One of the things that was different about this year’s trip was that two of Earlham’s Marketing folks joined us for four days, two at Skalanes, one at Solheimajokull, and one at Laki (and a lot of time in the … Read More
Like any good amateur birder, I kept a list of all the birds we saw on our trip. Special shout out to Neil who made many sightings, as well as to Sage, Cait, Nic and Kellan for contributing to the … Read More
Today we ventured back out to the rapidly shrinking glacier, Sólheimajökull. It was an incredibly beautiful day, which made our adventure even more lovely. We split up into three teams to collect data which we will use to measure just … Read More
Today began at 7:30 when Charlie and Emi left to pick up the rental van at the airport in Egilsstaðir, roughly 30-45 minutes away. Sanne, who runs and maintains the house at Skalanes, drove them – and as much luggage … Read More
The day began like many others at Skalanes, grey and rainy. Despite the dreary day Emi, Neil, and I set off to visit an archaeological dig a few fjords south of us. The relentless rain kept the rivers high, forcing … Read More
… but we did ford some rivers! I have no photographic evidence of our journey (because I was worried about dying) so use your imagination as I walk you through the day. Goal: Drive to Egilsstaðir to get to the … Read More
~A late post for May 31~ What a wonderful and slightly surprising change in the weather! The clouds parted and the sun came out, brightening the obscenely picturesque landscape and our moods. Team Dirt made progress, taking soil samples from … Read More
Cold, wet and cold. Constant rains at Skalanes, indoor science is not as exciting as outdoor science. Ventured out into the as little as possible. Once to place and geo-reference survey stakes, and once to track the elusive Gandolf. He is … Read More
It feels good to be settled for a bit after several long days of travel. And what a place to settle. [Audible deep breath in…and out] Since we are here for some time and there is much work to be … Read More
Today we drove from Reykjavik to the Solheimajoekull glacier on the south coast of Iceland to take soil samples and try-out flying our remote piloted aircraft (AKA drone). Groups of Earlham students & faculty have been working here for a … Read More
After a much needed night of sleep, we began our second day in Iceland! We woke up to a 5-star breakfast, omelettes, courtesy of Charlie. After breakfast we hopped in the cars and were off to Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant … Read More
Today marks our fist day here in Iceland. Events started in a bit of a disarray with the airlines misplacing some important biology items and Charlie attempting new fashion trends, but nevertheless after collecting our things from the baggage claim … Read More
All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go! We’re just about ready for departure. Three of us leave this afternoon for flights out of Chicago, and the rest of the crew departs early tomorrow morning: Earlham –> IND/DAY –> … Read More
Over the last few days, we have been making good progress with our LiDAR endeavors. Neil and Charlie have been working on weight-efficient methods to attach the LiDAR to our drone, Kia. The initial prototype was too heavy, and a … Read More
Lately we’ve been trying to figure out how to track the movement of the Sólheimajökull glacier to determine where to take samples of the soil, which we are then going to extract microbe DNA and thenot sequence that DNA with … Read More
We have received, from Oxford Nanopore, the MinION. (Min-ION, not one-eyed yellow minions, get it straight.) This device promises whole-genome sequencing of microbes, viruses and archaea from soil samples we will collect at the Solheimajokull glacier. This device is extremely small … Read More
This is the first of a couple of short clips from the GoPro dashboard cam that we used in 2016 (we plan to again this year). The wheat-to-chaff ratio is pretty low, but the kernels you do find tend to … Read More