State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory137

  • Field School: The Brahmaputra River

    Field School: The Brahmaputra River

    The first day was very light for the jet-lagged students, just a short introduction to the field school and some background, and then introductions all around as we started to get to know each other. The final group of nine students finally arrived around 9 p.m. They were the most worn-out, bedraggled bunch of travelers…

  • Climate Scientist Is First Woman to Win Geology’s Storied Wollaston Medal

    A climate scientist who has suggested how mountain building can lower Earth’s thermostat and why ice ages sometimes wax and wane at different speeds has been awarded one of geology’s oldest and most coveted prizes: the British Wollaston Medal. The first woman to win a Wollaston in the prize’s 183-year history, Maureen Raymo, a researcher…

  • Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    New research about West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier suggests the glacier’s recent and rapid thinning and melting may continue for decades or centuries to come. British Antarctic Survey’s Joanne Johnson’s research, done in collaboration with scientists at Lamont-Doherty, might not have been possible without Lamont’s effort to promote women scientists.

  • Tangail and the Start of the Field School

    Tangail and the Start of the Field School

    Feb. 21 is Language Day in Bangladesh. It is a holiday, now adopted by the UN as International Mother Language Day. It commemorates a day in 1952 when a crowd of Bengali students protesting Pakistan’s adoption of “Urdu and only Urdu as the official language of Pakistan” were fired upon by the police. It marks…

  • GPS in Khulna and the Hidden Temple

    GPS in Khulna and the Hidden Temple

    Rushing around SW Bangladesh by boat and car, we managed to install or repair four GPS sites in record time. We caught up our lost day and managed to get to the ruins of the Shakher Temple in the Sundarban mangrove forest.

  • Back to Bangladesh, changing plans as we go

    Back to Bangladesh, changing plans as we go

    Back to Bangladesh for some fieldwork and then a two-week Field School. However, this time we had problems starting before we even left NY. Working in Bangladesh you have to be flexible. Nothing goes as planned, but usually everything works out in the end.

  • Terry Plank: Volcano Maven

    Terry Plank: Volcano Maven

    “It just looked like black rock, but every once in awhile a boulder at the end would fall off and you’d see it was completely red inside. And it made all these cool sounds and you’d feel these little earthquakes… It was totally cool. How could you not like that?”

  • The Story at the Bottom of the South China Sea

    The Story at the Bottom of the South China Sea

    We have drilled 2,600 feet below the sea floor and in another 500 feet, will reach the crystalline igneous basalt of the ocean crust. Though finding the age of the basalt is our main aim, the thick sediments that overly the crust also have a story to tell.

  • Drilling Deep into the South China Sea’s Past

    Drilling Deep into the South China Sea’s Past

    The J.R. has set sail from Hong Kong. Trevor Williams explains what his research team hopes to accomplish.

  • Field School: The Brahmaputra River

    Field School: The Brahmaputra River

    The first day was very light for the jet-lagged students, just a short introduction to the field school and some background, and then introductions all around as we started to get to know each other. The final group of nine students finally arrived around 9 p.m. They were the most worn-out, bedraggled bunch of travelers…

  • Climate Scientist Is First Woman to Win Geology’s Storied Wollaston Medal

    A climate scientist who has suggested how mountain building can lower Earth’s thermostat and why ice ages sometimes wax and wane at different speeds has been awarded one of geology’s oldest and most coveted prizes: the British Wollaston Medal. The first woman to win a Wollaston in the prize’s 183-year history, Maureen Raymo, a researcher…

  • Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    Joanne Johnson and Lamont-Doherty, Collaborating on Glacial Research

    New research about West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier suggests the glacier’s recent and rapid thinning and melting may continue for decades or centuries to come. British Antarctic Survey’s Joanne Johnson’s research, done in collaboration with scientists at Lamont-Doherty, might not have been possible without Lamont’s effort to promote women scientists.

  • Tangail and the Start of the Field School

    Tangail and the Start of the Field School

    Feb. 21 is Language Day in Bangladesh. It is a holiday, now adopted by the UN as International Mother Language Day. It commemorates a day in 1952 when a crowd of Bengali students protesting Pakistan’s adoption of “Urdu and only Urdu as the official language of Pakistan” were fired upon by the police. It marks…

  • GPS in Khulna and the Hidden Temple

    GPS in Khulna and the Hidden Temple

    Rushing around SW Bangladesh by boat and car, we managed to install or repair four GPS sites in record time. We caught up our lost day and managed to get to the ruins of the Shakher Temple in the Sundarban mangrove forest.

  • Back to Bangladesh, changing plans as we go

    Back to Bangladesh, changing plans as we go

    Back to Bangladesh for some fieldwork and then a two-week Field School. However, this time we had problems starting before we even left NY. Working in Bangladesh you have to be flexible. Nothing goes as planned, but usually everything works out in the end.

  • Terry Plank: Volcano Maven

    Terry Plank: Volcano Maven

    “It just looked like black rock, but every once in awhile a boulder at the end would fall off and you’d see it was completely red inside. And it made all these cool sounds and you’d feel these little earthquakes… It was totally cool. How could you not like that?”

  • The Story at the Bottom of the South China Sea

    The Story at the Bottom of the South China Sea

    We have drilled 2,600 feet below the sea floor and in another 500 feet, will reach the crystalline igneous basalt of the ocean crust. Though finding the age of the basalt is our main aim, the thick sediments that overly the crust also have a story to tell.

  • Drilling Deep into the South China Sea’s Past

    Drilling Deep into the South China Sea’s Past

    The J.R. has set sail from Hong Kong. Trevor Williams explains what his research team hopes to accomplish.