GeoPRISMS Photo Contest

Welcome to GeoPRISMS Photo Contest! Share with the GeoPRISMS Community what your GeoPRISMS-related research looks like, whether you are working in the field, or in the lab. The winner of the contest will be announced during the GeoPRISMS Reception that will take place on the Sunday before the AGU Fall Meeting. The winner will receive a print out of the photo and the winning photo will be published on the GeoPRISMS Website, Newsletter and @geoprisms Facebook and Twitter accounts. The GeoPRISMS Photo Contest is open to anyone whose research is related to GeoPRISMS.

2019

Congratulations to Isabella Gama, winner of the 2019 GeoPRISMS Photo Contest!

Congratulations to Isabella Gama, winner of the fifth edition of the GeoPRISMS Photo Contest at the 2019 AGU Fall Meeting. Isabella’s research is mainly on GeoPRISMS topics on (i) origin and evolution of the continental crust and (ii) plate boundary deformation and geodynamics in Alaska. The photo Isabella submitted encompasses the tectonic-sediment-climate interactions of the region. Isabella took this photo in the Summer 2019 in Palmer, Alaska, in the Matanuska Glacier where she taught a class, she designed, on scientific method in the context of geology research. The class explained the geology and glaciology components observed in the field. The trip was part of a leadership fieldwork from Brown University that focused on training 31 high schoolers from all over the world about environmental issues. This photo dramatically depicts melted glacier with silt and other impurities that create diverse flow patterns.

Isabella received a framed copy of his photo and his photo will be featured in the Final issue of the GeoPRISMS Newsletter.

Thank you to all participants for their participation! The photos from all contestants are available below.

Teaching Alaskan geology on top of a glacier to high school students. The photo dramatically depicts melted glacier water with silt and other impurities that create diverse flow patterns. This photo was taken on July 30, 2019, in Palmer, Alaska, in the Matanuska Glacier. I designed and taught a class on scientific method in the context of geology reserach and explained the geology and glaciology components we saw in the field. The trip was part of a leadership fieldwork from Brown University that focused on training 31 high schoolers from all over the world about environmental issues. Photo credit: Isabella Gama

Ocean bottom electromagnetic receivers aboard the back deck of the R/V Sikuliaq off the coast of the Alaskan Peninsula at sunset. Photo taken in June 2019 during the Electromagnetic Alaskan Geoprisms Experiment (EMAGE) cruise led by PI’s Kerry Key, Samer Naif, Steven Constable and Robert Evans. Photo credit: Janine Andrys

Deployment of an ocean-bottom electromagnetic (OBEM) receiver in the sea of the Aleutian Islands (Alaska) during sunrise. This image was taken in June 2019 from the RV Sikuliaq’s deck and corresponds to one of the 159 receivers that were deployed to study the fluid content of the crust and mantle along the Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone (EMAGE project). The obtained electromagnetic data will map the electrical conductivity of the sediments, crust, and upper mantle of the area. Photo credit: Julian Alvarez-Aramberri

2018

Congratulations to James Muirhead, winner of the 2018 GeoPRISMS Photo Contest!

Congratulations to James Muirhead, winner of the fourth edition of the GeoPRISMS Photo Contest at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting. James took this photo during a field campaign conducted in the Natron Basin in Tanzania in the Spring of 2018. A fissure resulting from dike-induced faulting is observed on the foreground. The Kerimasi (left) and Oldoinyo Lengai (right) volcanoes are visible in the background. James received a framed copy of his photo and his photo will be featured in the Spring 2019 issue of the GeoPRISMS Newsletter.

Thank you to all participants for their participation! The photos from all contestants are available below.

