Archived News

Join us on campus 13-14 May for two days of interactions, tours, discussions, catching up with friends, and a field trip!

Henrietta Dulai receives the 2022 Peter V. Garrod Distinguished Mentoring Award; Brian Popp receives the 2022 Board of Regent's Medal for Excellence in Research; Bridget Smith-Konter receives the 2022 Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching; and Bruce Houghton received the 2021 Board of Regents Excellence in Research

Natalia Pasqualon "Ocean Research Cruises" and Kei Takazawa "Infrasound"

Geology in the top 51-100 worldwide and No. 22 in the U.S.; Geophysics in the top 51-100 worldwide and No. 22 in the U.S.

Gwen Brouwer (left) "Saturn's Moon Titan" and Brytne Okuhata(right), "Hydrogeology of West Hawaii"

Research recently published in PNAS by Sloan Coasts and colleagues examines what consitututes "normal" with repsect to rainfall patterns in the coming decades, prediciting more common drought or wet conditions ahead

Undergraduate research is a focus for our Bridget Smith-Konter, with positive impacts for very early career researchers such as Kimberly Martin, via the Earth-Planets-'Ike-Kuleana (EP'IK Summer Program and ERTH Undergraduate Research Opportunities (ERTH-U-ROC).

Check out Earth and Planetary Sciences grad Noah Paoa Kannegiesser talk about sea level rise on ThinkTech Hawaiʻi.

Check out Earth and Planetary Sciences grad Kelly Truax talk about new ways to detect contamination in vegetation on ThinkTech Hawaiʻi.

Please join us in acknowledging the long and impactful careers of three members of our department and school community who retired in 2022: Brian Taylor, Greg Moore, and Mike Garcia. We held a wonderful, covid-delayed, retirement gala for these gents at the Outrigger Canoe Club in late Feb 2022. Brian (now Dean Emeritus) and Greg and Mike (now Professors Emeriti) began their careers at UH Mānoa in our department in 1982, 1988, and 1976 respectively. Their many contributions will live on.

Check out Earth and Planetary Sciences grad Eleni Ravanis talk about new discoveries on the Red Planet on ThinkTech Hawaiʻi.

We are happy to announce that EPS graduate students Elizabeth Benyshek and Theodore Brennis were awarded the Spring 2022 UH Mānoa Graduate Dean’s scholarship to support their graduate research. Congrats to both!

ERTH prof Jasper Konter and a team of UHM graduate (Natalia Gauer Pasqualon) and undergraduate students (Ben Duncan and Shirin Wyckoff) just completed a successful 6-week research cruise on the R/V Kilo Moana, exploring seamounts of the Western Pacific near the Marianas Trench. The goal of the research cruise is to collect seafloor bathymetry and rock samples of seamounts along the Rurutu-Samoa-Tuvalu-Marshall Islands hotspot track to better understand its ages and isotopic compositions. The UHM ERTH science party was also joined by a team of scientists from UC Santa Barbara and Oregon State University, including six additional graduate and undergraduate students. Check out the cruise's Instagram feed and more cruise pics here (click Gallery).

Something new from something old: A new geologic map of the State of Hawaiʻi provides a comprehensive look at our state's ever-changing geology

Check out Earth and Planetary Sciences grad Marley Chertok talk about the 'soil' of the Moon with ThinkTech Hawaiʻi host Pete Mouginis-Mark.

A recent article in the Star Advertiser features comments from ERTH prof Ken Rubin on the (un)likelihood of a disastrous Tonga-like eruption taking place at Hawaiʻi's youngest seamount, Loihi (recently renamed Kamaehu).

Geophysical Journal International recognized a number of outstanding reviewers, including ERTH prof Helen Janiszewski, for their work in 2021, as selected by the editorial board of the journal.

Congrats to this year's winners of these competitive research awards, Keng-Hsien Chao and Liliane Burkhard. Their projects are: "studying the role of Ti in Ca(Ti,Si)O3 perovskite, which may potentially desify this phase and stabilize the large low shear velocity province (in Earth's mantle)" - AND- "investigating the earthquake cycle stress evolution of the Cajon Pass near Los Angeles to see if the San Andreas Fault has an ‘earthquake gate’ (i.e., if ruptures stop or propagate through this region at certain stress thresholds)."

A study by former ERTH postdoc Trista McKenzie, ERTH prof Henrietta Dulai, and UH prof Peter Fuleky on the impacts of groundwater discharge by sea level and ocean tides was recently published in Nature Scientific Reports.

A study by ERTH prof Bruce Houghton and others on social issues related to the 2018 Kilauea eruption is included in a list of Nature Communications Earth Team Editorial Highlights of 2021

Diffusion chronology of chemical heterogeneities reveals early rapid cooling of Lunar rock (Apollo Troctolite 76535), by EPS grad student Will Nelson, and current and former ERTH and HIGP faculty.

ERTH honors Floyd McCoy as our 2021 Distinguished Alumnus for his inspirational teaching and research spanning decades. We also congratulate Floyd on his retirement from Windward College. Thank you Floyd for all of the fabulous things you do and who you have been for so many students and researchers in Hawaii and beyond!

