get our grades he made a big point to congratulate my (male) friend (who got the other top grade). After my friend pointed out to the prof that I had gotten the same grade the prof started stuttering and mumbling something like "yeah, but you were better". I can only laugh about this guy. Of course this is only a minor problem compared to some other stories, and definitely nothing that would have kept me from doing what I set out to do. But you never know. From being ignored through harassed to assaulted - sadly we've heard it all. 

On the other hand, being a girl comes with certain (legit) advantages. In many scientific disciplines we are far from a gender balance, especially when it comes to leadership positions. According to the 2011 report from the American Geoscience Institute, only 30% of the US geosciences workforce are women, even though girls get 40% of the geoscience degrees. That means that if you decide to stay in the field as a woman, you might have slightly better chances compared to a guy with the same qualifications, just because of the "minority" status women have. This advantage may sound unfair to some guys, and it really is, but sadly, until we have a gender balance or something close to it (particularly at the leadership level) I don't think we can afford to not implement this kind of decision making. 

All the same applies not to just to gender, but also to ethnicity, social background, age, and who knows what. Ultimately, I'm going to be optimistic and say that maybe one day we can be balanced scientific society, where hiring decisions are made on scientific merit alone. I hope that the little girls of today, like those in the Like A Girl campaign (also check out this great article) will grow up and run, throw, drive, laugh, cry, sing, do maths, paint, dance, play football - like girls who came into a world with a little less stereotyping. I personally tend to do things to the best of my abilities and knowing when to accept defeat - I run like me (not very far), throw like me (not even 5 meters), do science like me (lots of volcanoes and computers involved), and I stand up for myself like me: According to my dad, my teacher in primary school once told him a story from a field trip where the boys treated one of the girls in some unfair way, so that little 8-year old me ended up scolding them all so vigorously that the whole episode made a lasting impression in the teacher's mind for over a decade (and maybe it's still in there...). I think I stuck to that habit, and I'm not planning on letting go any time soon. #LikeAGirl

A road to studying volcanoes

Whether I'm at a party or talking to strangers on a plane - the question "What do you do for a living?" is almost always followed at one point or another by "How did you get into that?".

Sometimes I even ask myself this question. Ten years ago, when I finished high school (yes, I'm that old...), I certainly didn't have the faintest idea that life was going to take me right to this point. Yet, here I am. So whether you're curious about my path, or trying to determine whether it's the right one for you, let's explore how I ended up in the here and now.

1. Geophysics.

In Germany, geophysics isn't really much on people's radar. Having grown up there, it wasn't on mine either. When I was little, maybe 7 or so, I thought whales and dolphins were really cool, so I wanted to be a marine biologist (yep, 7-year old me was that specific). A couple years later, inspired by who-knows-what, I thought archeologist would be a better idea. This phase was soon followed by my Egyptologist period, when I loved everything from scarabs to hieroglyphics, and was extremely excited about finally getting history classes in school in grade 6. What I didn't realize at the time was that all these lines of employment (or lack thereof?) have something in common: I've always loved to study things, alive (dolphins) or dead (neanderthal men, pharaohs), and I've always loved mysteries. In a way, this is what science is all about: solving puzzles. 

The closer I got to the end of high school the more urgent became the question of what I thought I was going to do with my life. I had lots of favourite subjects in school - languages, maths, physics, and geography - which didn't make the choice any easier. I took tests in newspapers which were supposed to give me the answer. Needless to say, even though the results brought some interesting ideas they didn't solve the problem. In the end, my Mom - inadvertently - gave me the deciding clue. She asked me whether maybe I would enjoy studying meteorology. Her suggestion didn't throw me into complete ecstasy, but was worth taking into consideration, so I flipped open the "career bible", a book published by the German Employment Agency every year summarizing almost any study or career choice you can imagine. The page about meteorology read somewhat interesting, but it really hit me when I flipped to the next page and saw the headline "geophysics". You mean you can combine all the cool topics from geography with physics and that is actually a thing? Even better, they offered a program in Munich, really close to where I grew up. My first decision was made: I was going to give this at least a try.

