Category Archives: Datelines

Blog, Reykjavik

Iceland Reporting Trip Roundup

I went to Iceland in April to report on volcano monitoring during the Eyjafjallajökull eruption for Science Magazine.

That story, which appeared 23 April 2010, is here.

A pair of photos from my field trips appeared in my aunt’s Long Island newspapers (L&M Publications) the week of 26 April. See them here.

A first-person essay on the visit appeared in Global Talent, a Catalan science website, on 4 May, here.

Another feature, including two of my photographs, appeared in the Financial Times Weekend Magazine on 22 May, here.

A news item appeared in Discover Magazine in the September issue, here.

Discover Magazine, News, Reykjavik

Iceland’s Monster Bares Its Heart

This past spring’s eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland was a nightmare for travelers, but it gave scientists in Europe unprecedented access to a complex eruption right in their backyard. Old workhorses of volcanology–seismometers and GPS sensors, which detect movement of the ground–first picked up Eyjafjallajökull’s stirrings in early January. (For the record: The name is pronounced “AY-yah-fyah-lah-YOH-kuul.”) But when the volcano turned volatile in mid-April, scientists took to the skies, enlisting specially equipped planes to study the eruption and its effects on the overlying glacier. Continue reading Iceland’s Monster Bares Its Heart →

Features, Obertraun, Science Magazine

Climate Scientists Shine Light on Cave Ice

EISRIESENWELT, AUSTRIA—Tracing his glove along a chalky layer in a house-size block of ice that lines this cave in the Austrian Alps, Michael Behm can feel all that is left of an ancient warm spell. The ice, likely formed over the decades or centuries as calcium-enriched rainwater trickled deep in to the cave and froze, must have once warmed enough on top to melt and release a few years’ worth of the mineral, the Vienna University of Technology geophysicist explains.

Continue reading Climate Scientists Shine Light on Cave Ice →

Features, Financial Times, Photos, Reykjavik

Braving Iceland’s Volcano

The propeller-driven six-seater churns straight toward the brown plume over Eyjafjallajökull, unlike other aircraft taking off from Reykjavík airport. Inside, accompanied by a seasoned pilot, sits Björn Oddsson, a graduate student at the University of Iceland, entrusted with an infrared sensor derived from military bombing systems. But the only bombs Oddsson talks about are the lava boulders erupting from the volcano 80 miles away.

As they approach the volcano Oddsson opens the window so that the infrared sensor can function properly. A frigid wind whips in, chilling the cabin to near-Arctic temperatures, but Oddsson doesn’t mind; he is focused on calibrating the temperature scale on the device. The sensor, which looks like a video camera, is still relatively new and he’s eager to get it right. His supervisors expect him to report his findings at a briefing the next afternoon, April 19, the sixth day of the present eruption.

Continue reading Braving Iceland’s Volcano →