State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Earthquakes13

  • Hartal!

    Hartal!

    A two day general strike disrupted our field plans, but Bangladeshis are adept at adapting to any change. We walked the local outcrops one day and hired a small pickup truck the next and managed to accomplish our goals despite the political turmoil.

  • Conclave in Sylhet, Bangladesh

    Conclave in Sylhet, Bangladesh

    Our project studying the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh consists of many components studying different tectonic and sedimentary aspects of the geology. To bring all the parts together, we are holding a meeting we are calling the “conclave” in NE Bangladesh. We are jointly visiting places that can help us to develop an integrated understanding of…

  • Bharungamari – End of the Road

    Bharungamari – End of the Road

    For our final installation, we had to go from the edge of the Bay of Bengal almost to Bangladesh’s northern border with India, a trip of over 350 miles. Along the way we stopped at Humayun’s childhood home, had several flats and picked up a student of Humayun’s from the town where we installed it.…

  • Hiron Point in Sundarban

    Hiron Point in Sundarban

    We traveled by boat to the south part of the Sundarbans near the Indian Ocean to install a GPS at Hiron Point, this isolated facility also hosts a tide gauge recording long-term water level changes due to rising sea level and land subsidence. Our GPS will help distinguish how much of each there is in…

  • Polder 32

    Polder 32

    Polder 32 is one of the many inland islands in Bangladesh that was enclosed by an embankment to protect it from flooding. When that embankment failed during Cyclone Aila in 2009, the island was flooded for almost 2 years. Subsidence of the ground inside the embankment with no sedimentation to compensate made it worse. We…

  • Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Leaving Dhaka, we spend an entire day getting to Khepupara in southern Bangladesh. Then we spent a long morning installing a GPS to monitor subsidence of the delta before heading back on the road again.

  • To Comilla and Back

    To Comilla and Back

    I’ve just arrived back in Bangladesh with an engineer to install 6 new GPS stations to add to our studies of earthquake hazards and land subsidence. Our first stop was Comilla University, the westernmost exposed fold of the collision between the Ganges-Bramaputra Delta and the Sumatra-Andaman-Burma plat boundary.

  • Japan, Nuclear Power and the Need for Transparency

    Japan, Nuclear Power and the Need for Transparency

    A year and a half after the Great East Japan Earthquake triggered one of the worst nuclear catastrophes in recorded history, the country is now in full energy conservation mode.

  • An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    Earth Institute scientists explore how the physical world works on every continent — over and under the arctic ice, in the grasslands of Mongolia, on volcanoes in Patagonia, over subduction zones in Papua New Guinea, and on the streets of New York City.

Blue banner with NYC background: "Columbia Climate School Class Day 2025 -- Congratulations Graduates"
  • Hartal!

    Hartal!

    A two day general strike disrupted our field plans, but Bangladeshis are adept at adapting to any change. We walked the local outcrops one day and hired a small pickup truck the next and managed to accomplish our goals despite the political turmoil.

  • Conclave in Sylhet, Bangladesh

    Conclave in Sylhet, Bangladesh

    Our project studying the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh consists of many components studying different tectonic and sedimentary aspects of the geology. To bring all the parts together, we are holding a meeting we are calling the “conclave” in NE Bangladesh. We are jointly visiting places that can help us to develop an integrated understanding of…

  • Bharungamari – End of the Road

    Bharungamari – End of the Road

    For our final installation, we had to go from the edge of the Bay of Bengal almost to Bangladesh’s northern border with India, a trip of over 350 miles. Along the way we stopped at Humayun’s childhood home, had several flats and picked up a student of Humayun’s from the town where we installed it.…

  • Hiron Point in Sundarban

    Hiron Point in Sundarban

    We traveled by boat to the south part of the Sundarbans near the Indian Ocean to install a GPS at Hiron Point, this isolated facility also hosts a tide gauge recording long-term water level changes due to rising sea level and land subsidence. Our GPS will help distinguish how much of each there is in…

  • Polder 32

    Polder 32

    Polder 32 is one of the many inland islands in Bangladesh that was enclosed by an embankment to protect it from flooding. When that embankment failed during Cyclone Aila in 2009, the island was flooded for almost 2 years. Subsidence of the ground inside the embankment with no sedimentation to compensate made it worse. We…

  • Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Khepupara to Kokilmoni

    Leaving Dhaka, we spend an entire day getting to Khepupara in southern Bangladesh. Then we spent a long morning installing a GPS to monitor subsidence of the delta before heading back on the road again.

  • To Comilla and Back

    To Comilla and Back

    I’ve just arrived back in Bangladesh with an engineer to install 6 new GPS stations to add to our studies of earthquake hazards and land subsidence. Our first stop was Comilla University, the westernmost exposed fold of the collision between the Ganges-Bramaputra Delta and the Sumatra-Andaman-Burma plat boundary.

  • Japan, Nuclear Power and the Need for Transparency

    Japan, Nuclear Power and the Need for Transparency

    A year and a half after the Great East Japan Earthquake triggered one of the worst nuclear catastrophes in recorded history, the country is now in full energy conservation mode.

  • An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    An Interactive Map of Scientific Fieldwork

    Earth Institute scientists explore how the physical world works on every continent — over and under the arctic ice, in the grasslands of Mongolia, on volcanoes in Patagonia, over subduction zones in Papua New Guinea, and on the streets of New York City.