One of the youngest planets ever found around a distant infant star (named 2M0437b) has been discovered by an international team of scientists led by ERTH's Eric Gaidos, ERTH grad student Rena Lee, and colleagues at UH's Institute for Astronomy (IfA). Discovery of 2M0437b was recently published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This work is also featured on CBS News, Newsweek, Independent, Hawaii Tribune-Herald, KITV4, UH News and Eurkealert.

Check out this Honolulu Civil Beat article An Homage To A Long-Lost Volcano That Helped Form Oahu that describes techniques used by ERTH scientists John Sinton, Deborah Eason, and colleagues to show that Kaʻena volcano - a one time massive shield volcano and the first to erupt on Oʻahu ~5 million years ago - was separate from its better-known siblings, Waiʻanae and Koʻolau.

On October 10, 2021, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake near the southern coast of the Big Island shook residents and visitors across the state of Hawaiʻi. This earthquake was not likely related to magma migration or flank motion, but instead caused by flexure of the Pacific plate due to the load of the Hawaiian Island chain. ERTH grad students Liliane Burkhard and Lauren Ward, along with ERTH faculty Helen Janiszewski and Bridget Smith-Konter and former ERTH grad Jonathan Weiss (NOAA) authored a short article on this event, featured on Temblor.net.

Strike-slip faulting, similar to the San Andreas Fault, may possibly occur on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. New research, led by ERTH grad Liliane Burkhard, suggests this type of tectonic motion may be active on Titan, deforming the icy surface. Burkhard presented portions of this work at the Europlanet Science Congress last month and was selected as one of three winners of the Outstanding Presentation Contest. This work is also featured on Forbes, Phys.org, Daily Mail, UH News and Eurekalert.

We are excited to announce new ERTH Department leadership this academic year, headed up by new Department Chair, Dr. Garrett Apuzen-Ito, and new Associate Chairs, Dr. Scott Rowland (Undergraduate Chair) and Dr. Henrietta Dulai (Graduate Chair). And we thank Dr. Paul Wessel, who served as ERTH Department Chair for the last three years, for his outstanding leadership and commitment to the ERTH Ohana. Mahalo nui!!!

Please join us in congratulating ERTH Professor, SOEST Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Chip Fletcher for receiving a $4.0 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to establish the Climate Resilience Initiative at UH Mānoa. The first phase of this initiative will focus on sea-level rise modeling and partnership building among key stakeholders. Congratulations Chip!!!

Congratulations to our 2021 ESVI REU students on an inspiring 9 weeks of summer research, team building, and exploring the islands of O‘ahu and Hawai‘i. Twelve undergraduate students from across the state of Hawaii and the mainland U.S., mentored by SOEST faculty and researchers, participated in cutting-edge geoscience research projects and presented their results at the 2021 UHM SURE Symposium.

Interested in learning about volcanic hazards in the Congo? Or research within China's Space Program? Or using GPS to study Earth's hydrosphere? Join us each Friday afternoon at 3:30 pm for the ERTH Department TGIF Seminar!

Congratulations to Dr. Thomas Shea for receiving a prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career award, with $554,181 in funding, that will support cutting-edge volcanological research and Earth science education. Tom and his team will study olivine crystal "clocks" to explore the chemical evolution of Hawaii's past volcanic eruptions. Way to go Tom!!!

Congrats to our 2021 EPʻIK Summer high school student & teacher cohort! Thirteen students and two teachers from across the islands of O‘ahu, Maui, and Hawai‘i came together for a two-week Earth Science summer camp. We learned about Hawaiian volcanoes, the Hawaiian water cycle, geology of Hawaiian beaches, ocean exploration, and the solar system. Field trips to explore East O‘ahu and Windward O‘ahu geology, and a tour of the UH/SOEST campus and laboratories, were a highlight of the summer program.

Congratulations to the winners of ERTH 610's video podcast competition: Eleni Ravinis (How we see Mars), Chiara Ferrari-Wong (The search for hydrogen-carbon compounds on the Moon), and Noah Paoa Kannegiesser (Probabilistic sea level rise modeling using ROMS analysis).

Congratulations to ERTH Professor Scott Rowland for winning a 2021 Board of Regents (BOR) Excellence in Teaching Award! Scott is recognized as "the beating heart of the department's undergraduate program" and “the one faculty that all our students know and love, who leads by far the most field trips, and a local born-and-raised bridge to the Native Hawaiian community.”

Congratulations to ERTH Professor Bruce Houghton for winning a 2021 Board of Regents (BOR) Excellence in Research Award! Bruce is Hawaiʻi’s state volcanologist and science director for the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at UH Mānoa. Bruce studies eruption dynamics of explosive eruptions, particularly at Kīlauea and Stromboli volcanoes.

Check out our new EPʻIK (Earth-Planets-'Ike-Kuleana) program for Hawai'i high school students and teachers

Geology & Geophysics (now called Earth Sciences) will be holding its first Alumni Days celebration this coming May 17 and 18. We will have two days of get-together activities, both at UH Mānoa and out in the field (where we all belong).

After a 5 year process consulting stakeholders and assessing where the department was headed, a department and degree name change proposal was approved by the UH President in summer 2018.