A torn landscape on Gelai volcano in the Natron basin, Tanzania. In this sector of the East African Rift System, magmatic-tectonic interactions culminate in volcanism, earthquakes, and release of large carbon dioxide volumes. This image, taken in May 2018, illustrates such interactions, where Professor Tobias Fischer investigates a fissure resulting from dike-induced faulting occurring ~11 years prior. Small volcanic cones (<100 m high) of the Naibor Soito field are observed in the mid ground. The much larger Kerimasi (left) and Oldoinyo Lengai (right) composite volcanoes are in the background, with the latter erupting explosively during this volcanic-tectonic crisis in 2007-2008. Photo credit: James Muirhead

Central island in Lake Turkana, which has been active in the Holocene and currently has fumarolic activity. This photo was taken in February 2018 while flying between the Turkana Basin Institute field stations, which now host two new GPS stations. Photo Credit: El Knappe

Exhumed high-pressure metamorphic rocks making up the Monviso Ophiolite and its namesake mountain (Western Alps, Italy). This ophiolite represents one of the best examples of structurally intact eclogite-facies oceanic crust (subducted to 80km) offering spatial context rarely available in other high pressure metamorphic terrains. The photo was taken looking up-section from the top of the basal serpentinite with the foreground being gabbro blocks embedded in a serpentinite shear zone, the first cliff intact gabbro, the second cliff basalt, and the mountain in the background a second overturned section of oceanic crust. Photo Credit: Will Hoover

Six GPS-Acoustic transponders (inside the orange balls) attached to benchmarks waiting on the deck of the Roger Revelle for deployment off the coast of Newport, OR, taken on June 14, 2018. Four of these transponders were recovered from the site JNP1 on the Juan de Fuca plate. They were then redeployed, along with two new transponders, to establish two new GPS-A sites on the Cascadia accretionary prism as part of a project led by David Chadwell and David Schmidt to study shallow locking in Cascadia. Photo Credit: Noel Bartlow

2017

Congratulations to Gene Yogodzinski, winner of the 2017 GeoPRISMS Photo Contest!

Congratulations to Gene Yogodzinski, winner of the third edition of the GeoPRISMS Photo Contest at the 2017 AGU Fall Meeting. Gene took this photo during a field campaign conducted on Unalaska Island in the Eastern Aleutians. Pillow lavas can be observed in the lower part of the outcrops behind Gene’s colleague Merry Cai (Lamont) who provides the scale for the photo. The mottled appearance is produced by the reddish-brown pillow interiors, surrounded by green, inter-pillow sediment and altered pillow rinds. The upper part of the outcrop is an andesite sill with short, columnar joints at 90° to the horizontal contact. These rocks were formed prior to affects of crustal thickening by magmatism and accretionary tectonics, which eventually lead to the emergence of the large islands that we see in the eastern Aleutians today. Gene received a framed copy of his photo and his photo will be featured in the Spring 2018 issue of the GeoPRISMS Newsletter.

Thank you to all participants for their participation! The photos from all contestants are available below.

Pacific coast outcrops on Unalaska Island, eastern Aleutians. Merry Cai (Lamont) provides the scale. The rocks in the lower outcrop behind Merry are pillow lavas. The mottled appearance is produced by the reddish-brown pillow interiors, surrounded by green, inter-pillow sediment and altered pillow rinds. The upper part of the outcrop is an andesite sill with short, columnar joints at 90° to the horizontal contact. These rocks were formed prior to affects of crustal thickening by magmatism and accretionary tectonics, which eventually lead to the emergence of the large islands that we see in the eastern Aleutians today. Photo credit: Gene Yogodzinski

Twilight monitoring of Santiaguito volcano, Guatemala at Workshops on Volcanoes 2016. Photo credit: Dan Rasmussen

Sampling Italian subduction complex rocks, western Alps. Capturing the impact of hammer on rock, this photo features Dr. Besim Dragovic as he samples a meta-rodingite (hydrothermally altered mafic/ultramafic rock) from the Lanzo massif, NW Italy. These rocks were subducted to depths of c. 70 km and subsequently exhumed during the Alpine orogeny. The NSF-funded ExTerra Field Institute and Research Endeavor (E-FIRE) project is investigating this paleo-subduction zone at localities throughout the western Alps. Photo credit: Matt Kohn

Pacific coast outcrops on Unalaska Island, eastern Aleutians. Merry Cai (Lamont) provides the scale. The rocks in the lower outcrop behind Merry are pillow lavas. The mottled appearance is produced by the reddish-brown pillow interiors, surrounded by green, inter-pillow sediment and altered pillow rinds. The upper part of the outcrop is an andesite sill with short, columnar joints at 90° to the horizontal contact. These rocks were formed prior to affects of crustal thickening by magmatism and accretionary tectonics, which eventually lead to the emergence of the large islands that we see in the eastern Aleutians today. Photo credit: Gene Yogodzinski (University of South Carolina)

