You are browsing the archive for Field Work Archives - Third Pod from the Sun.
January 13, 2020
Third Pod Presents: Sci & Tell – Bärbel Hönisch, “Queen of Boron”
Bärbel Hönisch, Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at Columbia University also known as Queen of Boron, transported us millions of years beyond the ice cores to the realm when Greenland had no ice.
January 6, 2020
E25 – Antarctica’s Oldest Ice
Drilling engineer and ice core scientist Robert Mulvaney has driven thousands of kilometers over Antarctica in the past few years in a snow tractor, creeping slowly over one of the highest points of the ice sheet, near a location known as Dome C. He’s looking for the perfect place to drill one and a half million years into the past.
December 9, 2019
Third Pod Live: O-klahoma, Where There’s Fracking, Oil, Faults, and More!
What’s it like to be a seismologist who’s studied the Marcellus Shale and San Andreas Fault, worked around the world from Pennsylvania to Rome, and is now a professor at the University of Oklahoma? We found out at AAA’s annual meeting earlier this year when we talked to assistant professor Brett Carpenter.
November 25, 2019
Special Release: Tribes, Trails, & Tailings
Mining is more than just harvesting natural resources – it’s about who owns those right and what the land that those mines are on mean to the people who live there.
November 18, 2019
CE12 – A Nuclear Legacy Buried in Ice
Earlier this year, scientists reported that radioactive fallout from nuclear accidents and weapons testing is present in ice sediments on the surface of glaciers in the Arctic, Iceland, the Alps, the Caucasus, British Columbia and Antarctica.
November 7, 2019
E23 – Bonus Clip: Meteorite Hunting in Antarctica
Nina Lanza is a member of a research team hunts for meteorites in Antarctica. In this bonus clip from Episode 23, Between a Varnished Rock and a Hard Place, Nina describes the remote location where they set up camp, being holed up while the howling katabatic winds battered her tent and her brain, and explains the strategies and techniques for searching for and collecting space rocks that are lost bits of asteroids …
October 21, 2019
CE11 – Plate Tectonics: The Theory that Changed Earth Science
Xavier Le Pichon came to Lamont Geological Observatory in 1959 and spent four months aboard the R/V Vema as a physical oceanography technician. The research cruise set out to test the existence of the mid-ocean ridge system: a long chain of seismically active mountains running along the ocean floor.
September 23, 2019
Centennial E10 – Volcano Disaster Prepping
Many people have emergency kits packed to flee or survive forces of nature like floods, hurricanes, or wildfire. But what do you throw in your bag when you expect to rush toward a natural hazard? Geologist John Ewert has his go-kit packed with portable seismometers and gas-monitoring equipment, ready to mobilize when a volcano starts to rumble.
September 9, 2019
E21 – Bonus Clip: Field Mishaps in Remote Chile
Check out this clip that didn’t make it into our recent episode, X-rays of the Earth’s Gooey Center, about some of the challenges Lara Wagner and her team face when setting up seismic stations in remote places.
September 3, 2019
E21 – X-rays of the Earth’s Gooey Center
Much like x-rays can show broken bones (or noses), seismic equipment can show us what’s going on in Earth’s interior. While seismologists can’t take quick snapshots like medical doctors can, they can provide an image of tectonic plate movements over time to help the scientific community – and local communities – understand geophysical phenomena from mountain formations to volcanoes to the earthquakes that rock their world.
Third Pod from the Sun is the American Geophysical Union’s podcast about the scientists and methods behind the science. These are stories that you won’t read in a manuscript or hear in a lecture.
