UHM Earth Sciences Researchers Share Work at Back-to-Back Conferences

Members of the  Department of Earth Sciences represented the department at two major geoscience conferences in Southern California in April, presenting research on volcanic systems and subduction zone hazards. 

The first stop was the Seismological Society of America (SSA) Annual Meeting, held April 14-18 in Pasadena, California, which brought together seismologists from across the United States and beyond. PhD students Ian Wynn and Iván Rojas-Churkovic and Assistant Professor Sin-Mei Wu presented their research in the conference’s poster sessions. Professor Wu also convened the session “Geophysical Perspectives on Volcanic Systems: Seismicity Structure and Dynamics”, which featured work spanning Chile, Bolivia, Alaska, Greece, and the Juan de Fuca Ridge. “I enjoyed convening this session, and would like to convene it again next year. There was a lot of interesting research, and it was a good opportunity to see what other researchers are doing”, she said.

Rojas-Churkovic presented his poster “Forearc Seismic Structure at the Alaska Peninsula Revealed From AACSE Receiver Functions” during the Thursday session on subduction zone processes and cascading hazards. “I saw a lot of engagement on my research, and got to speak with other researchers interested in my results, and waiting for my next steps in my research project”, he said. On Friday,  Wu and Wynn presented their own posters –  “Seismic Noise Exploration of the Ongoing Episodic Kīlauea Summit Eruption Since December 2024”, and “Along-Arc Crustal Magma Storage at Alaska-Aleutian Volcanoes Using Novel Teleseismic Receiver Function Analyses”, respectively – rounding out a strong showing from the department across multiple active research grants.

The department’s presence at the conference circuit continued the following week, when Wynn and Assistant Professor Helen Janiszewski traveled to Long Beach, California, for the Subduction Zones in Four Dimensions (SZ4D) Community Science Meeting, held April 20-22. Janiszewski delivered an invited early-career keynote talk, “Systematic Crustal Magma Storage Constraints along Volcanic Arcs: New Insights from Seismic Receiver Functions and Interdisciplinary Paths Forward”, while Wynn presented a poster on the Alaska-Aleutian work also shown at SSA the week prior. The dual appearances underscored the department’s sustained focus on arc volcanism and subduction zone science.