Magma mingling textures within the Los Martires pluton of the Cretaceous (~110 Ma) Alisitos Arc, Baja California. This image displays the mingling between mafic magma (darker elongate blebs) and the main phase felsic magma (lighter matrix). Exceptional 3D paleo-arc exposures in this extensional arc system allow the study of the physical and chemical links between the units that comprise this arc, and constrain the petrologic processes active during the growth and evolution of juvenile arc crust. Similar processes are interpreted to occur at depth within active extensional arcs, such as the Izu Bonin Arc in the western Pacific. Photo Credit: Rebecca Morris

GHER (Ghermu station in wester part of Nepal) which is already installed before the 2015 7.8M earthquake in Nepal.It has pre and post seismic standard data it is continuous operating the responsible organization is NAST of Nepal. Photo Credit: Shresta Hari Ram

Cinder Cone silhouettes. From left to right: Michelle Muth (Ph.D. student, University of Oregon), Sophie Leiter (undergraduate student, Middlebury College), and Andrew Hollyday (undergraduate student, Middlebury College) take a break from sample collection to explore the youngest cinder cone in the Cascades, Cinder Cone, as the sun begins to set behind Lassen Peak, Lassen NP, northern California. The mafic tephra collected on this field excursion in July, 2017, is being utilized for graduate and undergraduate research aimed at understanding mantle oxidization, sulfur recycling, and mafic magma storage in the southern Cascade Arc (a GeoPRISMS focus site!). Photo credit: Kristina Walowski

2016

Congratulations to D. Sarah Stamps, winner of the 2016 GeoPRISMS Photo Contest!

Congratulations to D. Sarah Stamps, winner of the second edition of the GeoPRISMS Photo Contest at AGU 2016. Sarah took this fantastic photo of a GPS station installed on the Natron Rift of the East African Rift in Tanzania during a field campaign conducted in June 2016. The active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai towers can be seen in the background. Sarah received a framed copy of her photo at the GeoPRISMS Townhall Meeting hosted at the AGU Fall Meeting. Her photo will also be featured in the Spring 2017 issue of the GeoPRISMS Newsletter.

Thank you to all participants for their participation! The photos from all contestants are available below.

Continuous Global Positioning System station installed on the Natron Rift of the East African Rift in Tanzania. The active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai towers in the background. This GPS station was installed in June 2016. Photo credit D. Sarah Stamps (Virginia Tech)

A geodetic reoccupation of an old survey station on Andronica Island in Alaska’s Shumagin Islands. The Shumagins are a remote and rugged island archipelago on the Pacific side of the Alaska Peninsula. This island group lies above the Aleutian megathrust in a region known for its lack of large seismic events. In June 2016, technician Max Kaufman repeated a 1993-1995 geodetic survey of the Shumagin Islands. The field campaign was for Geoprisms funded research by Dr. Jeff Freymueller of the UAF Geophysical Institute, Fairbanks AK. Photo credit: Max Kaufman

Photo Credit Jeff Bonowitz

2015

Congratulations to Michelle Coombs the winner of the 2015 GeoPRISMS Photo Contest!

Congratulations to Michelle Coombs, winner of the first edition of the GeoPRISMS Photo Contest at AGU 2015. Michelle took this fantastic photo of Kanaga volcano in September 2015 during the western Aleutians field work, jointly funded by GeoPRISMS, Deep Carbon Observatory, and Alaska Volcano Observatory. Michelle received a framed copy of her photo at the GeoPRISMS Townhall Meeting hosted at the AGU Fall Meeting. Her photo was also featured in the Spring issue of the GeoPRISMS Newsletter.

Thank you to all participants for their participation. The photos from all contestants are available below.