I looked up a professor in the geophysics department in Munich, Heiner Igel, and sent him an email. For some magical reason he agreed to meet me if I was going to come to Munich to pay the department a visit. In retrospect I realize that this was probably a very special and amazing act of friendliness of him - which professor takes time to meet with a high school student who may or may not be interested in his subject? He invited me into his office, told me about his research and then took me to one of his classes. It was a 3rd year class or so, everything was in English, and little high school me only understood about 25% of what was going, but those 25% really captured my attention. After the class, he introduced me to two of his Master's students who added the final bit: You could go hiking in the mountains, or travel to remote destinations for work? I was in! I signed up for a geosciences Bachelors degree.

2. "Fernweh" - or The nomad story.

During my high school years I had already wanted to go overseas - it just never worked out. Ok, I had done 3 student exchange/language school visits to England and 1 to France, but it just wasn't enough. I needed more. A mapping field trip to the Italian island of Elba and a volcanology field trip to the Canaries just made my travel bug more impatient. I needed to go somewhere - far away! And indeed, for my Master's degree I ended up about as far away from Germany as you can get: New Zealand! I had worked hard for about a year and a half, contacting geosciences departments, applying for scholarships, university housing, etc, before I finally stepped onto that plane into the big unknown. The fact that I didn't know a single person in this country on the other side of the world that I had never been to that was going to be my home for the next 2 years certainly added to the adventure. I loved Wellington as soon as I got there, but a disappointment was waiting for me at the university: The funding for the project I was supposed to work on hadn't been approved (just another day in academia, as I now know). My supervisor, Martha Savage, encouraged me to chat with people in the department and read some papers before deciding what to do instead. My life was about to take another unexpected turn: I was about to find out that I had a passion for volcanoes. Sure, there was the volcanology field trip to the Canaries, but it wasn't until now that I realized that, yes, I can study volcanoes if I want to. ME! For real.

The next two years flew by, and I was so busy exploring this awesome little country and its surroundings (Samoa! Australia!) that I hadn't noticed that - somewhere along the way - I had lost my plan to go back to Germany after my degree was done. I had milked my New Zealand visa as much as I could, and left the country on the last day I was legally allowed to be there. I said goodbye with one crying and one laughing eye: I was about to leave my dear friends and my dear Wellington and my dear kiwi land behind, but only to embark on a new adventure. I had signed up for a PhD in Vancouver, Canada. When I had visited Vancouver that spring, I think the new vibe combined with the odd familiarity had influenced my decision: This was a new city, a new country, and yet there were the familiar elements of nature so similar to New Zealand (water. trees. mountains. whales. birds.) and the ever friendly people who softly tickled my about-to-be-missed kiwiness with their always present "eh". This is my 4th year in Canada.

Of course the traveling didn't stop there: Pretty much all of geosciences are so small that conferences happen all over the world, that at any given moment you're likely to work with people from as many different countries as you can count. I've had the luxury and pleasure to travel to Austria, Italy, Spain, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Ecuador, and to 9 different states in the US (Alaska, Hawai`i, Washington state, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington DC) all for work related reasons, and I've had the chance to live and work on research vessels twice. Do I need to say more?

3. Geoscience - an allrounder

In geoscience, a field that goes back centuries, you can be a lab rat, an outdoors man (or woman), a computer geek, an explorer, a big picture thinker, a writer, a talker, a listener - it doesn't matter. There is a place for everyone. Geoscience turned out to be the perfect combination for my needs: I get to travel, speak different languages, work with people from all over the world, and help to unravel mysteries that affect our every day lives. These mysteries are visible (eruptions!), we can feel some of them (earthquakes!), and yet they are strangely fleeting, almost intangible, and continue to astound!

At Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador last November. Can you tell my excitement? Photo credit: James Hickey