All News

Sophia Gaulkin ’17 used an Emerson Grant to research the current state of the ethics of geological sampling and propose a new code of conduct.

This is Nora Grenfell's '12 third report from a field study in Iceland.Our backcountry camping tour of Iceland began our second week. Prior to that, we had been staying in hostels around the capital area, but come Sunday we piled our packs in a bus and prepared for a week on the road. Our bus was nicely equipped with a cooking trailer, and we were accompanied by Sola, our cook (and her daughter Sofia, whose English put us all to shame) our driver, Franz, and our guide, Jon, who has known Professor Tewksbury for more than 30 years!

Nora Grenfell '12 is providing updates from Iceland, where Upson Chair for Public Discourse and Professor of Geosciences Barbara Tewksbury is leading eight Hamilton students and nine students from SUNY Oneonta in a 15-day field study.Our trip began with a 9 p.m. flight from Boston’s Logan international airport, and ended with us arriving four time zones ahead of New York in Iceland at 6:30 a.m. We hit the ground running, driving from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik across the Reykjanes ridge. As we drove, we observed the oldest rocks in Iceland. Since the island has been built up by magma rising from the mid-Atlantic ridge, the oldest rocks are at the edges of Iceland while the youngest land lies in the center on the volcanically active zone. So far we have been able to observe both the older zones in Iceland and areas where there has been volcanic activity as recently as 30 years ago.

For a country with a population smaller than that of Wyoming, Iceland drew a lot of attention this spring when a more typically dormant volcano erupted and brought European air travel to a stop. Over the next two weeks, several Hamilton students will be able to observe for themselves this spectacular country and its many unique geologic features.