Kanaga Volcano, Aleutian Islands, as seen from the east. The blocky andesite lava flow in the foreground erupted in 1906. Photo credit: Michelle Coombs, USGS

During the summer of 2015, Oregon State University deployed field technicians for the iMUSH magnetotelluric (MT) project in the areas between Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Adams. Esteban Bowles-Martinez led the technicians, and can be observed in this photo, setting up MT equipment. This equipment includes a ZEN, two batteries, three induction coil magnetometers (mags), four electrodes, and quite a bit of wires. One of the mags is shown in its case, while the other two were already buried. The white box next to Esteban is the acquisition system known as a ZEN, and it’s what was used to record the MT measurements for 150 sites. Photo credit: Taryn Bye (Oregon State University)

When Did This Rift Break Up? Sampling and Dating Continental Rupture The Gulf of California rift records the processes of rift initiation, evolution to continental breakup and formation of passive margins. Wrenching of Baja California away from mainland México obliquely opened the Gulf of California seaway ~8-6 million years ago. Geologic mapping and geochronology of rift-related rocks, such as these undeformed, basin capping, 4.3 Ma Tuffs of Hipat Mesa on Isla Tiburón, is crucial to understanding the timing and degree of crustal thinning related to plate boundary deformation. Field-based observations of rift initiation dynamics are essential for evaluating the mechanisms that lead to rift localization and the transition to oceanic spreading. Photograph taken Spring 2010. Looking east at the southern edge of Hipat Mesa, southern Isla Tiburón, México (28.8478, -112.4724). Photo credit: Scott Bennett (USGS)

Ship crew and science team work together in rough seas to recover the crustal heat flow probe on the R/V Roger Revelle in the South Pacific. The STINGS cruise (Subduction Thrust Investigation of New Zealand using Geothermics and Seismics) collected heat flow measurements and high resolution seismic surveys of the Hikurangi Margin off the North Island of New Zealand in May and June 2015. www.stingscruise.wordpress.com Photo credit: Nicole Rocco (Oregon State University)

Kanaga Volcano, Aleutian Islands, as seen from the east. The blocky andesite lava flow in the foreground erupted in 1906. Photo credit: Michelle Coombs (USGS)

Scientists check out the active fumarolic fissure at the summit of Kanaga Volcano on September 22, 2015. From left to right: Helicopter N312MH, piloted by Dan Leary, ferried geologist Michelle Coombs (USGS), student Katherine Sheppard (UCSB), postdoc Mattia Pistone (Smithsonian) and geologist Liz Cottrell (taking photo, Smithsonian) from the boat to the summit. The “NSF GeoPRISMS Shared Platform R/V Maritime Maid Leg 3: Western Aleutians” facilitated the team’s expedition to 7 active volcanic islands, from Kanaga to Buldir, in search of mafic tephra. How is continental crust generated? The Western Aleutians may hold the key. Photo credit: Elizabeth Cottrell (NMNH Smithsonian Institution)

With the sun rising over the Western Pacific, scientists and crew on an expedition aboard the R/V Roger Revelle set out to deploy a basket dredge to collect rock samples from the seafloor at the Izu-Bonin trench. The objective of this cruise held last November 2014 was to conduct geochemical studies of the incoming oceanic crust at the Izu-Bonin-Mariana subduction zone. Prof. Pat Castillo and other researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography were joined by collaborators from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, and the Qinqdao Institute of Marine Geology. Photo credit: Emmanuel “Soli” Garcia (UCSD)

Column of lapilli and ash emanating from the 2007-2008 eruption of Oldoinyo Lengai volcano, a carbonatite-phonolite volcano in the Eastern rift focus site of GeoPRISMS Rift Initiation and Evolution program. The eruption was triggered by a fault and dike intrusion event on the nearby Gelai basaltic shield volcano. This unusual volcano formed along the hanging wall of the Natron border fault, which developed during the last 5 My. Gas emissions and nutrient-rich ash-fall deposits create a unique environment for migrating herds of wildebeest and zebra, and they document the time-space details of rift evolution. Photo credit: Cynthia Ebinger (University of Rochester)

Panoramic view of volcanic gases emanating from a ~10 m diameter fumarolic vent located on the flank of Kiska Volcano, Western Aleutians, Alaska. Note the yellow sulfur deposits that coat the ground surrounding the vent. Photo taken September 10, 2015 during the NSF GeoPRISMS – Alaska Volcano Observatory – Deep Carbon Observatory collaborative 2015 Western Aleutians Field Campaign. Photo credit: Taryn Lopez (University of Alaska, Fairbanks)