News and Announcements

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!

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.

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.